Good find, in a Tim Burton's jealous sort of way.

I started out the day deciding to check out Happy Valley Race Course and Jockey Club, since I missed out yesterday after the Great Dong Debacle. I wasn't expecting much to be there, but I couldn't not check it out. Fortunately right up the street was Happy Valley cemetery (oh those Chinese and their irony...) I had heard about Happy Valley someplace (I think it was Wong and Mcdonough's book actually, the people who took me to HK the first time) but began to think I was getting it wrong since I couldn't find it in any of my guide books or on any of my maps (including the ones Hong Kong tourism people gave me). But then, huzzah! paydirt.

That, my friends, is a whole lot of dead people. A whole lot of dead Catholic people, to be specific, as viewed from the Muslim cemetery next door. First lesson learned, Muslims aren't very fun, or at least loost-goosy with their cemeteries.

No hot pants in a cemetery?! Come on guys! What do you mean so sacrificial offerings? Not even a little? As you can probably judge from this sign, there was an active push to keep traditional Chinese practice out of the cemetery, but thankfully Catholics are a little more willing to overlook paganism. No lions here, but there are snakes!


Lots of great examples, smaller lions that show familial devotion rather than fierceness. I think. Its too late to decide. The over whelming thing was the sheer number of graves, the graveyard was stacked in tiers upon tiers. basically people died the way they lived, piled on top of each other in high rise housing.

Walking around took up my entire day, and it was definitely worth it. And considering it was gray, overcast and misty all day it was actually perfect for cemetery-ing. I was a happy as a fifteen year old goth in, well, a cemetery on a misty day.

Lots of good food today, I found a restaurant where I mentioned off hand I'm vegetarian and they actually modified part of the fixed menu to make it meat free. Course, they accidentally gave me duck dumplings with my vegetable dumplings, but they meant well. Then for dinner, kabobs and samosas near Chunking Mansions. I'm beginning to wonder if there's been any serious work done on Subcontinent Asians in Hong Kong, it looks like there's a huge population of men and very few women doing some kind of specific work (I just have no idea what this might be). Very intriguing. On a final note, this is for my homegirl Meghan: