Year Of The Ox and New Year's Celebrations

I've already written one post about Lunar New Year, so if you don't know what it is, check out that post. As you probably already know, I spent my Lunar New Year in Hong Kong. Hong Kong has got to be the best place in the world to celebrate the New Year. The entire city is completely decked out. Think any US city during Christmas season, then change the Christmas trees for dragons and oxen (it's the year of the ox) and all the colors to red, and you might have a fair idea of what Hong Kong was like. Every store, every mall, every restaurant, completely decorated.

Lunar New Year seems to be all about bringing good luck for the new year, and avoiding bad luck. There are many superstitions about what sort of things you should and should not do on during New Years to have the best possible year. Fireworks ward away bad spirits. So does the color red. So, for that reason, you'll see red lanterns and red scrolls hung all over the place. In the next photo here, you can see me spinning a wheel. They say if you spin this wheel in one directions as many times as your "lucky number" (which was a rather complicated calculation for me) you can either find new love in the new year, or have long lasting love... depending on the direction you spin the wheel in. I'm not sure how much stock I take on these things, but I figure it can't hurt to give it a whirl... literally. They had these wheels for studies, careers, wealth, and luck too. I spun them all.



Speaking of auspice for the new year... Did you know that I was born in the year of the ox? I feel like being born in the year of the ox and visiting China to celebrate the year of the ox is quite auspicious... but not only that.. but! Guess what I found on new year's day? A real live ox!!!

Talk about luck. I think this has got to be good luck for the whole year. I found this guy on New Year's day on Lantau Island not so far from the Big Buddha. He was just sort of wandering around in the brush. Where did he come from? I have no idea.

We visited a small temple in SoHo and found quite a few worshipers putting out their offerings of incense and fruit.


Then there was the parade. This parade is quite famous for being one of the biggest Chinese New Year parades in the world. The parade started around 8:00 on Jan 26th. We got there around 7, and there were already quite a few folks there, but fortunately we were right in front of one the three performance areas along the parade route, and there was a screen for us short folk to watch on (Yea, I'm even short in Asia. What the heck?).


We had gotten a little preview in the previous days. Every time we walked past the Avenue of Stars, we caught a glimpse of some of the performing groups in their rehearsals. And this ox mascot that was so darn cute. I wish I could have gotten a good pic of him from the front.


After waiting around for a while and being entertained by the MC/ croudwarmer.... who spoke mostly in Chinese, but every once in a while switched into near perfect English when he found foreigners in the crowd, the parade finally started. I expected more dragons... like these above. Actually, it was more like a parade at home. Lots of floats from all over. Performing groups from all over too. America's contribution to the parade were some NFL cheerleaders . They sure did get some cheers from the crowd.


Here was one float from Japan. They actually had two, the other being much more amazing, but no photo would have done it justice. It consisted of some men balancing bamboo polls strung up with at least 50 paper lanterns, on their chin, forehead, hip and anywhere else mildly feasible. These bamboo polls were at tall and wide as sails. I was certain they were going to crash them, they were balancing so precariously. One big gust of wind and they would be on top of us all. But it never happened.

I was happy to see that Korea made a good show of their traditional music and dancing. Korean folk dancing is unmistakable. If it weren't for the brightly colored hanbok, you could still pick it out by the dancers that do a ribbon dance by having the ribbon attached to their head while they dance. It's about time the world sees how awesome Korea is.

Anyway, I had a great Lunar New Year in Hong Kong. Before I went, I read that It's not the best time to go. There may be a few cons to go during Lunar New Year, but I think that the reasons TO go during Lunar New Year far outweigh the cons. Lunar New Year falls on February 14th next year. You've got a year to plan your trip. ^^

McDonald's in Asia

I wasn't planning on writing about McDonald's, but since my friend asked, I might as well say a little something. I don't really like fast food, but under the bad influence of my friends here in Seoul, I have been eating it more often, and I did make two stops to the one near our guesthouse by Tsim Sha Tsui Station.

For the most part, it's just like home, with a few exceptions. Evidently here in Asia, McDonald's is trying to catch the gourmet types with fancy deserts. I haven't seen it yet in Seoul, but supposedly it's coming. You can get all sorts of fancy cheesecakes and chocolate cakes and... some other stuff (honestly, I didn't pay too much attention) at a separate counter next to the regular counter where you order your Big Mac. I didn't see anyone lining up over there though........

