Day 43 – October 30 – Hong Kong

Today was my day to go a bit out of the city and do another hike. This was going to be a bit different from the Dragon’s Leap trail because the destination included the Big Buddha, officially the Tian Tan Buddha, a massive bronze statue of Buddha situated in the hills of Hong Kong overlooking the airport. It was completed in 1993 and is adjacent to the Po Lin monastery, an important center of Buddhism in Hong Kong. I took the subway out to the end of the line which connects to a long gondola, arriving at the mountain just below the Big Buddha. This area has become a tourist trap of sorts, with a small, artificial village at the exit of the gondola. The village contains numerous fast food restaurants, souvenir shops and a 7-Eleven, not necessarily on the same cultural level as the Big Buddha. From here, I walked through the village and walked down the hill to the base of the Buddha. It sits on a large base with a staircase of about 75 steps up the summit and is flanked by several smaller statues. It is quite impressive. I walked around the Buddha, admiring the bronze work and accompanying statues, and then sat back, just below the base of the monument, to appreciate the calm and tranquil atmosphere. I love moments like this, where I just get to absorb what is unique and special about the places I visit. Here is a hilltop place of reflection, incredibly quiet and meditative, in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world. Tokyo had small, secret gardens in small alleys, Beijing had temples above a lake in the Summer Palace, and New York has rooftop terraces to watch the city light up before you. Finding places like this make me feel like I am part of the city.

I also visited the adjoining monastery, which had some exquisite granite carvings and paintings in vivid colors. It also had an urn outside the entrance for burning incense. But the incense being offered was not just the small sticks of incense used by college students to mask the smell of dirty laundry and trash, no, large bouquets of incense, wrapped in thick paper and tied with ribbon, were the choice of a large segment of worshipers. The incense burned like a torch, with think plumes of smoke rising up from the urns and creating a strong smell of wood and cinnamon. It was very interesting. People also kneeled and bowed, uttering prayers softly so that one needed to be directly adjacent in order to hear the words. I sat back for a while and admired the scene. After a little bit of reflection, I started the hike down the mountain to the subway station. It was a beautiful hike, through the greenery of the mountain until I reached a small road which led back to the subway. I really enjoyed getting some fresh air, out of the city-center. The hike took about 2 hours, and it was not difficult at all since it was all downhill.

After, I returned to the hotel to get ready for my night out. Palin had made a reservation at a private Thai kitchen on the Hong Kong side. I think this is a unique concept. Underground restaurants have been around in Hong Kong for a long time. These restaurants were traditionally unlicensed and located in a family’s kitchen and living room. Over the past decades they have become a little more open and some have become so successful that family have purchased separate units in buildings as their restaurants and kept the family’s living quarters separate. This one was a Thai restaurant Palin likes, and we had a private room with a large round table. She invited a lot of her friends, eventually filling the table to about 14 people. It was great. Palin, speaking Thai, ordered the food and ordered a feast. I mean, we had plate after plate of scrumptious spring rolls and noodles and satay. It was great. I ate way too much. Everyone brought a bottle, so we were drinking wine and cocktails, talking about living in Hong Kong as expats. I was able to give my view on the city as an outsider and as someone who was an expat in Europe for several years. The conversation, like the drinks, flowed copiously. We had a great time. It was fun to see Palin in her element, surrounded by fun, outgoing people.

After dinner we moved on to a couple of different bars and clubs. The first was pretty hilarious. The Western expat community segregates itself pretty completely from the rest of the social scene in the city, so the street we found ourselves on that evening was bursting with Brits and Americans, French and Germans. It was really fun. Also, the average age in the expat community is higher than, lets say, the crowd I usually find myself in when I’m out in New York. So we walk into these bars and you have the dance floor dominated by women in their 30s and 40s in cocktail attire, enjoying the pre-Halloween insanity. We had walked into a cougar den. A couple of vodka tonics later, we were all enjoying the bad Euro-pop and good American hip-hop. Palin introduced me to a couple of her friends who were going to be joining us for the night. She told them to ensure that I had fun, since she had to be up early the next day. So Palin and Todd took off while I continued to enjoy the Hong Kong nightlife. It was crazy. We followed up the Couger Den with an underground club with several interconnected rooms. Each room had a different dj and style of music, which is how I prefer it. If a terrible Robbie Williams song comes on in one room, you can quickly move to another room, while picking up another drink, which is playing something good, like Chris Brown or Wham! I hung out with Palin’s friends for a while, doing shots and making fools of ourselves. It was a great time.

I was really drunk when I got into the cab to go back to the Kowloon side, and I immediately put on my incredulous, I’m-a-Westerner-that-they-are-going-to-try-to-screw blinders. When we arrived at the hotel, the cab driver tried to charge me double the tunnel toll. I put him on notice, dude, I saw how much you paid. I looked at the sign on the toll booth, and the toll is written here on the side of the cab, so how stupid do you think I am, trying to charge me double the toll? I was irate. Not only that, but I had a fantastic air of righteous indignation. Well, turns out that I didn’t read the fine print below the posted tolls which said that if the cab driver takes a passenger from the Hong Kong to the Kowloon side after a certain hour, that driver cannot pick up a passenger on the Kowloon side but, instead, must return immediately to Hong Kong, so the return toll needs to be paid by the passenger. This law is supposed to prevent the buildup of cabs on one side of the harbor. Well, after about 5 minutes of arguing with the cabby, and bringing a cop over, I apologized, still kind of upset, but mostly just drunk, and paid the fare. I also over-tipped (Western-guilt). Time for bed.