Warning: Contains Mostly Pottery!
I could, however, take lots of photos in the ceramics wing, so this post is dedicated to my potter friends. Enjoy - these are some beautiful pots from the last two thousand years.
Warning: Contains Mostly Pottery!For our last Sunday afternoon in Hong Kong (can we just talk about how quickly the time has flown by?!), we ventured down up into the New Territories, the northernmost section of Hong Kong, to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. The museum hosts a lot more "current" exhibits than the history museum we visited a few weeks ago. Today, we saw three current exhibitions: one on the animation of Studio Ghibli (awesome!), one on Chairs from around the world and through history (strangely fascinating!), and one on Bruce Lee (Kung Fu!). Unfortunately, photos were not allowed in any of those - though we did snap some photos in the lobby outside the hall.
I could, however, take lots of photos in the ceramics wing, so this post is dedicated to my potter friends. Enjoy - these are some beautiful pots from the last two thousand years. Saturday morning, Tom and I, along with one of my Charlottesville coworkers, travelled to Macau for the day. We toured through Taipa village so they could see the old Portuguese sections of the town, and then headed to Coloane, another section of the island, to eat at the highly recommended Fernando's Restaurant. It was one of the best meals of the trip so far with boiled greens, Macanese fried rice, stuffed squid, clams, and suckling pig, and a cold beer after a sweaty walk around the city.
After the decadent lunch, we headed back to City of Dreams Casino to watch the spectacular House of Dancing Water performance. Very Cirque du Soleil-esque, but with an elaborate stage including a deep diving pool which appeared and disappeared throughout the performance and just about every kind of performance you can think of: water, lighting, music, dancing, ballet, tumbling, aerial acrobatics, gymnastics, swordplay, sparring, motocross, costuming, stilt-walking, and so much more. I captured a few photos with my iPhone, but I was so entranced by the spectacle that I spent most of the time just staring. Highly recommended if you're ever in Hong Kong. After the show, a bit of walking around the casino, but no gambling, and then a long ferry ride back to Hong Kong, wherein I got immensely seasick. Still, great day. Friday was another half-day for me, so after a quick lunch at a Greek restaurant in Soho that Tom has been wanting to try, we tied on our hiking shoes and headed over to Discovery Bay to do the hike I had done a few weeks ago over the mountain to Mui Wo. It was much better with a hiking buddy. I had forgotten what a great panorama of the city and islands is available at the top - can't think of a better way to spend my last Friday in Hong Kong!
After the hike, we ended in the village of Mui Wo. It was early, just barely 5 o'clock, but we managed to find a fresh seafood restaurant that was ready to serve and had some really great scallops, clams, and sweet and sour pork. All in all, a phenomenal Friday. And now, off to Macau for Saturday!
Last weekend, after Hong Kong bounced back from the would-be ravages of the dreadful Typhoon Ramussan, Tom and I went with two of my Charlottesville coworkers to visit Ocean Park, the other large amusement park here in Hong Kong. It's very similar to Sea World, but with more rides than I remember there being at Sea World. Also more topiaries. A lot more topiaries. It was a fun day, full of lots of bizarre animals, and lots of more familiar ones too. Oh, and we got picked out of a crowd of more than a thousand people and shown on the jumbotron for the Dolphin Show. And experienced a small mob trying to get off the mountain to the lower section of the park (seriously, run to the next gate, you'll definitely get down faster that way). Eventful day.
After our park day was over, we took a taxi back to Lan Kwai Fong, a neighborhood just a few streets over from our apartments and hotel, where a craft beer festival was taking place. Lots of good drinks and food, especially from a Scottish brewery called Brew Dog. Typhoon Rammasun has brought a lot of rain and wind to Hong Kong, even though it passed well south of the city, so I was stuck taking photos with my iPhone today.
Today, after a yummy Japanese lunch with two of my Hong Kong colleagues, we scrambled over to see a much smaller exhibit of the papier-mâché pandas. Then after work, we dodged raindrops and went with a few of my US colleagues to check out a special 75th Anniversary of Batman exhibit at Times Square Hong Kong (a large shopping mall, completely unlike Times Square in New York), then across the harbor to Kowloon for post-work drinks at the Ozone bar, on the 118th floor of the ICC (International Commerce Center). Ozone is the highest bar in the world, and was super swanky, but lots of fun. I have to say, the bathroom is probably one of the top places I've ever peed (pun kind of intended). Thursday, Tom and I went out for Dim Sum with some coworkers. Dim Sum is a traditional Cantonese style of eating, similar to Spanish Tapas: small plates shared between everyone, with lots of tea to wash everything down. We also discovered that I'm an "old man" because I like black tea (pu'er tea), which apparently only old people drink here in Hong Kong.
After dinner tonight, we went up to PMQ, a design collective with a host of trendy shops, to check out the current exhibition 1600 Pandas, a world touring exhibit partnering with the WWF to raise awareness of the number of pandas currently living in the wild. Though the papier-mâché pandas popped up around town in a variety of locations over the last few weeks, they're now currently living at PMQ, at least until the beginning of next week.
After checking out the crowded exhibit - including Hug Hug Panda, a special selfie taking area (I'm not kidding, that's what the signage said) - we walked around some of the shops. My favorite was Flow+ Living, a small ceramics shop featuring the work of Hong Kong artist, Yokky Wong, and run as a co-partnership with two of her students. One of her students, Heidi Choi (who makes whimsical handbuilt sculptures of children doing yoga), interrupted me after several minutes of my perusing the ceramics (read: picking up multiple pieces, closing my eyes, and reading them with my hands) to ask, knowingly, if I was a potter. I responded yes and we spent about 15 minutes talking about art and ceramics in Hong Kong (the limitations: space and high rent) and each of our work. It was a breath of fresh air to this heart, aching to touch clay after a long absence. I purchased one of Yokky's lovely Lotus tea bowls, and can't wait to bring it home. Sunday afternoon, we took the bus over to the southern side of Hong Kong Island to a village called Stanley. Stanley is home to one of the more popular street markets - the one that all the locals told us to go to to buy our souvenirs - and is also home to a large ex-patriot population. It's a picturesque community cradling a beautiful bay, and was a great way to spend the afternoon. And yes, we bought some souvenirs (and gifts!).
