Happy Tuen Ng Festival

Today is the Tuen Ng festival in Hong Kong, which means it's time for the Dragon Boat races. I'm starting to appreciate these mid-week holidays that occur about once a month here in HK. Unlike long weekends which are great for traveling outside of the city, these mid-week holidays can still be pretty relaxing since they break up the work week into short two-day segments.

There were many of dragon boat races taking place at different locations across the city today--at Sai Kung, Sha Tin, Tuen Mun (Castle Peak Bay), Cheung Chau, Tai Po, Aberdeen, Discovery Bay and Tai O on Lantau Island and Stanley. I headed to the one at Sai Kung since it's so close to where I live. 

Sai Kung is only about a 15-20 minute minibus ride away from the Hang Hau MTR station but it felt like a completely different environment from Tseung Kwan O.  The ride there is through a long and winding road with lots of trees, shrubs, and grass on either side. On the way into Sai Kung I also passed by The Lions Nature Education Centre which feature a variety of educational exhibits; including, an arboretum, dragonfly pond, butterfly valley, medicinal herbal garden. 

The bus conveniently stopped off at the waterfront promenade where the races were taking place. Fortunately there wasn't a lot of pushing and shoving going on even though there were a lot of people at the event. Guess the crowd today were mostly families with young children.

Not only do the winners of the race receive a trophy and medals for each crew member, but the winning team also receives a whole roasted pork! I think this is a pretty unique touch and saw lots of happy crew members devouring the pig after each race to celebrate their win.

These roasted pigs varied in sizes-the team in the first place also won the largest pig. (Photo: Cath)

Today's races were very exciting to watch because the teams paddle towards us at the finish line. A couple of the races were very close and the top three teams were neck in neck for most of the race. Competitors included local businesses, university staff associations, and other community organizations.

Watching the dragon boat teams from the edge of the pier (Photo: CharK)

After the races were over, I walked around the pier and found a lot of fisherman were selling their seafood right from their boats. It's a pretty smart system, they have these long fishing nets to hoist the food up to the pier and people drop off cash back into the net. 

Look at all the seafood: mantis shrimp, horseshoe crab, squid. Apparently the seafood were pretty good deals, 100HKD for a box of flower crabs and the squid was 300 HKD. (Photo: CharK)

Aside from the fresh air, I really enjoyed watching all the cranes and hawks from the pier. I guess it's a great place to find for with all of the fish that's readily available. 

Check out the huge wing span of this hawk. (Photo: CharK)

 As I waited for the bus back to Hang Hau station, I tried a local favourite-茶果 which is basically a Hakka style mochi that's filled with black sesame and peanuts. They are a bit chewier and less dry than traditionally mochis. 

I thought these 茶果 were delicious (Photo: CathC).