2:14am
Please note that it will take me a good two to three hours to upload the photos one by one – very tedious, and try to remember what happened that moment, then string it up to look real perty… [sigh] Oh, and I deleted the previous two entries. Sorry to all the people that made comments. They were good comments… [sobs]
Let’s start off this entry with my very moody face…
^^ I was super grouchy in this pic. There were a number of reasons: 1) just went through a 14 and a half hour flight in an Air Canada Airbus-300 jet, flying econ class without properly preparing for this grueling flight beforehand – eg: spending most of the time doing nothing. At least I got to watch MI3. 2) the van taxi that picked us up had this disgusting overwhelming perfume smell that came out of its ventilation every time the van stopped and went at an intersection or something. The disgusting smell was the type that attacks your nostrils at full force and then invades your brain for a good dose of “shit, it’s eating my lobes and pulling my stomach up my throat”. Oh and did I tell u that it took a good hour to get from the airport to our village? 3) I was met with a large dose of heat and humidity. Which made my nutsack sweat and become uncomfortable.
[ponders] I think this pic of me as a starter just destroyed my chances of ever getting a new girlfriend. Nice! [both thumbs up! WAY UP! (way up your ass damn it)]
^^ Same night – on the way back to the village. Please, I guess I need to explain “THE VILLAGE”. In Hong Kong, way before it was a megacity of sorts, it was a lush harbour city with small gatherings of villages here and there, with the main city nearer to the southern shores and the big island now known as Kong Kong Island. These villages had various names, usually in reference to the things they were known for – eg: Wong Nei Tau (the village I lived at) specialized in mud stuffs supposedly. Each village however had one family name. For Wong Nei Tau, the common family name is “Cheng”. Though there are distant and diluted bloodlines in our village of Cheng, Cheng people aren’t supposed to get married to each other. I’ll have some pics of the village later.
I forgot to say that I was testing to see how I could use Night Mode in the two pics above.
Damn, I am so thirsty. Did I tell u all that when I was there, I would drink every night? It started out with one or two beers once every second night or so, then it up’d to about 2 to 4 beers every night, and finally somewhere along the last few days, I had a good mix of white wines, red wines, and lots of stout and beer. Oh yeah! Hong Kong people really don’t know how to drink ‘properly’, but when you’re not making enough and beer is damn cheap, who the fuck cares!
I need some juice…
[moments later]
Not only did I get Tropicana Orange Juice WITH LOTS OF pulp, I also stole a giant jar of M&M’s. Actually, these aren’t M&M’s, but they taste similar.
Right.
^^ Nearing the familiar door to my aunt’s place, I heard something common – it was a dog yapping wildly, but what didn’t initially click and clicked later was the fact that the yapping came from inside the door to my aunt’s place. OH THE HORROR!
It wasn’t obviously a bad idea to have more crazy animals in a village with all the animal wars on a nightly event, but it wasn’t obviously a bad idea to have a small but extremely crazy dog INSIDE my aunt’s place. Seriously! For those who have ever lived at a village in Hong Kong, you will know what I am talking about. Cats fight every night for territory or for sex (probably). Dogs bark excessively non-stop at very ungodly hours, and they bark at everything! What makes that so much more worst is that they are trapped behind a fence, so they don’t just run off and never come back to bother the rest of the animal kingdom. No, they are stuck there and for some reason, they have this radar inside of their furry little heads that allows them to detect even the slightest of movements, which then sets off an amazing array of lasers and missiles. No, no lasers and missiles, but wow, the barking! HOLY CRAP! THE BARKING!!!
Wow, I just realized my massive rant on dogs barking. BTW, that dog above is Bebe. It’s a she, and this bitch is no different than all the other crazy dogs in that village, and in all the villages of the world! [echo] Doesn’t Bebe look like a kirin? And no, I did not drink her, you damn sicko!
^^ That’s my aunt on my dad’s side. The hostess to our coming.
^^ My bed – the top floor of the bunk bed. Doesn’t sound right, but oh well.
^^ This was on our second day in Hong Kong, a block from a multi-story Ikea. These houses are few in Hong Kong. They have been reinforced and people are still living in them. The coolest thing about them is that they are about two hundred years old. Our village used to have houses that look like them, but things change over the generations.
