I grabbed breakfast at a Denny's type place. Spam & egg sandwich and iced milk tea. Most places in Hong Kong seem to charge you extra for iced drinks. I guess since it's so humid, they know people will pay for it?
After breakfast, I picked up my laundry and talked on the phone to family and friends, watched television. I really just had no idea what to do with myself.
On my original itinerary I thought about taking the ferry over to Macau, but decided to wait until my friends came and I had someone to hang out with. I flipped through my travel book a bit, and finally decided to check out the Hong Kong Natural History Museum. I took the MTR (subway) and walked around the area nearby a bit. I ended up actually running into the K11 Tokidoki Exhibition!
After this I headed to the museum. It was less than $1.50 USD for museum entry!
The museum was a great way to spend about 3-4 hours. It's set up to really feel like you are in the historical buildings or events. For the first part, I walked around with an Australian guy I met, Daniel. He was in Hong Kong for work, and had some free time and went to the museum. He left when we got to the first Opium War section to meet his coworkers for lunch. I continued walking along and I ended up chatting with a lady working there. It was really nice, she sat and translated this entire piece about an old sundries store into Mandarin for me even though they had an English placard sitting there.
It seems to me that most people I have encountered in Hong Kong don't really speak English that well. Using half-Mandarin and half-English has been the most effective.
Pictures from the museum:
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| Original Hong Kong people, Pundi |
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| Boat people |
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| Salt production--dry fish and let the salt flow! |
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| Wedding procession |
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Bun Festival --bun mountain replica. In the festival people race to snatch the most buns, it was banned in the past because of toppling and people dying and getting hurt |
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| Lunch at the museum, creamy chicken with pumpkin, rice & veggies, and soup. Plus pineapple sprite! |
I can't remember what I did after the museum, but I know it took up most of my day which is good. I think I probably window shopped, probably got another snack or icy fruit drink.
In the evening I went out to meet couchsurfers for the weekly happy hour in Lan Kwai Fong. I think they were meeting at 8pm, so I didn't eat dinner hoping the bar would have some food and I could eat with other people. Turned out it was just a bar and nothing else :(
One of the girls felt bad for me and said she would accompany me to eat something. Ended up going to a local chain and getting Malay style curry and rice. I met quite a few cool people. A girl named Brigitte from Austria who lives in Taiwan working as an au pair, a Hong Kong native who loves Spanish culture and goes by Paco, and a guy named Eric who also just came back from traveling in Beijing.
Eric and I chatted about my travels and I asked him what he was doing in Beijing. He said nonchalantly, oh I went to Nan Luo Gu Xiang. I look at him, really? that's so random, you go to Beijing for this small shopping street? That's it? Yeah, my buddy has a shop there and he pulls out his Eco-bag which says NLGX!! I'm like noooo way! That's my friends brother's company. And then he asks,wait, did you eat duck on Monday? Haha so turns out we were supposed both be at the same dinner!
Also turns out Eric is from Hawaii! Gosh so many little connections!
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