The Markets of Kowloon

On Saturday, Shelly and I hopped an early bus and headed to Kowloon, on the other side of Victoria Harbour. There are a slew of markets near Kowloon's border with the New Territories, an area leased from China to Britain in 1898 for a period of 99 years. (It was the end of the New Territories lease that led to Britain returning all of Hong Kong in 1997.) We had a morning full of markets to visit, starting at Flower Market Road.

I've probably never seen so many flowers all in one place. The first street we came to featured shop upon shop of nothing but orchids. Another street had more mini gerber daisies (left) than either of us could count. We also learned how the vendors keep their roses looking fresh. One vendor, at least, was removing little pieces of protective foam, peeling off the old outer petals with her fingers and then putting the foam back on.

Adjacent to the flower market is the Yuen Po Bird Garden, where we found a curious mix of old men taking their birds for a walk and people selling birds (and bird supplies, including one vendor selling meal worms and crickets by the pound). We couldn't help but think of Brad and Laura and their birds, and my friend John and his birds. We wondered how many meal worms Hara and Sunny get each day, and if Brad takes them down to the park to hang their cage in a tree while chatting and playing chess with other bird owners...

After a cheap Vietnamese lunch, we hit the streets again and headed to the goldfish market, a couple of blocks of shops that sell primarily goldfish and other fish for home aquariums, along with the odd kitten, puppy hamster and stag beetle.

It was around the goldfish market that we came upon this restaurant, the Eat Together, which is completely unremarkable except for the television screen in the lefthand window, showing the staff hard at work in the kitchen:


Our last stop after a much-appreciated foot massage was the jade market, where we were completely out of our depth and, therefore, not actually shopping, although we had a hard time convincing the shop owners that we were only looking. My plan in markets like this is to stay several steps behind Shelly so when the vendor suggests I take a look at his wares, I can shrug my shoulders and say, "sorry, she's the boss." Most of the time, this works perfectly. Plus, it's the truth.

Wandering back toward Nathan Road, where we would end up standing in choking bus exhaust for close to half an hour while waiting for our bus, we stumbled upon a few interesting street stalls, including a possible new job for Shelly:


...a "valuable gift" ...


... and a demurely covered stall selling, well, exactly what you think it's selling. At a "very cheap" price, apparently.

A New Look

Blogger has recently made blogging so much easier. While they still won't do the writing for me, they've implemented a number of features in their software that makes my life much easier. (Of course, since blogging was the only reason I had to learn HTML, and the new version of Blogger requires zero HTML knowledge, I'll probably spend the rest of my life with only the infinitesimal HTML knowledge I have today.)

So, I've taken advantage of the easier-to-use Blogger and done some redesign work here. It looks good to me on my Mac, but I haven't been able to test it on a PC yet. If you're using Windows and the blog doesn't look like this, please e-mail me or leave a comment and let me know! Thanks!

Old Star Ferry Pier

Just about anyone who has been to Hong Kong for more than a few hours has ridden the Star Ferry. While not really a tourist attraction, it attracts tourists by, well, the boatload.

As with most of the public transportation in Hong Kong, the ferry is dirt cheap, with trips between Central on the Hong Kong side and Tsim Sha Tsui on the Kowloon side running a bit more than 25 U.S. cents for an upper deck ride and a bit less than 25 cents for a lower deck ride.

But we're getting less for our money this month than we did just a few weeks ago, as the old Star Ferry pier in Central was closed late last year and the ferry was moved to the a new terminal, shown in the background of the above photo. The new terminal is a couple hundred meters further into the harbour than the old terminal, which means the ride across is a shorter one than it used to be, but it's not the shortened ferry trip that has many Hong Kongers up in arms.

More to the point, preservation-minded locals are bemoaning the loss of yet another old landmark and the seemingly endless narrowing of the harbour as land is continually "reclaimed" on both sides. The old ferry pier, shown here, which is being torn down to make room for more roads, is covered with protest signs reading "Respect our Culture and History" and "This is Wrong."

For an idea of how much of the harbour has disappeared over the year, take a ride on the century-old Hong Kong tram next time you're in town. The system boasts nearly 30 km of track, much of which was harbour-side when the system was originally built. Today, none of the track runs next to the water.

