西貢 Sai Kung (Xi Gong), Hong Kong

(Sai Kung Pier)

(People having tea and chatting next to the little park of us Sai Kung pier.)

(Circle K, the place to get cheap chilled coffee. Oh, and practice your Cantonese. "Yat ga feh, m goi." One coffee, please.)

(Me playing tourist.)

(Fisherman handing off cuttlefish guts to be used as bait. He had just finished gutting and cleaning a cuttlefish before selling it right off the boat.)

(Fisherman's boat off the side of the boardwalk.)

(People fishing [illegally] off the pier.)

(I love these lovely neon signs around Hong Kong.)

(Fisherman selling their catches off the boardwalk.)

(Crabs outside a seafood restaurant in front of a hotel.)

(Fishing boots.)

(Grandma and grandchild passing time out on the pier in Sai Kung.)

(Sam pan boats.)

(A worker taking care of the Urine Shrimp, a local speciality.)

("Aren't those guys up there illegal?")

(This seafood shop was one of the first things we saw in Sai Kung.)

(Shops leading to the boardwalk in Sai Kung.)

On Monday afternoon Baddi and I made a trek to Sai Kung. Sai Kung is in the western part of Hong Kong, and it means Western Tribute in English. I had seen a picture of the harbor in a Hong Kong guide book that I had bought recently. I decided to drag Baddi with me. (Baddi is my friend from Iceland who is living with the Ngan family in Hong Kong. He came here with Hong Kong AFS. The Ngan family took me to Macau. See last post!). Nelson (Baddi's host brother) helped us find the minibus on his way to school.

When we got off the bus in Sai Kung it was already late afternoon. The fisherman were out selling their daily catches for local peoples' dinner. Baddi and I spent more than a half an hour watching people haggle (in Cantonese, so this time I wasn't doing the translating) over cuttlefish. Off Sai Kung Harbor are many different islands, I didn't realize this until I looked at a map afterwords. The islands definitely contribute to the great view that is this harbor.

I really enjoyed resuming on of my hobbies since I was three: catch watching. When I was little my Uncle Rusty used to take me to the local pier (in California) to see what was lurking in the buckets of the fishermen. I did a lot of the here, but it was a bit more convenient. The fish were already displayed in tanks for sale, while other fish were still in the boats of fishermen.
This was mostly a people watching one. I really enjoyed it. Baddi was fascinated by the gutting of the the cuttlefish. He also liked to listen to the haggling of the locals. It helped me with my Cantonese numbers.

(This morning I discovered how horrible my Cantonese is. Cantonese not only has 6 tones. It also has three pitches. High, middle, and low. I tortured Nelson this morning by having him repeat these pitches over and over again. Last time I visited Nelson, and his sister Kathy, couldn't even recall the tones specifically to give me a listen. When I visited this time they had brushed up!)