For the most part, the regular menu seemed similar to home though. Unfortunately, the whole menu wasn't posted on the overhead boards, if you wanted to see the whole menu, you had to ask to see some laminated menu at the counter. Sort of annoying. Everything on the overhead board was double sized. I guess folks in Hong Kong have big appetites. They also served curly fries, which cost only 2$ HKD more (Like 2o cents more). Though... mine were a little cold. I also got a McFlurry. They only had two kinds: Oreo and Smarties... I wasn't sure what they meant by smarties, so I stuck with the Oreo one.... Aren't smarties those little sugar candies that come in the plastic wrap? That would be disgusting in a McFlurry... but who knows... It's prob some British candy that I don't know about. Anyone know? Anything else? Not that I can think of.

While I'm at it, maybe you're interested in what McDonald's is like here in Seoul? Well, there is one on my way to work, though I usually only go there if I have to get up early for work and eat breakfast (which happens once every 3 months or so), or if I'm coming home late at night from the clubs and my friends want food before they go home. It's open 24/7. I think breakfast starts around 4 or 5 am. Breakfast is about the same, except that you can't get a fried egg and cheese without some sort of meat... either sausage or bacon. I suffer with bacon (because bacon is sooo awful.... not.....). Or I get hotcakes. Their regular menu is mostly the same, but they do have a bulgogi burger. I don't think I've tried it, but I feel as though I should.

Service at a Korean McDonald's is borderline slow. I think I remember Megan telling me that there is supposed to be something like a 45 second prep time for a meal. I think in Seoul it's got to be around 3 or 4 minutes. I know that's not really that long, but if you're used to getting your meal within seconds, it's a big change. Hong Kong, by the way, was not like this. They had extremely quick service.

Trash separating is also a bit complicated at McDonald's... and most fast food restaurants where you clear your own food for that matter. Seoul has an amazing trash/ recycling program. It's very well organized, and it's also very demanding of its citizens. Trash must be sorted. Food waste must go into one bin, trash goes in another, sometimes cups are collected separately, water waste (including ice) goes into another bin, and recyclables go somewhere else. Unfortunately, it's only ever labeled in Korean (with some ambiguous pictures) so you sort of have to guess/ watch other people throw away their trash. But, actually, this is an amazing idea. If we were half as recycling conscious in the US as they are here, I'm sure we could reduce our trash output by half. Haven't seen anything like this in other countries.

Then again, as trash conscious as Seoul seems to be sometimes, it's usually next to impossible to find a public trash can (never mind recycling bin) and leaving trash on the street is normal. There are street cleaners (people, not machines) that come by every night to pick up trash, so it's not... so... bad.

Anyway, totally random post, but I think that it's relevant. This blog is supposed to be about cross cultural experiences, and McDonald's would definitely fall into that category... as ashamed as I am to say that I eat there now.

Other fast food chains in Seoul? Burger King, KFC, one Quizno's in Itaewon, Subway (but not that many). Those are the only ones I can think of now.

Other western food chains in Seoul? Outback... everywhere. Baskin Robins, Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks, Red Mango.

Other western/ international chains in Seoul? Family Mart (Japanese), 7/11, Citibank, HBSC.

I know I'm forgetting some. Any others you can think of?

*Note: These photos weren't taken by me, and I have not visited these particular McDonalds, but similar ones to these. I sometimes steal photos from other sites, like most bloggers, but for some reason, today it bothered me more then usual.

Po Lin Monastary and the Giant Buddha

Monday we headed to the Cable Car to take us to Lantau Island. We didn't expect that many people to be there, so we were a little shocked to see a huge line of people when we got out of Tung Chung station. We got in line, and it took us about an hour to get from the station to the cable car in that line. A return trip ticket cost $107 Hong Kong Dollars ("special day price") which is probably about $15 USD. The cable car ride was about 20 minutes and it took us right into Ngong Ping "village".

Ngong Ping village is in no way shape or form something that I would willingly call a village. What it is is a newly constructed tourist trap designed to bring in hoards of visitors and destroy the ambiance and serenity of this would be holy place. I'm not a very religious person, but I have a serious problem with the commercialization of religion. Religion, in my opinion, can not, by definition, be about money making. This place, on the other hand, seemed only to be about money making. To get to the Buddha, you need to cross through this "village" full of Starbucks, plastic wishing trees and souvenir shops.

Once you make it through the hoards of crowds (probably so many because it was new years day) you can make your way up to the Tian Tan Buddha or Big Buddha. This is one of the largest Buddhas in the world. It was only constructed fairly recently, in 1993. Climbing the 268 stairs, for us, was not too arduous. We live in Seoul, which I think could get reasonably be called the stair capital of the world because the subway is so far below ground and there are so few escalators to bring you up to the top. Stairs for me now are nothing. Anyway, we got to the top of the Buddha and had a nice view of Lantau Island.


