Hangin’ in Hong Kong

I’m skipping forward to the present for the moment.   I still have three or four posts to write up for Taiwan, but i thought I’d actually write about today today!

This morning i slept in.  How’s that for excitement?  I don’t know what it is about airports, customs, immigration, dealing with baggage  (and over-weight charges…) and all that that wears me out so much, but it does.  So, this morning I slept until I felt like getting up.  Which meant that my day actually started around 11 AM by the time I had breakfast and showered, etc.

After that I went downstairs to the concierge desk and looked at tour brochures, then started talking to the most delightful young man behind the counter.  He let me know very quickly just how over-priced all the tours were and how to do it all on my own for a lot less money.  This had the added benefit of allowing me to decide how long I wish to linger at each venue.  I so adore honesty.

He gave me a map, highlighted the bus and tram routes that would take me to each place (including the bus numbers!) and told me how much each would cost so that I could have the exact change required by each method of conveyance.  I started off by going to the Hong Kong Botanical and Zoological Park, with plans to take the tram to Victoria Peak afterwards.

The tram dropped me about 1/2 mile from the zoo.  It wasn’t a long walk, just a very steep walk.  There are a lot of streets here that could give San Francisco a run for its money.  When you see a sign at the base of the street warning you to beware of cars rolling backwards, you know that the darn thing is steep with a capitol “S”.

Needless to say, with the high humidity and temperatures here, I was drenched with sweat by the time I got to the zoo.  But there was a nice breeze and a lot of big, shady trees, so I cooled off while lingering amongst the aviaries.

It’s not a big zoo, hardly a zoo at all, really.  A lot of beautiful birds, a mammal section that was pretty much completely primates and a reptile house that I never actually found.  I still managed to spend three hours there before I knew where they had gone.  I had lunch at the park at their “light refreshments” kiosk.  An egg and ham sandwich and a cup of very, very hot milk tea (it partially melted and deformed the little plastic spoon that came with it.  How hot is that?)  both made fresh by a little old man in the back of the kiosk as I waited and watched.  along with a snickers bar for dessert or a later pick-me-up I spent $38 HK–about $5.30 US.

Back to the birds: there were a lot of them!  I’ll add some pictures with their names.  Please keep in mind that the pictures could be better.  The wire on the cages was pretty heavy-duty and my camera kept wanting to focus on the wires rather than the birds.  When I did get it to focus on the birds, the wire became a blur over parts of their bodies.  Still, most of the pictures are quite clear.

Silver pheasant, male & female

wood duck

Malay peacock pheasant

Grey crowned crane

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blue crowned pigeon

 

 

 

 

 

The primates were a hoot.

Several of the cages had blue plastic barrels hanging inside from the roof.  the barrels had large openings on all sides and the primates would  pile in one at a time, or swung from the bottom while their fellow inmates got a free ride.  It literally was more fun for a barrel of monkeys.

The plant and flower part of the park was beautiful.   I’ll eventually get around to posting some of those too.

cherodendrum

cotton rose

Afterward, I headed for the tram to Victoria Peak.  Bad idea.  It’s Saturday here.  Saturday afternoon.  And the line was loooooooooong.   So very long.   After about half an hour I could see the ticket window.  Then I found out that after the ticket window (still about 20 minutes away) I would have to wait for the tram in a big hall with about 200 hundred of my closest friends (the way they were all packed in there, they would have be become “close” friends…), all sweltering in a pretty much airless space, waiting their turn to board.
A process that would take approximately another 45 minutes.   I bailed.  I’ll go again either early tomorrow or wait until Monday when things are less crowded.

Trip to Mt. Fuji (No “Yama” Mama)

Today my niece’s husband was off from school so it was off to Mt. Fuji for all of us. “All” means my niece, Mia, her husband, Natsuo, and their two children, Hidemi, Satsuki –who are 5 years and 18 months respectively.

Hidemi, Natsuo, Satsuki, Mia at Mt. Fuji

On the drive up, they introduced me to Japanese rest areas. These are not your average U.S. rest areas. More like a small mall. Some are larger, some are smaller, but they contain the requisite bathroom (or 4) and a gas station, plus several eateries, shops carrying all sorts of goods, ice cream and dessert establishments and entertainment. The one we stopped at had a clown making balloon animals for the children and a Rock, Paper, Scissors competition going on in a small open-air amphitheater behind the mall. They take their Rock, Paper, Scissors very seriously in Japan. They had 3 lovely young ladies officiating and coverage by some radio station, but no, I didn’t stay to watch. Instead I was treated to a cup of Japanese-style ice cream. And not ordinary ice cream. This ice cream was made with special high-grade milk from a local dairy that even had a picture of the farmer that owns the dairy. Talk about “local” food! When you go to a grocery store here, the better-quality produce is in special packaging and has a picture of the farmer who grew the fruit or veggie plus a map showing the location of the farm. And those items are not cheap! But they are good….yep, I tried some!

