Christmas, 2018
New Territories, Hong Kong, China

I decided to head north in the New Territories, but had no set plan.  So I consulted the guidebook and chose Fanling and Tai Po.  Fanling was a little bit of a challenge as it required two changes on MTR trains. 

I was at the first changeover station (Prince Edward) and had just finished staring at the system map, having figured out the not overly complicated plan when a beautiful 30ish Chinese woman touch my arm and asked in perfect, if accented, English “Do you need help?”  I didn’t really, but she was so nice that I let her explain how to get where I was going.  You think an American on, say BART, would ever offer help like that to a Chinese tourist?

I exited at Fanling and used Google Maps on my phone to guide me toward the temple I wanted to visit, the Fung Ying Seen Koon Taoist temple.  My first impression was Whoa, look at all those massive apartment complexes.  Shades of Seoul.

The temple itself was pretty, and pleasant, if not overwhelming.  It seems to be as much a place for the cremated remains of the dead as a place of worship.  At the main hall I saw a woman light about twelve sticks of incense, fan them out, the bow twice quickly in front of each of the three gods depicted in that hall.

Otherwise there were both indoor and covered outdoor pavilions of row after row of photos of deceased.  The indoor ones were just photos, while the outdoor ones had a place (I presume) for ashes of the deceased. People would leave offerings of incense, tea, and/or fruit.

The place is less than 100 years old, but offered an interesting mix of traditional architecture with modern aspects like A/C, visible plumbing, and, somewhat surprisingly, WIFI.  I guess you might get an important text while paying respects to grandpa.

Next was on to the Lung Yeuk Tau Heritage Trail.  (Certain readers might appreciate a comparison of the LYTHT to the search for the famous Tandy Mine in Joshua Tree.)  It was about a two mile walk from the train station which took me first through a residential apartment area, then a light industrial area, a good deal of which seemed closed.  Then it got rural fast.  Alternating rundown houses with chickens and gardens with low two-story apartment blocks.  It all seemed odd, but Google Maps wouldn’t lie, would it? 

After quite some time, and not a little walking back and forth on the same tiny road, I finally found a temple that was supposed to be on the “trail.”  The temple was closed.  Uh…for Christmas???

I ventured on a little before giving up on the stupid trail and headed back by a slightly different route.  Almost immediately I ran into two cute French girls who were staring at their phone with the same confused look I likely had.  I asked if they were looking for the trail, which indeed they were.  One said she thought it was something planned in the 80s, but that never really got developed.  And she owed as that Google Maps kept getting them lost.  We all agreed that it was, in any case, a nice day for a walk and that this was a different slice of life than in the more commercial areas of Hong Kong.  We parted ways and I headed back toward the train station.

It was really an odd mix of housing.  I could stand in one place and see rundown stuff like this.

Then turn 180 degrees and see nice apartments like these, with BMWs and Lexi parked near them.

Then 100 yards down the road, I could see the ever-present high rises looming overhead.

A long hike back to the train station and, after the walk down the escalator path from yesterday, and who knows how many miles today, my legs were feeling it.  The MTR is pretty amazing and I only had to wait about 2 minutes for a train back the way I came.  Two stops later was Tai Po.

I was looking for a large market there and needed only follow the crowds a short distance before finding it.  I was starved, so was happy to see the sign indicated cooked food, but that was not what I found when I entered. 

It was a huge building and the entire first floor was fish, meat, and chicken.  Probable 50-60 vendors in all.  Much of the fish was so fresh it was still flapping.  At least one vendor had a small plastic box over a particularly flappy fish to keep it from wandering off, and she also had a stick like a roulette croupier to put them back in the right pile when they tried to make a break for it.

The second floor was equally large and given over to a small amount of clothes and houseware, but mostly dry goods, vegetables and fruit.  Again 50-60 vendors.

One proprietress said in broken English that I should feel free to look around at here offerings.  I asked about some odd looking eggs which had what looked like ash on them.  The ones on the upper left are “preserved” but the ones with ash, as best she could communicate, were covered in something to make them “soft.”  I’m not quite sure what that’s about, but want to try a tea egg before I leave here.  [Edit: further research indicates these were probably century eggs.]

Finally, the third floor was one huge food court with maybe 30-40 little places to eat. Cacophonous. I sat at a Thai place and ordered “sausage and vermicelli.”  (Vermicelli is the local term for thin rice noodles.) This seemed safe, but the server seemed a little confused, even though I pointed right at it on the menu.  Shortly thereafter I was served what was clearly sliced beef with noodles, lettuce, carrot, been sprouts, etc.  Various sauces were on the table.  It was good, though clearly not what I had ordered.  But at least I managed to order just one dish, so I’m getting better.

The market was simply amazing.  I would kill to have something like that in Spokane.  Curiously the surrounding streets in all directions for a couple of blocks were made up of similar vendors.  I guess that’s why Tai Po is also referred to as Tai Po Market.

The last stop was just a short walk away, though I found the Hong Kong Railway museum entirely underwhelming.  Not so the squealing toddlers running around he grounds which apparently serves as a makeshift park for locals. 

Back in Tsim Sha Tsui I had a good if very overpriced Italian dinner with some excellent wine and returned to my hovel for the evening.