Soulful Hong Kong

Hong Kong literal translation is a port (Hong) full of scents (Kong), it got its name for all of the perfumed items  that the tradesmen were selling in the first period of its making. 

Suffering a great jet-lag, we got on a cultural tour of Hong Kong, organized by Stephen. I found it on the couch surfing events and was very excited to learn something new. The huge guide was sitting on the coffe table and was waiting to be picked up. I always like to hear a human voice rather than get digital or written information, and Stephen was just excellent. He showed us his city with a lot of emotion and answered every question.

So, let me try to show you the beauties that we saw.

We met Stephen at the Sheung Wan train station, where he explained the old city centre was. For the Chinese at time of the Opium war, it was hard to live in the very city centre where all the fighting has been done, so they started to move at the close area near by - Sheung Wan. Even today, those two areas are close to each other- just a station away by metro, but you could really see the difference. While the centre is modern, full of shopping malls, new age buildings, in the olden part the charming ancient spirit rules the streets: colorful signs advertising  everything from foot massages to dry fish, enchanting smells of delicious food coming from everywhere, as the local tiny food shops are very visited. Cars honking, lots of people chatting while rushing the streets in an unorderly manner, here I really felt welcomed to Asia. It's not that we didn't enjoy the central part, where we ran for delicious French made burgers the very second day (jet lag food), I really liked Hong Kong in the parts where the tall buildings ground themselves, at the very bottom where the colors, smells and people are. 

Stephen later took us through the dry fish street, that's of course the local name for it, I forgot the actual name :). It got its name for all the shops that sell dry products to make a soup, which funnily is as important as in Croatian culture- as a child you are not allowed to eat anything else before you finish the soup. Just the ingredients are a bit different: everything is dried or smoked for preservation and judging by the smell, the taste of it is amazing (still haven't had the opportunity to taste it). All the mushrooms, dried fish stomachs, nuts, noodles was so neatly stacked away and some of it still drying on the streets and had its own place in this seamed chaos.

 

Later we went to discover other wonders, but I don't think it would be fair to Stephen to revile everything, so I will stop there, and invite everyone who is once in Hong Kong to find him on couch surfing. 

The group later went to sightsee the Central part, but jet lag was sneaking up from behind, so I had to go take a nap.

The evening was spent just walking around the street unsuccessfully trying to find the dumplings place, but found a cute little restaurant and afterwards a bar. A little heads up: the beer in restaurants is way cheaper than in bars, so if you are on a budget, just stay wherever you were eating to drink the beer.

Me being first time in Asia, I came with a lot of prejudice (just finished readin Jules Verne: Around the world in 80 days IN FRENCH!!), but Hong Kong's beauty and soul blew me away. Sadly, the three days have passed and we have to leave this beautiful view on the harbor 

And go.

There are some photogrammas for you to see the city the way I saw it:

The caves of Interlaken

I decided to go on the trip with the ESN student exchange to Interlaken, the visit of the caves sounded perfectly. So, I got ready in five minutes on a Sunday morning and ran to the metro station to catch the group.

Merely, we sat in our private train car and ate all sorts of sweets. We hoped on another train in Bern, and soon came to Interlaken. The hiking path went alongside the river of glacier water with an amazing turquoise color. The clouds in the sky really made the scenery perfectly lighted, check out the pictures:

After a while, the path lead to the forest, where we sat and ate our quick lunch. It was amazing sitting with such an international group of people, listening to sounds of different languages and laughing to comparisons of mule festivals in Utah and camel festivals in India. We were all laughing so hard, that we didn't even notice that it started raining. 

By the time it started pouring, we were on our way running up the hill to catch our appointment with the guide for which we were already late. Fun times. The ten thousand stairs would be appreciated by Rocky, but not us. There we were, great big international bunch, with soaking wet clothes on our backs, with couple of broken umbrellas faced our awaiting guide in front of a kilometre long cave. 

The cave was an amazing experience. It is super. The reflections in the little focks of water, the sound of tumbling water and the creative names of each cave with sculpture like stalactites and stalagmites (first ones are hanging from the ceiling and the latter sticking up from the floor). We were informed that the cave goes on for another 14 kilometres and the speleologists were making it ready for the public.

While we got out of the cave it stopped raining, so we went down the balustrades to catch our special bus back to the station. We crowded the small bus and in 20 minutes we were back in Interlaken. 

The crowd decided enthusiastically that they wanted to see Thun city as well, but all I could think of was cuddling in my blanky and drinking some hot tea. Thun is an amazing city that deserves a whole afternoon for itself. I'll definetly do it soon. Hope you enjoyed the photos. I do enjoy taking them.