Monday was a day of temples and history. I spent the morning at Chi Lin, which is a Buddhist Nunnery and garden. I then toured Wen Tai Sin, which is a Taoist temple and garden. After Wen Tai Sin, I went to the Hong Kong History Museum.
The Nunnery was empty on a Monday morning, so I wandered the compound with only the gardeners around. It was very peaceful, the sounds of morning chants coming from the rooms of the nuns. The garden was gorgeous, didn't realize that such a green space was in the heart of one of Asia's largest cities. There was a traditional rock garden as well as a lake, and some walkways amongst flowers. I still don't understand rock gardens, but it was still fascinating to see all the shapes.
Wen Tai Sin was a complete contrast from Chi Lin. It was packed! I think there was a festival for a god or something because there was a lot of incense being sold and families coming with gifts for the temple. It is still a foreign place for me to be caught in the middle of an event like that. I don't understand the meaning behind it so it confuses me as I try to see what is going on. The garden was lovely. It overlooked the temple so it was a good way to see the festival going on in the temple.
I received quite an education at the History Museum after visiting Wen Tai Sin. I learned a lot about the politics of the Opium Wars and how much it changed Hong Kong socially, economically, and politically. I also learned a lot about Hong Kong's involvement in WWII. The story of the people of Hong Kong trying to defend their city from the Japanese and the resulting atrocities committed by the Japanese was something I had never learned. It was one of the most well arranged history museums I have seen. There is no place in the world that has had such a contrast of two cultures trying to find harmony together.
I spent Tuesday with my friend Bernice and her friend Melanie. Bernice is my friend from SCH who has family in Hong Kong. We went to visit the Lantau Buddha and see the Kung Fu festival. We took the subway to the gondola terminal where we took a 20 minute gondola ride to Lantau peak. As we rode the gondola, we were able to see the airport from above as well as the island of Lantau. Lantau is like the countryside of Hong Kong. It has a lot of open land and the quiet nature of a small town. Once we reached the top, we made our way to see the big Buddha. He was a big one! We went inside the Buddha to see a display about Buddhism in Hong Kong and a "tooth" from the Buddha. It was an interesting display. The view from the overlook by the Buddha was breathtaking. Lantau is so lush with vibrant greens in the trees and deep blues in the ocean. Combine that with gorgeous coasts and it's quite a sight!
After the Buddha we went to Ngong village (which is adjacent to the Buddha) to see the Shaolin Kung Fu festival. We made it just in time to see a performance from the monks. Oh my gosh, they were unbelievable! I was amazed by the feats they performed and shocked by effect this training had on their bodies. They were dense, all muscle, it looks so unnatural. The intensity of their performance and how every movement is so deliberate and determined was very impressive.
Wednesday was an epic day: museum day. I spent the morning in the Art Museum soaking up beautiful Chinese art as well as innovative contemporary pieces. I then went to the Space Museum, which displayed the history of astronomy from an Eastern viewpoint, very interesting. China hopes to put a man on the moon by 2020, we'll see....
After these morning museums I went to the Avenue of Stars, the Hollywood Stars for Asian film. I stopped to take pictures of some of my favorite Asian moviestars plaques and soak up the view of the city from the waterfront.
I then went to the Coastal Defense Museum, which is located in a coastal fortress built in the 1800's. It was an expansive museum, but a great display of history coming to life.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Tai Tam and a Camera
Ok peoples, I'm finally getting around to blogging about Hong Kong. Seriously, my procrastination of transferring travel journal entries to my blog is getting ridiculous! I will try to get you all updated about everything thus far both from the trip and the semester.
I arrived in Hong Kong Saturday morning around 9:30am. The night before was filled with goodbyes from everyone in Chiayi, followed by a 2am bus to the airport. It would be an understatement to say that I was tired when I arrived in Hong Kong! My plane landed at the airport near Lantau, which is about forty minutes from downtown. After landing, I proceeded to customs, which took quite a long time. There were quite a few planes that landed at the same time as mine, so there was a mass of people flooding to the customs line. After making it through customs, I took the airport train downtown Hong Kong. My stop was at the International Finance Center, which is the building that Batman jumped off of in the Dark Knight! Batman was absent this afternoon, so I continued on my way by taxi to Tai Tam.
