19 Feb Exploring Hong Kong
Midway through the Internship our weekend activities have usually consisted of going to see the big tourist hotspots such as the Big Buddha, Disneyland, Avenue of the stars etc. Swarmed by hundreds of tourists, fighting for a ridiculously stupid “selfie”, you find it hard to enjoy something as significant as these landmarks. You go to these places to see and enjoy these things but when over a 100 or so others are doing the same, it becomes awfully crowded. Having said that though after waiting, searching and pushing through mass amounts of tourists we always manage to get a good spot.
I sound ungrateful and probably come off as miserable saying it but even with the Big Buddha. I could easy complain for hours about how the Hong Kong community has just used the Buddhist culture as a way to commercially promote tourism using it as an excuse to make some rip off artificial historic town. There was even a Subway (the take-away sandwich store) there! You know it isn’t a legitimate historical landmark when there’s a Subway right next door. At every corner there was a stall for merchandise. Don’t get me wrong; it’s fun going on these activities. It’s just that majority of the time I find them to be too unoriginal and corny. Going to areas that just bombard you with lame merchandise.
When we went to Disneyland I wasn’t too eager to go, but I see Disney as one of those places you have to go to at least once in your life. I could have seen myself going crazy visiting Disney as a child with the surreal landscaping and atmosphere. The rides were insane, the amount of time and money put into the production of them surely paid off. Even though I’m not that big a fan of Disney I found reasonably fun. But then the overfilled trains full of tourists started pouring in. Massive queues. Up to an hour wait for 5minute rides. It got ridiculous. It’s a shame that we caught up waiting majority of the day but I suppose that is to be expected though.
I prefer the weekends when we go out and do something exciting like the hike to Dragons Back and finishing up at Big Wave Bay. I think I just preferred something like this over going to Disney as it was just a small group. Disney was great and all but in these small groups there’s no running around after everyone or waiting 10 minutes because people want photos. Or even the casual weekends when we just relax, take a break from the fast-paced Hong Kong lifestyle to walk around the streets and take in the atmosphere.
Our weekends are still busy but no longer spent going out to the big corny tourist areas. We’ve slowly settled down into the lifestyle of Hong Kong and sometimes have time to spend our weekends how we please. With Ocean Park coming up and some Kayaking trip coming up next weekend I can’t wait to see what else is install. Hong Kong still has so much more to offer I’m trying to waste no time. I don’t want to go home regretting that I never got the chance to see/do certain things.
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