Sunday, June 17th - Exploring Kowloon (north Hong Kong)

• Finally attended a catholic mass
• For the past 3 weeks I haven’t been attending mass in China because I got the OK from the Bishop of Nashville not to but due to the fact that Hong Kong is cool with the pope and the pope is cool with Hong Kong, I felt I should fulfill my Sunday obligation
• Basically, China doesn't allow the Vatican to choose its own bishops so Chinese catholic churches aren't actually catholic therefore there's no point in going to a fake catholic church
• Google Maps in Hong Kong is not as good as Google Maps in America
• I tried to use Google maps to find a catholic church and I didn’t double check to make sure Google maps was accurate
• Yeah, it turned out that what Google maps thought was a catholic church was actually a parking lot and I only realized that after I spent an hour this morning trying to find this catholic-church-turned-parking-lot and pulled into a nice hotel to use their free wi-fi
• Luckily a lot of Hong Kong people are catholic
• I ended up finding a nice English mass at a church across the street from the Hong Kong Museum of History
• It was a beautiful church and I liked the new experience of attending a catholic mass in a different country

• • The pastor talked English really slowly and in a Spanish accent and after about 5 minutes of his sermon you just thought, “Come on and hurry up, I’ve got some sinning to do”
  • Plus I like how when people go up for communion, instead of forming an orderly line like in America it’s a mad rush to the priest and if you’re not aggressive you will be the last one to get the body of Christ
  • I did like the peace offering we gave to each other
  • Instead of the customary handshake or bow, people just bowed to each other because they're taking the George Carlin approach that we're all diseased so there's no point in shaking hands
• Avenue of Stars
• For the only the fourth time I’ve been in China I’ve been asked to have a photo taken of me
• I always get told, “Oh yeah, people will take photos of you all of the time” but I guess I just look too much like a long lost love child of John Ritter to attract enough attention to have my photo taken
• Plus walking along this place makes you feel tall
• All of the tourists that were there this morning were pretty short and I’m only 5’9”

• Hong Kong Museums
• Being a super-nerd, the offer to visit 7 museums for 30 HKD was too good to resist 
• Hong Kong Museum of History

• • Hong Kong Museum of Art

• Temple Market-Daytime
• I just went because I didn’t plan enough during my day and I just wanted to see where it was so I could come later tonight

• • I also couldn’t believe I was being offered “massages” at 3 in the afternoon
  • I knew these weren’t legitimate massages because the “massage parlor” was right next to a sex shop stand and the billboard for the parlor had a bare-breasted woman where smiley faces covered her “you-know-whats”
  • These Hong Kong people must love sex
  • Right by the library (where there were children playing around) some dudes (maybe 5) had stands set up hawking sexy lingerie and dildos 
  • First of all it was creepy because 3 out of 5 of these guys had their shirts off and they really needed shirts on because their stomachs looked like the face of Jabba the Hutt and second of all THEY DID IT IN FRONT OF A LIBRARY!
  • What’s the logic in doing it in front of a library? It’s not like I’ve ever thought, “Boy I’m glad I got this last copy of Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat for my son. The only thing that would make this day more perfect is a bootlegged version of Backdoor Newbies 9”
  • There were a lot of cool legitimate shops at the Temple Market
  • I did love the restaurants and food stalls
  • I spent a good 60 HKD just eating food on my way up the Temple Street Market
  • Hong Kong food isn’t as good as regular Chinese food, but it isn’t bad either
  • The clothing store deals are insane
  • They have t-shirt sales for 20 HKD (about $2.50) and if you haggle that can go down to 10 HKD
  • It’s not quite worth a $1400 round trip airline ticket to Hong Kong but it’s still pretty cool
• The Jade Market was pretty cool too
• I was expecting this grand entrance because this was supposed to be THE PLACE to get jade in China but it kind of looked like a second-rate American flea market when I first found the entrance

• The reason this place is there is to rip off foreigners
• I only saw non-Asian people shopping in there (maybe two or three people were Asian out of 80 at 3 in the afternoon) and after getting an involuntary introduction from a lady trying to teach me how to tell the difference between real and fake jade, she showed me a real jade bracelet that she was selling for 3500 HKD ($450 USD)
• After I negotiated it down to 200 HKD ($25) I realized that it wasn't worth my time and gave up on even trying to buy anything there
• Symphony of Lights
• That was definitely worth 15 minutes of my life

• I suck at photography so I don't know how to capture green thin lasers from buildings but there are definitely some in there in this show, I promise I'm not lying
• I'm glad I got there 20 minutes early too because it was packed with people even before I got there and it was raining a little bit
• I just got in between the railing and the bay, sat there and talked with a random German guy with an awesome beard for 20 minutes, and the show began (for free!)
• Temple Street Market-night
• It was good to experience the atmosphere but no one wanted to negotiate with me so the prices were the same there as they were in America

• I was also finally offered marijuana
• I of course said no because I don't do drugs of any sort, but I finally feel like an adult now that I've been offered marijuana outside of my friends and people I've given rides to in Rockford winters
• I was walking back from the market on Nathan Rd. and this Indian guy (at no instigation by me) came up to me and said something to me in a really low voice that I couldn't understand
• I said, "what?" pretty loud so he would get the hint to speak up but he said whatever he was saying again and the second time I screamed, "WHAT!?!?!" and he got the hint and said, "Do you want a little marijuana?"
• I forgot to return to my library voice and said, "NO THANKS!" and walked hurriedly to my hostel
• There is a moral to the story
• There's a Filipino family staying at the same hostel I was and they offered me this delicious egg bread when I came into the hostel so if I went to get marijuana (which I would never do) I would have missed out on bread
• So kids remember, marijuana doesn't get you bread, it gets you trouble