Wal-Mart, Shenzhen-Style

Shelly's back from a quick trip to Shenzhen, on Hong Kong's northern border with mailand China, where she spent the day at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. (Not on a shopping trip, mind you, but just to gather some intelligence on Wal-Mart China.)

From her report, it sounds as though Wal-Marts in China bear little resemblance to those in the U.S.

"If you were blindfolded and dropped into the store, would you know you were in Wal-Mart?" I asked her.

"Not really," she said.

First off, the Wal-Mart and Sam's she visited were both multi-level stores plopped down in the middle of high-rise apartment blocks, a far cry from the suburban locations Wal-Mart chooses in the States. (The Wal-Mart didn't even appear to have a parking lot, but that's not really necessary in a dense urban area like Shenzhen.) Plus, she says, there were, on average, three staff members per aisle to assist customers. I can't remember the last time I needed assistance in the Salisbury Wal-Mart that I didn't have to wander across half the sales floor to find someone to help me.

Sadly, there weren't aisles full of Sam's Choice merchandise, ruling out Wal-Mart China as a place for us to stock up on inexpensive drugs and contact lens supplies. In fact, Shelly says there were very few imported items at all.

There was, however, a display of Fuji apples with a Wal-Mart smiley face somehow added to the skin. As near as we can guess, the smiley's application must have been done either with some kind of sprayed-on acidic solution sprayed or some kind of laser-like technology, as the smiley was completely smooth and flush with the rest of the apple skin. If you have any idea how this was done, we'd love to know.

Marijuana

Wandering through Causeway Bay, I stumbled upon what appears to be a fairly high-end clothing shop with a fairly startling logo:

My brief Internet search has failed to turn up any clothing retailer with the Marijuana name, so it might be something small and local. Trust me, marijuana.com doesn't lead to a clothing store. Though it does lead to a site with other things for sale -- and a logo nearly identical to this one.

Sunday Sights

I spent Sunday afternoon walking down Queens Road and then through some of the narrow, narrow streets of Wan Chai. Here are some of the interesting things I saw:

I can't say for sure because I didn't actually buy anything, but I'm pretty sure that "happy cake" isn't at all the same thing as the "happy pizza" popular in Cambodia. (Marijuana pizza is a travelers favorite in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, though I heard enough stories of happy pizzas wiping out hours or even days of time to keep me from trying one.)

Though it's not the world's best rendition of a pig, a different bakery on my wandering route has some bread pigs on display for the Chinese New Year, which is in late February. If you look at the reflection of this blob of dough in the mirror, you can see the curly tail on the back, turning this from a rat-shaped piece of bread to a pig-shaped piece of bread. (Sorry, all you year-of-the-rat fans: you'll have to wait another 13 months.)

FWIW, I was born in the year of the goat, under the sign of fire. Fire is associated with the qualities of dynamism, strength and persistence, and with restlessness and a sense of adventure. The goat is artistically talented and has a great sense of fashion. Well, Shelly would disagree with that last bit.

The other clear sign that the Chinese New Year is nearly upon us are the red envelopes that are for sale on just about every street corner. Common at Chinese New Year and on other auspicious occasions, it's customary to include a small amount of cash before giving the red envelopes (the good luck bestowed by the envelope is more important than the cash). In addition to giving them to our building guards and other helpful people, we're going to try a bit of red envelope feng shui ourselves, which I will report upon shortly.

I tend to do most of my meat shopping at the supermarket, but that's not to say I haven't bought a few things from markets like this one (though those things have tended to be from the fish monger rather than from the red meat monger). Pick out what you want and the butcher will slice off a hunk for you!

Although I suspect if this is what you want, you might have to take the whole thing...

You can also pick out your own chicken, if you want. Maybe Shelly should be looking into this market...

"Severe Cold" Hits Hong Kong

According to the Hong Kong Observatory, we're in for some severe cold weather this weekend, which goes to prove that when it comes to weather, it's all relative.


Today's high was around 18 degrees -- that's about 63° for those of you in the States -- with an expected low of 15° tonight, or about 59 degrees Fahrenheit. And while Fat Choy completely agrees that it's cold right now (she spent an hour camped out on top of the oven while Shelly baked an apple pie this morning), it's also big enough news to be in the paper. And to be fair, I did close the windows for a couple of days last week, when the temperature dropped to 11°C/51°F.

