March 4 - Buddha, N'Dour concert

Mar 4 – Sunday

As David had never been to HK before, he wanted to see the Big Buddha. It is the main tourist attraction & you really shouldn’t come here & not see it, although I think that is John’s plan (he still hasn’t been up there). The guys came over for omelets, our Sunday morning ritual. Of course the guys talked business & David & I didn’t get out until very late. I had gotten tickets ahead of time so we wouldn’t have the long wait for the cable car, but we were so late there was hardly a line at all. He didn’t seem to excited by the ride up & I don’t think he took more than one photos. It’s a pretty impressive ride, so I was surprised he wasn’t more enthusiastic. He was nice & pleasant as could be, but just not very impressionable (maybe that’s just sales people). Getting tickets ahead you have to get round trip & as we disembarked we realized that this was not necessarily going to work for us. The line of people waiting to go down the cable car was about 1 ½ hours (they had it marked along the way “45 minute wait from here”). We decided we might want to find alternative return options.

We walked up the 260 stairs to the Buddha. Like everyone that comes to visit, David commented on the amount of exercise you get in HK, just walking about up & down the hills. He took a few photos of Buddha, but again, didn’t seem too impressed. There were more people there than I’ve ever seen before, it was jammed. I’m guessing it might be the last Sunday of the New Year, but I’m not sure. It was fairly humid & warm & we worked up a good sweat climbing the steps. We visited the temple below & again, David didn’t seem impressed & took very few photos. He opted against a side trip to the fishing village or the walk out to the Path of Wisdom. Guess he was just tired & didn’t feel like sight seeing.

We checked out the line for the cable car back down & it was no better. So I said we could take a bus back to the MTR station. Turns out the bus was leaving right then so we hoped aboard. It was a great trip up & over the mountains back to the other side of the island. There was a lot of construction going on so it wasn’t fast, but better than waiting in line for 2 hours. We made it back without further incident & David said he was not going to recommend the Buddha for John to go visit. He kept saying it was a tourist trap & I kept reminding him that for Buddhists, it is a religious sight & very important to them. He didn’t seem to buy this & said unless John was going to become Buddhist, he shouldn’t bother visiting. We all laughed over that. John was glad to have someone on his side about the Buddha.

In the evening I went to a concert with my friend, Sarah. She’d gotten tickets before she realized that her husband would be out of town.. We met at the mall next to her building & had dinner at one of those conveyer belt sushi places. It was really fun. They have green tea powder at the table & a place where you push your cup in & get hot water to make your tea. As items go by that you like you just take them off & you get charged by the number of plates & the color of the plate. The food was delicious & it was a fun experience.

The concert was in Kowloon at the cultural center, a lovely building & the concert hall was great. Our seats were 1st balcony center stage, nice. The artist was Youssou N’Dour. He is from Senegal & has recorded with several popular artists. He has done a lot of work for social issues, especially ones that affect his country. I’d never heard of him, but was glad to have the chance to go to a concert. Right from the first song, it was obvious that this was going to be at a minimum a foot tapping concert. The music was very African with drumming and lots of rhythm. I don’t know much about music, but there isn’t anyway you couldn’t love this music. It just made you have to move & move people did. I was very surprised that people got up from their seats & moved to the aisles & the space in front of the stage & danced & moved to the music. From my experience, in a theater like this, people wouldn’t be allowed to stand in the aisles, but no moves were made to stop them.

We stood most of the performance, as did most of the audience, well except for the people next to me. Sarah & I figured they were French (don’t ask me why, just looked like it). The man next to me looked in his late 30’s & it was probably his wife next to him & obviously her mother next to her (they looked just alike). We decided that the wife/daughter had forced the other 2 to attend the concert & they did so just to humor her. The man spent most of the time text messaging on his cell phone, which he hid from everyone, except me with his program. I think he tapped his foot 3 times & that was the song that had everyone standing & dancing & clapping & shouting. He did smile a few times, but we think that was just to make his wife think he was enjoying himself. The wife/daughter look mildly interested & actually sat forward & clapped with a few of the songs, but not very enthusiastically. The mother held her hands close to her chest and had a look of complete distain & disgust during the entire performance. It was so comical to watch them. They bolted as soon as the performance was over, without even waiting for the encore. For the rest of us, it was raucous and wonderful and left you feeling so good and happy. I was so glad that Sarah’s husband had left town & she admitted that I probably enjoyed it way more than he would have.

So if you get a chance to hear his music, I highly recommend it: Youssou N’Dour !