Third Day in Hong Kong

Kung Hei Fat Choi! Happy Chinese New Year and also Happy Valentines Day!

We started the day with Starbucks of course. At one o'clock we were treated to the lion dance at the hotel. Young men are dressed in lion costumes that look like dragons almost - 2 men in each costume. They jump from one tiny platform to another quite high up and it is amazing that they can do this. All the time a bunch of other men keep beating big drums. This is a traditional dance that they perform every New Year. The decorations for Chinese New Year are beatutiful and you see them everywhere (like our Christmas decorations). Most of the stuff is red and gold, because red keeps away the evil spirits and it also brings you luck. Children (and adults) receive red envelopes often containing money. We each got one envelope with chocolate gold coins, a pretty box with chinese sweets and a stuffed tiger (as this is the year of the tiger) from the hotel. The tiger is the 3rd of 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac cicle. The Chinese fortune tellers predict a difficult year but with promise and opportunity for wealth. One Chinese fortune teller says that the world economy will turn around in the next 12 months!

A funny thing with the red envelop tradition we witnessed at Starbucks. A family came in and the little boy, about 4 years old, dressed in a traditional chinese silk suit, with HK$20 (about US$2.50) and his red envelope in his hand, ran up to the counter, pointed to a pastry and screamed: Twenty! That one! He had no idea what it was, all he cared about was that he had a twenty and that was the price for the pastry! Too cute!

After the lion dance we took the trolley to the Midlevels escalator. Yes, escalator. It happens to be the world's longest outdoor covered escalator, 800 meters long. Travelling the whole length takes about 20 minutes with many opportunities to get off for shops and eateries. Mind you, the escalator runs uphill and you have to walk all the way down! Not for bad knees, but mine held up!

Once we got up there was really nothing there so we started to climb down. We stopped about halfways down, at Hollywood Road, and went to the Man Mo temple. It is one of the first traditional style temples built during the colonial era. Some random local guy, decided to be our personal guide through the temple and told us all about it and what to do once inside. We banged the drum and the bell (three times on each) and had to tell our names and age for good fortune (a toll free call to the gods). Then we burnt incense to pay homage to the Taoist gods. The temple was filled with people and smoke. Kim's hair still stinks.

From there we hopped on the subway to Kowloon where the New Year's Parade was to take place. First we explored the markets and then found ourselves completely exhausted and hungry and stopped to eat at California Pizza! We also found out that we were in the wrong place for the parade, so once again we took the subway to the proper parade location. This year (I experienced it once before) the parade was a complete dud. We did not get a good spot and on top of that the parade started late and was booooring. So we left early, back on the subway and trolley and went to bed.