Hong Kong Harp-ing: September 2011

I'm trying new things on this great continent! Translation: lots of opportunities for me to make a fool of myself. I've come to call these little mishaps my "rookie mistakes". Here are some highlights:

Food (always with the foooood!): I had my first dim sum experience not that long ago. It was my "welcome lunch" at my work, so luckily I was with many people who knew all the right things to order. The food just kept coming- dumplings, fried tofu, various seafood, fish balls, more dumplings, veggies galore.

This photo doesn't really do it justice, but such is life. Notice in the picture, that the chopsticks are the normal "wood" color. For dim sum, what are known as the serving chopsticks are a different color. In this case, they were black. It is impolite to use the chopsticks you eat with to serve your food with. So, black sticks for serving with, plain sticks for eating with. Being the newbie that I am, here was my error. Halfway through the meal, one of my co-workers looked at me, shook his head and muttered "rookie mistake". It took me a minute to process what he was talking about. I looked down and noticed I was eating with the black serving chopsticks. Whoops.

Sport: I've been talking a lot about food- so I need some way to stay in shape, yeah? Thus, I started going to the squash club with a group of people. It is very very cheap to rent out the courts and you don't have to be a member, so it's a great athletic option. I always go with Brits, who seem to all play squash, like some sort of national past-time. It's not really a popular sport at all in America, and to make matters worse, I've never really played any racquet sport. Or any sport at all, now that I think of it. Unless you count playing soccer when I was 6- aka picking dandelions on the sideline during every game. Anyway, needless to say, I knew I was in for a walloping. They tried to be nice to me, but I was still complete crap my first time. Now my roommate is "training" me so that I don't make such a fool of myself the next time I play against people. Despite my complete and utter lack of skill, the pictures sort of make it seem as if I know what I am doing. And that's what matters most, right?

"Seeing the sights": And here it is. My biggest rookie mistake as of yet. I have one day off each week and I decided, why not go see some other parts of Hong Kong? Great idea. Andy had forwarded me an email of the "10 Best Hikes in Hong Kong". I like nature. I like hiking. Done. This was going to be my day off adventure. I copied down the directions to the trail head that were on the internet, I packed up my granola and 3 liters of water, and set off. I had to take a 30 minute ferry to the island where the "trail" was. So far, so good. I arrived at Mui Wo, which is a rural town on the east coast of Lantau Island. It is a popular area for hiking, so I figured there would be decent signage for the trails. Wrong. Everyone in the main city area of Hong Kong seemingly speaks English, so I thought if worse comes to worse, I will be able to ask for directions. Wrong. I started off on what I assumed was the correct trail because it looked like a path and seemed like it could correspond to the directions I had. However, since Mui Wo is rural and you can only access the houses and shops via bicycle or on foot, every road looks like a path. No cars or motor vehicles are allowed in the heart of Mui Wo. Alas, I kept dead-ending at squatters' homes and would have to retrace my steps and try again. Many of these squatters had viscious dogs, and in one instance, I was chased. Who is dumb enough to do this alone? Me.

So after 2 hours of being lost- I finally found a nice Irish man who pointed me in the right direction. I had asked the other 3 people I happened to come across, but they either didn't speak English, or had never heard of the trail I was after. That's what I get for trying out a road-less-travelled-sort-of-trail. The Irish man sort of just shook his head at me and said "Wow, you're a really long way off. You're not even close". Cheers. Thanks for the encouragement. Only another half hour of getting lost and being scared by wild animals, and I finally found my trail. YAY! Except not. Because I was stupid enough to attempt to climb a mountain in 100 degree Fahrenheit weather with 77 percent humidity. I only climbed for about 1.5 kilometers before I couldn't breathe and had to turn around. The humidity made me feel like I was breathing in straight water. No more hiking for me, until about November, at the earliest. For now, I'll try to stick to the sight-seeing that involves air conditioning.