Hong Kong: Day 4, a lesson in humidity

This morning we went to breakfast at a restaurant recommended by my cousin E who visited recently from the states. I ordered scrambled eggs, sausage, toast, and tea. The place certainly was a bargain with the full meal for about $3, but it was not so good. Sausage turned out to be hot dogs, and I think the eggs were powdered and undercooked. Oh well, we’ll try someplace else tomorrow.

My mom went back to the hotel to meet her sister for church, so I went for a walk in Kowloon Park. Despite the heat (~25 C/77 F) and extreme humidity, there were a lot of people of all ages there exercising in one way or another: jogging with i-pods, doing tai-chi or yoga alone, or doing tai-chi-like martial arts (with or without swords) in large groups. The park had an exercise trail with built in equipment and instructions.

After church, we took the ferry over to Hong Kong Island where my cousin V and his wife picked us up. We drove to “the peak” which is a mall at the top of the mountain. There is also a tram that goes up there, and it has long been a tourist destination because of the spectacular views. Unfortunately the humidity was manifesting itself as a dense fog up there, so we could hardly see from one building to another. If we get a clear day later on, maybe we’ll go back, but this mountain really feels like a rain forest to me. Stepping out of the air conditioned car felt like walking into the bathroom right after somebody had taken a hot shower. It was almost hard to breathe. I found myself checking my glasses and camera all the time because I thought they’d fogged up, but they hadn’t; it was really just the humidity. My cousin said it is often so damp in the high-rise apartments that seem to have sprouted out of the sides of the mountain that people regularly have to wipe off their furniture with a towel and ring it out into a bucket (indoors!).

My mom treated us to lunch at the restaurant that had been recommended in her guidebook. The menu was a curious blend of Indian, Thai, Mexican, and western. Unfortunately, we were ordering family style where we share the dishes, so Mexican was out. I’m not so fond of Indian food, and the pad thai that I ordered wasn’t very good, but I did not leave hungry.

I asked if there was anything like an “old town” or historic neighborhood in Hong Kong, so they tried to show me some older buildings that dated to before WWII, but they were few and far between. The property values have been very high for quite some time; therefore much of the old has long since been torn down. We were luck enough to stumble across a street performance with Lion Dancers which was fascinating. Unfortunately there was no place around to park legally, so I only got to watch for a few minutes. We also got to see a Buddhist temple, an herbalist shop, and a selection of other places, all while my cousin double parked. I was so impressed with his driving skills, both for being able to find his way around this maze of one-way streets and dead-ends (few of which are straight due to the hilly landscape), and for doing all this without getting hit by a bus, trolley, or taxi which zoom around like crazy.

We dropped his wife off because she was invited out by friends, then we continued the tour around to the other side of the island where the old fishing villages had been converted into beachside resorts/luxury living. Here the sun was almost reaching through the humidity creating some very nice light. We were lucky enough to find a parking place, so we all got out and walked around for a while. Then we made a quick visit to my cousin’s beautiful apartment before heading off to the yacht club for a delicious buffet dinner. We ate outside where we should have had a fantastic view of the Hong Kong waterfront and Kowloon, but it was so foggy that we could barely see Kowloon, and once again the light show was pretty much lost on us. The lights reflecting off the fog made for an eerie brightness.