Tai Tam is the area of Hong Kong Island where Mike Kersten teaches. It is outside of the city and is home to a lot of the foreigners that work in the city. It is a very ritzy area, I guess you could say the Malibu of Hong Kong. One thing that really struck me about Hong Kong is that it is like the San Francisco of Asia, it is very hilly! My taxi ride was a continuous up and down over the hills. The taxi ride from the IFC to Tai Tam was a trip with very stark contrasts: The IFC is right downtown, the hustle and bustle of the city, while Tai Tam is a more quiet area apart from the rich racing their sports-cars around the twisting roads. I had not envisioned Hong Kong as a place with such differing environments. I think my perception of Hong Kong as one very large city is probably the picture most people have in their minds when thinking about this city.
I arrived at Hong Kong International School around lunch time. I will be couch surfing at Mike's teachers apartment at the school while touring for the week. It is always nice to see a familiar face and stay with a friend while touring instead of a large hostel full of strangers. I am very thankful that Mike opened his home to me for the week so that I could have a comfortable place to stay while running around Hong Kong. After unpacking a few things and having some lunch, I was completely exhausted, so I took a nap. I had only about 3 hours of sleep the night before on the bus to the airport and I literally melt away without enough sleep.
Today (Aug 20) marked a year since arriving in Korea, so it was a reason to celebrate, what better way to celebrate Asia than to have German food? Wait a minute...yeah why not! Once I was recuperated from my lack of sleep, we took a bus to the Stanley area, which is located on the southern coast of Hong Kong island. This is still a very foreigner abundant area. We went to Murray House, which is an old Victorian mansion that has been relocated to this area and filled with restaurants. It is very strange for me to see so many Western buildings that have been a part of Hong Kong's history for over a hundred years. Coming from Korea where Westerners were not welcomed until about a hundred years ago, it is a stark contrast to the well established Western influence and legacy in Hong Kong. At Murray House, we ate at the German restaurant, where I had my first brat in over a year. It was pretty legit German food! Very strange to eat food that reminds me of family potlucks in Asia, but it was a nice way to connect my experience in Asia with my roots at home.
Early Sunday morning, I joined Mike and his friend Jose for a bike ride at 6am. It was my first bike ride in over a year, but I was determined to try to keep up biking up and down the hills. Oh my gravy! I am really out of shape! It was a gorgeous bike ride however and I really enjoyed seeing the area in a unique way. Tai Tam has such a beautiful mesh of green spaces and hints of urban modernism. We biked down to the beach and I was able to put my feet in the South China Sea. We had breakfast near the beach before biking back to the school.
We went to one of the local Lutheran churches later in the morning. It has been an interesting experience worshiping with so many different congregations in Asia, yet despite the geographical differences the message remains the same. After church, we went downtown Hong Kong to see the business sector of the city.
We walked by the IFC along with the Bank of China tower and the City Hall. As we were walking we passed by a lot of Filipino women sitting and eating together. Mike explained that these women work in the homes of the rich in Hong Kong as housemaids. They work for six days a week and receive Sundays off, which was why they were enjoying lunch together. Unlike other migrant workers that come to Hong Kong, they are never granted residency, even after they have exceeded the requirement of living in Hong Kong for seven years. Residency would help them be recognized as a contributing community of the city. It was an issue I had never heard of concerning Hong Kong and to learn about it while seeing the women enjoying their only time away from their work was very eye opening.
We passed the Hong Kong Mosque, which was just finishing prayers, on our way to Chunking Mansions. Chunking Mansions is a large building right downtown that is filled with a variety of mom and pop restaurants from all around the world. It was one of the coolest displays of the world coming together to share something that is very universal: FOOD! We ate at a Pakistani restaurant, which had excellent chicken curry with naan. I had some strawberry flavored goats milk, which was very rich and tasty.
