Rugby in Hong Kong

(May 11- May 15)

 Just before the semester started (literally days before…), I had the opportunity to go with my rugby team from Bangkok to play in a tournament in Hong Kong. Even though I’ve been spending a lot of money on travel, and should be focusing on the new term, I couldn’t say no to playing rugby in Hong Kong. So the weekend before classes started, I hopped on a flight to Hong Kong. I’ve never had much of an attraction to Hong Kong, and I can kind of see why now. It is so expensive! Before I left, I set aside how much I wanted to spend while there, and changed it into Hong Kong dollars. From arriving at the airport, taking a train and taxi to the hotel and paying for the room plus a deposit, I had already gone through all the money I wanted to spend! And I had only been in HK for an hour. Great. Luckily we were spending the whole next day on the field. We got to the drizzly field on the top of a steep hill at around 9 AM. Going into this whole ordeal, I figured the teams would be similar to our team: older ex-pats living in foreign countries that play touch rugby for fun. Turns out touch rugby is a big sport in Hong Kong and Singapore, so 9 out of the ten teams came from Hong Kong or Singapore, and were young, fit, serious rugby players. The 10th team was from Bangkok, and were about twice the age as most the other players, and nothing near as fit. Yup, that’s my team. As luck would have it, I got really sick the morning of the tournament. Of course, the team’s youngest, fastest player had a fever, headache, chills, the works. I think it was the sickest I have felt since I’ve been traveling. I played through the first game (we lost), and sucked it up for the second game (where I was really close to scoring a try! Inches away from the line.) I had to take some mystery medicine someone brought from Thailand to get through the rest of them, but whatever it was worked because I felt close to fine for the last three games, and played much better! I didn’t score any tries, but I sure did defend a ton of them! I’m still working on my technique when it comes to touch rugby, so I am still a lousy offensive player, but I can defend against any team. The whole day was so fun, but incredibly tiring. We lost all our games in the round robin, so our last game was against the losers from the other bracket. We were competing for the prize of all prizes, the golden bowl! We played a fantastic game against the other losers, and victoriously took the golden bowl, placing 9th out of 10 for the mixed gender teams. Like true rugby players, we noticed that between the golden cup, plate and bowl, our glorious bowl is the most conducive for drinking beer out of, and we assured ourselves it had taken some clever calculations to know how many games we had to lose to win that bowl. And like any good rugby tournament, the day was followed with an outing at a bar downtown, with free food, drinks and a lot of dancing. Day One, and no money spent. Off to a good start.

The next morning, most of the team had a late morning. I suppose ending at a bar called “From Dusk to Dawn”, that is to be expected. I met up with some of the other rugby folks for some very necessary Dim Sum. I must have been spoiled in Chinatown in Philly... despite being in Hong Kong, the Dim Sum in Philly is better, but maybe that was because the food comes out in carts. That seems to make all the difference. Shu mai, Chinese broccoli, spare ribs, and sesame dessert balls later, I was ready to explore Hong Kong. So we started with the most touristy thing (but also the thing I probably most highly recommend doing) in Hong Kong.

We took a cute little tram thing to Victoria’s Peak, Hong Kong island’s highest point. The patio at the top that you have to pay for is a bit over rated and expensive, but from the top you can go on an hour long nature walk for free that circumvents the peak. It was approaching sunset as we started on this path, so we got the coolest views of all of Hong Kong in the best lighting.

 Not only is Hong Kong a beautiful city to see from the peak, but it also has the COOLEST BUGS ever!! A lot of people come to Hong Kong to shop. I would totally come here just to check out the bugs.
 Exhausted of beautiful views of Hong Kong, I parted ways with the rugby folks and headed to Kowloon for the night, where I would meet Dave. Dave and I were dating when I first came to Thailand, but after months of not seeing each other, we have decided to go our different ways. But we’re still on awesome terms, awesome enough to meet up in Hong Kong. It actually sounds quite romantic, doesn't it? Rendezvous in Hong Kong? It indeed was a very cool meeting. I met him at the ferry from mainland China, and we caught up over a few beers and a soccer game in a Western bar. I forgot how much I missed interactions like that- first to drink beer instead of whiskey is weird, and to be at a bar with a television? It felt like we were back in Philly for a few hours. Until we left the bar and headed to our crappy little hostel on the 13th floor of a huge hostel/shopping complex in Kowloon. It's a weird little sketchy place, where all the hostels are run by African immigrants for some reason? But it is right in the middle of Hong Kong’s night life and is super cheap. Dave and I had one full day together before I had to go back to Thailand, so I planned a very full itinerary. Like I said before, a lot of people like to go to Hong Kong to shop. What a lot of people don’t go there to do is hike, and I have no idea why. Hong Kong has endless hiking trails all over all the islands, and they all boast stunning views. So while shopping at Channel and Gucci were certainly on my to-do list (juuust kidding), I opted for a hike instead. We took the subway to Lantau island where we took a cable car to the top-ish of the highest mountain on the island. Towards the top is (not the world’s largest seated Buddha, or the world’s largest bronze Buddha, but) the world’s largest seated bronze Buddha (even Hong Kong has to have some sort of superlative, otherwise who would want to go see a giant Buddha on top of a mountain besides me?)

 And I swear I can’t go anywhere without finding some massive Buddha to take pictures of, so this portion of the itinerary was very necessary.
After my Buddha fill was complete, we started our hike. I pointed to the highest peak and told Dave we were climbing it. He just kind of laughed, and said yeah right. There is no way we can climb that and get back before dark. But when you basically climb vertically for an hour straight…you can get to the top of any peak. I actually didn’t think it would only take us an hour, but we were above the mist on Lantau’s highest peak before we knew it, and saw a bunch of cool bugs on the way!
The rest of my day-long agenda fell through at that point, because that hike took a lot more out of us than I expected (what a romantic I am, right? I get one day to see my ex, and I decide hiking a mountain would be the best use of time. But it was kind of one of the coolest hikes
I’ve ever done).

We took the ferry back to Hong Kong island then headed back to Kowloon to get ready for dinner. We walked inland (away from the awesome waterfront that BBC rated as one of the top five free attractions in the world, Tsim Sha Tsui pier…we stayed less a block away from the pier and I never got to see it. Figures) to where the best cheap food is. Definitely essential for us, Hong Kong is freakin expensive. After checking out a strip of restaurants with signs written all in Chinese and no English menus, we picked a spot with a promising crowd and delicious looking whole duck hanging in the window. We didn’t have duck, but Dave got to show off his Chinese skills and ordered us a feast with chow fun, Chinese greens and squid something. I still like Thai food better, but I totally wouldn’t mind eating Chinese every day either. After stuffing ourselves way too full, we walked it off for hours while browsing though the street stalls. We took an incredibly long walk back to the hostel, through a different side of the Kowloon night life. There were still neon lights everywhere, but under them, outdoor restaurants piled high with dishes covered in fish bones, shells and other food remnants, with a bunch of men sitting around the table with their shirts off, stroking their full bellies and spitting in the street. Dave says that’s what its like everywhere in China. Yeah, Hong Kong is cool and all, but I was happy to head back to Thailand.