Hong Kong Day 35 -- Nan Lian Garden and Chi Lin Nunnery

We slept in a bit and relaxed for a while after the long day we had yesterday.  I also finished up my post from yesterday, since we got back so late, I only did a little bit last night.  We wanted to go to the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery and to the Chi Lin Nunnery and Nan Lian Garden.  We got on the MTR and headed to Admiralty to get on the red line and then then to Mong Kock to take the green line to Kowloon Tong.  We were planning to take the MTR to Sha Tin to go to the temple, but after we got on that train there was an announcement that there was going to be a slight delay.  They kept announcing that the train was going to be delayed for a couple of minutes and apologizing for the inconvenience.  After a little while they asked everyone to get off the train because there was a person on the tracks and that it was going to be more delayed.  They finally announced that it was going to be delayed by 15 minutes, so we decided to get back on the green line and go to Diamond Hill where the nunnery and garden are located.  

We got off the MTR in Diamond Hill and walked to the Nan Lian Garden.  The nunnery is kind of part of the garden, you can access it from inside the garden or from outside and across the street.  They are both free to enter.  The garden is really neat, it is more of a Japanese style garden, they have a lot of trees and other bushes, and also a pagoda.  There are also a few buildings with displays.  I was able to get a lot of really neat pictures in the garden.  All of the plants, rocks, ponds, structures, and trees make it beautiful.  There are people all over the garden working on trimming the trees, pulling weeds, and keeping the whole place up.  

The path through the garden is a loop, and it goes past another path that leads up to a lotus garden and then to the nunnery.  The lotus garden was pretty, it was surrounded by the classic buildings, and had 6 pools with little fountains on the walls and a lot of lotus plants in them.  A lot of the lotus plants were blooming, the flowers were really pretty.  The nunnery was really neat, they had many different areas with various buddhas and other symbolic figures.  There were many people who stopped and prayed at the Buddha displays around the courtyard.  They did not allow photos to be taken, so I don’t have too many pictures inside the nunnery itself, I only have a few from one side to the other or of the building itself.  

After the garden and nunnery, we headed back to Hong Kong IslandWe were planning on going to the 10,000 Buddha Temple after the Nunnery, but we have wanting to do High Tea, so we decided to try to go to The Pawn for tea today, and because of this, we had to be in Wan Chai at 4.  We took the MTR all the way to Wan Chai and walked over to the Pawn.  Once everyone was there, we found out that you need a reservation in order to go for tea, so we made a reservation for tomorrow.  

We walked back to the MTR to go back to Causeway Bay and went to eat a late lunch/early dinner at a cafe in Hysan Place.  This is the same mall as the food court we have eaten at quite a few times, but this was on a different floor.  I got fish and chips, it was perfectly cooked, and the crust was really nice and light and flaky.  The portion was huge, it was nice and filling for the whole night.  After eating I headed back to the apartment to get pictures up from yesterday and to just relax for a bit.  Then I headed down to see Victoria Park.  Ciara had been shopping and then she went over, and I had been wanting to see it, so we went and walked around for a bit.  The park was completely packed, they have some soccer courts (not fields because they are concrete/asphalt like a basketball court), tennis courts, a jogging track, basketball courts, a grass field, and a swimming pool.  There was a square that was packed with people selling things and just sitting in groups.  The grass area also had a lot of people having picnics.  After walking around for a while, we went back to our apartments.  It was nice to have an earlier and more relaxing night.  I have only a little over a week left here in Hong Kong.  We are going to go to the 10,000 Buddha temple tomorrow before tea.

Walking back to the apartment we saw a guy performing on the street, it was really cool, I took a short video, and it is posted at the end of the pictures.

Entrance to Nan Lian garden area

Overhead shot of the garden and nunnery
Nunnery and lotus ponds in the buildings on the left, side of the road,
 garden on the right ride

Entrance right at the garden

Sign near the entrance

Hong Kong Day 34 -- Macau!

More pictures to come!!

Today was a lot of fun.  Ciara and I left at 7 to go to Macau, we took the MTR down to the Macau Ferry Terminal in Sheung Wan.  When we got to the ticket desk, the lady asked if we had our passports.  Ciara forgot to bring hers, so she had to go back to the apartment to get it.  I stayed at the terminal and walked around a little bit, it is in a big mall, but pretty much everything but food shops were closed.  I went outside where there was a view of the docks and took a few pictures of the dock and ferries and also of Kowloon across the harbor.  