After lunch, Mike had to head back to HKIS to make lesson plans. My mission while still downtown was to find a camera. At some point while in transit between Taiwan and Hong Kong, my two month old Samsung camera decided to die. Once again, I was camera deprived. I went to the electronics street downtown, which has camera stores lining the streets. It was quite an experience again to camera shop in Asia. Unlike my last experience in Korea where I had to muster enough Korean to figure out the megapixels of the Samsung, I found that every salesman in these stores spoke English fluently and were able to answer every detailed question. I decided on a Nikon, which was the brand of my first camera that lasted me five years. Now I'm ready to take pictures of my adventures through this city!
I arrived in Hong Kong Saturday morning around 9:30am. The night before was filled with goodbyes from everyone in Chiayi, followed by a 2am bus to the airport. It would be an understatement to say that I was tired when I arrived in Hong Kong! My plane landed at the airport near Lantau, which is about forty minutes from downtown. After landing, I proceeded to customs, which took quite a long time. There were quite a few planes that landed at the same time as mine, so there was a mass of people flooding to the customs line. After making it through customs, I took the airport train downtown Hong Kong. My stop was at the International Finance Center, which is the building that Batman jumped off of in the Dark Knight! Batman was absent this afternoon, so I continued on my way by taxi to Tai Tam.
Tai Tam is the area of Hong Kong Island where Mike Kersten teaches. It is outside of the city and is home to a lot of the foreigners that work in the city. It is a very ritzy area, I guess you could say the Malibu of Hong Kong. One thing that really struck me about Hong Kong is that it is like the San Francisco of Asia, it is very hilly! My taxi ride was a continuous up and down over the hills. The taxi ride from the IFC to Tai Tam was a trip with very stark contrasts: The IFC is right downtown, the hustle and bustle of the city, while Tai Tam is a more quiet area apart from the rich racing their sports-cars around the twisting roads. I had not envisioned Hong Kong as a place with such differing environments. I think my perception of Hong Kong as one very large city is probably the picture most people have in their minds when thinking about this city.
I arrived at Hong Kong International School around lunch time. I will be couch surfing at Mike's teachers apartment at the school while touring for the week. It is always nice to see a familiar face and stay with a friend while touring instead of a large hostel full of strangers. I am very thankful that Mike opened his home to me for the week so that I could have a comfortable place to stay while running around Hong Kong. After unpacking a few things and having some lunch, I was completely exhausted, so I took a nap. I had only about 3 hours of sleep the night before on the bus to the airport and I literally melt away without enough sleep.
Today (Aug 20) marked a year since arriving in Korea, so it was a reason to celebrate, what better way to celebrate Asia than to have German food? Wait a minute...yeah why not! Once I was recuperated from my lack of sleep, we took a bus to the Stanley area, which is located on the southern coast of Hong Kong island. This is still a very foreigner abundant area. We went to Murray House, which is an old Victorian mansion that has been relocated to this area and filled with restaurants. It is very strange for me to see so many Western buildings that have been a part of Hong Kong's history for over a hundred years. Coming from Korea where Westerners were not welcomed until about a hundred years ago, it is a stark contrast to the well established Western influence and legacy in Hong Kong. At Murray House, we ate at the German restaurant, where I had my first brat in over a year. It was pretty legit German food! Very strange to eat food that reminds me of family potlucks in Asia, but it was a nice way to connect my experience in Asia with my roots at home.
Early Sunday morning, I joined Mike and his friend Jose for a bike ride at 6am. It was my first bike ride in over a year, but I was determined to try to keep up biking up and down the hills. Oh my gravy! I am really out of shape! It was a gorgeous bike ride however and I really enjoyed seeing the area in a unique way. Tai Tam has such a beautiful mesh of green spaces and hints of urban modernism. We biked down to the beach and I was able to put my feet in the South China Sea. We had breakfast near the beach before biking back to the school.
