The Occasional Blog of Jonah Weiland

A handful of photos from Saturday in Hong Kong have been posted to the gallery. This day we literally got rained out the weather was so bad and just gave up on sight seeing.

I realize now I never posted the Saturday write-up, which I’ve just posted here. I changed the titles to reflect the proper order. It’s not very exciting, other than the fact we were completely rained out that day. Awful, awful rain.

Hey kids, I’ve posted my first set of photos from the trip to China. Not a very sexy set of photos, but it’ll start to give you a flavor of the visit. Go ahead and visit the gallery (excuse the design, no time yet to intergrate it into the WordPress template) and click on China, 2005. Basically the photos from our first day and night are up now.

I’m posting this part of my trip on Monday August 29th. I’m back in LA and recovering from the much lag. I’m working on the images now and will post the rest of my journal entries over the course of this week. I’ve still got some writing to do.

It’s Saturday morning, August 27th, as I write this. I’m on the plane from Beijing back to Hong Kong. Beijing was a real adventure, but more about that later. That’s jumping ahead and that’s not allowed. That would be cheating.

Tuesday was going to be a bit of an unusual day. Before I came to China I had asked around in the comics community about the Hong Kong comics scene. I was referred to Erik Ko or Udon Comics. He knows quite a bit about the Hong Kong comics scene and hooked me up with Alan Wan, the Deputy Chariman of Jade Dynasty, the largest comics publisher in Hong Kong. Alan and I discussed things over e-mail before I left for China and we had arranged to have lunch on Tuesday, followed by a trip to his office and an interview.

My day would start a bit later than usual, which was fine by me as I really needed the extra sleep to take care of my cold. I spoke with Adeline Ho that morning, the licensing manager for Jade Dynasty as well as Alan’s assistant, who asked me to meet them at the Hang Fa Chuen subway station, well on a side of the Island I’ve not visited before. No problem, let’s have an adventure. While I did my interview thing, Sharon met Carrie in town to do some shopping.

Around Noon, Jimmy and I took a cab down to the Causeway Bay station and hopped on the Subway. He left me two stops later when he went to drop his passport off at the Chinese consulate so that he could get a visa to visit the mainland a week later (he was going to Shanghai and then Xian to see the Terra Cotta Soldiers ). I continued on down the line, got off at Hang Fa Chuen about 10 minutes early, went to the Circle K market to get some water. Adeline met me at the market only moments later.

She walked me a short ways to a dim sum restaurant next door where we waited a couple of minutes while Alan parked his car. Adeline asked about my trip and what I had been doing. I told her about my visit to Hong Kong Disneyland the previous Sunday and she said she’d be going the following Saturday and was really looking forward to it. When I went to Disneyland only 5,000 people were in the park. When she was going there’d be 25,000+. I hope the fighting of the crowds wasn’t too crazy for her..

Alan arrived shortly thereafter and we sat down for what was probably the best Dim Sum meal I’ve ever had. Alan told me that in China if a Dim Sum restaurant is very noisy and active, it’s almost always good. If it’s quiet, you should leave immediately as it’s probably pretty bad. Without a doubt this was a very noisy, very active restaurant and I’m pretty sure I was the only white guy in the restaurant. I like those odds!

Lunch consisted of a lot of talk about comics, both American and Hong Kong. I won’t bore you with the details here, especially as it will eventually end up as part of a feature article over at Comic Book Resources in a couple of weeks. Suffice it to say it was a fascinating and delicious lunch and talking with Alan and Adeline gave me another view of Hong Kong that I would otherwise not have. Alan often apologized for his English skills, which I never found lacking. In fact, I found his English to be perfectly fine. Certainly a lot better than my Cantonese.

