On Saturday, I put myself in the hands of my companions, rather than figure everything out myself. Usually, I like to know exactly where I am going and what I am doing, so this was a major departure for me. It started because Elizabeth had gone on line and got tickets for the HK Jockey Club Equine Funfest. The reservations that I felt about attending an event of that name were what caused me to take the take things as they come attitude. HK is very big on horse racing and the Jockey Club makes an enormous amount of money from people's desire to bet on the races. I guess this event was one way in which they give back, although to be fair to them, the Jockey Club gives out money all over the place. So the Equine Funfest was held up at the Shatin racecourse, which actually was where they had the show jumping events for the Beijing Olympics. My favorite adjective to describe the event was remarkable. The most remarkable feature of the Equine Funfest was its lack of horses. There were some nice full sized plastic horses, left over from the Olympics I believe, painted in all sorts of decorative ways. There were ponies on which small children could ride. There were Shetland ponies with which you could be photographed. There were horse-like machines on which you could develop your jockey skills. There was even a mock-up of a horse's rear end on which to practice grooming. But no examples of the real thing. Once we realized that our quest to find real horses was to be in vain, we relaxed and enjoyed the trees.
Actually, the Funfest was the second event of the day because first we went for dim sum, Shanghai style, with Alex and Elaine, two HK friends. Normally we have Cantonese dim sum and that style is relatively plain and simple, allowing the quality of the ingredients to shine through. The Shanghai version was more complex and spicier. A noodle soup with a rich peanut broth, steamed dumplings that magically contained soup in addition to the expected pork. It helped that Alex and Elaine knew what they were going for and could read the menu. It set us up well for the horseless festival.
From Shatin, Alex drove us across the New Territories to Tuen Mun and the Tsing Chung Koon Taoist temple that contained photographs of his godparents. I realize that I do not understand exactly what godparents are in Chinese terms, but honoring ancestors is a very important part of this culture. So having a place where you can go and connect with them is very important. He bought incense sticks on the way in and then both he and Elaine would light a few at a time and present them to the photographs. No actual bodies or ashes were there. They lit some on behalf of themselves and then some for their son, Gary, and then others were presented to the neighboring photos, to keep them happy too. I think there is a sense that of you are good to your ancestors, they will be good to you too. Another important way that people make offerings is to burn stuff, for example bags of fake money. There are stores where you can go and buy all sorts of paper objects - houses, cars, clothes - anything that a person might need in the afterlife. The temple has big ovens to burn these objects, although often you can see people just burning them in the street also.
The temple complex was large, with several buildings including an old peoples' home and a free Chinese medicine clinic. There were nice gardens too, with a pond full of turtles.
We moved on from there to briefly visit the visitor center for the Ping Shan Heritage Trail, a set of walled villages, temples etc., but then we needed to pick up Jacob and Duncan who had spent their day working as English teachers at Mr. Brown's English Highway. We also rendezvoused with Elaine's sister and her husband who also brought Gary. Our two-car convoy then drove off to find the oyster capital of Hong Kong, Lau Fau Shan. We perused the market there thoroughly, and then made our selection of seafood and restaurant. It was a spectacular feast, a large section of an enormous fish that we watched meet its end, cooked two different ways, clams, crabs and then the oysters, either, or I should say both, deep fired in a light batter or sautéed with ginger and garlic. There was a lot more, of course, but these were the memorable bits.
This posting is rather light on photos, I am afraid - J&D were not present for most of it and then E's camera had a battery problem.