Like people, some countries have stronger and more defined personalities than others.
I can't claim to be totally knowledgeable about everywhere that I visit, and sometimes it's hard to get the sense of a place until you are there for a while.
Some things stand out quite obviously, and I guess it's only when you spend longer and have more chances to explore that you really start to learn things.
On this trip for example I have learned that the trend of impatience and 'me first' doesn't run through the entirety of Asia as I thought it did. I first learned about everything revolving around being first when I was teaching in Korea. Whenever I'd set my kids a task they would always speed through it and then celebrate when they'd be the first person to hand me their book or their answers. Part of this is just the nature of children wanting the status of being first, but being in Korea it is a real thing as I discovered personally whenever I was on the metro or waiting for a bus, but also from speaking to my co-teachers who explained that Korean interpretations of the teachings of Confucius have set their society up so that it comes across that people are unforgivingly impatient, when actually it's just something which has been passed down through generations.
Since spending time in Taiwan, Japan and even China, I discovered that the culture of 'self preservation' and 'me first' didn't exist pretty much at all.
Due to the amount of time I have spent in certain countries I probably haven't got a real sense of their culture, but I feel like pretty much everywhere I've gone I have got a sense of how things are, or what you'd have to get used to if you spent more time there.
I've picked most of this understanding up through my own personal experiences, but also feel like going to historical sights or reading things on the Internet has helped me to better understand my surroundings, and although I definitely wouldn't class myself as an expert, I feel like I'd be able to explain to people how the cultures of different places differs in the countries that I have been to.
History and religion play a huge role in culture, and I feel like the more you learn about that, the more knowledgeable you will be.
*********************************************************************************
After living the high-life, literally and metaphorically, last night at the Ritz-Carlton Ozone Bar, it was time to get back to reality again today as we decided to leave the 1% behind and join the masses by going to one of Hong Kong's most popular tourist attractions.
I mentioned when I first arrived that we were staying on Hong Kong Island which is one of the two major ones which make up the country. This specialist administrative region of China is made up of more than 259 islands which are split up into five main regions.
The New Territories and Outlying Islands are the main bulk of these, and very few are visited by tourists despite making a lot of the country.
Kowloon is where we spent yesterday evening and is across the water from Hong Kong Island which is where most of the hotels are located.
To the Western part of the country is Lantau which is an island visited by most people as it is the location of the airport. It is the single largest island in the country and is popular as it is the home to Disneyland, Hong Kong's beaches and also a number of country parks.
Although Discovery Bay, a resort-style district on Lantau, is the main reason that people visit, we'd decided to spend our day in a slightly different way which required us to take the MTR quite far out of the city. Travelling to Tung Chung MTR took about 45 minutes on the train but it was a nice break from travelling underground once we got out of the city as we were able to get a look at some of the scenery. We passed a huge lake on our way to our destination and also some small fishing villages. It was odd to see wide open spaces which contrast drastically to the high-rise filled people-cluttered city.
Pretty much straight in front of the MTR Station was Ngong Ping 360 which is one of Hong Kong's newest tourist attractions. Although I'm not a huge fan of heights, I was looking forward to the experience of taking a 6km trip up to the top towards a themed village using the cable car which provides you with fantastic views of everything below.
It didn't look as though it was that busy, but once we'd brought out tickets there was a bit of a queue as people waited to be piled into a cable car. I can't remember the last time I went on one, but cable cars are usually short journeys from point-to-point so it was quite strange to think that we were going to be travelling such a long distance using this method of transport. It was such a long journey in fact that it was difficult to see what the finishing point was as there were a couple of cable car stations in the middle, but these seemed to just provide more elevation or have the cars travel in a different direction.
Once we got to the front of the cable car and were on our way, we were treated to a ride of about twenty five minutes or so which provided some of the most spectacular views imaginable.
Almost immediately we started to ascend, and at one point I'm pretty sure we were in some of the low hanging cloud which had been an almost ever-present since we'd arrived in the country:
After initially going straight we made a turn to the left and then eventually continued on our way up. Below us it was possible to see the airport and a path which ran through the mountains. I can't think of a better way to get up to the top than to travel by cable car, but sure enough there were some people walking up the path who obviously thought differently. Considering it took us about 25-30 minutes to get up to the top, I can only imagine how long it would take you to walk up there.