I've been neglectful in posts specifically dedicated to delicious things I've eaten. Here's a wrap up of the photos from the last few weeks I've just pulled from my phone.
It's been a good food week.
Tonight a group of my coworkers - mainly those visiting from the US, but also including a few of our Hong Kong-based colleagues - returned to Lamma Island to devour what seemed like half the sea life of Victoria Harbor. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, other than to say that I completed a bucket list goal tonight by eating a Mantis Shrimp. On the ferry ride back, the sky was eerie. All the photos below are unaltered, straight from my iPhone with no filters. Yesterday, I took a half day from work and we went to Hong Kong Disneyland for the afternoon/evening. It's a rather small park by US-standards, very easily doable in half a day. We started out with a stroll down Main Street USA into Tomorrowland, made a brief foray into Fantasyland (all that pink was hard on the eyes!), then reveled in Toy Story Land, before a brief, but haunting trip into Mystic Point, a stop at the mine in Grizzly Gulch, and a lazy cruise in Adventureland.
For the most part, each of these sections had one main attraction, and a few smaller rides in some of them, so we didn't spend much time in each. Despite the hordes of visitors, we rarely spent more than 40 minutes in queue for a given ride and most moved quite quickly! The attention to detail in all areas of the park (but especially Toy Story land!) is exactly what you expect from Disney - every experience has been meticulously engineered down to the garbage cans. Highlights included: Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster (I beat Tom almost 2 points to one), It's A Small World, RC Coaster (a pirate ship style ride that Tom was proud he didn't throw up on), Mystic Manor (a rejiggering of the Haunted Mansion, so great!), Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Carts, and the Jungle River Cruise. And of course the nightly fireworks show, Disney in the Stars, was pretty spectacular. Last night, after work, we ventured into a neighborhood in Kowloon called Mong Kok, which is known for it's many street markets, including the very famous Temple Street Night Market. We started at the Flower Market, then walked through the Bird Garden and Market (where locals take their pet birds - in cages - on walks after tea), and Goldfish Market, then, after a rather disappointing dinner, to the Night Market, where you can purchase a whole host of knock-offs, illegal CDs/DVDs/Designer merchandise, and tchotchkes. So much commercialism (and junk!) but so much fun too! Bright lights, dense crowds, and pushy hawkers - and we managed not to spend a cent!
For most of the time since he arrived, Tom's been laid up with the same gastrointestinal bug that I had after I arrived. Since he's finally feeling better, we went out to eat tonight at a restaurant called Yardbird, which specializes in yakitori. Yakitori is Japanese style of cooking small pieces of chicken by skewering and grilling them over hot coals. It was a life changing dining experience, and one I absolutely recommend to anyone visiting Hong Kong. The meal was served family style - everything was shared - and it was a bit pricey, but worth it for one of the best dinners I've had in a really long time.
Thanks to my CHO coworkers Jeannie Wallace and Chris Read for recommending this spot. Last weekend, since Tom hadn't yet arrived when I visited the Big Buddha, we took another trip out to Lantau Island to visit Ngong Ping. This time, in addition to the monastery and Buddha himself, we went on a short hike to the Wisdom Path, an art installation "containing verses from the centuries-old Heart Sutra; one of the world’s best-known prayers revered by Confucians, Buddhists and Taoists alike. These steles display the Chinese version of the prayer, based on the calligraphy of famous contemporary scholar Professor Jao Tsung-I, and are arranged in a ∞ pattern, which represents infinity." It was a short, 20 minute hike from the relative chaos of the Buddha, and really peaceful and beautiful
Sunday, we took a stroll back in time by visiting the Hong Kong History Museum down in Kowloon. I enjoyed it mostly because of all the pottery that was featured, most of which was thousands of years old. After that, we stumbled upon an art exhibit near a local MTR station, which featured hundreds of pandas in transformers-style suits of arms - The Iron Panda. Tuesday was a public holiday here - the 17th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), when the British ceded Hong Kong back to China - so work was closed. We spent the morning walking up Hollywood Road, an area north of our apartment known for its antique shops and art galleries, to Man Mo Temple. The temple is over 150 years old, and is dedicated to the god of literature (Man) and the god of war (Mo) and is known for its huge and plentiful incense coils.
After wrapping up at the temple, we walked down a park off Hollywood Road, then to the Hong Kong Park and Zoo. The zoo was pretty disappointing, small and hard to see the few animals they had. After lunch, we headed to Lamma Island, a small island to the west of Hong Kong Island. It's has several beaches and has more of a small fishing village feel to it. We met up with one of my coworkers and had drinks by the beach. Thursday, we ventured into Kowloon for the first time for dinner. We traveled via Star Ferry, an iconic and short ferry ride (about 10-15 minutes) across the Victoria Harbor from Hong Kong Island. Kowloon s know for its many street markets and the nightly laser light show visible across the harbor. Friday, I took a summer half day, and we took the tram up to Victoria Peak for lunch and to see the city skyline. I also bought my first souvenir from a street vendor at the Peak, a pretty painting of a crowded street and bus. After lunch, we took the harrowing bus ride down the mountain - sat right at the front of the bus to watch as we narrowly missed about a 100 other buses and cars on the very narrow, windy roads down the mountain. |