We went to one of the local Lutheran churches later in the morning. It has been an interesting experience worshiping with so many different congregations in Asia, yet despite the geographical differences the message remains the same. After church, we went downtown Hong Kong to see the business sector of the city.
We walked by the IFC along with the Bank of China tower and the City Hall. As we were walking we passed by a lot of Filipino women sitting and eating together. Mike explained that these women work in the homes of the rich in Hong Kong as housemaids. They work for six days a week and receive Sundays off, which was why they were enjoying lunch together. Unlike other migrant workers that come to Hong Kong, they are never granted residency, even after they have exceeded the requirement of living in Hong Kong for seven years. Residency would help them be recognized as a contributing community of the city. It was an issue I had never heard of concerning Hong Kong and to learn about it while seeing the women enjoying their only time away from their work was very eye opening.
We passed the Hong Kong Mosque, which was just finishing prayers, on our way to Chunking Mansions. Chunking Mansions is a large building right downtown that is filled with a variety of mom and pop restaurants from all around the world. It was one of the coolest displays of the world coming together to share something that is very universal: FOOD! We ate at a Pakistani restaurant, which had excellent chicken curry with naan. I had some strawberry flavored goats milk, which was very rich and tasty.
After lunch, Mike had to head back to HKIS to make lesson plans. My mission while still downtown was to find a camera. At some point while in transit between Taiwan and Hong Kong, my two month old Samsung camera decided to die. Once again, I was camera deprived. I went to the electronics street downtown, which has camera stores lining the streets. It was quite an experience again to camera shop in Asia. Unlike my last experience in Korea where I had to muster enough Korean to figure out the megapixels of the Samsung, I found that every salesman in these stores spoke English fluently and were able to answer every detailed question. I decided on a Nikon, which was the brand of my first camera that lasted me five years. Now I'm ready to take pictures of my adventures through this city!
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Gwangdeoksan
Today I went to hike Gwangdeoksan, one of the larger mountains in Cheoncheonamdo, the province I live in. The hikers included Birch, who is from Arkansas and studied in Spain for the summer before flying direct to Korea, and Polina, a Russian student from the Russia/China border.
We took the subway to Cheonan, ate lunch in town, and then took a bus to the park. Once we reached the park, we walked past several restaurants and shops selling hiking gear before reaching the trail.
I have not hiked in this area of Cheoncheonamdo, so it took a bit of searching to find the right trail. Before we found our trail, we met a group of Korean hikers who were having lunch after climbing to the summit. They invited us to join them for grapes and a chat. It was definitely a test for me in my Korean skills seeing that they could not speak English and Birch and Polina could not understand Korean. For the most part, I caught what they were saying and was able to share a bit about us foreigners. It was an unexpected beginning to our hike, once again I am amazed at the friendliness of Koreans, inviting strangers to join them for lunch and being so kind as we tried to have a conversation.
After our pre-hike snack, we found the trail and began our climb. I was so happy to see that this trail was not "Asianized" in that it was not a concrete sidewalk with the occasional handrails. This modernization of nature is a trend that I have seen all over Korea and other parts of Asia. I don't understand it, considering the one thing I enjoy about hiking is the natural aspect of it, an escape from the concrete jungle. Nevertheless, I was very happy to have a natural hike. While we were trekking, we passed a few Korean hikers, equipped with visors, hiking sticks, bright gear, and heavy duty hiking boots. They giggled as they passed us, seeing that we were not in hiking gear with our Tshirts and sneakers.
The hike was very steep at times, making us wish we had those hiking sticks! It reminded me a lot of my hike through northern Thailand: the trail was very gritty in a way, you had to be careful in placing your feet at times. I really enjoyed the trail because it was more of the hiking that I have experienced at home. It was not artificial with concrete and steps.
The top was very wooded, so our view was not too ideal. One thing that was quite funny when we were sitting near the top was when we heard a ringtone for a cellphone only then to see a couple hiking up to where we were answering their phone. Even at the top of Gwangdeoksan, you can still get good reception! Oh Korea....
