Too many fat children running around

Date: Thursday, August 11th, 2005
Location: Hong Kong
Cockroach count: 0 (yay!)
Pervert count: the usual
Crazy tourists from China count: too many

Went to Ocean Park and Repulse Bay today. Crazy China tourists everywhere. I didn't think they were crazy at the beginning of the day, but by gad I soon learn. Hopped on the tour bus this morning only to realize it was all in Mandarin which they refer to as "Poh tong wah" here. Didn't understand a word of it and sat there in stunned silence trying desperately to glean what was going on and it was like high school French IB all over again. I finally had to pull the tour guide aside and confessed my language/literacy inadequacies. He treated me like a "special" person the rest of the day.

Got to Ocean park and got incredibly sick on the cable car up hte mountain. I was at the top with a sore throat, fever, headache and sore limbs. Had to dry swallow tylenol like it was mother's milk to me. Then I stepped in garbage water and had to wash off my foot with duck water (pond water in which ducks had been swimming and doing their duck do do). Smell terrible now.

The park was great and is a sort of giant amusement park with rides, games, food stands, an aquarium and a dolphin show. I got to see jellyfish, sharks and more Doraemen and Hello Kitty dolls than I ever wanted to see in my life. Everyone at the aquarium was standing there saying in Chinese to their kids, "now your dad's eaten this fish but I haven't. This one would be good steamed with a bit of soya sauce. This one is not so good for eating. Ah, this one here is good deep fried with a bit of chili. Oh look! A turtle! those are great in soups. Such sweet meat."

It was like a giant sea food buffet to them. Sad, but I was thinking the same thoughts! Seafood in Hong Kong is probably breaking several CITES and UN endangered species codes, but is soooooo delicious!

Lunch came around and our tour group was to eat a buffet lunch at the Ocean Park seaview restaurant. We got in there and the tour guide, still thinking I was a bit thick in the head, guided me to my seat and told me where to sit and where to get food and everything even though it was obvious. I thanked him and put some stuff down to mark my seat and walked up to get food. That's when I decided I was definitely too Canadian for my own good.

I got up to the buffet and there was simply a hoard of people literally attacking each other trying to get at the food. If you've ever seen a bunch of piglets or puppies all trying to get to the same teat on their mother's udder, then you'll know what it looked like. Old ladies were pushing everyone around, kids were shoving, fat middle aged men were stepping on old ladies to get at the rice, middle aged ladies were stealing the scoops out of each serving pan so that when people got to the front, there were no utensils to get food with and they were forced to turn back.

It was chaos. No line up, no order, nothing. Everyone for themselves. It was rather shocking behaviour by people who claim to come from a communist society.

I tried to get into what I thought was a break in the chaos but was quickly shoved out by an old lady. I persisted and somehow got squished to the front by the man shoving me from behind. I got there, was quickly elbowed in the stomach by the girl beside me, then was literally bounced out of the area by the fat guy who had just barged in and taken all the food in the tray before anyone had a chance to know what was going on.

I gave up and took my empty plate to another spot where I tried to get food again. In the end, I was still trying to be courteous to the old ladies who all seemed to be skilled hip checkers, when suddenly, I felt someone elbowing and shoving me off with their hands and I turned to see a little boy of about eleven beligerently shoving old ladies, me, mothers, fat men, everyone to the side so he could get at the food.

It was the last straw. Getting shoved by my elders was one thing but no little spoiled squirt was going to push me and every one else around.

I swiped my foot at the ground a few times and prepared to charge. I bellowed and barged in there and tried to shove the little runt out but everyone else seemed to get the same idea as me. It was utter pandemonium and in another 10 minutes of kicking and shoving and screaming, we all retired to our respective tables licking our wounds and carrying off our pitiful bounty.

I got back to the table to see that someone had taken my chair. They had vacated it at the moment but could see they had chosen steadily to ignore my umbrella and jacket on the chair andmy brochures on the plate. They had put their coffee by my setting and used my napkin and whatnot. Being quite put out, I shoved the napkin and coffee aside and sat myself down again as if nothing was wrong. I sat there and looked around. It was a lady from my tour group and she finally got back with her three plates piled high and walked up to me as if to say "Hey! you took my spot!" but I stared her down, calmly shoved the coffee cup to the side and began eating, ignoring her stares.

