The Hong Kong - Shenzhen Travel, Part 2

We wake up fairly early (Christine is a bit reluctant to wake up the lazy pigs, haha), being greeted by her lovely egg and toast breakfast. We are running late for our hiking session in Dai Yu San, taking almost an hour of bus ride.

We meet up with 2 of Christine’s good friends, Iris Chan Po San and Marco Yu Ka Wai. It’s funny they always call others by their full name, like what we used to do during our primary school years. It was a not so sunny day, and we could see the cable car towards Dai Yu San. The trekking path is mostly like a village path, with very good path condition and some people do cycle around there. We will track from Tung Chung (東涌) to Tai O (大澳).


The highlight of the trekking is probably revolve around our chit chatting, as we have more than a few hours to kill and to know about each other’s culture and background. Though we Malaysia might have learned our Cantonese from Hong Kong TV series, but unknowingly we already mixed some local language into our Cantonese, such as Lui (钱), Mata (警察), Long Kai (走街), Hou Xian (好闷), etc. We say raining is Lok Sui (下水), to them it sounds like going into the water. The funny thing is playing badminton is Da Yu Kau (打羽球), to them it sound like hitting the breast (打乳球). Malaysia translate out Chinese Name based on local dialect, for example 陈 could be Chan in Cantonese, Chen in Mandarin, or Tan in Teochew; and we spell our name based on Malay Language pronunciation, not English. For Hong Kong it is mostly Cantonese translation and English pronunciation. We found that when a country gotten more advance and develop, they have less tolerance for corruption and unequal treatment, which is something our country have a lot of catch up to do.


We pass through a bay area to have our lunch, and it was drizzling and gotten quite windy with strong waves. We have some local flavored Maggi Mee (一丁面), where we can choose any two of Luncheon Meat, Sausage, Ham, Egg and Five Spice Meat. The journey proceeds further where we can see a wide horizon ocean from the hills, and it’s getting windy and cold. Finally we reach the Tai O village with high-leg kampong-like house made of wood and covered by zinc. We manage to sample some delicacies in Tai O, but the place is crowded with weekend tourist. I can’t really remember the name of the food, but there are some sorts of Taiwanese Pancake, Fried Little Crabs, Nor Mai Chi, Curry Fishball, Grill Dry Squid and Fish, Dau Fu Fa, etc (too bad we couldn't get the famous cheap and nice little pancake - 鸡蛋仔). We took a small boat ride form HKD 10 per person, but we could go out to the open sea for white dolphin watching due to the weather. Po San passed up some warm pack which could generate heat to warm up our body, which is something new to us.


We took a ferry to Tuen Mun (屯門), took about an hour and almost everyone fallen asleep, and the journey is very cold (luckily the have plastic cover on the open air deck). We meet up with Joanne, Zhu Jai and their lovely son, Pak Cheng (looking at him, it would make you feel it’s nice to have a kid). The seafood dinner is great, with crispy cheese crust lobster, abalone (1st time we have this in a seafood dinner), zhuk sun, crab, fish, etc. We have no idea how much is the dinner (probably quite expensive), and thank you for the treat from everyone. The cold air from outside is sipping in, and the toilet is far into the outside. We did Christmas gift exchange, where we pass them the Facebook slipper for Facebook fanatics, and Kung Fu bible of 癸花宝典 - （前）诺要成功，必须自宫； （后）就算自宫，未必成功。The place is 南记, 东菇厅, 三聖村. On our way back, we take a discounted taxi (it seems like taxi could offer a 10-20% discount at certain time and place).



Another fulfilling day of nature, food and cultural exchange, with new and renewed friendship. I do admire Christine’s ability to keep such a close relationship with her friend despite their busy schedule, maybe it’s due to the religion and Sunday sermon, or it’s the way of life of Hong Kong people, or perhaps it’s the special ability of Christine.