Hong Kong - Day 2

Day 2 was a Kowloon island adventure day. We started the day at the flower market. The flower market is a couple of long streets with wall to wall flower shops. They have tons of different flowers, from orchids to roses to everything. All for really cheap. After that, we went to the goldfish market which is a street with tons of fish stores on both sides. However, it doesn't get busy until 5 p.m. Next was lunch. China + Lunch = dim sum. Unless you can't speak Chinese and can't find any. So it ended up being a 2 person set lunch for about $10.

Next was the ladies market. This is a few streets full of booths with people selling "the Chinese version" of clothes, handbags, ipod cases, etc. You definitely don't pay what they ask. Maybe you'll pay around 1/2 or less of their asking price after 'negotionations'. That means awesome $3 t-shirts. After the market, we went to a temple on the street around the area. The interesting thing about their temples is that they burn many long spiral incense that are supposed to last for 10 days. The temple smelt like a teenager's bedroom.

After that it was to the jade market. This was a covered street block with a bunch of vendors all selling the same thing. You couldn't walk by a booth without having a vendor say something to get your attentions and point to some jade that looked exactly the same as what the last vendor pointed to.

Soon, you catch on to every Hong Kong vendor. The conversation goes something like this:



Vendor: (Points to something randomly) "Oh, you like?"
Me: "Not really."
Vendor: "$70"
Me: "No thanks."
Vendor: "OK. $65"
Me: "No, I'm not interested"
Vendor: "OK, for you. $60"
Me: "Really, I'm ok"
Vendor: "Ok, what's your price"
Me: (Just to see what they say) "$20"
Vendor: (pretend surprised look) "Ai ya!" (shake head no and turns away)
Me: "Ok, bye"
Vendor: "$45"
Me: "No thank you. Bye"
(Depending on the vendor, might mubble some rude Chinese)

Shortly after the jade market, we headed to the port area of the island. They have their own Hong Kong Hollywood there with stars of famous people from Hong Kong. We saw the stars for Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, and many other people I had never heard of. Then around 8:00 every night is a "can't miss" music and light show from the big buildings. Every Saturday night, they also do a firework show after the light show to celebrate the 10th anniversary that they went from English black tea to Chinese oolong tea. So we got good seats, set up the tripod, and waiting for the show. At about 8:10 I was looking around wondering when it was supposed to start. I had just missed the "can't miss" show. It was basically some random beams of light off of buildings shining into the sky. Then some fireworks from a boat started to shoot about 30 feet high into the air.

Oh, the most important part of the day. We went to an internet cafe and booked a room in a real hotel.