The food itself was similar to the dim sum I’ve had in Los Angeles, with a bit more flavor and variety. Alan had asked if I wanted more American style or Hong Kong and I told him to bring on the Hong Kong. Unlike Dim Sum in Los Angeles where they bring the food around on a cart and you pick and choose what you want, in Hong Kong you order your food ahead of time and they bring it direct from the kitchen. Probably means it’s a bit fresher. My favorite dim sum dish is paper noodles and they were the best ever here. Tasty!

Lunch lasted about an hour and a half, at which point Alan, Adeline and I drove to the offices of Jade Dynasty where I interviewed Alan for about 40 minutes. He had to leave at that point for a meeting, so Adeline gave me a tour of their offices which was fascinating. Once again the full report will eventually end up on CBR for those of you who are interested in how comics are put together in Hong Kong, which is very different than in the United States.

Around 3:30 that afternoon Adeline saw me off and I took a cab back to Parkview to meet up with Jimmy. It seems the way I got to see Hong Kong was through a series of cab rides. This day was one of my longest cab rides, about $12 US. I got stuck in a little bit of Hong Kong traffic, which was kinda fun. The freeways are littered on either side with massive apartment buildings, sometime butting right up to the freeway. It was odd to think that some of these apartment buildings, which saw the third floor up against the freeway, would have apartments underneath the freeway. Did that make sense? Basically floors one and maybe two would have a view beneath the freeway, while floor three would have a direct view of traffic. I guess that’s true for some places in New York and Chicago as well. Not the kind of living I’d want to do.

While I was off doing my interview, Jimmy was at the Chinese consulate getting his passport visa taken care of. Unfortunately for Jimmy, it took a lot longer than it should have. See, he arrived, took his number and waited for it to be called. He got a number like 189, but at the time they were serving number 150 and the numbers weren’t moving very quickly. OK, no problem, just sit there and do some reading or cross words, right? Except when Jimmy next looked up they had called 190. Shit! Missed his number. So he got up, told the guy at the counter that he missed his number by one, at which point the guy pulled a new number for Jimmy and sent him back to his seat. He wasn’t rude or anything, but clearly there was a system they had in place and they were sticking to it. Jimmy had another hour long wait, so he went next door to the adjacent convention center and poked around in there. Turns out it was a convention of forensic scientists (Chinese CSI?). Jimmy was tried to pop into a lecture or two, but at outside every room was a guard checking credentials, so no chance for Jimmy to check out some dead dudes or mutilated corpses. Oh well.

After I arrived, Jimmy and I hung out at the apartment for a while, as Sharon and Carrie finished up their shopping. Later that night we all met up at Taco Loco in the Midlevels. Sharon wanted to see what Mexican food was like in Hong Kong. Why not? Los Angeles has some absolutely amazing Mexican food and pretty much everywhere I’ve tried Mexican food that wasn’t in the American South West, it’s been a disappointment. Now while it wasn’t awful food by any stretch, Taco Loco would classify as barely average Mexican food by Los Angeles standards. It was a tiny little restaurant, as most of them are in Soho, run by Indians, which was odd. Almost all of the diners were expats, except for one Asian couple that came in as we left. A lot of people had come in to order take away. Guess it’s the place for expats to get a taste of home.

Following Taco Loco we headed down back to what became our regular stop, Dublin Jacks, where we enjoyed some drinks. Jimmy his usual Carlsberg, Carrie her usual Vodka Tonic, while Sharon and I enjoyed Tsing Tao beer, which I think tastes similar to Rolling Rock, but for some reason it gets me drunk much faster. I bought a Dublin Jack’s Hong Kong Cup Rugby jersey while I was there. It’s my first and only jersey I’ve ever bought. I’m not a big fan of jesey’s, but this one’s rather unique so why not?

We left Dublin Jacks about an hour later and made our way over to Loft 9, a popular expat bar in Soho. There we enjoyed a few more drinks (I switched to Diet Coke, or Coke Light as it’s called here, because Jonah doesn’t do the much drunkenness) and met with Carrie’s friends Brenda and David. The bar was another pretty hip joint, frequently by almost entirely expats while we were there. Sharon and I were both pretty tired, so we spent about 45 minutes there, then hopped in a cab back to the apartment and called the night early. That, ladies and gentlemen, was Tuesday.

