Man Mo Temple and Cat Street

Some images from Man Mo Temple, right down the road from us. Fu Temple Dog guarding the entrance:

Altar:

Incense coils hanging from the ceiling:

Cat Street is nearby, selling all manner of junk. This was traditionally the place to go if you'd had something stolen - you had a fairly good chance of finding it being resold here (thieves are called "rats" and the resellers are called "cats"). Now the stalls in the street sell a random assortment of items - cricket cages, noodle bowls, jade jewelry, etc. Some Mao (and Marx and Lenin) figurines:

Having finally had enough of the carpenter pants trend, painters attempt to assert dominance.

Mysterious graffiti found at the abandoned house yesterday. What does it mean?

My film debut

Yesterday we spent most of the day filming the 24th film produced by the Happy Jellyfish People's Democratic Language Bureau. You may remember our previous experience with this crazy Norwegian lady at the DVD release party for "Cantonese - the Movie: This Time It's Personal." We began filming at an abandoned mansion on top of a peak overlooking all of Hong Kong, where Kelly and I play terrorists plotting an attack. Some photos from the abandoned house:

And me in costume:

And then it was on to a cafe, where we shot a pivotal scene. I don't want to give anything away, but there's a brutal terrorist attack and the day is saved by "the policeman of the world," Aluminum Man:

Kelly acting as cameraman:

Here's what I like about Hong Kong - on a Saturday afternoon at a crowded cafe in one of the busiest parts of Hong Kong, you can be wearing an orange robe, be shot by a man in silver spandex with a mask and a fake gun, fall dying to the ground, and people just calmly step around you.

Lunch - beef balls! They have a very odd texture. Very...springy.

Then we had some important shopping to do. We headed to a huge Chinese department store in Kowloon. The items on our list: bookshelves, coffee table, rug. What we got? Ears.

This is a model of a human ear showing important acupuncture points. We bought three. We don't know why.

Grocery shopping

The brand of toilet paper we buy is called "Vir-Joy", which stands for Virgin (as in not recycled) and, well, Joy (the motto - "Soft feeling. Fashionable of personality"). It occurred to me that Vir-Joy would be the greatest name ever for a Christian band (motto - "We will wipe you clean of sin").

*******

This is how you buy bread here:

What? You know you're not going to eat more than two sandwiches. And no one eats the ends anyway.

******

Hey, look at these cute little chilies:

I think I'll make some chili oil:

I wonder how it tastes... AAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHH OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD

Never, ever eat those chilies.

Cockroaches and obstacle courses

Friday I'm calmly reading the paper when I see something out of the corner of my eye. Something big. It's the largest cockroach I've ever seen. Have you ever seen the movie "Signs"? You know how Mel Gibson's daughter has this irritating habit of leaving water glasses all around the house, and you're wondering what this has to do with a movie about aliens, but then at the end of the movie those water glasses save the day? Well, Kelly is my Mel Gibson's daughter. I grab one of the multiple glasses he's left in the bedroom and trap the cockroach under it. For a while the roach struggles to free itself. I can hear it flinging its body against the glass - *ping! ping!* Then it settles down and appears to go to sleep. So, the immediate problem is solved - the roach is contained. But what to do now? I decide that Kelly must throw it out the window, as it's too large and powerful to be squashed with the shoe of a mere mortal. Kelly refuses, insisting that a roach thrown from a 21st-story window will turn into a deadly projectile and kill someone on the ground. I question his physics. After two days of watching the roach watching me from under the glass, I flush it. That f***er could swim, too. His Phelpsian efforts almost propelled him out of the toilet and back into my life, but even he couldn't fight the suction of a Hong Kong toilet. Safe for now.

Saturday we spent the afternoon at the Clearwater Bay Country Club with a couple of professors who're members there. It's fancy-schmancy. But, this being Hong Kong, there's always something a little...surprising. After our schmancy lunch in the schmancy restaurant, we retired to the pool. As we're drinking our sparkling water and discussing film (not filmS), I see it - a giant, mulitcolored, floating obstacle course being inflated in the deep end. All schmanciness is forgotten as everyone lines up to run the course. The dean of the humanities kicked everyone's ass, but Kelly acquitted himself well on his second run.

Today

Riding out the dregs of cyclone Koppu at Kowloon Walled City park.

Land being reclaimed from the harbor. The harbor is shrinking year by year due to this reclamation, but so much money's to be made in real estate that it doesn't look like the process will slow down any time soon.

Duck! Chickens!

Feathering the nest

Please welcome the newest addition to my apartment:

The apartment now contains: one chair, one mattress, one potted plant, and this thing. These cats are supposed to bring good fortune, so I'm hoping that fortune takes the form of more furniture.

Flower Market Street and Yuen Po Street Bird Garden

Some photos from Flower Market Street in Kowloon:

Flower Market Street ends at Yuen Po Street Bird Garden. Want a bird? This is the place to find one. People also bring their pet birds here to hang out in the park and socialize with other birds. And to stare through the bars of their cages at the feral birds that flock about to taunt them and pick up stray birdseed.

Then a walk through a fairly typical street market before it started raining. It was a crazy storm with horizontal rain and lightning, but was only categorized as "yellow rain" - this just means that kindergartens are shut down. "Red rain" shuts down elementary and high schools, and "black rain," well, you just pray.

Which of these things is not like the others?

My fridge:

Scenes from around HK

I haven't posted in a while because Kelly and I have moved into our new place and we don't have internet yet. Or TV. I'm dying inside. Here's what we've been up to instead of watching sweet Asian game shows:

This is a view of Kowloon across the harbor from the IFC building. They have a big mall at IFC with Armani, Fendi, Gucci, etc. I don't shop there, but I am planning a trip to the mainland soon to visit the Wal-Mart in Shenzhen.

After cruising through the mall, we took the Star Ferry over to Kowloon, then the metro to Mong Kok. The metro over there can get a little hairy.

The Ladies' Market is located along one long street in Mong Kok, and specializes in t-shirts ("The Beatils - Through the Years" was my favorite), "copy bags" (designer knock-offs), and boxer shorts patterned after elephants with strategically placed trunks. Many treasures are to be had here.

After much shopping, and the purchase of a sweet magnet that says "You Are My Love My Angle Please Do Not Treat Me Like Potato", we took the Star Ferry back across the harbor. We timed it just right, so we could see 8:00 light show from the water.

We then retired to our favorite bar (on top of Pier 3) and drank buckets of beer until the aforementioned magnet started to make sense.