Hou Leng!

Yesterday was China National Day and, after some very delicious Shanghainese food near Alley's place, we went to the TST waterfront to watch the fireworks show. The place was packed (it reminded me of New Year's Eve in Times Square), but it was well worth it. I saw fireworks that I've never seen, including flowers that bloomed, smiley faces, the number 8, planets, hearts, and fireworks that exploded into other fireworks that then exploded into slow moving glitter that looked like glowing parachuters and/or gigantic fireflies. But the BEST part was the crowd, particularly this little boy on his father's shoulders behind us. They screamed and shouted the entire time, "Waaaaaaaaa!!!! Hou Leng-a!!! (very beautiful)", which made us all scream and go crazy. In the states, you hear the occassional "ooh" and "ah", but this was pure, continuous, uncontrollable joy. It was intense. I loved every minute of it.

On Saturday, Andy and I went up to Victoria Peak, where we quickly devoured chocolate dipped ice cream cones (which are like US 50 cents), found giant panda toys (which Andy wanted to buy), and walked back down to Soho. The walk was incredibly steep and my legs were wobbly the entire time. There were moments when I couldn't stop going.



On Friday night, after meeting up with the ETAs at Coyote, which had delicious nachos, Alley and I went to a concert -- the Kubrick Live! music show. The first performer was incredibly sappy, but the second band was pretty good. One of the guys reminded me of my brother. Trying to find my way back home, I ended up on this late-night red minibus that apparently doesn't accept Octopus cards. I didn't have any cash and the bus driver demanded to take my wallet (I was the only one on the bus). I was so afraid, but he eventually kicked me off. The night kind of went downhill from then on, including being harrassed by a man on the street, and getting lost at 3am trying to walk all the way back to Soho (at one point, I was lost on some roof-top palm tree oasis).