did some more sightseeing on monday. was all set to spend the day in front of the computer when i got a call from clarissa. she's holding me to my promise of spending my days off actually getting out in the world instead of wasting time on campus. so, we decided to check some walled villages in the new territories, thinking that we'd have a historical, cultural day capped of by a seafood dinner with a bunch of other exchange students. lot of seafood this week, now that i think about it. 
took the train to fanling, got on the minibus out to the lung yeuk tau heritage trail - had some pretty high expectations! i found it on the internet - it was supposed to take us through 5 walled villages and 12 different settlements... got off the minibus and - no tourists. a couple of signs about the villages but not much fanfare. kind of suspicious, but we were still stoked about out day out. as we walked through the door of the first village, we were confronted by underpants! turns out the villages are all still inhabited, so laundry was hanging everywhere. gotta say, felt a bit creepy to wander through the compounds, basically lurking in these people's yards, taking photos and peeking in windows. and the villages were not exactly my definition of villages...
maybe enough room in each compound for 5 small houses. so, as we walked past the first houses in the first village, i looked up and realized that there was a brand new apartment building in the middle of the compound! what a contrast to the 300 year old walls around it. turns out, the heritage trail is mostly just the road and the villages were all much like the first one. the highlight of our walk was a little girl walking with her grandmther turning around an secretly sticking her tongue out at me. what a jerk! i didn't like her, but didn't get her back 'cause her grandma looked pretty tough. it was pretty interesting though. i realized that i always assumed that everyone local must live in a giant highrise. when you stay in the malls, you don't see the real suburbs... mercedes and bmws out front of sketchy looking buildings, old ladies peeking out at you from tiny stone houses that can't possibly have indoor plumbing... good to get out in the world. stopped at fo tan market for some noodles, thinking that our seafood dinner probably wouldn't happen until late. mistake.
i should have fasted for a week or so. ivy (one of the canadians) has a local cousin who took us out to yau tong to a restaurant in a fish market where we chose seafood out of giant tanks and 16 of us sat around a giant table.what did we eat? what DIDN'T we eat would be a better question! i swear to god, the ocean is empty now. we started with boiled shrimp, then on to scallops, lobster, giant prawns, mussels, squid, geo-duck, crab...i can't even think about it without getting in to sweatpants! we were all so full! when we got home, i went straight upstairs to change into expandable apparel and heard voices speaking english outside my window...
messaged any to tell her how loud they were being and got convinced to come down and drink some beer on the patio with the others. a good night. never need seafood again. mmm...
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