Cheese Curds in Transit: On Thunderstorms, Grumpy Cat Faces and Other Things

Hello again everyone!

Rewind a bit to a few weeks ago when our school put on an outdoor jazz concert. My office is directly below the podium (the commons area outside where people eat and hang out and the elementary students have recess). The whole thing is tiled. When the set up crew was rolling big heavy boxes across the podium it sounded just like thunder in my office. I got so excited to see a thunderstorm I ran outside only to find a bright sunny day and the realization of what was actually making the noise.

I LOVE thunderstorms Not the scary tornado ones or the ones with crazy winds and torrential rains, but the ones that make a lot of noise and have enough rain so that you can hear it tap lightly on the windows. I think I started getting really excited about thunderstorms after my family moved to Minnesota because when a thunderstorm happened, it meant that the snow was going to melt and that spring was right around the corner! Even though it has been warm and humid here (in the 70-80F range) for the past few weeks, we have not had any "Spring signaling" rains that I am used to from back home.

This week we had our very first thunderstorm of 2013 in Hong Kong. I heard the distant rumble as soon as I got home and threw open the curtains to discover that it was not another event getting set up on the podium - it was a genuine storm cloud (either a nimbostratus or stratocumulus or both - I was too excited to remember it exactly)!!! The cloud got closer and the rumblings got louder and then there was lightning!! And rain!!! Sweet rain to clear the air! :) It was fantastic :)

I was so wrapped up gazing out the window I forgot to take a pic. Something that I noticed later on was that a good number of my Hong Kong friends updated their facebook statuses with something about the storm :)

Ok, now that I have gushed about the thunderstorm (haha), I'll go over some things that we did the past few weeks.

Slow burning incense

Art at Che Kung Temple

Che Kung Temple from the outside

The church that we go to is on a hill above the Che Kung Temple MTR stop. We realized a few weeks ago that we had not been to the Temple or the Hong Kong Heritage Museum at that stop so we decided to change that. The temple was quite busy. There were lots of people there worshiping and offering incense bundles. There were also drums that you could hit. I think it had something to do with the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations.

Burning incense

Inside the temple

One funny anecdote from Chinese New Year - they sell these spinny, jingly, pinwheel things (with bells on them) near the temples. I think they are supposed to keep spirits away (Please don't hold me to that - I could have misheard when I asked someone). There are small ones, medium sized ones and super gigantic ones. I don't think you were supposed to bring the super gigantic ones onto the trains, but some people did. Most of the people that had them on the train held them close so they would not spin or make a noise. There was one guy on a fairly busy train who was at the middle of the car that did not.

The Spinny Jingly Things!!!

When the trains move, air generally blows straight down the middle of the cars. It is quite refreshing compared to the trains in Sydney where the air was stagnant and uncomfortable. This one guy looked just like Grumpy Cat. He had a sour face and his arms were crossed just like a little kid who was not getting his way. The only difference is that he had a gigantic spinny thing in one of his hands. When the train started moving, you heard this whirring and jingling sound and when you turned to look, Grumpy Cat Guy was holding the spinny, jingly thing and the pinwheels were going crazy and he kept his Grumpy Cat face.

A close up of the spinny jingly things :)

Normally people on the MTR keep to themselves. There isn't a lot of talking and almost everyone is on their phone. On THAT train, EVERYONE turned to look to see what was making the noise and then EVERYONE made eye contact with each other and smiled a small smile while Grumpy Cat Guy kept holding his Grumpy Cat face while holding the spinny, jingly thing high in the air. We all shared a moment and as soon as Tim and I got off that train we burst into laughter.

A whole bunch of them!!!

It was FANTASTIC. I hope that Grumpy Cat Guy realized how much joy he was creating in that car. :)

Ok back to exploring, when we were done at Che Kung Temple, we headed to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum to see what was there. It was super cheap to get in compared to museums of similar quality in the US and was fantastic! My high school teachers in Minnesota that did History Day would have a field day with all of the display ideas that were there. It was for sure on par with the Science Museum of Minnesota.

The Hong Kong Heritage Museum

The Cantonese Opera Exhibit

Their special exhibit was on the Faberge family from Russia, and they had four of the famous Easter Eggs on display. I took photos of two of them before being told by one of the museum people that no photos were allowed (in my defense, the sign was about the size of my hand and blended in with the extravagant background at the entrance of the exhibit). The eggs (and everything else there) was so small and had amazing detailing. It was hard to believe that someone was capable of making things that small soooo beautiful.