Monday morning started with the usual trek over to the grocery store for bagels and stuff, then we figured out how to get to the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery. The Monastery is located in the New Territories, so we’d have to take a different train system than we’ve been using so far, the now familiar MTR. We hopped in a cab at Parkview and took it down to a subway station, rode the MTR for a short bit, then transferred to a KCR light rail train that services the portion of the New Territories we were visiting. (I don’t have my travel guide with me as I write this, so I’m not sure where).

Now, when we left the apartment the front desk said take the KCR to the New Territories, then flag down a cab to take us to the monastery. When we arrived at our destination, we just did that, at which point Jimmy was yelled out of the cab. “You walk! You walk!â€? He wasn’t particularly rude, just insistent! The cabbie was right. The monastery was a short walk from where we were. But that’s where we were faced with a big surprise– the 10,000 Buddha’s were located high up on a mountain and the only way to get there was by climbing hundreds and hundreds of steps.

Well, we weren’t going to let any steps stop us, so we began our climb. The path the entire way up had life sized buddhas of all sorts on both sids of the path. The path was long, very long, a bit slippery, and the steps weren’t exactly the best made steps ever made. And while the weather this day was rather nice, no rain at least, it was quite hot and very humid, typical for Hong Kong at this time of year. The climb wasn’t easy. We’d have to stop every three or four stories to mop off with the towels we stashed in our bag from the apartment. Jimmy pointed out that this may have been hard (and it was), but it was nothing compared to the Great Wall. 10,000 Buddhas were just a warm up. Add to all of this that I now had a full blown cold and well, damn, it was a tough climb.

The Buddha’s littering the sides of the path came in all sorts. Some fascinating looking Buddhas, my favorite of which I took pictures of which I’ll post later. We finally arrived at the top after a 15 or 20 minute climb. I can’t be certain how high up it was, but I’d say at least 10-15 stories. Once on top we saw the various temples and Buddha’s located up there. The main temple had thousands and thousands of small buddhas inside. There was a beautiful Pagoda that you could go up inside, as well as what looked to be a mausoleum housing possibly thousands of ashes. I could be wrong, though.

The 10,000 Buddha’s monastery is a relatively new creation. Once again I don’t have the pamplet from there, but it was built in the late 1940s by some famous monk. It was all very colorful and quite beautiful. We spent some time up top, stopping to have a drink in their small reception area (when I say reception it’s a very modest room with some tables and plastic chairs). I’d say there were maybe 10-15 visitors up there total, which included a handful of worshippers. After about half an hour or so we began our trek down. There are two ways up to the monastery, so we took the other way down which afforded us a look at even more buddhas. All told there are actually 12,800+ Buddhas, but really, does the 12,800 Buddha’s Monastery sound quite as cool? I think not.

As we came down the mountain we were left off in a small, rather poor looking community. A vendor was there selling all sorts of vegetables and dry meats. I would have bought some, but with the cold I wasn’t feeling very adventurous. We got back on the KCR and stopped in TST on Kowloon Island, across the water from Hong Kong.

At this point we were all rather hungry and needed a beak (as Jimmy said, “10,000 Buddha’s kicked my ass!â€?). We were all soaked through and just needed something familiar to eat. Before I came here I said, “No American Food Stuffs!!!â€? Well, I broke that rule on Monday by suggesting we just go to McDonalds since the other places near by contained mostly mystery food and we all wanted something fast. Before heading to McDonalds I changed my shirt (taking along an extra shirt is key in Hong Kong), then got my lunch– a Big Mac value meal. The Big Mac tasted quite different than its American counterpart. The sauce was slightly different and the meat didn’t taste quite the same. But the large Diet Coke and food really hit the spot.

