it was a short hk trip. didn't want to stay in sgp for the lunar new year. and this trip was not much different from previous year. managed to catch a movie (journey to the west: the demonds strike back), visited the chi lin nunnery, did a short hike, visited the che gong temple, went to a new sauna, etc... nothing much. but wait... i supposed there were quite a interesting things this time round.
firstly, i had wanted to do the dragon's back trail, but apart from checking where to board the bus, i didn't plan nor research further. in the end, i dropped off at the wrong bus stop, followed the wrong crowd, and walked the wrong direction and... hahaha... you got it - i didn't get to do the dragon's back trail. anyway, it was a nice walk. ended the walk by taking the bus to the shek o village and had my lunch there. doing things in such an unplanned fashion is just totally not me, but i have come to embraced it and just enjoy the process and the experience. perhaps this is the good thing about traveling alone - no pressure to adhere to any plan.
secondly, i turned on my grindr and quite a few people messaged me, asking to meet up. i turned them all down, except one. this guy seemed pretty interesting for the fact that he started off by telling me how bored he was and that if i were new to hk, he'd be happy to bring me around. he had some time before his appointment with his friends. and i thought why not since i personally didn't know too many places too. and so i met up with him. learned that he had just graduated from uni and had just started work. interestingly, he introduced himself as "politically active" when we met and throughout the evening, apart from hk politics, he also shared with me his thoughts about how discriminatory the singaporean government had been and etc. while it was interesting to note his passion about politics, i also felt his views were a tat too naive, uninformed and emotional. i ended up trying to impress upon him the need to engage and understand the context of how and why policies were developed and the importance of seeing how policies were applied in context rather than just attacking governments based on emotional grounds. as for his views on singapore, i ended up giving him a history lesson, and explaining to him how historical developments shaped singapore's politics and policy developments today. heavy topic for a holiday but yeah...
thirdly, the sauna i used to visit had closed and i wanted to check out the new place. i wanted to see what the new place was like and to decide if it was a place i'd visit again in future. it took me a while to find it. it was located in one very discreet corner of tsim shah tsui and it was a very very small sauna. nothing much to it. i ended up watching porn in one of the room and fell asleep as i watched. i left the place after less than an hour. don't think i'll visit it again. haha...
last but not least, i visited the che gong temple. would not have known of this temple if the guy (the one that spoke to me about politics) didn't share it with me. he suggested i visit it as it was a must-go place for tourists. it was indeed an interesting temple, one that is dedicated to military general of a bygone dynasty and now revered as a go-to god for good health. the temple was very old and had gone through a few expansions and renovations. despite that, it was very crowded. i was surprised to see so many youngsters at the temple, very contrasting and very different from singapore. over here, the people that still frequent taoist temples are generally a lot older as most of the younger people are either buddhist or christians.
so yeah... it was a short trip, but certainly a good one.
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