Eventually we arrived at the top top an atmosphere which was very similar to the one you usually get when you enter a theme park. There are several notable reasons why people take the Ngong Ping 360 to the top where there is a cultural village (all of which I'll cover in a minute) but it did seem strange that all of a sudden it felt like we were in a themed part of an amusement park and not necessarily just in a foreign country:
We walked through a large town square which had many souvenir shops and restaurants in it before eventually reaching a clearing which rather strangely had cattle freely roaming around in it - the theory goes that the cows were there first. The most notable attraction at the top of the area where we were is the Tian Tan Buddha but we decided first to continue walking through the square and toward the Po Lin Monastery:
Founded in 1906 the front of the monastery looked very similar to what we'd seen at the Man Mo Temple as there was plenty of incense burning and many people adding to the smoke by lighting sticks of their own:
We walked up towards the monastery itself and towards the main temple which was an extremely impressive sight:
Very close to the temple itself as we walked back down the stairs was a gate that looked very familiar, and similar to one which I had seen in Taiwan although I believe there is no connection between the two:
As it had been in our view no matter where we'd walked, the pair of us decided to head towards the Tian Tin Buddha which even from a distance looked very impressive:
I read somewhere that it is the largest, seated, outdoor bronze Buddha statue in the world and already given plenty of elevation by the steps which you have to climb up to get there....
.... it is nearly 40 metres in height which means that even walking up to the top and standing on the stairs you get an impressive view:
There were plenty of people walking up and down, and even from the base it was possible to get a good view of the Buddha statue itself:
We walked briefly inside a museum, but decided that the view from the outside was better:
From the back of the statue you could see out onto a different part of Lantau which appeared to contain a beach....
.....and walking up part of the stairs you could see other accessible parts of the peak which we were on.
I was pretty taken in by the view, and I think the clouds being so low played a part in that as it made us seem like we were a lot higher up (rather than just the clouds being lower than they usually are). After getting to the bottom of the Buddha we followed a path which led us along part of the Lantau Trail. The whole thing is 70kms, and that includes walking up to the park which I believe is the highest point of Hong Kong itself.
We instead followed the trail to something called the Wisdom Path which is near the Monastery:
From here you could see the peak....
....well part of it as the rest was covered in cloud!
We decided that our time was done here, and on our way back we picked up some postcards in the cultural village and joined the queue which would take us back to the bottom.
The journey on the way down to ground level was arguably better and more scenic than the one on the way up as we went through the clouds again and sat at the front of the cable car so that we got a different view to the one that we did on the way up:
Once we were at the bottom it was time to consider what to do next, and having visited the Goldfish Market yesterday, and the Night Market the day before we decided to see if we could head to the Jade Market which is pretty close to the centre of Kowloon.
Having ridden on a cable car and the MTR so far today we decided to get the bus back to our next destination and after a 30 minute or so journey we hopped off the bus and headed in the vague direction I had seen that the market was in.
Eventually we found some signs which confirmed my theory and walking along a few slightly suspect streets we arrived at the location of the market, only to realise that it was closed for the day.
By this point we were still in the mood to fill our evening with some kind of activity, but the first thing we needed to do was avoid getting drenched as we found ourselves out in the first proper downpour we'd actually experienced.
Although the weather hasn't exactly been fantastic whilst we've been here, it hasn't quite been as bad as we anticipated as we whenever we looked at the weather forecast all it seemed to predict was thunderstorms all day every day!
Once the rain subsided we nipped into a shop to get ourselves a quick sushi snack before continuing on towards a shopping centre where we'd read that there was an arcade.
Obviously I'd experienced my fair share in Japan, but I know that these are also quite big in Hong Kong too.
Although the shopping centre we found ourselves in was very impressive, the same can't be said of the 'arcade' which was nothing more than UFO machines wedged in a tiny corner on the ninth floor. It looked like something might be under construction, but we decided to find somewhere else to go which luckily wasn't too far away from where we were, and using our excellent navigation skills we managed to find where we needed to be and spent the next couple of ours wondering around and playing a few of the different games on offer.
The funniest moment was perhaps when a local decided to challenge the pair of us on a driving game which we duly accepted, neither of us having ever played it before!
From the arcade it was time to head back in the direction of home, and having had such a busy day we'd not really eaten properly so decided that a good meal was in order.
After catching the MTR back to Causeway Bay we decided to go to a restaurant that we'd seen in the last couple of days which was opposite the bus stop.
Having done a pretty rubbish job when I was in Korea of actually being able to eat Korean food, we'd spotted a BBQ restaurant which we decided to visit that night. The juxtoposition of eating Korean food in Hong Kong was a strange one, but the food itself was delicious and I'm glad we made that decision as it validated the information that I frequently share with people about how delicious Korean food is!
