This past weekend was the day to celebrate the Mid_Autumn Festival. It is one of the most important Chinese holidays of the year where they celebrate the "woman on the moon". Nobody has been able to tell me exactly what the origin of this holiday is so I decided to go to "wikipedia" to find out. It pretty much is in sync with what I have been able to find out as it lists many different explanations as well.
Pete (a friend from NYC) and a few Japanese tourists we had met a few nights before gathered at Causeway Bay to check out the festivities at the center of it all: Victoria Park. Here you find little kids walking around authentic paper lanterns with a candle burning inside but we also saw the battery powered version where the little light lit up a Starwars-like spacecraft. There were concerts set up but mostly geared towards the locals (rightfully so). We stayed around for a while but then realized that we were a bit too foreign to truly understand the importance of the festivities. It was HOT HOT HOT (what a surprise) with high humidity so maybe that was a big reason why we got discouraged so early on...
Great idea by Pete, let's go to Lan Kwai Fong to celebrate.
Lan Kwai Fong is the main entertainment area in Hong Kong Island, filled with restaurants, lounges and late-night entertainment establishments. No, not the dirty kind... We ended up going to "Insomnia" where a band played that we had seen at another bar a few nights before. The music was really good, the atmosphere was energetic and the music first-class (Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, Guns N' Roses, Gwen Stefani etc.)
Worth mentioning that at 2 am we grabbed some Wonton noodle soup at Tsui Wah restaurant, a popular diner near-by where we were charged 12 HKD (about CAD 1.5) for a glass of tap-water…
A great night overall that ended on a bit of a bad note but definitely well worth the time...
A couple of interesting observations:
1. A bottle of beer that would cost 7 Hong Kong dollars at a 7-11 store around the corner is sold for 60 HKD at the bar.
2. For a live band there was no cover and once you leave the dance floor area make sure you tell the bouncer because he would only let you back in if you buy another drink.
3. Oh, one more thing: if you want to go outside to grab some fresh air, you better stay inside since the muggy 33C air outside will feel like a punch in the nose as opposed to a "breath of fresh air". Stay inside where the AC is at 100%.
Pictures to back up my story can be found here:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=mxgvx6r.9cwzgu3v&x=0&y=sxyaiq&localeid=en_US
The weekend also included a trip to another popular and famous Hong Kong location about which I will write in a few days...
1 comment:
Great pics! We need details about these couple of days with Pete.
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