We left the Golden Arches behind and walked to the Star Ferry. Early on in the trip I told Jimmy about my weird public transportation jones, so he wanted to make sure I conquered all styles of public transportation while in Hong Kong. On the way to the Star Ferry we stopped for some day light pictures of Hong Kong Island, then hopped on the Ferry across the water to Hong Kong Island, about a five minute boat ride or so. Mostly smooth, but rocky enough to bother my sister Sharon who just doesn’t like that sea motion.

Once we arrived on Hong Kong Island it was time to take a bus to the funicular that would take us up to the top of the Island, or as it is called “The Peak,� to get a view of both sides of the Island. The bus was uneventful, as most buses should be, but it did have air condition which offered us a brief respite from the beat down the heat was giving us.

When we arrived at the funicular station, it was jam packed with people. Jimmy said he’s never seen it that busy and has taken it up there a number of times. So, we waited in line for another half hour, which is when my cold really started hitting me. Blech! But I wasn’t about to let that stop me.

By the way, I should mention here that that Octopus card I mentioned earlier, the metro card, can be used everywhere in Hong Kong basically as cash. The Star Ferry, the KCR, the bus, the funicular, even McDonalds or a host of other stores such as Starbucks, all honor the Octopus card. It makes getting around very very convenient, and it’s still rather cheap. Most bus rides were less than a buck US.

The funicular ride was amazing. The car was jam packed (we were in the front of the line, but a chain of girls, who all held each other by their waists, pushed their way in front of us, so we ended up having to stand on the ride, which wasn’t exactly easy. See, the climb up the mountain is steep. Very steep. Sharon and I each had a wall to lean against, but Jimmy was standing in the aisle at almost a 45 degree angle at times. The funicular would stop occasionally as it made it’s climb. In fact, there are two stations before we reach the peak for people to get off at. Jimmy said one time when he went up there he saw a little boy, appearing as having come home from school, get on at the first stop, then get off at the second stop. What a way to get home from school.

Once we arrived at the peak we took in the view, which was spectacular. I took a bunch of photos, but I dare say they don’t do the view justice at all. It just doesn’t capture the size and beauty of it all.

Now, at the top of the peak they’re building a new viewing station. It’s still under construction, but you can go in it at this point. Jimmy said we should shine it on, and instead make our way to the viewing platforms at the top of the Peak Mall. That’s right, there’s a mall at the Peak of the Island. They put them everywhere! So, we did just that, going up the escalators to the top of the Mall. The views from there were fantastic and gave us a look at both sides of the Island, the highly populated “downtown� side, then the other side of the Island which plays home to the Stanley Market, a trip to which we’d make on Wednesday. If you ever make it to the peak, shine on the viewing station and just go to the mall. You’re afforded fantastic views with no wait and not as many people. Jimmy said the day we went was one of the busiest he’d ever seen it and there were maybe 10 people up there total.

We spent some time taking in the view and even did a little bit of gift shopping, at which point we took a cab back to the apartment. It was time for some rest.

This was the point at which I realized there’s really not much to do in Hong Kong other than party and shop when Jimmy and I had discussed what to do the next couple of days we were in the city. He said Sharon and I might want to check out the Big Buddha, but that he’d already seen it and didn’t really need to go back. See, I was under the impression that the Big Buddha was thousands of years old, but when I discovered it was erected in 1976, suddenly it didn’t hold quite the same appeal. Jimmy said the bus ride up there was long and a major pain in the ass, so I said let’s screw it. We’ll find something else to do.

That night the three of us made our way over to Kowloon Island again to meet Carrie at the Intercontinental Hotel for drinks. This is a must visit for anyone who goes to Hong Kong. It’s got a fabulous bar that affords you a spectacular, and I mean spectacular view of Hong Kong at night. During the summer months at around 8:00 at night the buildings on Hong Kong Island all take part in a fabulous light show. Just amazing looking. It’s a bit like Vegas, but all in a row instead of on two sides of a road way. Plus, there’s many, many more tall buildings, instead of just expansive building after expansive building. Just amazing.

