China Day 20

I took an ass-load of pictures today! Overall, the day was exhausting and had many highs and lows. The day started early (many times with early morning/late night phone calls.. including one from Rhonda and Polly blaming Bowen for something I don't really understand. All I knew was that I was trying to sleep and all the interruptions weren't appreciated. ESPECIALLY since we were all supposedly REQUIRED to attend a tour put on by the Taoist Association of Hong Kong today so we could take advantage of hospitality and get shown around Hong Kong for free. Of course Val, Bowen, and I got put in charge of talking everyone into going when we were initially told it was optional and then at the last minute told it was mandatory. Due to our previous experience with group tours, no one wanted to go, and unfortunately for me, some ridiculous sense of responsibility kicked in and made me feel like I should and that I might miss something cool if I didn't.



Now, this being the trip that it has been, the morning didn't go smoothly. In fact it was a disaster just like everything else we do. Four or five of us showed up to try out the tour with Master Wei and Ming, only to start freaking out about how long the tour was, not wanting to be out all day, and worrying about whether or not we'd be back in time to prepare ourselves to attend the concert that we were all supposed to go to tonight, dressed in style (or our Taoist outfits) - we all know that requires a certain prep time. SO. It turned out that Matt, Drew, and I got duped into going. Ming was yelling and pulling arms, Master Wei was giving the puppy dog face, and then we got told that we'd be back and finished with the tour by 3pm (insert laughter here).

So yeah, it was a day of broken promises, but it did have some high points... First of which was the Giant Buddha! This was exactly what I needed for the last couple of days, and completely made me feel like it was worth going on the tour for. I can't remember the name of the temple, but they have the largest buddha in Hong Kong (maybe China, I don't know) and all I wanted to do was climb up and sit in his palm.. How much fun would that have been?!! Unfortuately for me, it's not socially acceptable to do such things (I would have also wanted to sit on his shoulders in devil and angel poses) and all access was strictly denied through use of ropes and chains.
The other wonderful things about this place were the lunch (YAY shiitakes and baby bok choy! I could have kept eating it til it was gone but we had to leave - I think all the chinese people thought I was nuts) and the Walk to Wisdom.
The Wisdom Walk definitely made me want to run away from the group and climb the mountain which I did in small scale by climbing the little hill at the end of the walk. I disappeared for a while and had to get reined back in. AND too bad for Drew and Matt cause they missed it when they explored on their own..

Another great thing about today was learning that Drew plays guitar! I had no idea. I knew that Matt could (obviously) not go a month without his guitar (since he bought one the other day and now carries it with him at all times), but I didn't know that Drew has been playing for over 10 years! It was great to be tooling around on a bus full of Chinese people through Hong Kong while listening to "Another Brick On The Wall" being strummed next to me.
While walking back to the bus from the Wisdom Walk I decided to play a song for Ming. He has a long standing (for us) joke with Chris about "moneymoneymoney" recordings that they play at the street market stalls that is supposed to draw you in to spend I guess.. so I have this Brazilian song from Anne that has a section in it that goes "a-ch-ch money money.. a-ch-ch moneymoneymoneymoneymoneymoney.." in the background. I LOVE this song and thought it'd be fun to test one of the few words Ming knows in English (and see what his taste in music is). It went AWESOMELY. I was anxiously awaiting the moment when that part of the song would play and as I fidgeted and sang it to Master Wei and finally Ming looked over at me and said, "moneymoneymoney!" I died laughing and squealed loudly on the inside. I was very excited.. we communicated!!! Then it was even better cause I taught Master Wei and Ming the "universal" sign for money (you know - when you rub your fingers with your thumb palm up) which somehow transitioned into teaching Master Wei the words "fat" and "skinny" which had great physical expression and different voices to go with them while Ming kept listening to my ipod... It was all around a great morning.

I didn't want to leave the nice mountains and hiking trails to go back to the city and the crowds, but when the us is leaving the bus is leaving. What can you do? AND since it was only 1pm or something, Drew, Matt, and I all thought we were going to go back to L'Hotel so we could shower and dress for the concert tonight. As we were to soon find out, we were misinformed.

The next stop on the bus tour was the Madame Troussard's Wax Museum at The Peak (shopping mall)...

I could have totally skipped this as I don't give 2 shits about wax celebrities or important Chinese people in wax, BUT Master Wei is excited about everything (it's cute, like he's a little kid on recess) so I tried to just enjoy him wanting his picture taken with wax Bruce Lee and wax Michael Jackson, as well as wax Mao and the Chinese president and some other important figures that I don't know. It was amusing, but overall boring.

After the wax museum we looked out at the overlook and got ice cream. I then got to mess with Master Wei a bit by sitting next to Ming on the bus. This make him squeak a little which was unexpected, but highly amusing.

After The Peak we were taken somewhere down by the water to see some iconic gold statue of Hong Kong - looked like a torch or something. By this time Drew had informed us that he didn't even have his ticket to the concert with him since he thought we were going to be dropped off back at the hotel first. We weren't quite sure what this meant for us, but we thought it might be a problem.

The water front was ok, but whenever I look into the water I really want to look down into the water and see some huge kind of sea monster writhing about (especially when I have no intention of ever going into the water there) like a 30 foot shark or a giant squid or something. But of course there wasn't anything of interest anywhere. I did get to embarrass myself when 2 Chinese guys were asking me to get out of the way so they could take picture of each other, but I thought they wanted to take pictures WITH me.. you know it happens once at Hanauma Bay with some Japanese guys and you're spoiled for life I think. I'm in CHINA... not JAPAN! geez..

After the waterfront they attempted to make us shop (but only for 20 mins) and then we were taken to a crappy dinner before being dropped off at the Taoist Association Concert. We were poorly dressed, exhausted, and stinky (I can speak for myself and Matt). We didn't want to be there (none of us, even Ming since he fell asleep after he looked bored as hell for a while, although Master Wei seemed to enjoy it) and were annoyed but not surprised when the concert turned out to be about 3 times as long as it was supposed to be. The music was ok, there were a couple of really cool performances, but I was ready to go after about an hour. The coolest was the Wudan Mountain Kung Fu guys.

Of course, even getting back to the hotel didn't go as planned and Drew and I regretted not getting on the bus with the couple of other people we knew and instead going back to the bus we came on and took what felt like 2 hours to get home.

Interestingly, our bus got filled up with performers from the Taoist temples around China since we were the las bus to leave the concert hall. Drew and I were completely snubbed and no one would even look at us or sit next to us. It was incredible.

Apparently all the "real" Taoists think we're phoney posers and to a certain extent they're right, but when they behave in such an unfriendly way, that makes them no better than any of the other religions.

Anyway, I have never been so excite to get "home" and try out some silky bubble bath. Bowen had gone off to Macau so I had the place all to myself. It was a little lonely, but I slept very well.