Hong Kong: Day 14, A nearly free day

We started the day by sharing a Chinese style breakfast at the hotel, then we went to meet Aunt R at their childhood home which had been occupied by Uncle L and Aunt A up until they sold it about 10 years ago. I thought perhaps they’d made arrangements with the new owners to see the place, but instead we took pictures in front of the locked gate and high cement wall.

After that mom and Aunt R went shopping, and I took the metro out to Lantau island. This is the island where the airport and Hong Kong Disneyland are located, but there were other sites that interested me. I took a bus to the town of Tai O, an actual fishing village. I got there to discover them offering 20-minute tours of the area that included the opportunity to see dolphins. I’m not that into boats, but I figured I could survive 20 minutes. I was kind of hoping they’d spend more time in the village and less out to see looking for dolphins, but I survived. On the boat with me were three giggling teenage girls who got all excited to see an egret. We did not see any dolphins, but the girls took lots of pictures of each other. It turns out they were doing an ecotourism project for which they interviewed me afterwards.

I walked around the village for a while and bought a bun for lunch. The variety of fresh and dried seafood products did not appeal to me. I then took the bus to the Po Lin Monastery and its giant Buddha (the world’s tallest outdoor seated bronze Buddha) They charged admission to the Buddha, but mostly it was the heat that deterred me from climbing all those stairs. The monastery was quite nice, and I was happy to find that they allowed photography.

From there I walked through the newly constructed tourist trap village to the Ngong Ping 360 cable car which I took back to the metro. The visibility was relatively good, and the view was stunning.

I took the metro back to Hong Kong central where I walked through the neighborhood of Soho to the Dr. Sun Yat-sen museum. The museum is in the area called the Mid-Levels which means it’s on the hillside. They have a series of escalators going up to the Mid-Levels, so the walk up wasn’t that bad even though it was quite a ways. I wanted to see this museum since I’m distantly related to Dr. Sun, the first president of China. My mother’s father’s brother was married to Dr. Sun’s daughter. There was a lot of information about a very complicated period of China’s history, so I think I learned a lot, but the displays were rather dry, and I didn’t think the audio tour helped much. There was pretty much no mention of his family beside his wedding photo to his second wife. The half of the museum dealing with Dr. Sun’s influence on Hong Kong was closed, but there was a special exhibit by an American photographer (Stafford) on the 1911 revolution.

Since there was no elevator going down, I saw more of Soho on the way down, but it could have been the international quarter in any major city in the world.

It was aunt R’s turn to invite the family to dinner, and she chose a very fancy Chinese seafood restaurant in the Holiday Inn. Again, Uncle L, Aunt A, her servant, and Aunt R’s husband were there. As with all family gatherings at which Aunt A was present, Aunt R’s son (my cousin) was not invited. Aunt A and Aunt R were pregnant at the same time, but Aunt A miscarried, and she’s held a grudge against my cousin ever since. He is not allowed anywhere in Aunt A’s presence, and the rest of the family lets her get away with this dreadful behavior. I feel especially bad about this because my cousin is only a year older than me, yet Aunt A has nothing against me. I really respect my cousin that he can tolerate this situation for the sake of keeping peace in the family.