We had drinks until about 9:30 or so (this is the one place we visited where drinks weren’t cheap, but that’s perfectly fine. You’re paying for the view), then Sharon and I left Carrie and Jimmy and walked outside to take some pictures of Hong Kong from the Avenue of the Stars, pretty much a walkway on the water with kind of a Hollywood Walk OF Fame, but once again it was Hong Kong style. I didn’t recognize any of the names, hoping I’d see some familiar Hong Kong action stars among the mix. We did see plenty of Asians placing their hands in the cement casts of some of their favorite stars, or taking pictures along side of them.

After we were done taking in the breathtaking view, Sharon and I picked up a cab and headed over to the Temple Street Night Market for some bargain shopping. The heat was still pretty awful and I was feeling damned sick, but we pushed our way through. Now, this was really the first time Sharon and I were on our own in Hong Kong…and it was at night. A bit intimidating at first. The cabbie dropped us off at the night market, about a $15 HK ride (just about $2 US). The night market is a loud and busy place, with all sorts of vendors around to bargain with. Lots of junk, lots of fake stuff including fake Rolexes and pirated DVDs. If you’re not in the mood to haggle or are intimidated by pushy, pushy sales people, this isn’t for you. Hell, Hong Kong isn’t for you. We arrived at the night market around 10:00 at night, but didn’t know what time the last train to Hong Kong was, so we only stuck around for an hour, which wasn’t nearly enough time to take everything in and make the necessary purchases. Plus, the cab situation in Hong Kong was still a bit alien to us. Certain cabs stay on Hong Kong Island, certain ones stay on Kowloon and only some go back and forth. So, we decided to play it safe and made our way to the Jordan subway station to head back over to Hong Kong Island. We got off at Pacific Place station, got a bit lost as we left the station, but found our way to the United Centre to catch a cab back to Parkview. Not a problem really as Hong Kong is a very safe city.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was Monday.

Sunday morning we hopped over to the grocery store at Parkview and bought some Spinach Bagels and cream cheese (a regular part of our morning routine). Once we were all ready to go, we hopped on the MTR (subway) and made our way to the Disney line. Disneyland has their very own subway system from the MTR to the park. Their train is outfitted with windows in the shape of the Mickey Mouse brand. Even the handlebars you hold onto while traveling were in the shape of Mickey’s head.

The train dropped us off at the entrance to Disneyland, where there seemed to be a lot more people than there should be for a rehearsal day. The park doesn’t open until mid-September, but until then they’ve been

Weather was mixed all day. It was humid as all hell the entire day, but the rain would go away for a while, then come back with a vengeance. No problem, when it rained bad we’d either take in a show or go stand in a ride’s queue line to get out of the rain.

First off I should explain why we were at Hong Kong Disneyland. Sharon’s friend Carrie has been working at the park for the past five months on one of their two live shows. She’s working on “The Golden Mickey’s,� a live-action show I’ll tell you a bit more about later. I believe her title is Production Coordinator or Production Manager. Basically, she makes sure everyone stays in budget. She’s been working hard, long hours on this show, usually from very early in the morning to very late at night. Well, the park is set to open next month, but until then they’re holding rehearsal days to make sure everything runs smoothly once they open to the masses. Only 5000 people are allowed into the park on a rehearsal day, which is very nice considering they’re expecting 25,000+ when the park opens.

So, we got off the Disneyfied subway and made our way to the park. The entrance to the park was quite packed with people. Far too many for them all to be there for rehearsal day. It became clear shortly that many of them were there just to look and brought along their very, very disappointed children. I saw a number of kids crying as we made our way to the entrance of the park. Poor kids. You only have to wait one more month!

