May 19 2006 - Beautiful Day

It is a breathtakingly beautiful, sunny morning in Hong Kong. Not unlike the US, once the typhoon passed us it left a high pressure system in its wake. The weather is intensely sunny, but not too hot. I remember last year in Austin after hurricane Rita passed us by. We were at the ACL Music Festival. The weather was bright, windy, sunny and incredibly hot. It never gets that hot here in Hong Kong, but they make up for it with humidity.

Yesterday I did a variety of things, and they were all fun in different ways. I went to Central and ran some errands. I had a few minutes before Yoga, so I decided to check out the Pedder Building, which is supposed to have some designer factory outlet stores. I only had time to peak into a few, but immediately saw some silk pants and skirts in one store that were just beautiful. Good thing I didn’t really have time to try anything on!

After Yoga I decided that I would go stroll through Hong Kong Park, because the weather was just too beautiful to stay inside. It is a lovely walk on Battery Path to the park. It skirts around the few old British colonial buildings that are left in the city. The park itself seems to consist of two sections. One section is tropical and extremely hilly. It has one really GREAT attraction – an AWESOME aviary. I went inside and was suddenly surrounded by the sound of thousands of birds. All you have to do is stand still, listen and watch. Before you know it, you begin to see them all. Parrots, warblers, macaws, water birds. The more you watch and listen, the more you see. I must have spent an hour in there. It was cool, green, beautiful, and noisy in a very musical way.

From the aviary I walked down into the next section of the park, which is a series of lakes and fountains. It was sunny, friendly, filled with people. Ladies with their sun umbrellas; little kids scampering around. It was possible to stroll through this section of the park and end up right at Pacific Place, without walking anywhere near a city street! There is a museum of Tea Pots in the park. I didn’t go inside; I think I will save it for when Mary New visits me; she just loves china!

Well since I was there….I decided I would go into Pacific Place and do some more shopping “research”. I looked at the directory and decided to check out Esprit and Zara’s. Zara’s was supposed to be discount, so I wanted to see what was there. Esprit had some nice clothes, but nothing grabbed me. Zara’s was definitely discount and had lots and lots of nice clothes. The sizes were Asian. Although they listed American sizes of extra-small, small, medium and large, I wore a medium there and in US sizes nowadays I usually wear a small or even an extra small, depending on the store. When I first walked in and looked at the people shopping there, and at the sizes I couldn’t figure it out because there were lots of small Asian women happily trying things on, but as soon as I tried a small I understood! The clothes were cheap and it was more like shopping at the Gap – the available sizes were all out; you picked your selections and stood in line for a dressing room. In a lot of ways I like that better; it just felt more familiar and comfortable. I ended up buying a peasant skirt and two shirts for under $100US.

While standing in line for a dressing room I started talking to the shop girls. I told them that I was trying to learn to count to ten in Cantonese and they started quizzing me, asking me the different numbers out of order and correcting my pronunciation! Everyone seems to be so delighted that I’m even trying. Maybe today I’ll try to learn to count to 100, and learn to say hello, goodbye, please and thank you….

By the time I finished with Zara’s I was getting hungry. There is a food court in Pacific Place and I decided to see what they had. No hamburgers there, just rice and noodle bowls from Japan, Korea, China, etc. They have a nice tradition in Hong Kong. They serve what they call an “afternoon tea set” from around 3-5 PM. It’s like a small lunch or an afternoon snack, and its cheap, $20HK (around $2US). I had eaten lunch very early because of Yoga, so I was hungry. I got a bowl of noodles from the Korean place and sat down to slurp them up with my chopsticks and watch the other people eat. I was checking out technique as much as anything! The noodles were good – hot, spicy, with little bits of Chinese cabbage and chicken.

By then it was getting sort of late, and we had plans to meet a colleague of Lee’s for dinner. I still wanted to go into Seibu’s, the Japanese department store, so I gave Lee a call on my phone. He was just a couple of stores away from me! We went into Seibu’s together. The clothes were pretty, REALLY pretty. It wasn’t designer prices, but it wasn’t cheap either. Lee was appalled, but I could see myself being in the right mood and buying something beautiful there. NICE stuff!

So, yesterday was a fun day. Today should be another fun day…hike to the Peak, maybe go to the Ladies Market in Kowloon so I can continue to enjoy the beautiful weather. Then tonight we’re going on a Junk Boat trip to Chang Mai, an island off the coast of Hong Kong Island, with the AWA.