Video Games
Lana Del Rey (2012)
I can't claim to be totally knowledgeable about everywhere that I visit, and sometimes it's hard to get the sense of a place until you are there for a while.
Some things stand out quite obviously, and I guess it's only when you spend longer and have more chances to explore that you really start to learn things.
On this trip for example I have learned that the trend of impatience and 'me first' doesn't run through the entirety of Asia as I thought it did. I first learned about everything revolving around being first when I was teaching in Korea. Whenever I'd set my kids a task they would always speed through it and then celebrate when they'd be the first person to hand me their book or their answers. Part of this is just the nature of children wanting the status of being first, but being in Korea it is a real thing as I discovered personally whenever I was on the metro or waiting for a bus, but also from speaking to my co-teachers who explained that Korean interpretations of the teachings of Confucius have set their society up so that it comes across that people are unforgivingly impatient, when actually it's just something which has been passed down through generations.
Since spending time in Taiwan, Japan and even China, I discovered that the culture of 'self preservation' and 'me first' didn't exist pretty much at all.
Due to the amount of time I have spent in certain countries I probably haven't got a real sense of their culture, but I feel like pretty much everywhere I've gone I have got a sense of how things are, or what you'd have to get used to if you spent more time there.
I've picked most of this understanding up through my own personal experiences, but also feel like going to historical sights or reading things on the Internet has helped me to better understand my surroundings, and although I definitely wouldn't class myself as an expert, I feel like I'd be able to explain to people how the cultures of different places differs in the countries that I have been to.
History and religion play a huge role in culture, and I feel like the more you learn about that, the more knowledgeable you will be.
*********************************************************************************
I mentioned when I first arrived that we were staying on Hong Kong Island which is one of the two major ones which make up the country. This specialist administrative region of China is made up of more than 259 islands which are split up into five main regions.
The New Territories and Outlying Islands are the main bulk of these, and very few are visited by tourists despite making a lot of the country.
Kowloon is where we spent yesterday evening and is across the water from Hong Kong Island which is where most of the hotels are located.
To the Western part of the country is Lantau which is an island visited by most people as it is the location of the airport. It is the single largest island in the country and is popular as it is the home to Disneyland, Hong Kong's beaches and also a number of country parks.
Although Discovery Bay, a resort-style district on Lantau, is the main reason that people visit, we'd decided to spend our day in a slightly different way which required us to take the MTR quite far out of the city. Travelling to Tung Chung MTR took about 45 minutes on the train but it was a nice break from travelling underground once we got out of the city as we were able to get a look at some of the scenery. We passed a huge lake on our way to our destination and also some small fishing villages. It was odd to see wide open spaces which contrast drastically to the high-rise filled people-cluttered city.
Pretty much straight in front of the MTR Station was Ngong Ping 360 which is one of Hong Kong's newest tourist attractions. Although I'm not a huge fan of heights, I was looking forward to the experience of taking a 6km trip up to the top towards a themed village using the cable car which provides you with fantastic views of everything below.
It didn't look as though it was that busy, but once we'd brought out tickets there was a bit of a queue as people waited to be piled into a cable car. I can't remember the last time I went on one, but cable cars are usually short journeys from point-to-point so it was quite strange to think that we were going to be travelling such a long distance using this method of transport. It was such a long journey in fact that it was difficult to see what the finishing point was as there were a couple of cable car stations in the middle, but these seemed to just provide more elevation or have the cars travel in a different direction.
Once we got to the front of the cable car and were on our way, we were treated to a ride of about twenty five minutes or so which provided some of the most spectacular views imaginable.
Almost immediately we started to ascend, and at one point I'm pretty sure we were in some of the low hanging cloud which had been an almost ever-present since we'd arrived in the country:
After initially going straight we made a turn to the left and then eventually continued on our way up. Below us it was possible to see the airport and a path which ran through the mountains. I can't think of a better way to get up to the top than to travel by cable car, but sure enough there were some people walking up the path who obviously thought differently. Considering it took us about 25-30 minutes to get up to the top, I can only imagine how long it would take you to walk up there.
