The Experience Peaks

Well, hopefully not emotionally. But we did visit the Peak. Haha, I can just hear you all groaning at that one.

DAY 3 - 7/3/14

Today, Sarah joined the rest of us and we got a little taste of Hong Kong's cultural heritage and flourishing modern art scene. (Apparently said scene is becoming quite a big deal - http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/hong-kong-culture-now - can't wait!) We originally hopped on the ding dings in search of the Mid-Levels escalators (I'll save explaining those for some time when I've actually seen them) but wound up somewhere closer to Victoria Peak instead. The Peak, as its name suggests, is the tallest mountain on Hong Kong island, and offers a famously beautiful view of the city and the harbor. 

Getting ahead of myself. Before we went up to the Peak, we stopped by the Hong Kong Teaware museum, which is totally free (I think I recall reading that most museums in HK are free, but no one quote me on that) and features 8 rooms of tea sets, some from ancient traditions and some with a little more modern flare. I'm putting a few pictures here to illustrate how cool these were, but the full album will go on facebook, so check back there.

Examples of older ones:

And some recent innovations:

In conclusion - a great use of zero money! Side Note: the facebook album will also have pics of me and the other new teachers, but I won't be posting anyone else's face here for privacy purposes. Here's a picture of the park outside the museum instead. 

After the museum, we made our way to the tram that takes you up to the Peak. In this heat, we didn't even think about attempting to climb up the stairs instead, but we did think about going down on foot. 

Luckily, Sarah's cold prevented us from the attempt, because we realized on the tram back down that the route is very long and very steep. At one point on the tram going down, the train had to make a stop at a second station and pick up some straggling visitors, leading Sara to joke that this was the "Oh, let's climb down on foot...wait no this is way too hard helppp" station. Even on the trains, the going is steep enough to feel like a roller coaster, and, on the way down, the seats are all facing up towards the peak, so you ride down facing backwards at pretty high speeds. It was awesome. (Sara and Stephanie did not agree.)

The Peak itself was as stunning as the tour books and pictures show. I can't wait to go back at night. It's amazing how the apartment complexes that show their age quite a bit from the ground look so charming and colorful from a distance. From up on the mountain, they blend together charmingly with the modern financial skyscrapers that pepper the view. The Manhattan skyline has nothing on Hong Kong when it comes to tall buildings. While Manhattan has plenty of skyscrapers, the residential neighborhoods are still so much shorter than those in Hong Kong. The Columbia area is a good example--the dorm buildings go up for fifteen floors at most. That's probably the average here. 

The entire city feels so vertical that it's as if everything is stretched, or as if the city lives on a whole different altitude level than other cities. In San Francisco, where we have the housing crisis, locals decry the "Manhattanization" of SF, fearing that higher housing units will blot out our view of the bay as well as what little sun we have. When you gaze down at Hong Kong from the Peak, there are so many tall buildings that it feels like we've gone straight from having our views blocked by tall buildings to having great views because we ALL live in those tall buildings. (I know this to be untrue, since the apartment I'm currently staying in is shafted, but that's how it feels when you look out at the city.)

Side note: I didn't get any pictures of them, but there are a few buildings sitting on the rolling hills surrounding the peak, just casually perched amidst the otherwise undeveloped jungle-like forests. Would love to know who gets to live there, or why those buildings are there. They're a little puzzling. On the one hand, they have what must be at least a USD $20 million dollar view of Hong Kong; on the other hand, they look large but not well maintained. Are they abandoned? Ex-colonial palaces? Hard to say, but man, it must be amazing to stay in one.

Now for the Hong Kong culture tidbits of the day. Up until now, we had restricted ourselves to riding ding dings, but we weren't too eager to clamber aboard one at rush hour after coming down from the Peak. Ding dings have lots of open windows but no air conditioning, making them not so ideal when packed in the summer. We decided to take the subway back instead. Surprisingly uncrowded and the air conditioning was lovely. Pro tip though: do not attempt to hold the doors when they're closing. If your friends are trailing behind, either don't get in, or leave them behind and hope they catch the next one. Those doors do NOT want to open back up, and for a second I thought I would be starting my first day of work as an emergency amputee.

Here's what the doors will do to you:

We were all shrieking and (in my case of course) madly laughing when this happened. You should have seen the looks on the local people's faces. 

Another culture note. Hong Kong is of course famous for its concentration of astonishing wealth, and also for the rich mainland Chinese it attracts for shopping tourism. I think someone told me the other day that there are nine Prada flagship stores in Hong Kong. So it makes sense that there would be tons of luxury jewelry stores as well. What I can't understand is why so many of the jewelry stores are the exact same brand, Chow Tai Fook. I've seen two on the same block in some cases--they seem to be as common here as Starbucks' are in the U.S. I keep imagining some suspicious triad family or something using them as a front. That is totally speculation, please don't sue or kill me.  Anyways, their ubiquitous storefront signs look like this:

And they sell crazy huge golden necklaces and statues and stuff. I should have gotten more close ups, but I got nervous taking the pics even though I asked for permission beforehand. Didn't want to look like I was scouting for a heist lolol. But seriously, look at that pig necklace on the right!!! And are those just flat out gold bars on the bottom??

Last note for now. I know I already talked about milk in my last post, but it's just such a different experience here, I can't let it drop quite yet. We ate at a pretty tasty Japanese restaurant at the mall that (surprise surprise) dominates most of the developed space at the top of Victoria Peak. Stephanie ordered an iced coffee, and it came with two little pitchers. The first looked strangely like they had handed her water, until she stuck a finger in it and realized it was sugar water--perfect for adding sweetener to your ice coffee pre-dissolved, since granular sugar won't dissolve in cold coffee. I thought that was pretty genius and classy. The other pitcher had a thick, somewhat yellow creamer in it, and we couldn't figure out why it was both thicker than normal milk and too yellow to be normal cream. At the time, I thought maybe it was condensed milk, but Stephanie pointed out that this made no sense if there was already sugar water provided and condensed milk is sweet. 

It was only later, as I was walking home from the metro station and passed a supermarket, that I realized what it probably was. 

The supermarket was selling these bottles, and it dawned on me that of course, Asians are almost always lactose intolerant, and Hong Kong also apparently is famous for amazing soymilk, so why wouldn't they automatically just serve you soymilk with your coffee?

Just thought that was a fun thing to realize...as an avid milk drinker, lactose intolerant lifestyles aren't something I think about too often...

Anyways, I'll end there for now. Next up: Lauren goes to work for the first time!