Buddhist Fair

Drew has become the unofficial leader of workout group consisting of Drew's coworkers and myself. We meet three times a week, and typically there is about 4-5 of us. Drew and myself are staples, then about 5 people come semi-consistantly. We have been doing this for about 4 weeks now, and we always work out on Saturday mornings. We have a slew of people agreeing to join Friday evening, but then they stay out too late, and the 9:30am meeting time comes a bit too early for some. Regardless, last Saturday, we had just finished our workout in the park, and, as we were leaving, we saw this Buddhist Fair. Unfortunately, that's all I can say about it, as all of the sign were in Chinese. So, I will instead make up stories about the pictures we have. 

I assume it was a Buddist fair because of the monks dressed in orange singing chants onstage. And the statue looks Buddha. But, I could have this wrong. Maybe they are Taoist or something. 

I know for sure these are statues of the Chinese Zodiac. We have the pig, dog, rooster, monkey etc. in this picture. 

Here is a close up of my dragon. He was surprisingly small compared to the others. Like hello big bunny. And I thought the dragon was supposed to be the favored animal? 

And here is a close up of the ox and Drew's rat. 

Next, we have a line of statues that I am going to pretend is the cycles of the Avatar. Here we have Avatar Roku, Avatar Ang, etc. 

Drew is the next Avatar, he just doesn't know it yet :) 

These statues are of famous assistances to the Avatar, friends and such. They are just as important, hence the equally large statues. 

This is a statue of the mother of the last Avatar, with the baby Avatar sitting on her lap. But seriously, what an elaborate statue huh? Whoever she was, she was important. Sorry, that's all I got as to the significance of all this. If anyone knows anything more, feel free to add! But it's cool that we can randomly come across something like this in Hong Kong. There is always something going on here!

Biking in Sha Tin

Last Sunday, Drew and I went on a bike ride with a group of people, mostly a mix of Drew's coworkers and then friends of friends. Somehow when they said "3 hour bike ride," Drew and I were the only ones who showed in actually biking attire. This will be explained very soon. We were able to rent bikes for the day for a mere 30 Hong Kong dollars per person, or about $4USD. What a steal!

We had a great time on the ride, but more for the scenery and company, less for the workout part of it.  This particular ride is one of the most popular rides in all of Hong Kong because it is an actual bike path with no car interaction. And it is relatively flat, a hard feat in Hong Kong. However, that also means it is incredibly packed, as all things in Hong Kong are. Drew and I imagine that if we went back maybe on a weekday evening or super early on a weekend, we could have more space, actually take our road bikes, and have a nice ride. The day was great for it, overcast and cooler. The pathway went right along the water for the majority of it, so the scenery was great. 

 

Our group seemed to be made up of people who have biked a bit and were comfortable riding quickly, with a second group of less experienced bikers, who expectedly rode a bit slower. This allowed us to have nice breaks to wait for the rest of the group. At one point, we stopped by a park with exercise equipment, so Drew got to get a quick workout in. Someone in our group teased him to pick up his whole bike to demonstrate his strength, which of course he could. (Working out is not the norm for Asian people, both men and women, so any sign of strength seems to amaze them) I wish we had been riding our road bikes, in which case he'd probably be able to do that lift one-handed. (Of course, none of them would know how light our road bikes really are, but their faces would have been priceless.) I'm lucky to have such an in-shape hubby :) 

The second, slower group of bikers made me realize something; most of the slower people were local Hong Kongers. Drew put it into a sound theory. Think back to when you were a kid and you learned to ride your bike. Where were you? In your driveway, on your neighborhood sidewalk, in the cul-de-sac by your house, or maybe in a park. Regardless, you had space to maneuver and flat ground to do it. Hong Kongers all live in apartments, so there is no driveway to practice. And the majority of streets are hilly. And all the sidewalks are packed with people. Simply not a good place to learn to ride your bike! We actually saw several people with training wheels on our ride, both kids and adults. Might have issued a chuckle from us, but hey! At least they were learning! Many people in Hong Kong never do. 

Halloween Crazy

Halloween is celebrated to an extreme level here in Hong Kong. It is mostly ex-pats who do the dressing up, while the Chinese come out with their gargantuan cameras to take pictures of the costumes. Regardless, the place we went to, the bar area called LKF,  was absolutely packed with people.

We played it smart and got to the place early, around 5:30. The show didn't start til 8pm. We staked a claim at a bar that had raised street side tables to view the pandemonium. We also got to watch the police men set up the "route." Essentially, so many people come into this bar neighborhood that they have to restrict where people can and can't go so there is some kind of flow. They also smartly set up an "Emergency passageway" so that if someone really needed to get out, for medical reasons or whatever, there would be an open passage with which to do so.

Our costumes were all from the Little Mermaid. My friend Frank was Ariel, Drew was the father King Triton, and I was Ursala the evil octopus. I even made eight legs out of black T-shirts rolled up and attached to one of Drew's black belts. Some of the legs were longer than others, but you couldn't tell, especially when I twirled them like this... ;) 

This was my mean face...

Actually, nobody really knew nor cared what I was. The whole night, the spotlight was on Drew and Frank, and deservedly so. Maybe the idea of men in dresses was new to them, or maybe they had never seen a man with so much chest hair, or just men with their shirts off in general, but they were a huge hit.  

This is a pic of everyone taking pics of Frank and Drew. I had my 10 minutes of fame in Guiyang as the blonde alien; tonight it was Drew's turn. 

There were plenty of great costumes out there. Such as this great batman. Everyone wanted to take a picture with him. 

I think this is Frank in a Disney convention. I see Belle from Beauty and the Best, another (much creepier) Little Mermaid, an Aladdin and Jasmine, a Snow White, and a Minion? Not sure what the first lady is, maybe Simba? 

Surprisingly, a lot of the costumes, especially for women, were far less sexy this, sexy that, but more gore. They used makeup to do crazy things with their faces. In that sense, the costumes were much more interesting. Adam and Tiffany, you would have fit right in!

Also another great thing about that night was that we actually ran into our friend Diana in LKF before the festivities even began. Totally impromptu meeting. It might not seem that weird to run into a friend on the street, but in a city of 7 million people, I'm still always amazed at how easy you run into people you know. That is Diana standing in front of Drew and I in this pic. 

At the end of the night, Drew and I had to get back home somehow, so we took the subway, where this picture was taken. I think we were tired enough at that point to not really care about the stares we were getting from regular passengers, but at least they weren't trying to pretend that we weren't in costume. Such as this gentlemen on another mtr. "This is total normal... I don't see anything different about you guys..." Happy Halloween!