Kung hei fat choy! That's about all I know in Cantonese, so I've taken the opportunity to say it as much as possible in the past week. Monday was the official start of the year of the ox. We've had the week off from school, and decided to take this holiday to explore Hong Kong and save up for our trip to Italy (woohoo!!!!) over Easter. To kick things off, we figured we should check out the CNY fair in Victoria Park. It was madness-- tons of people. About half of Victoria Park had booths with people selling everything from abolone-shaped pillows (so gross) to year of the ox hats . The other half was flowers and plants. It's supposed to be good luck if a flower blooms in your house on New Year's Day.
Year of the Ox pillows, hats, blankets, and more!
Lots of interesting foods (which we did not try), including squid on a stick. I know, you're probably thinking calamari. Not exactly. It was not fried, had no breaded coating, and had all of its legs in tact.
Nate surrounded by auspicious CNY plants. Almost everything is auspicious here, I think.
On Tuesday, Nate and I decided to brave the crowds again in an attempt to see the CNY fireworks over Victoria Harbor. We went across the harbor to Kowloon to watch there, as we figured it would be less crowded. We got there an hour or so early in order to stake claim on a table at a waterfront restaurant. We ate until the fireworks started, then jumped up on a wall with lots of other people to watch the fireworks and take pictures. Then we sat back down to finish eating. It was great!
Lights cover the sides of buildings to decorate for Christmas and CNY in Kowloon.
View of the HK skyline across Victoria Harbor.
The fireworks!
After the fireworks, we walked down the street and happened upon this Philipino band. It's totally stereotyping, but many Philipinos seem to have great voices, and they're great at doing covers of American songs- any genre! We hung out for a while and had a blast listening to these girls sing everything from TLC's "Waterfalls" to Journey to some new rock song from the movie Twilight. You could request any song and they would sing it, and sing it well. So fun!
The maze of people leading up to the temple entrance
Bags of fruit left and incense (or joss sticks) left as gifts
A woman carrying her joss sticks
Look at all that smoke! Needless to say, I smelled strongly of incense for the rest of the day.
The buildings were constructed without the use of any nails. Amazing woodwork.
The thing I love about this view is the contrast between the modern buildings in the back and the traditional plants and building in the foreground. The background almost looks surreal. 