All the other people at my table were skinny little tourists from China and again, I was the tallest and the fattest one. And yet . . . and yet. I had half a plate of food after a good twenty minutes of fighting hard for it. Each of the skinny, mean looking girls across from me had THREE plates EACH laden with food. I had seen them earlier pushing their way through the crowds and grabbing with greed at anything edible.

"I don't even know what this is," said one of the girls pointing to a rather lovely fried tater tot ,"but I grabbed it anyway." She took it in her mouth, decided she didn't like it and left it there with the other two plates of food which she and her friends were obviously not going to finish. I sighed and ate the steamed rice and boiled vegetables (the only pan which wasn't popular with the other tourists) on my plate.

I contemplated dessert but glanced at the dessert buffet table with its pirrahna-like throng of vicious fat children and decided to try my luck with the coffee and tea table. I returned, cradling my lemon tea which was soothing my throat. Tater-tot girl looked up at me and my tea as I sat down. She eyed the tea with a jealous, hungry glint in her eye. I could tell she wanted it. True to form, she went up and got herself a tea AND a coffee and sat back down, satisfied she was getting bit of food in the place that she possibly could. She began steadily working at her three plates again, but I could tell she wouldn't get through them.

I sighed and decided I wasn't hungry anymore.

Afterwards, the tour headed to Repulse Bay, the strangely named beach in HK famed for its beautiful sand and scenery. We passed and bunch of famous people's houses on the way including what I was told was Jackie Chan's house. I might have heard wrong though as this was all in Mandarin and I still wasn't understanding any of it.

Eventually, we made our way to some wierd jewellery store where the feature attraction was hidden behind some security guards and some marble steps. You had to put on little booties over your shoes before you could go in and I was wondering what all the hullaballoo was about. I put on the booties, went in when the guards nodded it was my turn and there they were - two toilets plated in pure gold.

Everyone in the room "ooohed" and "aaahed" and I contemplated that perhaps the Chinese culture's obsession with gold had gone a bit too far this time. Professional photographers were present to take you and your family's picture beside the toilets for a cheap price of 10 bucks Canadian a pop as cameras were not allowed in the room. The family standing beside me were tenderly admiring their just-bought polaroids and I didn't know whether to laugh or roll my eyes or get my own photo with the famed potties. In the end, I just sighed, shook my head and left the building, realising it coudln't get worse than this.

I got back on the bus and realised it was probably the end of the tour. Talk about saving the best for last eh?

My uncle picked me up from the bus drop-off point and insisted on a philosphical debate on the way home. He was spouting the greatness of Buddhism to me today as he's run out of great things to say about Hong Kong and instead, I listened to his contradicting comments about how everyone can be a Buddha, "Everyone can be a Buddha! I can be a Buddha, you can be a buddha, that man over there can be a Buddha. Everyone equally!" and then later on about how not all people in the world are equal and that "many just can't understand Buddhism's wisdom as they are not of superior enough intellect. Well, not everyone can be smart like me you know. Not everyone can study Buddhism and understand it." I sighed as he continued on about how great both he and Buddhism were and I tried to ignore my feverish headache.

When we got back, I got even more sick and he finally stopped talking and got concerned and being the lovely, nice man he is (even if he is a bit silly at times), went out and got me all the medicines he could. He did add as he passed me the bag of drugs, "you won't need to see a doctor! I'm just as good as any doctor. Here, take these Chinese herbal remedies right before you go to bed and i guarantee you'll be better in the morning. It's nothign! Just a fever!"

My aunt was not so trusting in his medical abilities and said, "Maybe we'd better give her some western medicine like Tylenol and get her to a doctor in the morning."
"No no no, she'll be fine. Just trust me. Those herbal remedies are just the thing for her."

Well, I took that horrid tasting black herbal tea stuff an hour ago and my fever is still there and I feel worse. Either way, I'll try to rest and see how I do tomorrow. I'm supposed to be on another tour to go see the Big Buddha on Lantau island and am pretty excited to see it.

Good night! here's hoping tomorrow is better.