Jen missed her flight. I woke up this morning to "Scott wake up! It's 7:47 am!" I don't fly out till Wednesday. I got up helped her drag all her stuff downstairs to the bus and threw her on it. I decided that I was going to go get breakfast and turned my back on Nathan Rd and made for Hankow were there is a grocery store in the basement of one the large buildings. Along the way I noticed a woman buying breakfast from a streetvendor and I stopped and asked for whatever she was having. What I got was a styrofoam container packed with noodles and a lemon tea in a juicebox container. The noodles had that sort of greasy goodness that makes you warm and happy on the inside when you eat them and guilty when your trying to wipe your mouth and considering what you've just eaten. They had little bits of meat and vegetables in them and the woman asked whether I wanted any sauce....well of course. It ended up being a thick, spicy chili sauce that was remeniscent of that found in Thai food. Oh so good!
I grabbed the plastic bag and went down to the harbor behind the Hong Kong cultural center to eat my food and enjoy the view. While there I did something very un-Chinese...I sat down. The Chinese do not like to sit on the ground. The detest it and consider it filthy. The few times they will do it they tear up sheets of newspaper and spread it out on the ground. Rather than sitting they sport what the London guys I was traveling with referred to as "mad squatting skillz" (yes with the Z). They can do this for a really long time. I've been practicing but I'm not anywhere up to par with those guys. Anyway the harbor walk was fairly deserted considering it was 8:10 in the morning and I sat there and had my breakfast with one of the best views in Hong Kong.
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Yesterday I climbed to the top of Victoria Peak, the mountain which overlooks Hong Kong. Ok, so I didn't climb it. I took the tram but I would have climbed it given the option. The view is breathtaking and you can see the entire harbor. It makes you wonder what was going through the Brits heads during the finally of the first opium war when they decided that they wanted to build their city here. I figure that they recognized the value of the harbor and being Brits they were well aware of the benefits of having a channel of water between you and your enemy but so much of the island is not really habitable. There's not really any arrable land to speak of. The Chinese must have thought them insane.
Now from Victoria Peak the financial district with some of the tallest buildings in Asia strecth out in front of you. You can see the buildings of Kowloon and the ever present backdrop of mountains. They're building a monstrosity of archetecture up on the top that they call Peak Tower. It' s going to be finished here in a few monthes. Hopefully it'll provide a good viewing platform becasue right now it's in the way. Not to mention it's just ugly as sin.
I grabbed the plastic bag and went down to the harbor behind the Hong Kong cultural center to eat my food and enjoy the view. While there I did something very un-Chinese...I sat down. The Chinese do not like to sit on the ground. The detest it and consider it filthy. The few times they will do it they tear up sheets of newspaper and spread it out on the ground. Rather than sitting they sport what the London guys I was traveling with referred to as "mad squatting skillz" (yes with the Z). They can do this for a really long time. I've been practicing but I'm not anywhere up to par with those guys. Anyway the harbor walk was fairly deserted considering it was 8:10 in the morning and I sat there and had my breakfast with one of the best views in Hong Kong.
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Yesterday I climbed to the top of Victoria Peak, the mountain which overlooks Hong Kong. Ok, so I didn't climb it. I took the tram but I would have climbed it given the option. The view is breathtaking and you can see the entire harbor. It makes you wonder what was going through the Brits heads during the finally of the first opium war when they decided that they wanted to build their city here. I figure that they recognized the value of the harbor and being Brits they were well aware of the benefits of having a channel of water between you and your enemy but so much of the island is not really habitable. There's not really any arrable land to speak of. The Chinese must have thought them insane.
Now from Victoria Peak the financial district with some of the tallest buildings in Asia strecth out in front of you. You can see the buildings of Kowloon and the ever present backdrop of mountains. They're building a monstrosity of archetecture up on the top that they call Peak Tower. It' s going to be finished here in a few monthes. Hopefully it'll provide a good viewing platform becasue right now it's in the way. Not to mention it's just ugly as sin.
