http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_boat_festival
Anyway, since it's a national public holiday, we got the day off from class. Amen to that! But since it's a big cultural event, just sleeping in and doing nothing all day seemed like a complete waste. According to our teachers (and really everyone else I asked), the best place to go for the festival is Stanley Beach. They didn't tell us it would take over 2 1/2 hours to get there. Yikes. First, we had to catch the campus shuttle bus to the train station, then take the train to Kowloon Tong, change lines and ride until we got to Mong Kok, change lines again, and ride to Hong Kong Central. From there, we caught a double-decker bus, which drove up, down, and around a bunch of mountains for 45 minutes. Check out our sweet ride:
Eventually, we got to Stanley Beach so I snapped some pictures of the scenery.
And of the people looking at the scenery...
We took the escalator down until we finally reached the festival.
There were different mascots all over the place, and we took pictures with a lot of them. This is the only one I took with my camera, but I bet I can nab the others from facebook within the hour.
The reason I took this picture is because of what's on the left-hand side: tiny pineapples! These aren't like the hybrid ones you buy in America. Those are cross-bred between Hawaiian pineapples, which are gigantic but rather bland, and Southeast Asian pineapples, which are really small but incredibly sweet. You can guess which one these are. I thought about buying one, but I didn't want to carry it around. Also, I'm not sure if I have sufficient utensils to cut it up with. Once I know I can get into one, though, I'm buying one.
Dad, in some ways, this next shot is for you. You might have trouble reading what the fourth shirt from the top says so I'll help you. It says "Bruce Lee is my home-boy." I wanted to buy one for you, but they didn't sell it in 3X. If I find one in your size, I'll let you know.
Here's another interesting T-shirt, but I don't think this one needs explanation. Familials, if any of you want one, let me know. They're all over the place here so I'm sure I could find some.
Now here is yet another surprise for me here in Hong Kong. I never thought ASIA would be the first place I saw a size 6X shirt. Big & Tall has nothing on this store.
After wandering around the market, we meandered over to the beach, hoping to watch some Dragon Boat Racing. Unfortunately, the weather had been rather foreboding all day so, even though the racing was supposed to go on until 2:00pm, it had stopped before we even arrived. Next year, next year...
Did I mention the weather being bad? I wasn't really loving all that wind-action on my hair.
Eventually, we found a good restaurant in that enormous tourist trap, and had a delicious lunch. These little do-dads are called Siu Mai. The covering is a thin layer of lye water dough, and the filling is made of ground pork, chopped shrimp, and black mushrooms. You serve them with soy sauce or peanut sauce. I've had them a few times since I've been here, and they're definitely one of my favorite things. Diana and I split an order to whet our appetites for the real festival food.
Behold the zong zi. This yummy thing is about a fist-full of glutinous rice stuffed with all kinds of different fillings. The ones at this restaurant had chicken. I took this picture before fixing it up the way it's meant to be eaten: drenched in soy sauce and sprinkled with just a little sugar. It was sweet, sticky, and surprisingly VERY filling. And, yes, my blood sugar behaved like a little angel.
Finally, all good things must come to an end. Ours ended at around 1:00pm because of the bad weather. Thankfully, this is one festival we'll still be in Hong Kong to see next year. I'm already revved up for the next one: hello, Mid-Autumn Festival! I can taste those moon-cakes and see that lion dance already. But for now, we took the bus back to Hong Kong Central.
It took a little less time getting back than it did getting there in the first place. Everyone who went out last night is pretty tired right now so they're all napping and it's really quiet. Maybe...finally...I can get a LOT of reading done.
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