After climbing back down from Buddha, we headed over toward the Po Lin Monastery. This monastery is about 100 years old. I have a feeling that the monks who originally founded this monastery probably chose the location because it is so remote from everything else in Hong Kong. It was probably a very serene place to meditate and escape from the trappings of crazy Hong Kong life. Today, though, tourists..like me... mill about peering in through windows watching monks recite their mantras and taking photos everywhere. I must admit, though, that many of the visitors were actually Buddhist, and stopped to make offerings and burn incense. There was incense burning everywhere. It was very cool, and the air, even outside, was thick with burning incense. In the photo below, we found these gigantic incense sticks burning near then entrance. Everything red in this photo is incense, including the red posts in the foreground. If you could see the top, they were burning as well.


After we meandered around the temple for a while, we headed back to the village to get back on the cable car. We had another 45 minute wait in line to get back on. From there we headed back to Kowloon to catch the parade. More on the parade, and Lunar New Year to come.

A post in reply to Megan's question:

Here's Bruce Lee for you. I didn't see any handprint though.

Victoria Peak

The Peak is a view point of the city from atop one of the high peaks on Hong Kong Island. To get to the top, you can take the Peak Tram, which is a rather expencive, but quite entertaining form of transportation. It is essentially a trolley that goes straight up the side of the mountain. It sort of has a roller coaster feel to it. The tram will take you up to the top of the peak and into a huge tourist complex. After passing many restaurants and stores, you can go up to the top deck to get a view of the Hong Kong sky line. There is a whole mall outside of the peak building, plus a walking path to get away from the hoardes of tourists.


Usually I stay away from shopping areas like this, because they tend to be way overpriced, but I did find myself a cute little ox for only $80 HKD. (aprox. $12 USD) . I usually hate knicknacks like this, but I am the year of the ox, and I was in Hong Kong for the year of the ox, so I thought I needed a little ox to comemorate the experience. Surprisingly, we were able to bargain in this store. The original price was $98, but my friend said $80 and the shopkeeper accepted the price.

Hong Kong For Lunar New Year!

So I just returned from Hong Kong and all the festivities for Lunar (Chinese) New Year there. I'll go into details for individual things later, but before I go to bed, I just wanted to give an overview of the things I did and saw.

We flew out of Seoul at 10:30am Saturday morning, in the middle of the biggest snow storm I've seen here. Granted, we haven't got much snow at all this year. I think there may have been an inch on the ground. Nothing an airport can't deal with. But, we did have to sit on the runway for almost an hour for de-icing. We arrived in Hong Kong late, but we got through customs quickly and found our airport bus to our hotel quickly.

We stayed in Kowloon, near Tsim Sha Tsui metro station, on Nathan Road. Because my friends and I reserved our hotels at different times, we wound up staying in two separate guesthouses, but fortunately they were across the street from one another. This area has many guest houses that sport the cheapest prices in the city. Unfortunately, in Hong Kong, you really do get what you pay for. Here in Korea, you can pay 20,000 won and get a decent love motel for the night, but in Hong Kong, you can pay the equivalent of $20 USD and get a closet sized bathroom that may or may not have a drain for the shower. Our guesthouse fortunately had a drain on the floor, so while we stood over the toilet to shower, the water did go away. My friend's place evidently didn't even have a drain. They had to wash their hair over the sink. Not really sure how they washed their bodies... The beds were well used foam mattresses that sort of sank towards the side. Pillows were about the same quality. But, I haven't found any lice yet, and I didn't see any roaches, so besides a little discomfort (not that much really, I can sleep just about anywhere, as long as I can lay down and I have a blanket) it was a good deal. I certainly couldn't have afforded a nice hotel for 3 nights.

The two most famous guesthouse places in Kowloon are Mirador Mansion, where I stayed and Chungking Mansion which was a block away. These aren't really mansions by any definition that I know of, they are just some generic, rundown, city buildings. There are plenty of other places too around where we were, like Golden Crown Plaza where my friends stayed. I have a feeling they are all similar or worse quality. These places are often the homes of illegal immigrants moving to Hong Kong. We saw many Africans and Middle Eastern people around here. The Middle Eastern people were particularly annoying though, because they were constantly trying to sell either tailoring or watches, and they would pester you on the street trying to get you to follow them to buy their goods. Though, in comparison to the street vendors in Vietnam, I guess they weren't so bad.

Day 1 we met up after we settled in our rooms, and set out to wonder around. We went to Kowloon park, then found our way to the Avenue of Stars and watched the light show. More on that later. We walked around some more, then headed home, because we were exhausted from waking up so early for our flight.

