Quintessential China

Today was a textbook cultural education and I loved every bit of it. Many of my favorite parts of today were surprises, fun "finds" that I had not planned, but was thrilled to discover.

I intended for the day to start at the Yuen Po Street Bird Garden, but I ran into this on the way:

It's the flower market, and since I missed seeing the one in Bangkok closeup, I diverted my path so I could look at all the different kinds of orchids. They are amazing! I have never seen so many different shades and designs, just of orchids. I wish Arizona were the type of place where they grew well. I'd have dozens of pots on my back patio.

Right where the flower market ended was the entrance to the bird garden. Perfect! This garden is where little old Chinese men (and some not so little and some not so old) gather with their songbirds to share with each other. It was truly a delight to watch them show off thier birds--they take great pride in them. I was curious to see what was going on when I saw a crowd of them, so I walked over to see and an older gentleman was examining a bird in one of the cages, as if to be somehow deciphering the fortune of the owner from the health or movements of the bird. I have no idea if that's what he was actually doing, but I thought it was interesting to watch the interaction anyhow. The bird garden is a popular place--lots of people and LOTS of birds, all of them singing to and with each other. Some of them were really beautiful:


Yeah, sorry about the video being sideways...haven't figured out yet how to rotate videos. The wooden bird cages were ornate and it was neat to see their tiny porcelain water and food dishes. I also got a kick out of some of the things vendors were selling:

In case you can't tell, those are live grasshoppers. :)

Across the street on the other side of the bird garden was a local market, which I checked out and found fish of all kinds:

Tasty! :)

I grabbed something (else) to eat and then took a walk through the park, only to find a Kung Fu performance, complete with a Chinese dragon! (and a man who is the Chinese equivalent of Richard Simmons, complete with big hair and wristbands--pictures to come later.)

The rest of the Kung Fu team did routines, some in pairs with sticks and blades. It was fun to watch along with all of the old Chinese men in the park.

After the Kung Fu, I exited the park and prompty stumbled across the 24th Annual HK Koi Show where they had huge plastic tubs of fish (all of which had aerators, which I noticed...Allison, you would've noticed too...some things are hard to forget.) Some of the koi were absolutely enormous. I thought this was funny....who pets fish???

After the koi show, I walked through several streets lined with vendors setting up for the night market and ended up at the Jade market, where they sell all shapes, sizes, and shades of Jade (and pearls, too.) Then I headed south, hoping to figure out what time it was (a watch would be the one thing I didn't pack and actually wished that I had) and ran into another market where a gentleman was painting name signs in calligraphy:

By that time, the sun was going down.

I walked along the harbor for awhile, enjoyed the full moon and the city lights, and ended up on a Star Ferry Tour that was supposed to be a great place for watching the nightly light show, but that was actually a disappointment, both the tour and the light show. But, after a day like today, who can complain? (As a side note, while on the harbor tour, I saw the fireworks from Hong Kong Disneyland and smiled.)

Wow, what a perfect day!