After our hike back down, we made our way back to the city. We then visited a Vegan restaurant for dinner. Birch is Vegan, so she wanted to see this restaurant as it is one of the closest ones to school. It was a buffet, filled with tofu, fake meat, and lots of veggies. I was so happy to see so many fresh vegetables, it was pretty much my entire dinner. I have come to appreciate the prices of vegetables in the USA now that I have lived in Korea. Fruit and Vegetables are very expensive, in part because a lot of it is imported and also because Koreans like to eat organic foods. An apple can cost around $1-$3 depending on the size and where you purchase it. Being at a buffet where vegetables were in abundance, I ate as much as I could. It was interesting being a Vegan for a meal, but I couldn't do it as a lifestyle.
After our Vegan dinner, we made our way back to school. We are hoping to hike again in the next few weeks while we still have warm weather. The weather here has become a bit bipolar at times: it will be warm and sunny one day only to be cool and cloudy the next. Even though it was a balmy 80 during our hike, it got down to the 50's while we were waiting for our subway. I think the jackets will make their debut in the next few weeks.....
We took the subway to Cheonan, ate lunch in town, and then took a bus to the park. Once we reached the park, we walked past several restaurants and shops selling hiking gear before reaching the trail.
I have not hiked in this area of Cheoncheonamdo, so it took a bit of searching to find the right trail. Before we found our trail, we met a group of Korean hikers who were having lunch after climbing to the summit. They invited us to join them for grapes and a chat. It was definitely a test for me in my Korean skills seeing that they could not speak English and Birch and Polina could not understand Korean. For the most part, I caught what they were saying and was able to share a bit about us foreigners. It was an unexpected beginning to our hike, once again I am amazed at the friendliness of Koreans, inviting strangers to join them for lunch and being so kind as we tried to have a conversation.
After our pre-hike snack, we found the trail and began our climb. I was so happy to see that this trail was not "Asianized" in that it was not a concrete sidewalk with the occasional handrails. This modernization of nature is a trend that I have seen all over Korea and other parts of Asia. I don't understand it, considering the one thing I enjoy about hiking is the natural aspect of it, an escape from the concrete jungle. Nevertheless, I was very happy to have a natural hike. While we were trekking, we passed a few Korean hikers, equipped with visors, hiking sticks, bright gear, and heavy duty hiking boots. They giggled as they passed us, seeing that we were not in hiking gear with our Tshirts and sneakers.
The hike was very steep at times, making us wish we had those hiking sticks! It reminded me a lot of my hike through northern Thailand: the trail was very gritty in a way, you had to be careful in placing your feet at times. I really enjoyed the trail because it was more of the hiking that I have experienced at home. It was not artificial with concrete and steps.
The top was very wooded, so our view was not too ideal. One thing that was quite funny when we were sitting near the top was when we heard a ringtone for a cellphone only then to see a couple hiking up to where we were answering their phone. Even at the top of Gwangdeoksan, you can still get good reception! Oh Korea....
After our hike back down, we made our way back to the city. We then visited a Vegan restaurant for dinner. Birch is Vegan, so she wanted to see this restaurant as it is one of the closest ones to school. It was a buffet, filled with tofu, fake meat, and lots of veggies. I was so happy to see so many fresh vegetables, it was pretty much my entire dinner. I have come to appreciate the prices of vegetables in the USA now that I have lived in Korea. Fruit and Vegetables are very expensive, in part because a lot of it is imported and also because Koreans like to eat organic foods. An apple can cost around $1-$3 depending on the size and where you purchase it. Being at a buffet where vegetables were in abundance, I ate as much as I could. It was interesting being a Vegan for a meal, but I couldn't do it as a lifestyle.
After our Vegan dinner, we made our way back to school. We are hoping to hike again in the next few weeks while we still have warm weather. The weather here has become a bit bipolar at times: it will be warm and sunny one day only to be cool and cloudy the next. Even though it was a balmy 80 during our hike, it got down to the 50's while we were waiting for our subway. I think the jackets will make their debut in the next few weeks.....
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