The group of us gathered at the ferry terminal, all freshers curious to try out the traditional, yet fiercely popular sport of dragon boat racing as part of the University society's orientation camp on Cheung Chau. After the hour-long ferry, costing only $13 (£1), we alighted still sleepy-eyed yet amused by the polar opposite of busy, urban HK island, this little island full of wandering locals on narrow, car-less paths - only bikes ringing their bells to squeeze past us. The sun was already relentless, although luckily this time I managed to avoid getting sunburnt (especially as I've only just recovered from my last sunburn).
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| Cheung Chau beach |
As the team walked us along the promenade to the harbour, we walked past a long line of beautiful, clean white dragon boats, with their dragon heads and tails, and big ceremonial drums. Our excitement subsided as we reached the harbour and found that our boats were much less, uh, polished. 2 old wooden dragon boats with flaking paint and no dragon head nor tail nor drum sat waiting for us. As it turns out, the fancy decoration is reserved only for competitions. So there we go.
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| Not for us... |
Our team of ten climbed into our boat and our two instructors taught us first individually to learn to paddle - a much different technique to rowing or kayaking back home, before learning to paddle together, including who we should be watching (i.e. not the person directly in front of you, but diagonally opposite), the different commands and the rhythm.
Dragon boat racing tends to have short, intense races which meant practicing for say "60 paddles" before taking a few minutes to relax and chat, and throw some banter between us and the other boat. The switching between head-down, intense racing and chill-out time with the boat made for a good laugh of a session. Our instructors, Erin and Yukiko were both fantastic and really helped us work together and improve our technique individually, as well as teaching us lots about the sport in general. Concluding with a few races, things got pretty serious quickly and despite how quickly your arms tire with such a fast pace and the intensity you paddle with, we pushed through, and won two of the three races.
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| The winning team! |
Aside from some time in the boats, the rest of the day was spent playing beach games, and exploring the island - including a very, very narrow little cave, which legend says was used as a pirate's hiding place for his treasure.
With the DBC members showing us around, we were lucky for them to translate the street cafe menus and recommend some mid-afternoon snacks for us. We started off with mango glutinous rice dumplings, which we watched being made through the window. The mango was sweet and juicy, whilst the surrounding dough was sticky and reminded me of mochi.
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| Mango glutinous rice dumpling |
The other, unexpected afternoon snack which I was just TOO curious not to try was 'Deep fried ice-cream balls'. A scoop of soft, purple taro ice-cream covered in hot crispy batter. Honestly, I still don't know quite what to make of it. I think it was nice, but I don't really want to admit that something as insane and unhealthy as deep-fried ice-cream could taste very nice.
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| Deep fried ice-cream ball |
The night finished off with eating some tasty, homemade food at the family restaurant of one of the team members and a final wander through the streets to explore the shops and street cafes at night before catching the ferry home after a long day of new experiences.
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