As we entered the park we got our first taste of the Americanized names the employees, errr, cast members use. Most of these names are actually direct translations from their Chinese names. I saw simple names like Tracy and Mike, but also saw a guy named Jekyl and Jackson and Carrie told me there’s a guy with Fat Pig on his name tag, as well as an Alien and Salami. Love it! The staff was unbelievably helpful and sweet. We were greeted with, “Have a magical day� at the front gate and people waving at us with gloves that resembled Mickey’s hands. Scary ass four fingered freaks!

In Hong Kong, Mickey and Minnie Mouse are big time popular, but they actually have Chinese names. They’re known as Mi-Kay and My-Lei Losu.

We entered the park and walked down Main Street towards the castle you find at every Disney theme park. Now, this one looks much smaller than the one at Disneyland in Los Angeles. I’ve been told two different explanations for this. One was that they actually made the castle 2/3’s normal size since the park has less land than some others. The second explanation was that it was actually full sized, but on flat land versus having been propped up a number of feet like in Anaheim. The reason for this was to ensure an unobstructed view of the beautiful mountain side behind the castle. Either way it looks smaller. Whether it actually is or not I’m not certain.

We made our way to the Plaza Inn restaurant to meet Carrie during her lunch break. As we entered they had little plastic bags for us to put our rather wet umbrellas in and even greeted us with a hand towel to help dry ourselves off. I was expected some sort of Americanized burger joint, but instead was pleasantly surprised by Dim Sum faire, which wasn’t at all bad. We sat and talked about the park, then about an hour or so later we walked across the park to the Storybook Theatre to check out Carrie’s show, “The Golden Mickey’s.�

The show’s basic premise was that it was an award show which was being covered by a reporter named Bebe, a real life human being versus a character. The show was “giving away� awards recognizing Friendship, Heroes, Adventure and Romance. It was a mixed live action/filmed video presentation that I told Carrie afterward I rather resented enjoying as much as I did. She told us ahead of time that it was a half hour show, at which point I thought to myself, “Christ, I’m gonna have to sit here for half an hour watching a bunch of schlock.� Now, as long as you don’t think about it too deeply (and really, why would you?), you’ll really end up enjoying it.

It was odd to watch the show, too, as while the musical numbers were all in English, the bridge pieces were all in Cantonese. You can make out the basic gist of things, but I certainly didn’t understand what they were saying. Pretty much after Bebe came out and said “Hello,� I couldn’t understand anything else.

The show was a real Broadway production style, along the lines of Disney’s successful “Sleeping Beauty� and “The Lion King� stage plays. Most of Disney’s most popular films were represented in the show, including big numbers for “Toy Story,� “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,� “Tarzan� (the guy who played him had the ladies swooning), “Mulan,� “Lilo & Stitch,� “The Little Mermaid� (the woman playing the little mermaid had the guys panting) and “Beauty and the Beast.� The “Tarzan� piece was probably the best, with all sorts of crazy acrobatics and what not. Like I said earlier, even little ol’ cynical Jonah came away enjoying the show and I’m not just saying that because I know someone who’s sweated for months on the show. It’s actually quite good.

After the show Jimmy, Sharon and I left Carrie to go do her work and we began to explore the park. For those of you who’ve visited the park in Los Angeles, Hong Kong Disneyland will seem small. Hell, for anyone who visits Hong Kong Disneyland, the park will seem small because it is small. There is Main Street U.S.A., as you’d expect, but there are only three lands– Adventureland, Fantasyland and Tomorrowland– and the number of rides is rather small. Even smaller is the number of rides adults will truly love, although there were a few we didn’t check out such as the Winnie the Pooh ride because, hell, a grown man has a hard time facing up to the fact he’s riding around on a Winnie the Pooh ride. But you’d sort of expect the park to be small considering it’s brand new and they have plenty of land with which to expand onto. The Autopia is set to debut at the park in 2006.

