I left last Tuesday evening for Hong Kong, one of the world's most interesting cities. I went with my tomodachi (friend) Kate to meet our husbands when the George Washington pulled into port there for a few days. Hong Kong which literally means "fragrant harbour" was a British colony up until 1997 when China resumed sovereignty over it. Hong Kong is a country located on the southeast coast of China, it is a little over 400 square miles and has a population close to 7 million!!! Hong Kong Island which holds about 22% of the population is only 7x9 miles! Basically there are A LOT of people in a very small space!
Around 95% of the population is Chinese in Hong Kong. A few things that I noticed that were very different from Japan were that there were a lot more people who spoke English, which was kind of nice. The people in Hong Kong were also very loud and more disorganized than the Japanese, and MUCH pushier. I literally had to throw some elbows around just to hold my own in a crowd! It is definitely interesting to see other Asian countries after having lived here for a few months now!
Ok, so the flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong was a little over 4 hours, and then we took a train and a bus to our hotel. Now, let me say that our husbands booked the hotel for us so we didn't really know what to expect.... Well, upon walking into the lobby filled with chandeliers, I felt a little bit like little orphan Annie when she first gets to Daddy Warbuck's house... "Leaping Lizards!!!!" We had been traveling for quite a few hours and were tired and we walked into this amazing 5 star hotel.... with a harpist playing in the lobby... A HARPIST! It was pretty amazing! Great job Damian!!! There was a distinct floral scent throughout the lobby area and when we asked about what it was they informed us that is was a custom made scent just for the hotel.... WOW!Ok, so fast forward to the next morning, Kate and I walked around our Causeway Bay neighborhood to scope it out before our afternoon "Enlightenment Tour." We wandered into the REAL Hong Kong... no tourists around these parts. We came across a bunch of markets where there were lots of fruits and vegetables, but A LOT of meat and fish too! There were hearts and intestines, and whole cow hoofs just lying on table to buy... oh boy! So we get to this little market where there are whole chickens... not real sure why we wandered in, but basically people pick the chicken they want and the guy literally chokes it right there and then they take it in the back and pluck it and prepare it for the customer... oh my goodness!!!! I have never seen anything like this before. I reaffirmed my vegetarianism and I think Kate had a hard time eating chicken the rest of the trip!
We walked through Victoria Park which is a beautiful park located in the heart of Hong Kong and saw lots of people doing Tai Chi throughout which was really nice and peaceful. Next we were off to our "Enlightenment Tour!" We traveled to Lantau Island on our tour bus and on our way we could see the George Washington out in Victoria Harbor.
Damian had to stay on the ship an extra day after they pulled in for duty, but it was neat to be able to see that the ship was there. We also could see the ship far off in the distance from our hotel. The first thing on the tour was to travel to the top on Lantau Island via cable car. We chose the option with the "crystal bottom" so that we could look down and see where we were going! It was a 5.7km trip up in the cable car that took about 30 minutes. It was a pretty nasty day as there was a tropical depression, but we could see parts of the South China Sea that were amazing! 
The world's largest seated bronze buddha is located up on top of Lantau Island. Unfortunately because of the weather we could not even see the top, only make out the shape of the Buddha. It is a very popular spot visited by Buddhists from all over the world. This Buddha was completed in 1993 and you can go inside it and walk around. Unfortunately you can't take any pictures inside, but there are relics enshrined there! There is a monastery about 10 minutes walking distance from the buddha. It is called the Po Lin Monastery and is open to the public as it is the most popular Buddhist temple in Hong Kong. The monastery was founded in 1906 and because the large Buddha is here it is a pilgrimage site for many Buddhists. Surrounding the Buddha outside are 6 statues who are making offerings to the Buddha, this was beautiful even on a rainy day so I can only imagine how beautiful it would be on a nice sunny day! 
At the Po Lin Monastery there were also many statues of buddha inside the buildings and extremely decorated each representing something different. In the main building there were 3 seated Buddhas, one representing the past, present, and the future. As the day went on, it got colder and colder and I of course was wearing flip flops expecting the traditional hot and humid Hong Kong weather. It probably didn't help that we were at the top of a mountain at about 2,500 feet above sea level on a cool and rainy day! 
One more stop of the tour was the Tai O Fishing Village which is known as the "Venice of the East." This village has been mostly secluded until they have started bringing tourists here to see how they live recently and I got mixed messages from the locals about having us there. The village is mostly houses on stilts right on the water and is an olf fishing village. It was once the largest settlement on Lantau Island. It was certainly very different than the modern city of Hong Kong we had seen up to this point. You had to wind down this road with many switchbacks to get there and it was actually quite beautiful when we got there. The smell was pretty potent with FISH... I know DUH!?!? The fishing boats looked to me like the fishing boat in "Forrest Gump" and I couldn't believe that these boats were still being used. While walking through the village we mostly saw women... only a handful of men... this is because they were ALL out fishing.
The women in the village are responsible for pretty much everything else while the men are out fishing each day and they work hard! It was interesting to walk down through these alleys and see people skinning fish and carrying large buckets full of fish around... I saw one lady who must have been about 125 and she was still working!!! These fish bladders were hung all throughout the shops down the streets. This is a BIG thing because they dry out the fish bladders, then when they get older and there skin becomes a little less taut and kind of hangy, they put the fish bladders in a pot of water and make a soup that they drink. The fish bladders are extremely high in collagen which helps with the elasticity of the skin... so interesting, but I'm certainly not about to have any fish bladder soup anytime soon... I'll take the wrinkles! This woman was selling almond cookies and wanted to give us all samples so I took one and it was a hot a delicious cookie, and she wanted me to buy a whole package of them and when I walked away I am pretty sure she was cursing at me in Chinese... so I eventually made my way back towards her shop and bought the cookies... they were pretty worth the $3!!!A very long first day, but it went by fast and we headed back to our 5-star hotel for a good rest before we met our husbands in the AM!
Japanese word of the day:
Tomodachi (toe-moe-da-chee): Friend
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