Day 2 we ate DIM SUM! for breakfast, then took the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong Island. We took the tram up to the Peak, ate and walked around a bit up there. Came back down and walked around, explored the elevated sidewalks and the longest covered escalator in the world, went around SoHo, found a microbrewery, remembered why I didn't like beer when I was younger, went home, changed, went back to SoHo to go out, had fun for a while, but in the end were rather disappointed by $7 beers and a lack of dancing (there was a wine bar that was playing salsa and Latin beats, but no one shared my enthusiasm for checking that place out...). We then headed back to Kowloon (the subways were open all night that night) then went to McDonald's for a midnight snack before heading home.

Day 3 we searched for a new dim sum restaurant, but everything seemed to be closed, so we settled for a classic hong kong style diner. Ate some yummy food headed to the cable car. The cable car took us to a giant Buddha and a giant tourist trap, but it was still fun. We headed back to our hotel, and met up at 7:00 for the parade. We just happened to be right in front of one of the three performance areas along the parade route, and we were entertained by an MC until the parade started at 8:00. The parade was great and we headed back to our hotels afterwards.

Day 4 we met at 11:00 and went back to the first dim sum restaurant that we ate at to eat again, since we knew where it was. We didn't have time to waste, and we needed some barbecue steamed pork buns stat. We then took the ferry over to Wai Chai to see the golden flower statue that was given as a gift to the city by the People's Republic of China when they were handed back the city from the British. We walked along the harbor, took a doubledecker tram (like a trolley) and then headed back to our hotel to pick up our bags and hop back on the airport bus. Everything else went as it should, and I was back in my room in Seoul by 11:00 pm. And now I'm here typing.

My overall view of Hong Kong? It's an amazing city. It sort of felt like what New York City with slightly more Chinese writing. It was a bit like Montreal in that the city is completely bilingual. We only found one person the whole time we were there that didn't speak English. It has the most beautiful cityscape I've ever seen. It was absolutely mesmerizing. Especially at night.

It was expensive in some respects. Eating prices were similar to home, but still cheaper, because there is no tipping (but a service charge is always added to the bill). Drinking was incredibly expensive, and supposedly we were in the cheaper part of town for that. I found the transportation to be quite reasonably priced. Fares are charged by distance, so if you're only going a few stops, you pay less than a US dollar, and if you go far, you might pay around $2 USD. Trams and buses were very inexpensive.

I found shopping to be expensive, but it's hard to judge, because the city is inundated with upscale shopping areas (think Coach, Burbury, Club Monaco, Dior, Yves Saint Laurant, etc etc etc.. ones I have never even heard of because they are so ridiculously far out of my price range.) So, for all I know, they could be cheaper than at home, but I would never spent $100 USD on a shirt at home, so why would I start in Hong Kong? I was pricing cameras too. I found one in Mong-kok for about $100 USD higher than the average price in the US, then I found one by Tsim Sha Tsui for about $100 USD less than the US price. I was too confused, I decided just to wait til I got back to Seoul.

My goals for HK posts:
Avenue of Stars/ light show
Chinese New Year Parade
Dim Sum
Random City Sights
Cable Car/ Big Buddha
The Peak

설날 : Lunar New Year

설날 (Seollal) is Korean for Lunar New Year. If you don't know what Lunar New Year is, you have probably heard of Chinese New Year, which is essentially the same thing. The traditional Asian calendar runs on a lunar cycle rather than a solar cycle like the modern calendar, so new year's day changes every year. This year it falls on January 26th, and next year it will fall on February 14th.

Koreans generally have a family celebration, probably at a grandparent's home. Traditions for Lunar New Year include wearing hanbok (see picture), bowing to elders and giving money to children. The game I learned at Korean class last Saturday, GoStop (hwat'u) is often played with family. Seoul is pretty dead I hear for Seollal, since so many people are with family, often outside of the city in their hometowns.

And what will I be doing for Seollal you ask?? I'm leaving the country again. Yea, I know I just got back from Vietnam, but I can't stand sitting around my apartment for 4 days with no work. So, I'm heading to the city that every Chinatown in the world models their Chinese New Year's celebrations off of. Where's that? Hong Kong! I'm heading out tomorrow morning early, and I'll be at my hotel (or shady guesthouse, whatever it is...) by 3:00 pm tomorrow. I'm going to see the annual parade, fireworks, some temples, and do some shopping... hopefully for a camera... since I've been talking about a camera for 2 months now. Leaning towards a DSLR now too.. dangerous...

I hope to come home with some amazing photos and stories. I won't be updating 'til I'm home I suspect. See you all soon! Enjoy your Lunar New Year and head to your local Chinatown and watch a parade and think of me.