(An Attempt to See the) Dragon Boat Races

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Bright and early (as in 9am early) Julie and I set off to Hong Kong. We'd been planning to venture to Hong Kong since December to see all the "touristy" stuff and decided to coincide our trip with the festival.

We took the metro there and went to check into our hostel. The nice woman who runs it asked if we were going to see the races. We said we were and she told us to hurry since they only lasted until 1:30pm and it was already 11:30. We had been mis-informed and thought it ran all day and Friday. The info we had found on a HK tourism website said the races were Saturday, so who knows.

We raced back to the metro, then took a bus to Stanley Beach on the southern part of the island. It was complete chaos. We got off the bus to arrive more quickly by walking. We wandered around, unsure where to go. There were wet racers everywhere, camera crews were packing up, other people were wandering around lost as well. It was looking rather bleak.

Finally, after hitting a dead-end, I asked a frenzied but attractive man, "Where do we go to get in?" I must have looked more desperate than intended because he looked around and then told us we could go in, but only for 5 minutes, and don't wander around. Clearly, this was not a place we were supposed to go.

It was the finish line.

We stood for a few minutes, enjoying the strong, rain-bringing breeze, watching the boats bobbing in the water. The crowd on the beach was enormous. It had a life of its own.

We looked at the boats far out at sea and snapped pictures. We weren't sure how long we could stand there, but it looked like there might be another race despite the vacated news crews.

And there was.

Suddenly the boats were off, people paddling as quickly as possible, racing towards us. And in a moment, it was over, and all the racers were hugging and cheering regardless of how they placed.

Julie and I smiled at each other, turned, and went in search of a bus to take us to lunch in Kowloon. Our 10 minutes was perfect.

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Photos

Not too big, not too small
They're longer that I had guessed, but smaller than the tugs.