"More than 250 elderly people have been admitted to hospital during the cold snap," writes the South China Morning Post, "with a local frost warning being issued for two days running. ... Frost was seen on vegetation before dawn yesterday [January 8] but farmers said their crop had not been damaged although vegetables have been growing more slowly in the cold weather."

It's also been good for some restaurants in the city, says the Post: "She Wong Yee in Causeway Bay, specialising in snake soup, renowned for keeping the body warm, saw its business rise 30 per cent to 40 per cent at the weekend, a staff member said."

Now if I really want to make our chilly feline happy, I should start looking for some "Friskies Snake Soup Style Cat Food" in the markets tomorrow...

Outdated

"You're insidiously clever, you pig jackals of the running dog press. Will you use the story?"

"Maybe. My boss will eventually make the decision."

"Your boss! Man, can't you see you're as much exploited as the worker and peasant? Except that the mailed fist is concealed in a silk glove. Get your head together, man, recognize that you're just in a slightly more privileged boat than your brothers in the factory and the field."

"Thank you for your call, sir."

"You don't have to call me sir, man. You don't have to call anybody sir! Get your head together..."

Is this how we really sounded in 1973? I just finished reading a paperback I picked up in Manila called The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, a bestseller back in 1973. (The cover price was just $1.75!) It's a fairly engaging story about a gang of crooks taking a New York City subway car, which was later made into a movie starring Walter Matthau. But the most interesting parts to me involved the 1970s dialogues, which made me ask, again, did we really talk this way in 1973? Here's a scene where one of the passengers on the train, a black man, had just been shot:

He felt a tap on his arm. The old dude beside him was offering a large folded handkerchief.

"Take it," the old man said.

Mobutu pushed the handkerchief away. "I got my own." He held the bloody rag and the old man turned pale, but didn't give up.

"Go. Take my handkerchief. We're all in the same boat." ...

"I will take nothing from a white peeg, so f*** off, old man."

"White, granted." The old man smiled. "Pig, you happen to have the wrong religion. Come on, young man, let's be friends."

"No way, old man. I am your enemy, and one day I will cut your throat."

"That day," the old man said, "I'll borrow your handkerchief."

It's interesting to me to read this. I'm not old enough to remember race riots, but Mom has told me about them from time to time, along with a story about me from around 1970:

We were in a department store in downtown Des Moines, riding in an elevator with a black woman and her son, who was about my age. As Mom tells the story, I reached out and ran my finger along the boy's arm, then turned my finger towards me and looked to see if anything had rubbed off.

Apparently, it was a tense moment in the elevator. And if this dialogue from 1973 New York City is at all accurate, I can understand why Mom still carries this memory.

The longest escalator in the world

I rode Hong Kong's 800 meter escalator today.

Officially the "Central-Mid-Levels Escalator and Walkway System," it's really a series of three moving walkways and 20 elevated escalators that whisk pedestrians from Central up to the Mid-Levels, a largely residential area about halfway up Victoria Peak. The whole thing is covered, which makes it the perfect way up the mountain in the rainy season. Mid-Levels is a popular place for expats to live; in fact, the first flats we looked at in Hong Kong were in the Mid-Levels. We ended up elsewhere when we decided the area was just a little too expat for us. Plus, while the 20 minute escalator ride is fun once in a while, it could be a drag riding everyday.

I learned recently that the escalator was finished in 1993, which means when I rode it on my first visit to Hong Kong, back in mid-1990s, it had not been operation very long. For me, the best part of the escalator is the view of some of the narrow streets below:

At the bottom left of the photo is a Park 'n' Shop grocery store.

About halfway up to Mid-Levels, I stumbled upon a brand new shop, one that I never would have guessed I would find in Hong Kong. They were actually advertising its grand opening when we were here in September. In December, one opened 20 minutes from our neighborhood. Believe it or not, Krispy Kreme has found Hong Kong. In an ironic turn of photographic luck, a Hong Kong motorcyle cop drove by the shop as I took the picture. No, he did not stop.


After reaching the top of the escalator, I turned west and began to work my way back down. (There's only one direction the escalator goes, and that's up, except from 6 to 10 a.m., when it takes commuters down hill.) Not far from the escalator is Ladder Street, which is, in truth, much like it sounds. While it's not exactly a ladder, it is a street made entirely of stairs, first from above and then from below:

Near the bottom of Ladder Street is the Man Mo Temple. One of Hong Kong's oldest and most famous temples, it is a fairly simple building from the outside. Inside, however, it's full of atmosphere and incense, and you know you're not just wandering through a tourist attraction ... though there were plenty of tourists in sight today, myself included.


