Rest of Hong Kong, onto Macau
The rest of Hong Kong went superbly. After I said goodbye to Karen and Shan, I got down to tea shopping for real, spending many days sipping tea and many nights sipping whiskey at the bars.
Pu'er in Hong Kong is odd. I expected that all the tales in Kunming of rich Hong Kong merchants, teahouses, collectors would mean a great selection of young tea in the shops. But most of the young tea here falls short of my expectations, so I assume that all the good young tea sits in collectors' warehouses somewhere, waiting and againg before its release. Much of the aged tea in Hong Kong can be hit or miss. Most, or at least half, of the aged pu'er here tastes moldy from too wet of storage.
I had different experiences at different teashops. The best tea was at Best Tea House and Sunsing. Yue Hwa department store at first seemed a bust but bettered when I returned with a woman living in Shanghai who reads the pu'er LJ and wanted to meet up because she was visiting HK. At Yue Hwa, I bought some teaware, including a celadon gaiwan set, a porcelain gaiwan set, and a separate porcelain gaiwan. At Sunsing, a stunning 32nd-storey teastore overlooking the bay with a collection of aged teas as old as 106 years, we tried some 1958 Liu An, amongst others. Together we tasted a milestone cake, the "88 Ching" cake. The now owner of the Best Tea House purchased these 1989 7542-recipe cakes from Kunming in 1993. The vendor couldn't sell them because of their dry storage, but the clean flavor of the dry storage impressed this buyer so much he bought the batch and decided to store his cakes drier. People point to this cake as having started the dry storage shift in how pu'er is stored. Very exciting! I enjoyed answering her questions and seeing her budding enthusiasm for pu'er.
I met a handful of other foreigners into pu'er from spending time at Best Tea House, including a man from Japan and his American coworker. The American, a John Antista, offered to email me travel tipos for different locations. Tea brings strangers together! By the time I left Hong Kong, I had one 500g Feng Qing tuo, one 1995 7542, one 1997 Hong Kong Tea Exhibition cake, a 1 kilo cake of Mengku Rongshi's special production for Yue Hwa, 4 bags of loose aged pu'er, one box of dancong, one box of tie luo han, and one liang of 1996 7542. Plus all the teaware. Yikes!
I enjoyed my next nights at the gay bars after the first awkwardness. My next night at The New Wally Matt Lounge, I met three guys, Chris, Daniel, and Richard. Chris and Richard both reside in New York and came to Hong Kong on business, though separately and otherwise unrelatedly. Chris met Daniel, a Hong Kong native and English teacher, then Richard met them together, then I met the three of them at once. Chris said little and bored me, but Daniel seemed bright. Richard tried to impress everyone too insistently and came off bitchy and full of hot air, initially. The following night we said we'd meet up again, but after it appeared no one was showing up, I asked two young men to my table who were standing for lack of seats. As it turned out, they were both from Los Angeles but their families were from Hong Kong. Ritchie and Seymour entertained me with their wit,a nd we bonded over memories of home. We even have a mutual friend through UCLA, Jeremy Boulat. I showed them Pacific Coffee and then the Rainbow Pub; they loved the latter.
Finally, hoping I'd meet someone, I ended up at The New Wally Matt Lounge yet again my next-to-last-night in Hong Kong. Having no luck at a bar reputed to serve locals who like to meet foreigners, I responded to the flirtatious staring directed at me two nights in a row by an older but handsome guy. Bob and I spoke for probably nearly 2 hours before Richard walked through the door. I said hello and did my courtesy small talk before heading back to Bob. Well, Richard followed me to the table and continued to talk up a storm, frightening poor Bob away! Richard, a semi-muscular guy of good looks, seemed interested in Chris before, but he told me he returned hoping I'd be at the bar, and...well, let's not kiss and tell. :)
PHOTO: Me at the ruins of St. Paul's church Today I mailed home my purchases and a gift for my sister. I checked out of my hotel and took the ferry to Macau. Macau has nicer, cleaner, prettier sights, great food, polite people, and, occasionally, the charm of Europe. The colonial architecture I enjoy the most. I can't wait to visit Portugal now! But I'm staying in a craphole pension where the "rooms" are sectioned off with flimsy walls that don't reach the ceiling, so it's very noisy...and I'm by the stairwell...I'm not looking forward to tonight. Another bad is that internet listings in the guidebook are closed, which means I have to interrupt my day tomorrow to book a flight in person if I can't find an internet cafe!
