Tripping on life

around the world

So the Cardinals won the world series...


Went up to Langtau to see the giant buddha. Pretty cool, the gondola ride up was awesome, you could view the buddha from very far away...

Went down from there into Tai O - small fishing village at the base of the mountain. It was so fascinating to see that culture and lifestyle. There houses are built onto stilts, and their income is primarily based off of well fishing. Dried fish stalls everywhere, and carts catering to the tourists that come down from lantau mountain ...

It's a difficult life, that was obvious to see, but it seems incredibly peaceful as well. Everyone sat on their decks over the water hanging out with neighbors and families as the sun set.

Afterwards we traveled into the subarbs to another fishign spot where we picked out our catch, Fresh Abalone, Thailand (roughly translated) Pissing Shrimp which longer than the length of your hand and taste like lobster, clams, snails, freshwater fish, oysters... and brought it all to a local restaurant where they cooked it for us... all in all it came out to about $200 for 10 ppl, including the beer. In the US this dinner would have cost well over $700 - 800 dollars if not more given the number of ppl that were eating.

It's good to be in HK for food.

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I've touched on this before, but the longer I stay in Hong Kong, there are many western attributes that I do miss that Hong Kong for all of it's international attributes still lack.

Again, it is very comfortable being here, although difficult at times since I don't read chinese there is English everywhere. My chinese isn't as bad as I thought it would be, so far no one has assumed that I am from america when I do speak it. Which is kinda nice... but since I"m not fluent it's difficult for me to get my meaning across with the limited chinese that I do know.

I really can't put into words what it is that is throwing me off, it's these small chinese idiosyncracies that drive me nuts. Rudeness and pushing is huge - basic manners are lacking around here. It's mostly chinese guys and grandmas - but my mom says that's bc they're from china and that's the way that they are...

The other is just the way everyone carries themselves around here...They seem so diminunitive because of how they carry themselves, screaming stereotypes of quiet passive ppl. Maybe I'm just an arrogant uptight new yorker who is stereotyping. maybe...

A part of me actually cannot wait to be back home, I miss being away from my family and being able to move on my own without someone worrying about where i am. They keep telling me that HK is not like NY, that much is obvious, but being treated like a 10 year old, it's getting tiring. And I'm not very patient with my family ... sigh.

Free food is not worth hanging out with family day in and day out

posted by ilennovy @ 7:13 AM