Small portion of rest area

The ice cream was very thick and rich and smooth as silk.  What it was not was disgustingly sweet.  It probably contained one-third the sugar of US ice cream and I have to say that I found it vastly superior to any US brand I’ve ever tried.   I can only eat a single scoop of most ice creams.  The cloying sweetness just overloads both my taste buds and my stomach in a very short span of time.  I could have eaten an entire pint of this and not have been on sugar-overload.  A quart probably wouldn’t have been enough to make me a diabetes candidate.   While we’re on the subject of food differences, the Japanese don’t feel the need to over-color everything either.  I bought a pack of four different flavors of Pez candy.   Four different flavors, but all were the same color — white.  So nice to not have the item I’m eating look like a day-glo reject from a nuclear accident.  (OK, no bad jokes about Japan and nuclear accidents — BEG, wink, wink)

Anyway, on to Mt. Fuji.  For those who insist on saying “Mt. Fujiyama”, please know this:  “Yama” means “mountain” in Janese.  So when you say, “Mt. Fujiyama” you are saying “Mt. Fuji mountain”.   My bit of new knowledge for the day.   Since there is a storm on the horizon, so to speak, we had some concerns that the building clouds would obscure our view of the peak.  And it did seem like it might be a problem as the mountain was only viewable from the waist down on the drive up.  But as the road climbed higher and higher we passed through the lower level of clouds into clear sky and the top of the mountain came into view.   By the time the car was parked and the kids were in their jackets and shoes, the last vestige of cloud had cleared the mountain and left us with an unobstructed view of the peak.

Mt. Fuji

Side note here:  before walking up to the viewing area, we hit the restrooms.  This is where a truly civilized country can shine.  I suppose having a bidet on every Western-style toilet is nice (I haven’t actually tried one out yet.  Not quite sure how much trouble it would be to dry off afterwards…) the icing on the cake here was the fact that all of the toilet seats were heated!  Yes, heated.  It gets cold up there.  Fuji is HIGH.  Even in the summer it can be down-right nippy.  Sitting on that toasty warm seat is a delight.  While I’m at it, let me mention that to save someone with intestinal discomfort from possible embarrassment, they also had the sound of a babbling brook emanating from speakers beside each toilet, set at a volume that was loud enough to drown out any possible sounds of escaping flatulence.   Every other restroom I have been in here had the option of the sound of a flushing toilet available at the push of a button in order to mask any other sound that the stall occupant might not want others to hear.   This was the first place that had pleasant masking sound as a standard feature.  Adorable.

After our little bathroom break, we walked up to get a better look at the peak (and the large selection of shops and restaurants surrounding the parking area…)  As we passed the last souvenir shop we saw about 20 horses tied to rails with several people hawking their “wares”.  The opportunity to have your picture taken on a horse with you little one in your lap…for a mere (approximately) $7.00 US.  Your camera, you print out at home.  The $7.00 was to sit on the horse.  For about $13.50 US, they would walk the horse around the area for about 5 minutes.  For only $28 US, that walk could be extended to 15 minutes!  Natsuo obviously wanted to take Hidemi on a ride, or, at the very least get the picture on the horse.  But the ride was obviously his preference.  Mia was wearing a short skirt and Satsuki was too squirmy and intimidated by the horses to go.    I didn’t think Natsuo wanted to go alone.  Or maybe didn’t want to give himself permission to spend all that money on the short ride with his son, I don’t really know.   But it seemed to me like he could use some moral support for the idea, so I offered to rent a horsie for myself and go along for the ride.

Horse Ride

This whole set-up was meant for the kiddies.  Not the adults.  Well, for the adults in the sense that they could spoil their child a little and get a picture of the whole event for posterity.  It was not meant for the adults alone.  Which is to say that most of the Japanese in the area seemed to find my taking the ride on the horse by myself enormously amusing.   Although they were too polite to actually laugh about it in front of me.  So, of course, I had a wonderful time poking holes in everyone’s expectations of what “should be”.

After the “ride”, I got some wonderful pictures of the native flora and had time to rue the fact that there wasn’t time for me to spend more time hiking around up there.   We went in a couple of shops, bought some souvenirs and then visited a temple tucked behind the stores.  By then most people had left, the sun was nearing the western horizon and the temperature was becoming decidedly nippy.  So after another visit to those adorable heated seats, we headed down the mountain and went to find dinner.  (note to all:  the Japanese version of lasagna bears no resemblance to actual lasagna aside from the cheese on top.  Please don’t order it thinking it will.  It’s not bad tasting, but it’s definitely NOT lasagna!)

Beginnings of fall color

Fall woods with a touch of fog