PHOTO (above): Rua da Felicidade (Happiness Street), where my shit pension is located
PHOTOS (below): My cubicle. Notice the rafters above where the wall ends in the second photo.
I spent my time here in the cluster of churches and old government buildings at the Largo do Senado and watched the sunset spread over the river and the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral from the Fortaleza do Monte. Gorgeous!
PHOTO: Sunset from Fortaleza do Monte
PHOTO (above): Portuguese sign reads (more or less): STOP! FEEL! RECALL FOR A FEW MOMENTS THE BEAUTIFUL STORY OF OUR COUNTRY. ENTER TALL AND RAISE YOUR HEAD BECAUSE YOU ARE A SOLDIER OF THIS COUNTRY
PHOTO (below): The Fortaleza
PHOTOS: The Macau Museum on the Fortaleza, The Fortaleza entrance, Fortaleza platform
An odd note: for the past few days I've been eating 3 meals per day but becoming hungry again shortly after each one. Today I had a lunch of baked chicken with cheese and rice...and then had to eat a nata (egg custard tart) to stop my enormous hunger only 30 minutes later! Today after a dinner of a pound of chicken chow fun I wanted another tart, even though dinner was my fourth meal of the day. I must have a tapeworm or something.
PHOTO (above): Ruins of St. Paul's
PHOTO (below): Detail of the ruins
PHOTOS: Ruins detail, St. Paul's church footprint, Martyr's bones enshrined at St. Paul's
Enough of what I did, saw, and ate: how do I feel? Relaxed and quite happy to be wherever I am when I'm not pressured with booking transportation or lodging. In Hong Kong I just felt lucky most of the time, if worried that I was spending too much. At the gay bars I felt much like I do at gay bars in the US: out of shape and awkward, but hopeful. In the teahouses I felt even luckier and the twinge of desire to do business in tea and hope that it could work for me. Here in Macau...Macau so far just impresses me, so I feel grateful, awed, and a bit romantic at times. PHOTO: Largo do Senado
PHOTOS: Largo do Senado by Night 1, Largo do Senado by Night 2 (post office), Santa Casa da Misericordia, Largo do Senado by Day, Macau General Post Office, Igreja de Sao Domingos (ext), Igreja de Sao Domingos (int), Largo do Senado by day, Igreja da Se
I realize that most of my worries stem from money. Worries about my career path to smaller frustrations in travelling on this trip to large doubts about making it for a year all come from money worries. For example: how can I afford a hotel anywhere around Christmas and New Year's? Or having to sleep at this crap pension because it's the only cheap lodging. Or my flight to/from Taiwan being too expensive and Taiwan having no budget accomodation making me worry that Taiwan is a bad choice and I'd be better off just going back into China. Right now money is just ok, and I can live very cheaply in Vietnam for a month. Europe, really, is my concern. Can I afford Europe? Yes. But how much time? I'm afraid I'll have a repeat of my high school European vacation, which was great but isn't what I want now. I want to be able to spend some time in each place.
PHOTO: Macau...ick
School being done for a while, what once held the top spot in my list of worries and stress has disappeared. But even in school money was such a concern. What would I have done in college without money? I remember those months between October 2001 and May 2002 where I used nearly all of my savings on meals, tea, movies, and Christmas gifts. Finally, I resorted to that month-long spree of dates using my birthday as an excuse to eat free meals--well, overeat free meals, gaining 15 pounds and a two-year relationship with Mike. I was so emotionally unstable back then, and I hope I'm doing better now. I hope all the packages I sent arrive undamaged.