HK Disneyland’s version of Space Mountain is fantastic. They’ve taken the stuck-in-the’60s ride at the Anaheim location and updated it with a 21st century feel. The boarding station is far better, absent the weird ‘60s feel spaceship and décor. Instead it’s been replace by a more celestial set-up with plenty of black lighting for mood. The ride in Anaheim is probably my favorite roller coaster of all time and the HK version is even better. Once again, updated look and feel inside and a generally smoother ride. It seems even faster, but it’s been a long while since I’ve been on the ride in Anaheim.

Easily the best ride at HK Disneyland is Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters. Think Mr. Toads Wild Ride meets the Haunted Mansion, but with an interactive spin. You hop onto a car, a “Star Cruiser,� on a moving conveyor belt, much like with the Haunted Mansion, and go through room after room of fun stuffs, much like Mr. Toads Wild Ride, but you’ve also got yourself an Astro Blaster with which to blast targets and defeat the Evil Emperor Zurg! And it even keeps a tally of your score! Although the score reset itself for some of us randomly, but whatever. You also can turn your car around 360 degrees, so as to mess up your passenger if you like. It was really a blast! Err, bad choice of words. We had so much fun on it we went twice. Carrie joined us the first time and she kicked all our asses, while Jimmy kicked ass on the ride the second time.

The rest of the day was spent exploring the park. We took in the Festival of the Lion King show, the only other show currently running at the park. While the design of the theater (it’s a show “in the round� as they say) and the costumes were quite impressive, the show itself wasn’t all that great. I guess I should note I saw the Broadway plan, too, and didn’t like it much either, aside from the costuming and sets. The story just isn’t all that compelling to me. Probably the best part of the show was in the very beginning. They had a group of warm up drummers in costume who were free styling some rhythms that really got the crowd going.

Also hurting this show were a few technical difficulties and one rather scary moment. Towards the end of the show our come two fire dancers with fire sticks a blazing. Everything’s going great, the sticks are being swung and flipped around with great skill, when suddenly on of the sticks breaks and one end of it falls to the ground! Suddenly there’s half a stick on the ground and all I could think was, “Fuck, what if that had flown into the audience?� The dancer picked the flaming stick up with his hand, threw it across the room towards one of the exits and ended up having to do it a second time because it didn’t go far enough the first time. It was actually a pretty scary moment, but all were safe once it was off stage and someone had come to stamp it out. I was told by a friend of Carrie’s after the show that the guy was fine and in fact was just really pissed that it happened. These guys take their jobs very seriously and he was terribly disappointed he didn’t get to complete his act.

Notably missing from the park was It’s a Small World. I thought it was an odd choice not to include, but familiars such as the Tea Cups, Dumbo, the Carousel and the Jungle Cruise were all there.

Overall I had a really enjoyable time at HK Disneyland. Had there been a full park, I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it quite as much, but having a park with only 5000 people in it didn’t suck at all.

We met back up with Carrie at the end of the day, hopped back onto the Subway and went to a Thai place in town, the name of which escapes me right now. Quite excellent Thai food, that. The restaurant was located inside a massive mall right off a Subway station. It must have been five or six stories tall, with a massive restaurant taking up a good portion of the bottom floor. I’ve got a picture of it that I’ll post later on.

I believe that was it for Sunday night. My note taking dropped off precipitously, unfortunately, a mistake I won’t be making again on this trip. More soon with a look at Monday and our trek to see the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery.

Well, it’s 1:00 in the morning Thursday here in Hong Kong and I really should be in bed, but I was just going through my pictures from the previous couple of days and found one I’m particularly proud of and thought I’d share it. This was taken on Monday night on Kowloon Island, across the water from Hong Kong Island, on the Avenue of the Stars outside the Intercontinental Hotel (which has one of the best (if not expensive) bars in all of the Hong Kong/New Territories area). Was that enough detail for you?

Ladies and Gentlemen, just one small section of Hong Kong Island.

