Did you ever think those tales that everything tastes like chicken were false? I did too. Then I had snake soup. Guess what? It’s true! Check out this blog to see snake soup, Chinese Opera and beat boxing all in just one weekend.

March 18, 2012

On Saturday, a group of six of us went to Central (one of the main districts on Hong Kong Island) and did a walking tour outlined in one of my myriad of guidebooks (you didn’t think I’d have just one, did you?).  Using the guidebook (Frommer’s), we saw all kinds of great touristy things; Li Yuen Streets (there’s an East and a West Street) which sold tons of cheesy souvenirs (good prices though), the longest people mover (escalator) in the world, a mosque in the middle of the city of Hong Kong and a man there who was very well-informed about Bernie Madoff, Ponzi schemes and Martha Stewart. We saw the Hong Kong Zoo and Botanical Gardens, went to a snake shop and had snake soup (it tasted like chicken soup, I swear!), watched Jen drink extremely BITTER “Chinese Flu Tea” from a tea stand on the street, and that night almost all of the exchange students had a barbecue down by the ocean.  It was great day topped off with a relaxed night of hanging out with everyone around the fire pits stuffing ourselves with roasted food and marshmallows.

An Islamic mosque smack dab in the middle of Hong Kong. Note the high rises surrounding it.

I kid you not, this snake soup tasted like chicken soup. Not quite like Mom used to make though…

Sunday afternoon, a group of us went to Tsim Sha Tsui (TST for short) to explore the Hong Kong Space Museum, which was definitely worth the $5 HKD we paid.  It had astronaut suits, rockets (most of which said “USA,” surprisingly), a moon walk simulation (which I did; I felt like I was awkwardly floating), constellations, the inside of space ship, etc. We found some great, authentic Indian food in a well known mall, called Chungking Mansion, just a few blocks from the museum, and one of my friends (who is Indian, although he’s never actually been to India) said that the food we ate was just like his mom made. I was excited to go back and explore the Chungking Mansion further, because the whole complex catered to Indian interests; restaurants, convenience stores, Bollywood movies, sari stores, everything! Finally, we returned to where the museum was because the Hong Kong Cultural Center is right next door to the space museum, and ended up seeing a professional beat boxer at an outdoor concert that just happened to be taking place over the weekend. The beat boxer we saw was so good; he sounded just like the different instruments and beats made with actual instruments, only he did it just with his voice! Really, really impressive skill. He even had a handheld recorder with him and he would make one sound, replay it and record another sound along with it, so at the end he had a whole song going by himself.  To finish the day, we went into the Cultural Center and saw all kinds of Chinese Opera costumes on display; much nicer than the ones I got to wear for our cultural night, but I still had so much fun dressing up anyway.

This guy was the first beat boxer I’d seen live, and he was seriously talented.

One of many gorgeous Chinese opera costumes on display.

Stay tuned for next week’s adventures – I had the most “local” experience of China I will probably ever have when one my cultural anthropology class took a field trip. Plus, I’ll show you how Hong Kong celebrates St. Patty’s day (hint: it’s not too dissimilar from how Americans do!).  Check back soon!