PHOTO (above): St. Augustine's Church and school
PHOTOS (below): St. Augustine's Church and theatre, church interior
PHOTO: St. Augustine's Church face
Pu'er in Hong Kong is odd. I expected that all the tales in Kunming of rich Hong Kong merchants, teahouses, collectors would mean a great selection of young tea in the shops. But most of the young tea here falls short of my expectations, so I assume that all the good young tea sits in collectors' warehouses somewhere, waiting and againg before its release. Much of the aged tea in Hong Kong can be hit or miss. Most, or at least half, of the aged pu'er here tastes moldy from too wet of storage.
I had different experiences at different teashops. The best tea was at Best Tea House and Sunsing. Yue Hwa department store at first seemed a bust but bettered when I returned with a woman living in Shanghai who reads the pu'er LJ and wanted to meet up because she was visiting HK. At Yue Hwa, I bought some teaware, including a celadon gaiwan set, a porcelain gaiwan set, and a separate porcelain gaiwan. At Sunsing, a stunning 32nd-storey teastore overlooking the bay with a collection of aged teas as old as 106 years, we tried some 1958 Liu An, amongst others. Together we tasted a milestone cake, the "88 Ching" cake. The now owner of the Best Tea House purchased these 1989 7542-recipe cakes from Kunming in 1993. The vendor couldn't sell them because of their dry storage, but the clean flavor of the dry storage impressed this buyer so much he bought the batch and decided to store his cakes drier. People point to this cake as having started the dry storage shift in how pu'er is stored. Very exciting! I enjoyed answering her questions and seeing her budding enthusiasm for pu'er.
I met a handful of other foreigners into pu'er from spending time at Best Tea House, including a man from Japan and his American coworker. The American, a John Antista, offered to email me travel tipos for different locations. Tea brings strangers together! By the time I left Hong Kong, I had one 500g Feng Qing tuo, one 1995 7542, one 1997 Hong Kong Tea Exhibition cake, a 1 kilo cake of Mengku Rongshi's special production for Yue Hwa, 4 bags of loose aged pu'er, one box of dancong, one box of tie luo han, and one liang of 1996 7542. Plus all the teaware. Yikes!
I enjoyed my next nights at the gay bars after the first awkwardness. My next night at The New Wally Matt Lounge, I met three guys, Chris, Daniel, and Richard. Chris and Richard both reside in New York and came to Hong Kong on business, though separately and otherwise unrelatedly. Chris met Daniel, a Hong Kong native and English teacher, then Richard met them together, then I met the three of them at once. Chris said little and bored me, but Daniel seemed bright. Richard tried to impress everyone too insistently and came off bitchy and full of hot air, initially. The following night we said we'd meet up again, but after it appeared no one was showing up, I asked two young men to my table who were standing for lack of seats. As it turned out, they were both from Los Angeles but their families were from Hong Kong. Ritchie and Seymour entertained me with their wit,a nd we bonded over memories of home. We even have a mutual friend through UCLA, Jeremy Boulat. I showed them Pacific Coffee and then the Rainbow Pub; they loved the latter.
Finally, hoping I'd meet someone, I ended up at The New Wally Matt Lounge yet again my next-to-last-night in Hong Kong. Having no luck at a bar reputed to serve locals who like to meet foreigners, I responded to the flirtatious staring directed at me two nights in a row by an older but handsome guy. Bob and I spoke for probably nearly 2 hours before Richard walked through the door. I said hello and did my courtesy small talk before heading back to Bob. Well, Richard followed me to the table and continued to talk up a storm, frightening poor Bob away! Richard, a semi-muscular guy of good looks, seemed interested in Chris before, but he told me he returned hoping I'd be at the bar, and...well, let's not kiss and tell. :)
PHOTO: Me at the ruins of St. Paul's church Today I mailed home my purchases and a gift for my sister. I checked out of my hotel and took the ferry to Macau. Macau has nicer, cleaner, prettier sights, great food, polite people, and, occasionally, the charm of Europe. The colonial architecture I enjoy the most. I can't wait to visit Portugal now! But I'm staying in a craphole pension where the "rooms" are sectioned off with flimsy walls that don't reach the ceiling, so it's very noisy...and I'm by the stairwell...I'm not looking forward to tonight. Another bad is that internet listings in the guidebook are closed, which means I have to interrupt my day tomorrow to book a flight in person if I can't find an internet cafe!
