In which we very nearly meet our Maker...

Okay well not really. But we DID take a gondola up a series of crazy mountains during a thunderstorm!

The only thing we really, really wanted to do in Hong Kong was take this gondola across Lantau island to a mountaintop monastery, which is home to the largest outdoor Buddha statue in the world. The monsoon of the previous 2 days was so intense that they actually shut down the gondola, so this was the first (yet also extremely rainy and windy) day we decided to go for it.

Lantau is a 30 minute, extremely scenic train ride from downtown HK. It looks like Hawaii-- waterfalls, beaches, monkeys*, the usual assorted jungly goodness-- but with supertall apartment buildings and an international airport.

It was raining so hard when we arrived at the station that we had to sprint to the gondola launch, and the station attendant advised us that the gondola may have to shut down again, and we actually debated giving up altogether. I'm so glad we didn't!

Of course, none of our pictures really turned out from the inside of rain-streaked windows, but you get the general idea. The ride itself was about 90 minutes roundtrip, silently gliding hundreds of feet above the aforementioned jungly goodness, occasionally lurching violently as the thunderstorm gained strength. We still wonder what would've happened if they had to stop the gondola-- would we have been left hanging? Rescued by helicopter? Plummet to our deaths? Hmm.

It was raining so hard by the time we got to the summit we couldn't even get the camera out for fear of ruining it, and approaching the Buhdda (still about a 30 min hike away from the station) seemed rather damp and anticlimactic after such a unique experience. That, and the monastery had recently been sterilized by capitalism:


The ride back was hella intense. The gondola was swaying harder than ever, and visibility gradually reduced to this:


... and it went on for so long we got bored and had to amuse ourselves with narcissism:



Ben has perfected his Blue Steel after years of practice, but I've really got to work on my Le Tigre.

*I'm aware that there are no monkeys in Hawaii, but there are monkeys in the Hawaii of my dreams. And unicorns. So shut it.

Blade Runner

Hong Kong is the 2nd most beautiful city I've seen after Venice. Picture the most futuristic sci-fi Cowboy Bebop megacity rising out of steaming, verdant jungle, and that's pretty much Hong Kong.

From HK and Taiwan 2009

I'd probably rank the most beautiful cities in order from Venice, Hong Kong, Paris, and then miscellaneous European capitals. Osaka's probably ugliest, followed by Bangkok, then Tokyo (Japan is hideous for the most part, but the temples and parks photograph really well).


Hong Kong is most entertaining at night, when all the markets and good restaurants open and the people-watching becomes more diverse. There were so many people out at night, even on weekdays, that we really aren't sure when anybody sleeps. Even the little kids had later bedtimes than us.

First up is the flower market. Can anyone tell me what these are? The blossoms were larger than my head:


Pitcher plants! They eat bugs! Sacred to something or other, because they were everywhere:


There was also a massive pet market, but it was depressing to see animals of all sorts (including little black squirrels, myna birds, monkeys, etc) crammed into mostly tiny, filthy cages looking both mournful and frantic. I get the feeling that this street gets inspected a lot--nobody wanted me taking pictures. The fish guys didn't seem to mind though, and the (live) fish market was amazing. Any possible type of fish/live plants/coral was available here:


I had some Black Florest Cake, Ben had the America Heavy Cheese Cake. The apricot cakes are for birthdays and symbolize longevity, which I only know b/c we always keep a list of perplexing things to Google when we get home:

Monsoon

We spent the first few days in Hong Kong exploring our neighborhood (Kowloon/Nathan Rd) by scampering from doorway to doorway to avoid the incessant downpour and trying to find indoorsy things to do. Our options were pretty much limited to malls and museums. The malls looked like all other malls the world over with the exception of a couple gems:

And the art museum was laughably awful... I'm sure we saw things of cultural and historical significance, but the layout was uninspired at best and how many faded scrolls can a person really look at before horfing with boredom? I was hella excited about the Takashi Murakami exhibit, but for some reason the curators decided that all of the plastic LV-logo emblazoned displays were so priceless that a peircing alarm would sound anytime someone approached them, so the entire (crowded) room was ringing incessantly the entire time we were in there. I guess in a way that's appropriate for Murakami, since most of his stuff is both gleeful and unsettling. Case in point:
So then we decided to take the Star ferry from our neighborhood (Kowloon) to downtown HK, and fortunately it cleared long enough to get some decent pictures of the waterfront:

From HK and Taiwan 2009

Free of infectious disease since 2009!

See, I even have a certificate from the Japanese government, acquired during our connection to Hong Kong. I love that we were only in Japan for 2 hours, yet the extreme Japanese-ness of the situation still managed to make this one of the most memorable events of the trip. They basically held us hostage for 40 minutes (Pilot announcement: "Stay seated, and lower your windowshades. No talking and no pictures please while health officials take your temperatures with a thermographic device") while hazmat-suited officials inspected the aircraft. It was so awesomely paranoid and slightly apocalyptic that Ben practically had to physically restrain me from hugging the nearest one as officials pawed through the luggage of the woman sitting across the aisle (she had unfortunately been truthful on her form and stated she was taking medicine for a cough). I so, so desperately wished I knew enough about my (new!) camera to have secretly snapped more pictures (it flashes and makes happy tinkly noises, which prevents me from taking pictures of strangers and posting them on the internet, dang it).

We had business class all the way to HK, and I have never seen planes this empty or airports this... paranoid. The swine flu extravaganza is still in high gear, and it was rare to see anyone (including the flight crews) without masks. Signs everywhere repeatedly assure travellers that 'this bathroom/elevator/turnstile is being disinfected every 30 minutes'. This madness continued in HK, especially in the subways.

This was the first trip that was nearly rained out. Fortunately, this gives me the opportunity to make awesome fashion statements:


And to feast upon Chinese baked goods in our hotel room during mid-afternoon thunderstorms:


Ah, Cream-Filled Collon, how I missed you.