Stanley Market

Today I did my first fun shopping trip. Holly and I went to Stanley Market to buy decorations for our apartments, and we bought beautiful stuff. I will take everyone who visits to Stanley Market because it has excellent deals, and the quality of the items is good too.
I bought 6 framed pictures for the walls. Two are large versions of the Chinese symbols for Harmony and Strength. They are intricate designs of gold dragons on blue and green backgrounds. The other four are a matching set of vases with different bouquets. The designs of each of the vases has a specific meaning and are slightly different. They will hopefully calm down the bright yellow wall.
I also bought an umbrella stand (kind of like a giant vase) which is extremely useful especially during the rainy season (right now). I ended up buying a small vase and a pot as well because everything was so beautiful! I think it is official. I am going to need a shipping container when I move!

Duality of Hong Kong

One of the things I love most about Hong Kong is the amazing duality of almost every aspect of the environment.

The landscape on Hong Kong Island varies dramatically between different ends of the island. I live very close to Causeway bay which is a huge shopping district filled with skyscrapers which flows into the other industrial areas like Central and Wan Chai. If you jump on a bus for a 20 minute ride to Repulse Bay or the area around Stanley, you will climb through mountains covered in green vegetation (and apparently a lot of snakes as well). You will pass beaches and lots of undeveloped land.

Hong Kong is incredibly modern in its architecture and yet skyscrapers are built and repaired using bamboo scaffolding. It is rather bizarre to see bamboo holding up a balcony on the 37th floor of an apartment building.

The people here in Hong Kong are is also modern and business conscious yet many superstitions and traditions are kept alive. When new buildings are built Feng Shui masters are always consulted to make sure the the building design will not bring bad luck. One gigantic building in Repulse Bay actually had to be redesigned, and a whole was added in the middle to allow the dragon of the mountain access to the sea. Numbers are important as well. When I got my mobile phone, I was asked if I wanted it to start with an 6 or a 9 (both are lucky number, 9 means eternity). After choosing 9, I was given 3 pages of possible numbers and was asked to choose the number that fit me the best. I was actually expected to take my time and make my decision carefully.

I will have to continue this list of examples because I am still learning a lot about Hong Kong.