Saturday morning the rain was pretty bad in Hong Kong, but we didn’t know exactly how bad it would get. We had big plans for Saturday, but most were not to be realized. We headed out to the island of Kowloon, specifically Mong Kok, to check out some of the shopping available on Natahan Road. We took the subway over, well, under the water to the island, came up to street level and were assaulted by a rainstorm. No problem, let’s barrel ahead. First piece of business was lunch, so we walked around a bit and ended up in a place called Fairwood, which is apparently a very popular Chinese fast food joint, although really unlike anything in the States. The menu, thankfully, had pictures, because only half the items had English as well. I ordered some beef soup thing with unknown additional meats and vegetables. It really wasn’t bad at all, just unusual compared to what I’m used to Chinese food wise. I also ordered what I thought was going to be some sort of Thai or Coffee Iced Tea with Boba in it, but it was something completely different with beans in it. Once again, not awful, but the drink definitely wasn’t to my liking. I forced myself to drink the whole thing, despite the rather crunch/sandy feeling. Sharon, Jimmy and I hung out there for a while and chatted as we dried off.

We left the Fairwood and headed back into the rain. We ended up at some mall type thing, walked around for about half an hour, but found nothing to buy. Most of the vendors had T-Shirts that were way too small for me (their XL is like medium in the States). It’s too bad, too, because I found a really unique Superman shirt ala Soviet style art, but there was no way the thing would fit. A good number of the shops carried tennis shoes, most of which had to be knock offs because I’ve never seen designs or styles like were featured on these Nikes and Addidas. Some very unusual stuff and I considered one or two, but it was still early in our trip and I wanted to pace myself shopping wise.

We decided to try hitting a market out in Tsim Sha Tsui, so we got back on the subway. One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that almost every Subway station is connected to either a small mall with maybe 10 or 20 stores, or a gigantic mall with hundreds and hundreds of stores. Always near by are small bakeries of some sort. Sharon and I decided to get some sort of crème puff thing, which cost about 30 cents American. Not bad at all, although rather rich. We hopped on the subway and went to TST. When we exited to street level the rain was worse than ever, now going at a bit of an angle which rendered the umbrella useless. While I’ve witnessed rain this bad before, I’ve never walked in it at length and it was quite miserable. Sharon, Jimmy & I were completely soaked. This is no exaggeration, there was very little of us that wasn’t just swimming in water. Our shoes and socks were completely soaked through. We exited the subway, or MTR as it’s called here, walked about a block, tried to figure out which direction to go to for the market, then decided enough was enough and got back on the subway and headed home.

Getting on the Subway was difficult at best. It was terribly crowded as we approached the Subway entrance and we had something of an umbrella war with the locals. Just umbrellas bouncing into and off one another constantly. It was nuts! So, we were rained out. We took the subway back to Times Square station to pick up a cab and waited in a 20-minute line, in the rain, to get a cab. Not terribly fun, but another experience none-the-less. Outside the Times Square station were two large tents that showcased all sorts of electronic product. It seemed most people were going into the tents just to get out of the rain. Finally we got a cab, went back to Parkview, dried off and rested until dinner that night.

That night we left for dinner in the Noho district, part of the Midlevels. We stopped by Jimmy’s favorite bar in Hong Kong, an Irish pub called the Dublin Jack’s (I bought a cool Rugby shirt from here), and watched some Soccer, err, Football while we waited for Carrie to join us from work. Once she got there, we went across the street to a sushi bar called Dozo, which means Please in Cantonese. It sported a super hip style design with all red walls and spot lighted type lighting. It was also a revolving sushi bar, where you paid based on the color of the plate. Rolls at this place were only two piece to a roll, but they were much larger than generally found in America. I’ve been to revolving Sushi bars before in the States and have usually been disappointed. I’m pretty much a sushi snob, so keep that in mind. Dozo was much better than your typical revolving sushi bar, so that made me happy.

Sharon and I were still pretty lagged, and Carrie was exhausted after being up super late the night before and having to work a full day, so we all went back to the apartment and chilled out, worked, etc. Sunday was going to be a big day – a visit to Hong Kong Disneyland a full month before it opens to the public.