Mall in the Family

Recently eaten: eel
Recent annoyance: my inability to speak in full and meaningful sentences in Cantonese

To take a break from turned out to be my not so scintillating trip to mainland China, here's what I've been doing in HK since I got back.

Tai O Fishing Village: Located on Lantau Island, Tai O is an authentic fishing village known for it's houses on stilts and dried fish products. I will remember it as a quiet fishing village full of cats and the cleanest public toilets I have seen anywhere in Hong Kong. The road to Tai O is a small two-lane highway (which is really only about 1.5 lanes) that goes over the small mountains on Lantau Island to the easternmost part of Hong Kong. One of my uncles is originally from Tai O. My mom said that when she was in high school, there was no road to Tai O. When they went on a school trip there they had to walk for hours over the mountains to get there. I can't even imagine the kind of waiver they would need nowadays to undertake such a trip.
It was refreshing to finally go somewhere that wasn't crowded with people, or full of the honking buses and taxis. The fisherpeople in Tai O now make their living selling fish to tourists. In fact, there isn't enough fish to pull in anymore, much of the fish they sell comes from mainland China.

We ambled about the narrow streets. I saw cats of all kinds all over the houses and yards. And I made friends with a small stray dog. All in a day's work.