Outside the temple, women were throwing pieces of paper into a giant fire. Similar to the blessing of Shelly's office in November, the women were buring facsimiles of money and other earthly goods so that their dead relatives will be more comfortable in the afterlife.


Most impressive were the hundreds of incense coils hanging from the temple ceiling. Given as offerings, the coils burn all day and are replaced regularly.



Nearing the end of my circuit, I continued down Ladder Street to "Cat Street," a pedestrian street full of antique shops and trinket stands. I wondered as I walked past this shop where Ho himself was. (Brad, this is the street where we bought your lions.) This street is also home to what looks like one of Hong Kong's largest collections of Mao memorabilia. When I went shopping here in December, one of the stands had funky Mao clock for sale which I thought about buying just because of its incredible tackiness, but didn't. Sadly, that stand wasn't open today, and I am hoping it reopens again and that clock is still for sale. I did find this collection of Mao figurines, but knowing how much difficulty Mom is having getting either of us to take the figurines she has collected, I decided not to burden whoever inherits my stuff with a statue of Mao sitting in his chair, Mao riding a horse, Mao going fishing, Mao sitting at a desk, Mao sitting in a different chair or Mao sitting on some kind of bench-like thing.

Back from Dubai

Shelly's back from Dubai, where she's been on business for the past week.

She was working most of the time, of course, but did have a chance to play tourist, driving out into the desert, where she dressed up in her new business attire, perfect for her trips to the Middle East, she said.

"No, that's not really true," she said.

"Well, were you wearing it because you were driving on the sand dunes, to keep the sand out?"

"No. I was in a Land Rover," she said.

"Isn't there any interesting story about you wearing a burqa?" I asked. "I have to blog something, you know."

"Well, I did smoke a hookah when I was there," she said.

"Ooh, the hubbly-bubbly," I said, not without some jealousy. "How was it?"

"It was kind of herby," she said.

So far, she hasn't offered me any photos of her smoking the hookah, and believe me, I'd like to see one. Especially if it is as good as this one, from our back porch in Maryland a couple of years ago:

Curry Pork Burger

Jim in North Carolina, this one's for you!

I don't eat at McDonald's all that often, but I do like the McRib when it occasionally comes around in the U.S. I have been known to go out of my way to eat that tender, barbecued pork-rib-like sandwich -- it doesn't actually have any ribs but is shaped to look it does -- which is how the Happy Valley McDonald's sucked me in with their posters for the "Grilled Curry Pork Burger."


Look at it here on their web site ... doesn't that look tasty? It looks like it has the little rib shapes on the meat and everything, but dipped in curry sauce instead of barbecue sauce. I'm not sure I would have come up with that combination, but I like curry, so for HK$14.80 -- about $1.85 -- I picked one up for lunch today.

The box makes this sandwich look pretty good, too, so I was fairly optimistic that this would be a tasty, if not especially healthy, lunch. (I skipped the fries, so this one particular meal probably won't cause my heart to stop beating...) The grilled onions on top of the sandwich look like a nice addition. I just wish I could read Chinese so I knew what the two guys on the box were saying...

Unfortunately, when it came time to unwrap the grilled curry pork burger inside that colorful box, I was faced with a rather unappetizing, gray piece of meat that didn't even fit on the oblong bun. And there were not any ribs. And the meat was not tender at all. In fact, it might have been the toughest piece of meat, or meat-like substance, I have ever eaten. Verdict: It is no McRib.

Street Shrine

On Sunday, I wandered out east to Chai Wan, via tram, subway and foot. Chai Wan certainly wasn't the most interesting part of Hong Kong .... it's mostly newish skyscrapers which aren't particularly unique to the Hong Kong skyline.

I did encounter a small, makeshift shrine built under the stairs to a pedestrian bridge.


At the bottom of the shrine, that's a bottle of orange drink and a couple of small oranges. Your guess is as good as mine as to the purpose of this shrine.