^^ This is my DaiLo’s place. Dai Lo translates to “Big Bro”, also pronounced as “Dai Goh”. He owns the building, connected by a stairway inside the ground floor’s door. Most buildings in a village are made like this, with each floor having their own entry door, kitchen, living/dining area, a bathroom, a balcony, and three bedrooms. There is also access to the roof top where DaiGoh and I spent most of our evenings before bed drinking and chatting.
Those apartment buildings behind the house weren’t there before of course. It used to be all forest and fields, but for those who are interested to know more about the history, just email me, or ask me about it when we see each other.
^^ Right outside my aunt’s place. The house directly outside and to the left of her’s belonged to my great grand parents, which now belongs to my dad. Unfortunately, we don’t have the deed to the house, due to some events that happened inside the family a long time ago.
^^ Yup, that’s Lee THE MAN Cheng. To give u an idea of the size of each floor in these 3 storey high buildings – there are three different configurations with slight customizations between each house. There are the 35×38 feet total area types, the 17 by 40 feet types, and something like 25x… You know what? There are three configurations ranging from about 450 square feet per floor to 700 something sq ft per floor. My aunt’s place was quite small. In the pic above, this is the dining and living room area – no it’s not split. It’s the same room.
^^ One of the fuzzies.
^^ View from my DaiGoh’s roof top.
^^ Anyway, we went to the Ten Thousand Monks Buddhist Monastery. This pic is of a Buddhist sanctuary for the dead. Above this sanctuary, using another route, is the actual Monastery itself. The monastery is very old – though I do not have the actual date of its establishment.
^^ Each monk statue has an unique face and action, which in some cases make them look extra creepy. On my way up, leaving my parents and my two aunts way behind, I noticed a frog on the ground. At first, I thought it was a piece of turd, but it was too perfect to look like doggy or monkey crap, and it had eyes! Upon closer inspection, it was indeed a frog or a toad! WOW!
It was so cute. It just sat there, and it wasn’t scared of me when I got close to it. I tried not to disturb it when I took this picture.
^^ As I passed it and looked back again, it was gone. My mom later pointed that it was a saint. WOW! [chuckles]
^^ The final steps to the monastery, and the Buddha with the huge man boobs.
^^ The monastery had to be rebuilt, as the original one wasn’t well-maintained. My dad told me that it was very nostalgic for him as the last time he was there was when he was in his early teens, which made that about 45 years ago. I’m surprised that the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong didn’t devastate this place.
^^ When we got to the top, I took a vid clip, did a couple of stick readings for myself and Albert, and then we all went to eat vegan stuffs here. That’s my dad talking about something with my family.
^^ Typical toilets for a lot of places in Hong Kong. Most foreigners stay on the Hong Kong Island side of Hong Kong because of this reason. Well, most foreigners stay on the HK Island side because of Lang Kwai Fong and the super hot yummy girls there, as well as the super hot yummy guys there too. I would know, cuz I was neither, and I managed to still score – kind of. [wink]
^^ Further up another path, these are statues of philosophers and other deities.
^^ Statues of the Goddess of Mercy and her mimicking ‘sisters’. I have a video of this. In it, I said that the people who created these statues really knew what they were doing. Not only were each of these statues gorgeously detailed, but they had the super sexy curvatures (sp?) of females with really great bodies! Wow, my engrish is so bad lor!
^^ The monastery from afar.
^^ Star Seafood Floata Restaurant. Jon told me that he came here the last time he went to Hong Kong as well. Ah, great distances, yet common grounds. I really like that feeling you know?
^^ Though Hong Kong is a big mess of people, their smelly nasty sweaty feet, phlegm, and the heavy pollution, complemented with bad drivers, super hot Filipino and Vietnamese prostitutes, crazy animals, cheap food, and expensive gas, their transportation system is awesome. They have the KCR, MTR, and trams. They have the double decker busses, the single deck busses, the mini-busses, regional specific taxis, van taxis, and the usual limo-taxis. They have the super fast hydro ferries between HK and Macau, the regular Star Ferries, and other boating transports. They have the super massive airport in which I have pictures for at the end of this entry, that its express train connects to the core of Hong Kong.