PHOTO (above): Rua da Felicidade (Happiness Street), where my shit pension is located
PHOTOS (below): My cubicle. Notice the rafters above where the wall ends in the second photo.
I spent my time here in the cluster of churches and old government buildings at the Largo do Senado and watched the sunset spread over the river and the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral from the Fortaleza do Monte. Gorgeous!
PHOTO: Sunset from Fortaleza do Monte
PHOTO (above): Portuguese sign reads (more or less): STOP! FEEL! RECALL FOR A FEW MOMENTS THE BEAUTIFUL STORY OF OUR COUNTRY. ENTER TALL AND RAISE YOUR HEAD BECAUSE YOU ARE A SOLDIER OF THIS COUNTRY
PHOTO (below): The Fortaleza
PHOTOS: The Macau Museum on the Fortaleza, The Fortaleza entrance, Fortaleza platform
An odd note: for the past few days I've been eating 3 meals per day but becoming hungry again shortly after each one. Today I had a lunch of baked chicken with cheese and rice...and then had to eat a nata (egg custard tart) to stop my enormous hunger only 30 minutes later! Today after a dinner of a pound of chicken chow fun I wanted another tart, even though dinner was my fourth meal of the day. I must have a tapeworm or something.
PHOTO (above): Ruins of St. Paul's
PHOTO (below): Detail of the ruins
PHOTOS: Ruins detail, St. Paul's church footprint, Martyr's bones enshrined at St. Paul's
Enough of what I did, saw, and ate: how do I feel? Relaxed and quite happy to be wherever I am when I'm not pressured with booking transportation or lodging. In Hong Kong I just felt lucky most of the time, if worried that I was spending too much. At the gay bars I felt much like I do at gay bars in the US: out of shape and awkward, but hopeful. In the teahouses I felt even luckier and the twinge of desire to do business in tea and hope that it could work for me. Here in Macau...Macau so far just impresses me, so I feel grateful, awed, and a bit romantic at times. PHOTO: Largo do Senado
PHOTOS: Largo do Senado by Night 1, Largo do Senado by Night 2 (post office), Santa Casa da Misericordia, Largo do Senado by Day, Macau General Post Office, Igreja de Sao Domingos (ext), Igreja de Sao Domingos (int), Largo do Senado by day, Igreja da Se
I realize that most of my worries stem from money. Worries about my career path to smaller frustrations in travelling on this trip to large doubts about making it for a year all come from money worries. For example: how can I afford a hotel anywhere around Christmas and New Year's? Or having to sleep at this crap pension because it's the only cheap lodging. Or my flight to/from Taiwan being too expensive and Taiwan having no budget accomodation making me worry that Taiwan is a bad choice and I'd be better off just going back into China. Right now money is just ok, and I can live very cheaply in Vietnam for a month. Europe, really, is my concern. Can I afford Europe? Yes. But how much time? I'm afraid I'll have a repeat of my high school European vacation, which was great but isn't what I want now. I want to be able to spend some time in each place.
PHOTO: Macau...ick
School being done for a while, what once held the top spot in my list of worries and stress has disappeared. But even in school money was such a concern. What would I have done in college without money? I remember those months between October 2001 and May 2002 where I used nearly all of my savings on meals, tea, movies, and Christmas gifts. Finally, I resorted to that month-long spree of dates using my birthday as an excuse to eat free meals--well, overeat free meals, gaining 15 pounds and a two-year relationship with Mike. I was so emotionally unstable back then, and I hope I'm doing better now. I hope all the packages I sent arrive undamaged.
PHOTO (above): St. Augustine's Church and school
PHOTOS (below): St. Augustine's Church and theatre, church interior
PHOTO: St. Augustine's Church face