Day 11. Monday
I had to pack in my last day in Hong Kong before spending
the next 24 hours on airplanes and airports during my 3 flights back to western
society.
I met Teresa at 9:30 for breakfast before we made our way to
the Brown Shoe Hong Kong office. Our Hong Kong office isn’t very big, probably
20 people or so work there, but I wanted to say hi, in case I ever had to work
with any of them. Everyone was nice and the
office was mostly the same- cube land with everybody typing away on their
computers.
Afterwards we strolled through a market. A food market….I
really had to pull myself out of my head and just focus on taking pictures
because it was sooo out of my element. I didn’t want to be gagging while
looking at other people’s food (im not completely rude), but it was sad to me
to see the dead animals and even sadder to see the living ones just waiting to get
their heads chopped off for dinner. Yes I
eat meat….but I am really good at denying it is an animal. Most of my food doesn’t look like an animal
so somehow I pull it off in my head. I
know this is not logical thinking. I
need to work on becoming a vegetarian or get over it. I tried to be a vegetarian, but I found it so
difficult in social situations. And I
love being social….it was hard to find things to eat. Surely over time it becomes easier and if I became
more dedicated, the more people would know to have a meat-less option. After my 3 months run, I gave-in at a family
Christmas dinner and said screw it the food is way too good to pass up. BUT, I should try again.
Anyway… I understand that the reason for keeping the animals
(fish, frog etc) alive up until right before they are eaten- so that they have
the freshest food. But I don’t get that
logic. The buckets, tanks and pins the
animals are kept in are gross and dirty.
Yes they may be freshly dead, but they have been swimming and living in
shit and who knows what bacteria for how long??? Not appetizing.
 |
| Still flopping around. |
 |
| They are still alive-flopping around. They throw water on the m now and then |
After all the dead animalness, and some more regular
shopping I was able to work up an appetite.
We were off to see a floating restaurant. This restaurant was very historic and we had to take a boat to it, after all it was floating in the bay. We had the fish ball soup. Yummy. 
Teresa really knows what American’s eat- I told her I will try and like most things BUT the can NOT be looking at me or remind me it would be looking at me and she got it. I felt sooo lucky to have her guiding me around. It was as if she could read my mind; every time something was weird or different she would point it out and explain it to me. On several occasions, we laughed so hard I was almost crying. How often does that happen when you first meet a person? This happened when we were talking about the variances in toilets- especially from mainland China to Hong Kong. Mainland was mostly porcelain holes in the floor “squatty potties”- hong kong was much more western style toilets. She explained that many mainland Chinese much prefer the hole in the floor- they think it’s disgusting to sit on a toilet- unsanitary. Ok, Ok…I get it. But its way more unsanitary to not wipe!!! Toliet paper is very rare. She tells me that in many cases when the folks who prefer the hole come across a western toilet they will climb on it and stand to go to the bathroom in order to avoid sitting on it!!!! I was picturing this in my mind and way dying laughing. So funny. If you are ever in China and there are footprints on the toilet, now you know why.