In short, they are the awesomeness! [wink] Do I make those who are grammar and spelling elitest crazy? I suggest masturbation.
^^ Inside an MTR. BTW, if you’ve noticed, some pictures are ‘not’ in place based on date.
^^ Typical scenery in Hong Kong. Mind you, this part of Hong Kong is a little cleaner than the rest of HK, due to its westernized building schemes I guess. This was on the day my two aunts and my parents and I went to the main Immigration building on HK Island to do my visa thingy. It’s supposed to last me 10 years or something like that. No wait, I don’t know exactly what it is, but it doesn’t really make me a foreigner if I get it, and I should be able to get it anyhow. So next time I enter HK, I don’t need to line up at the Visitor’s line up. Yay for me!
^^ Super crowded food court inside a building somewhere for the labour-class. Key phrase: “Unsanitary yet still very edible.”
^^ Shatin at night. This is the district of Shatin where Wong Nei Tau and stuffs are located at.
[ponders] My mom and dad told me that it used to take them about 30 minutes to walk from Wong Nei Tau village to my mom’s village, but based on today’s Hong Kong, it will take a few hours to walk from my dad’s village to my mom’s village. That’s what a great transportation system does to those who like to walk… [sigh]
^^ Shatin during the day. This was a walk from New Town Centre (a multi-storey, multi-plaza mall structure) to my grandma’s place less than 2 kilometre’s away. By the time my trip ended in HK, I knew how to take the double decker bus to and from my grandma’s place and my dad’s village, and take the mini-bus to and from my dad’s village to New Town Centre.
Though ppl tend to fish in this river, the river is still polluted – not as bad as a few years ago supposedly, but still bad. Before this river looked like this – a long straight concrete walled river, it was a lot wider and very clean, and full of sea-life. In fact, before this river looked anything like this, the banks of it reached as far as my dad’s village boundaries – where there are now apartment buildings and commercial buildings beyond that. A lot of Hong Kong is artificial.
A night before my flight back to Vancouver, DaiGoh told me that his big bro once caught a giant octopus in the river next to the village once a long time ago. He splitted it into six portions and gave it to family and friends. He told me that it tasted very good. Whenever we talk and drink at night on his rooftop, I can sense the anger in his tired face on how the village and the surrounding lands had changed so drastically in 20 years. He showed me photos of how the village looked like before, when they were all kids, and though I was near-expressionless at the time, I could feel his suppressed emotions. Though the photos are mono, I can feel the natural beauty of the place.
[thoughtful sigh]
^^ Various aunts, uncles, grand’s, and cousins.
^^ On the first Sunday morning – Bai Saan which means “To Pray For Our Ancestors” – basically. Last time I was in HK was in Oct of 2002. We had to climb up to many places to pay our respects to so many ancestors. It was crazy difficult and painful. this time around, we only had to visit my grandma and grandpa on my dad’s side and my great grandma and great grandpa. I couldn’t take a pic of their graves, but u can kind of see my great grand’s tomb in the second pic. That’s a pic of the village below in the first image. My DaiGoh on the right in the last pic.
If you’re interested more on this, you can ask me later of course. 8]
^^ Mid week the following week, we went to Macau. There was a Typhoon Warning Level 1 alert, so it took us a bit longer than an hour to ferry across the channel. It usually would have only been 45 minutes.
^^ On the way to our hotel in a hotel bus.
^^ A large statue of the Goddess Of Mercy beside the ocean.
^^ The Macau Tower from below. More info? Click HERE.
^^ New Yaohan Centre. 8]
^^ L-R: Mei Yee (“yee” is “aunt” which in this case, Mei is my mom’s childhood friend, and so the “yee” is an honorary term for her), Doctor Li, my 3rd Aunt (which is actually the 2nd eldest female aunt), and my fifth aunt (which is actually the 4th eldest female aunt).
^^ Baba and mommy.
^^ Amongst the many places there in Macau, this being one of the Rome-look-alike places, there was Aladdin’s Fort, Volcanis, and some Chinese castle look-alike. If I didn’t say any of these, I bet you would have thought I was actually in Rome… 8]
^^ My aunt trying to touch the orange mascot thing.
I decided to split this page up. If u want to make comments and/or continue to Part II of this entry, continue HERE.