Wild Boar...And Probably Also Wild Boar

Hong Kong it literally an urban jungle - crazy urban and actual crazy jungle. It is a tropical, forest-covered mountainous island that some wacky Brits in the 1840s decided was fine location to build one of the biggest cities in the world.  HK has 100+ more skyscrapers than the next biggest city by that measure.  We live in a 30 story building about 3/4 of the way up the mountain, surrounded by other buildings just as tall, it not taller.  Yet, much of the native wildlife still exists on the Hong Kong Island as well as on the other 260+ islands that make up Hong Kong.  We live two blocks from a zoo and park I take Isla to frequently.  It is a special combination of sounds every time I push her on the swing:  the sound of children playing at the park, cars rushing by on the overpass overhead, and then various kinds of monkeys screeching in the cages nearby!  Yet, the weirdest animal sighting by far happened a couple weeks ago when a wild boar wandered out of the woods and into the traffic circle in front of our apartment complex.  This guy waltzed past some taxis and proceeded to hang in the grassy area next to the building until the security guards chased him down the road (probably just to a coffee shop or nearby apartment complex!)  

This boar sighting occurred during the time my parents and sister, Alexa, were visiting.  My parents left a few days before Alexa, and I decided it was time for a more compete Hong Kong culture immersion for her.  I took her to this teeny tiny outdoor-only restaurant at the bottom of an ally and a stairway in Sheng Wan. I'd been wanting to eat here for months, but refrained while pregnant for fear of food poisoning, which is just a part of normal life here from time to time. 

The label, "restaurant," is being generous here - we're talking one guy sweating over a huge pot of...something, two small burners that resemble a Coleman camp stove, and a few buckets of various ingredients sitting on the ground outside.  There are about five plastic shared tables, where you eat right next to locals on very flimsy plastic stools with no back.  We were handed a menu that had Chinese characters along with what I believe was a very loose, partially accurate English translation.  Lex and I looked around at what most people were eating, which seemed to be noodles in various kinds of broth, most of which looked red.  We waved a woman over to take our order who looked to be about 90 years old.  It was quickly evident that she spoke no English at all, so we pointed to the menu and said "please" a lot.  She looked very confused and yelled at us a little until the man sitting next to me offered to order for us.  The man informed her that Alexa wanted noodles and vegetables and then told her I wanted noodles with chicken sausage.  She yelled something about tomatoes back for a while, so I just nodded yes to this and then she questioned the man incessantly about the chicken sausage as if she'd never heard of this before, despite it being on the menu in English.  Our helpful translator kept telling me she didn't understand about the sausage. I pointed to it on the menu again.  She threw her hands up and yelled what appeared to be her one English word, "TOMATOES."  I just replied, "yes please" and nodded again and she walked away.  Sometimes you are just never quite sure what you are going to get!  We were handed our bowls very quickly and we were happy to see they did look pretty close to what we ordered.  The noodles and tomatoes were great.  However, the "chicken sausage" looked like the most shriveled up hot dog I've ever seen.  The woman's staring and laughter when she put down my bowl leads me to believe either (a) they don't really even serve chicken sausage and this thing was just lying in basket on the floor near the stove for the past 2 years, or (b) It's wasn't really chicken. Given what I know about Hong Kong and China, and the wild animal I'd seen a few days earlier, I'd say there's a 50-50 chance I ate either cat or wild boar.  In all likelihood, it was probably "c," all of the above - 2 year old floor cat/boar sausage!  It was weird, but I'm really glad I finally fulfilled my dream of eating at this place, and, as an added bonus, neither of us got food poisoning!  I'll probably go back to eat there again, and I'll definitely order noodles with tomatoes, but I'll likely pass on the mystery meat.

The "restaurant." Your guess is as good as mine on it's name!