Day 4: Second Day in Hong Kong

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

          Our second day in HK! We slept from 4-8:30am, and the scavenging had started by 9:30-10. We decided today to stick with the "easier" and closer scavenges. Today was just one of those days when everything seems to not go right, even though we had that yesterday too. We went to Stars of Avenue, which was closed. But thankfully we got to walk through the garden, which was really nice. We went to go look for a cafe that was one of our options to go to and it was really close to the hotel. That cafe either no longer exists, or there is 2 of the same address, which was irritating.

Cutest pig in Avenue of Stars Garden!

          We did go to 3 markets, the Jade market, the Ladies market, and the flower market. At one point we went to a supermarket and my dad dried durian, and we both tried mangosteen. We sent postcards out (which was a scavenge) to a boy at Luca's school, and we sent one home to our family to wish my mom a HAPPY 45TH BIRTHDAY!!!
          We went to Chi Lin Nunnery to find the oldest bonsai tree, and it turns out, no one has cut down any of those trees so no one knows how old ANY of the trees are. At this point in the day it was sunny snd humid, and I was getting tired. So we decided to go to a temple before going to a place with AC to strategize. I got my fortune told at Wang Tai Sin Temple, and apparently I am going to have lots of kids and make a lot of money (my dogs can be my kids!).

Rooftop of IFC Mall

          After strategizing at McDonalds, we went to the Buddha Monastery, not exactly right after. We went to a different monastery and we had to take an elevator with a dumpster in the elevator. The correct monastery was right next door so it's wasn't that hard to get to it. As you can see we have had a problem with finding the locations to scavenges many times.
          At that point it was 4pm, we were both very tired, and somehow we decided to go to Fan Ling and do a scavenge there. HUG WASTE OF TIME. We didn't find what we were looking for, so we decided to just finish our mandatory scavenges and go home. We took the subway to Central to start our mandatory ones.

Picnic at IFC Mal

          We went to IFC Mall to buy food and eat it on the roof, we went to a tea house, and one more we did that I cannot seem to remember. It was getting late, we were VERY tired and our feet hurt so bad. We knew we were tired, and somehow we decided to do the longest escalator. I was so so tired, I still am. I am really hoping where were going for the rest of the trip is good and not like HK where we were always tired or other things going wrong.
          Today was just a very hard day, and our feet were killing us so when we got back, we soaked out feet in ice water and then showered. We just learned that our next location is Hanoi, Vietnam! my and my dad have never been there so this should be interesting. It's going to be hot there too, but I'm hoping it's not as humid. It is now late and we have to leave the hotel at 6 so, until next time! ;)


Dad's View:

So there's the "Wheeeee I'm going down a slide so fast" enjoyment... and there's the "I know I'll look back on this fondly but right now my feet hurt a lot" enjoyment.  Today was the latter.

Today we documented my first taste of durian fruit on film.  It smells not great, but it's got a super unique taste that's pretty great - like an avocado, banana, and mango had a baby together.

We went really far out into the hinterlands of Hong Kong (ie Fanling), looking for women dressed in all black with headdresses... and no one out there knew what we were talking about.  I thought the whole "I speak Mandarin" would help, but I think it made them think I was actually crazy, rather than just a foreigner.

There was a LOT of eating today.  Dumplings, dim sum, picnics on rooftops.  Oddly, we have had two strategy sessions in McDonalds in Hong Kong.  For all of you NOT in Asia, it looks like McD's is going automated - they have these TV kiosks that you order off of, and the food appears.  It's weird and super cool.  All I could think of was... "What job will my kids get?"

There's something really satisfying and empowering to be in a city where you don't speak the language (ie Cantonese), can't read the signs, and you can get to wherever you want to go via public transportation.

When you live in Houston, you don't get to do that, and in the US with Uber, if you don't live in Boston, Manhattan, and *maybe* Chicago, you don't have that opportunity.  Today was that day where Sydney and I got to feel like no matter what happened, we could get anywhere, and that's a really great feeling for me as an adult, hopefully just as great for Sydney.

I am writing my post first b/c Sydney is curled up in the fetal position.  I soaked her feet in ice water and gave her ibuprofen when we got back, but she's been completely silent and just curled up.  We'll see if some ice cream perks her up in a bit.

We're back at it tomorrow.  No idea where we're going, but we won't be in Hong Kong.