Our time in Hong Kong was short and as such we hadn’t wanted to commit to wanting to do lots of things. The weather was also horrible while we were there being the summer typhoon season. Hot sticky and wet was what we were greeted with and what stuck around for most of our time in Hong Kong. This cut down our list of activities. On our first outing to Hong Kong Island (Jakes cousin, who we were staying with, lives on Lantau Island close to the airport) it was semi-ok when we left but by the time we hopped of the train it was hosing down. Checking out any markets was out of the question as well as visiting the Peak, a lookout high above the city, as all we would be seeing was thick grey clouds. But the weather wasn’t going to get our hopes down. Walking through the huge central subway station Jakes eye caught a large billboard on the wall. A life size image of the incredibly ripped Bruce Lee advertising an exhibit of his life at the Hong Kong Historical Museum. With the rain coming down pretty heavy it was a perfect activity for the morning and so we quickly hopped onto the next train. Five transfers later and halfway to China we finally got to the museum.
Walking into the museum a massive statue of Bruce Lee in all his fighting glory stood impressively before us. Jake was getting very excited by this point. Now I must confess I know who Bruce Lee is but don’t actually think I have ever seen a full movie of his. I have seen clips of his fighting and nun-chuck moves and wasn’t too phased by going to this exhibit but knew it was something Jake was pretty keen on. (Before we seen the advertisement he was wanting to check out Bruce Lees star and statue on the promenade and check out his home too.) Entry into the museum was relatively cheap at 10 Hong Kong dollars but we had to wait 15 minutes before we were allowed in with the next group of people. It was pretty packed inside and the Chinese people visiting the museum seemed to have a lot smaller bubble then Jake and I were comfortable with. The first part of the exhibit took us through Bruce’s early life at school and his childhood acting career. Checking out some of his earlier movie clips he was a pretty talented kid. Bruce was not only good at acting but was a big fan of the cha-cha and the exhibit had some old school clips of him in a few movies dancing as well as his notebooks which meticulously detailed his steps.
Of course like most museum exhibits we had been told photos weren’t allowed but there was no way Jake was going to listen to that. He was snapping sneaky photos whenever he could and blatantly pulled it out in front of the security to get a photo of the yellow track suit Bruce wore in Game of Death before being told to put it away. One particular part of the exhibit which cracked both Jake and I up was the life-size, 3D holographic image re-enacting of Bruce Lee during a training session complete with all his yelling, whooping and rippling muscles. The exhibit had a mix of a lot of Bruce’s personal belongings as well as items about his professional life. I learnt a lot about the man who introduced martial arts to the film industry in the western world. It was a pity that his talent never met its full potential with him passing away at a tragically young age.
The next part of our Bruce Lee day was supposed to be checking out his house but with the rain still coming down pretty hard we decided against it and headed back to town to get a feed. Now malls in Hong Kong are everywhere and many are built on top of train stations making it easy when you hop off to get a quick bite. The mall attached to the train station we got off at however was definitely not easy. After wandering around the shops getting completely lost and disoriented for a good 10 minutes we finally found the food court only to be disappointed with only a few choices. Refuelled by our average lunch we thought we would check the weather again and lucky for us the sky had cleared so we were able to finish off our Bruce Lee fan day. Strolling along the Avenue of the stars promenade you get a great view over the harbour to the skyscrapers on Hong Kong Island. Because of all the cloud we still couldn’t see the peak however so were glad we had decided against catching the tram up to check out the view. The promenade is a stretch of 400 meters full of famous Chinese/Hong Kong stars with their hand prints, similar to the stars along Hollywood boulevard in LA. The difference being that this boulevard was super clean and everyone there is excited to check out each star, lining up and waiting to get
photos with each one. When I was in LA a couple of years ago I was surprised at how dirty the strip of stars was and there were only a few people checking them out. Bruce Lee’s star also has a smaller version of the huge statue we had seen
earlier on in the day and people were crowding around trying to get photos with the legend.
photos with each one. When I was in LA a couple of years ago I was surprised at how dirty the strip of stars was and there were only a few people checking them out. Bruce Lee’s star also has a smaller version of the huge statue we had seen
earlier on in the day and people were crowding around trying to get photos with the legend.
We ended our day catching a short ferry over the harbour giving us a great view of the New Territories and Hong Kong Island. Although short it was pretty choppy and we were glad we had decided against Macau for the day and hoped that tomorrow would bring sunnier skies so we could get out and see more of Hong Kong.
Next Stop: Giant Buddha and nightlife in Hong Kong