Mail, Immigrants, street party, Mong kok madness

At the metro station we purchased our tickets to central MTR, where sped alone swift escalators, herded through the masses of 5 1/2 foot talk adults, and pushed through public transportation turn styles.  On the train a few people tried to catch my eye to smile at me, a few whispered to friends and looked at the boys in wonder, and every now and then a stranger's hand would reach over to sneak a touch of the boys heads, unable to resist the urge to touch relentlessly tightly curled hair.

When we got above ground something was vastly different than the day before.  Today, we were surrounded by women, in all directions there were women, they seemed to be Filipinos, definitely not Chinese.  There were darker, stockier, and all seemed delighted.  As we walked toward the post office the trail of Filipinos didn't end there were thousands at the very least, sidewalks many st on blankets playing cards, eating lunch and chatting, outside the post office they haggled and traded clothes.  Inside the post office they folded and neatly placed clothes in boxes prepared for mass shipping to... the Philippines?  Did I hear the word Bali?  One thing that I always like to find out in my travels extend beyond who are the people in the new land I am visiting? I also like to learn who are their immigrants?  In the US we have our Mexicans and other Latinos.  The Germans have the Polish, South Africa has the Zimbabweans, Europe has the North Africans, apparently Hong Kong has the Filipinos and the Balians.  It was delicious splash of diversity in a homogeneous city.

After waiting in line a bit, I sent of my postcards and joined the AlphaPoppa and the kids who were comfortable sitting in the mist 25 women happily and rapidly packing their boxes to be shipped off.
My guys were mesmerized by their iPhone games and probably didn't notice, or didn't care, that they had been enveloped by people.

 Post office

postcard of Hong Kong skyline

Post cards

Once again finding ourselves on the street AlphaPoppa wanted to look for a helicopter school located one top of one of the many sky scrapers.  While following GPS street directions we passed many more Filipinos and then found ourselves in the middle of some sort of street party.  I swear Dude WILLS himself jumpy houses and other fun kids stuff when we travel.  It was all free so we let Dude, jump and race a little car around a track for the next hour.  

I love traveling with the kids, and I love even more when they have fun on their level, making each place memorable for themselves.  Unfortunately the school was closed and we couldn't go up to the rooftop helipad.   We decided to sit in the sunshine for a while and chill while we figure out the smartest direction to move in.  While seated I asked the Filipino woman sitting next to me how to arrive at the Mong Kok station and area.  From what I'd read this was allegedly the most populated place on earth, the center and heart beat of Hong Kong.  The lady was very helpful pointing us in the right directions to the train station and letting us know how many stops to expect.  One nice thing about the metro system in Hong Kong is that you see you location in a map and simply must touch the MTR destination that you plan on going to.  You are given your price and can easily play.  The metro cards pops out, the turn-styles sucks in the card and spits it out as you enter. then finally takes the card from you as you exit at your destination's turn-styles.  

Mong Kok was a mad house, crowded was an understatement and people were everywhere.