On my way home, back in Happy Valley, I came upon a Mercedes-Benz parked outside my apartment. Expensive cars are the norm in Hong Kong, so a Benz in the neighborhood is nothing to get excited about. (I counted cars one evening recently. Of ten cars that went through the intersection outside our building, there were five Mercedes, three BMWs, one Acura and one Toyota.) So what was it that made this particular car stand out? It has six doors:

Pure Cheese

Shelly gave me the best -- or, possibly worst -- Christmas present ever last month.

The invention of the iPod and the iTunes store has reignited an old flame of mine: collecting music. (To wit, my mp3 collection currently numbers in excess of 2,500 songs, which is a ridiculous number of songs, especially when you consider it would take six-and-a-half days to listen to each song once.) I've done a good job of collection all those songs I remember from the 70s and 80s, and have managed to keep somewhat abreast of music from the 90s and 00s. But there's always been one thing missing:


For obvious reasons, I told Shelly that I'd really, really like to keep the gift of this somewhat-hard-to-find "Best Of" CD secret. Shelly did keep it a secret, surprising me with it in bed on Christmas morning. Shortly thereafter I, in typical fashion, blabbed about it to everyone.

In my defense, I wanted to listen to it and couldn't very well do that without locking myself in my old bedroom. Suddenly, it was 1977 and I was 10 years old all over again....

Monthly Update

"What does a bachelor do in HK when his wife is away?" asks my sister-in-law Lisa. Find one reason after another not to update the blog is the apparent answer. I fell behind again when we were in the States for the holidays, and blogging eventually became one of those big tasks that seemed overwhelming. Therefore, my new year's resolution is to not get so freaking far behind in blogging again.

So, a brief recap of the last month: The U.S. was really, really cold.

We had a good trip home, with stops on both coasts, the midwest and the mountains. I spent a few days in Washington and Maryland taking care of some personal business and visiting our house, which we have been renting out since moving to the Philippines. Our tenants are a Christian ministry that cares for people with disabilities. While I don't know the details, we apparently have two or three men with mild disabilities living in the house, along with a 24-hour attendant. Since it's a Christian group, I don't know why I was surprised to see that our living room had been turned into a church sanctuary, so families can come worship with the residents. If you look closely, you'll see that there is an offering plate in the back corner and, for some reason, microphones. The tenants have kept the house in good shape and put down rugs over almost all of the hardwood floors, and we were happy to see that.

Small-town Iowa seemed really, really small after a year of living in Manila followed by a couple of months in Hong Kong. Shelly's flight to Des Moines was delayed several times, and finally arrived at something like 12:45 Christmas Eve morning, three or four hours later than scheduled. I left Mom and Jer's around 11:30 p.m. to pick her up and -- although I spent close to 20 years living in this town of 6,000 people -- I was somehow shocked when I couldn't find an open convenience store to buy a bottle of soda on my way out of town. Christmas was great, with Brad and Laura also being there. Of course, that just led to us causing Mom all sorts of "problems," including a session the four of us spent making crazy photos on Mom and Jer's computer, then setting the computer up to cycle through about 20 of them one after another.

Colorado was crazy cold, and the close to three feet of snow on the ground when I arrived was definitely the most snow I've seen in years. (Fortunately, one of the things I did in Maryland was retrieve a few cold weather clothes from a box I had stored at our neighbor's house. Thanks, Vivian!) We had a great time in Colorado playing with our niece and nephews, were honored to be present at John's baptism. Thanks to Lisa and Jim and Tracy and Charles for making sure the kids know us, since we're around so infrequently.

After a couple of weeks in the States, our suitcases were quite literally bulging at the seams. The new limit of 50 pounds per bag really isn't a problem most of the time, but I knew I was pushing that limit when I checked in in Denver. I couldn't have been much closer to the limit: one bag weighed 49.5 pounds, the other weighed 45 pounds, for a total of 94.5 pounds. Shelly did even better than I did, clocking in at a total of 99.5 pounds. I bow to the master.

Since returning to Hong Kong, I have been easing back into life in the city. And -- and this should be no surprise, given our recent past -- I've been to the vet more than once in the 11 or 12 days I've been back. Fat Choy was "desexed" a week ago, only to have her body reject the stitches, which took us back to the vet on Saturday and then again today for more surgery, with different sutures this time around. Needless to say, we are well known at the SPCA...

And that's the update. I resolve to keep my new year's resolution, and will do my best to update daily (or at least almost daily) throughout 2007.