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As you may recall, I tried to find the walled city in the New Territories a while ago ... and then missed my bus stop. Determination not completely thwarted, I set out again, but this time I was smart enough to take a friend with me who speaks beautiful Cantonese. (These things happen when you're from Hong Kong!)
We met up around 2pm and first went to the post office. Not the most exciting of trips, I know, but I wanted to mail some things back to the US. In China, they go through the box to make sure you're not mailing home... secrets or something. (I had a friend who wanted to mail home a DVD of photos once, and they wouldn't let him.) Plus, since my Chinese isn't excellent in the area of post office vocabulary, going somewhere they speak English just seemed like a good idea. This wasn't just a letter, it's my stuff. I want to see it again!
So, a box the size of a small suitcase (and nearly the weight, too), a lot of string, and $400 later, we left. Still cheaper and easier than trying to lug it home myself.
We set out on the correct bus for the walled city. My friend had never been there, either, and wasn't exactly sure where it was. But between my directions and her language skills we reasoned we could find it. And we did. Sort of.
We made it to the stop and walked our way to where the city is supposed to be. There was even a big sign saying which landmarks were in each direction. So we set off to the right, down a narrow street, making friends with the walls whenever buses would go by. We managed to find a few things, and then we headed back so we could go the other way at the road's fork.
We wandered around some more, found a few more landmarks, but were unable to see half of what was supposed to be there. Gray clouds looming, we decided to head out. We hopped on a mini bus and went to another walled city.
This city had a proper wall around it, still. There wasn't much to see. The walkways were really narrow. If I were much bigger I would have found it overly cozy. Areas you think should
be too small to fit through were actual walkways. All the homes were tiny but well tended. One old woman kept showing up and asking us "take picture?" which means, "Give me money and I"ll let you take my photo." She may have been a resident, and LP says you can take photos of people living there, but she didn't look special or distinct. No one would look at a photo of her and immediately wonder where I'd taken it or immediately know where I'd taken it--she could be anybody. Needless to say, I passed at every opportunity she graciously afforded me.
By now it was getting late any my stomach was indicating food was in order. We stopped to purchase cold drinks (it was really hot and humid) and then waited for the bus back to the subway. We headed to TST for dinner. An excellent meal to cap off an excellent afternoon!
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Dad
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$400 to mail something ????
Oh wait....that's HK dollars, right??