Eventually we arrived at the top top an atmosphere which was very similar to the one you usually get when you enter a theme park. There are several notable reasons why people take the Ngong Ping 360 to the top where there is a cultural village (all of which I'll cover in a minute) but it did seem strange that all of a sudden it felt like we were in a themed part of an amusement park and not necessarily just in a foreign country:
We walked through a large town square which had many souvenir shops and restaurants in it before eventually reaching a clearing which rather strangely had cattle freely roaming around in it - the theory goes that the cows were there first. The most notable attraction at the top of the area where we were is the Tian Tan Buddha but we decided first to continue walking through the square and toward the Po Lin Monastery:
Founded in 1906 the front of the monastery looked very similar to what we'd seen at the Man Mo Temple as there was plenty of incense burning and many people adding to the smoke by lighting sticks of their own:
We walked up towards the monastery itself and towards the main temple which was an extremely impressive sight:
Very close to the temple itself as we walked back down the stairs was a gate that looked very familiar, and similar to one which I had seen in Taiwan although I believe there is no connection between the two:
As it had been in our view no matter where we'd walked, the pair of us decided to head towards the Tian Tin Buddha which even from a distance looked very impressive:
I read somewhere that it is the largest, seated, outdoor bronze Buddha statue in the world and already given plenty of elevation by the steps which you have to climb up to get there....
.... it is nearly 40 metres in height which means that even walking up to the top and standing on the stairs you get an impressive view:
There were plenty of people walking up and down, and even from the base it was possible to get a good view of the Buddha statue itself:
We walked briefly inside a museum, but decided that the view from the outside was better:
From the back of the statue you could see out onto a different part of Lantau which appeared to contain a beach....
.....and walking up part of the stairs you could see other accessible parts of the peak which we were on.
I was pretty taken in by the view, and I think the clouds being so low played a part in that as it made us seem like we were a lot higher up (rather than just the clouds being lower than they usually are). After getting to the bottom of the Buddha we followed a path which led us along part of the Lantau Trail. The whole thing is 70kms, and that includes walking up to the park which I believe is the highest point of Hong Kong itself.
We instead followed the trail to something called the Wisdom Path which is near the Monastery:
From here you could see the peak....
....well part of it as the rest was covered in cloud!
We decided that our time was done here, and on our way back we picked up some postcards in the cultural village and joined the queue which would take us back to the bottom.
The journey on the way down to ground level was arguably better and more scenic than the one on the way up as we went through the clouds again and sat at the front of the cable car so that we got a different view to the one that we did on the way up:
Once we were at the bottom it was time to consider what to do next, and having visited the Goldfish Market yesterday, and the Night Market the day before we decided to see if we could head to the Jade Market which is pretty close to the centre of Kowloon.
Having ridden on a cable car and the MTR so far today we decided to get the bus back to our next destination and after a 30 minute or so journey we hopped off the bus and headed in the vague direction I had seen that the market was in.
Eventually we found some signs which confirmed my theory and walking along a few slightly suspect streets we arrived at the location of the market, only to realise that it was closed for the day.
By this point we were still in the mood to fill our evening with some kind of activity, but the first thing we needed to do was avoid getting drenched as we found ourselves out in the first proper downpour we'd actually experienced.
Although the weather hasn't exactly been fantastic whilst we've been here, it hasn't quite been as bad as we anticipated as we whenever we looked at the weather forecast all it seemed to predict was thunderstorms all day every day!
Once the rain subsided we nipped into a shop to get ourselves a quick sushi snack before continuing on towards a shopping centre where we'd read that there was an arcade.
Obviously I'd experienced my fair share in Japan, but I know that these are also quite big in Hong Kong too.
Although the shopping centre we found ourselves in was very impressive, the same can't be said of the 'arcade' which was nothing more than UFO machines wedged in a tiny corner on the ninth floor. It looked like something might be under construction, but we decided to find somewhere else to go which luckily wasn't too far away from where we were, and using our excellent navigation skills we managed to find where we needed to be and spent the next couple of ours wondering around and playing a few of the different games on offer.
The funniest moment was perhaps when a local decided to challenge the pair of us on a driving game which we duly accepted, neither of us having ever played it before!
From the arcade it was time to head back in the direction of home, and having had such a busy day we'd not really eaten properly so decided that a good meal was in order.
After catching the MTR back to Causeway Bay we decided to go to a restaurant that we'd seen in the last couple of days which was opposite the bus stop.
Having done a pretty rubbish job when I was in Korea of actually being able to eat Korean food, we'd spotted a BBQ restaurant which we decided to visit that night. The juxtoposition of eating Korean food in Hong Kong was a strange one, but the food itself was delicious and I'm glad we made that decision as it validated the information that I frequently share with people about how delicious Korean food is!
Video Games
Lana Del Rey (2012)
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