Ciara got back and we bought our tickets and then went to a sandwich shop to pick up some stuff for breakfast.  We got the food to-go and then went over to line up for the ferry.  We stood near the line that we thought we were supposed to be in, but then it turned out that we were in the wrong line.  There were a couple of other girls also over there, and we figured out that we were all in the wrong place.  We started to walk to another line, and one of the ferry employees came over to help us.  He took all of our tickets and they assigned us 4 seats together, there was a line for that ferry, but I think we all looked confused enough that he just got us through.  You buy a ticket for the ferry at the ticket counter, and then as you get to the place to get on the specific ferry, they assign you a seat. 

We weren’t with these girls originally, but then our seats ended up being really nice, they were at the front of our level on the ferry, and were facing each other with a table between the two rows.  Once we were sitting, we introduced ourselves and started talking.  They are from Australia and are in Hong Kong for a week, Felicia and Kat.  We got off the ferry, and went through immigration.  They actually stamped our passports in Macau!!! 

After getting through immigration, we walked down towards the exit where there were a bunch of people offering tours and information.  One guy handed us maps, which we thought was great, but then he started to walk over towards a counter and I could tell we were in for a sales pitch.  He opened up one map and started to circle landmarks and other things to see, which was nice, but then he started talking about how bad other tours are.  His boss or someone came over and started to talk about how their group is government sponsored and they speak english while many of the other groups don’t, and also told us that nobody in Macau speaks english.  He said that even though there has been a Portuguese influence for 500 years, nobody speaks Portoguese, so the only language that is spoken is Cantonese.  The tour that they were offering was a part day bus that could stop as often as we wanted.  We told him that we just wanted to go around and do our own thing and he told us how bad an idea it was.  We didn’t get more details about the tour, so we don’t know how expensive it was going to be.

We left the tour desk, and walked outside.  Once we were outside, we decided that we would just stay with Kat and Felicia for the day and sightsee with them.  Like Vegas, there are a lot of free shuttles running from the ferry to the casinos, and also between casinos.  We got on a shuttle to the Venetian hotel to get us further into Macau, and we also wanted to see what it was like.  We went into the Venetian and walked to the canal.  It was pretty cool to see and we took a bunch of pictures of the Venice set up and the canal.   Then we went outside and caught a cab down to the Parque De Seac Pai Van and the Macau Giant Panda Pavilion.

We were dropped off near the park, and then walked in and found the ticket booth.  It is a neat little park, has some statues, Bonsai and some other animals besides the pandas.  We got there around 11:30 and got a ticket for the 12-1 window.  While we were waiting we walked around a bit and went to the gift shop, the visitors center, and then saw some of the other animals.  They have a deer, a few different birds, and some monkeys.  There was a white checked gibbon that was VERY loud.  You could tell that he was enjoying the attention he was getting when people were watching him.  After seeing the other animals, we went inside the panda pavilion, but unfortunately they were both napping, so we didn’t get to see them that much, just saw them laying around.  Luckily one was near the front of the enclosure, so we could see him, but the other one was up at the top and we could only really see a leg.  The Panda Pavilion was only $10HK so it was really cheap to get into.  Because of this we didn’t mind that we didn’t see too much.  After the Panda we walked through the park to the entrance, and we walked past a lot of bonsai trees.  Most of them looked really old, and they were very impressive.

We finished at the park and then got on a bus to go to a restaurant for lunch.  The restaurant is Fernando’s, a portuguese restaurant, and they are really famous for their food.  Almost everyone that I have talked to about going to Macau has said that we have to try Fernando’s.  We had to wait for a bit, so we just sat at the bar until they had a table for us.  Once the table was ready we went in and decided to just order a few dishes to share.  We got fried rice, prawns and beef.  The rice was Macau style fried rice, the prawns were cooked in garlic sauce, and the beef was a Portuguese style beef that was stewed or something similar.  The food was delicious, and the plates of food were huge.  It was definitely enough food for the four of us. They also gave us some fresh bread that had a really crispy crust and was nice and soft inside.  On the walls inside the hallway between the two dining rooms, they had large frames full of money.  The frames had money of all different values, from all over the world and each one was signed by one or many people.  They were really cool to look at and see what money looks like around the world.

After lunch we got back on a bus and headed towards the old town Macau area.  We went to Senado Square first and took a few pictures there.  It is a really famous area, is a big tiled court yard area and it is in a wavy pattern, it looks pretty cool, but it was really crowded so it was a bit hard to see the tile.  On the way to the Square we picked up egg tarts and ate them there.  After we were done we walked from the Square through the town over to Ruins of St. Peter’s.  It is the facade of a really old church, that has been standing since the 1500’s.  The ruins were really, really awesome.  It was huge, and so cool.  Hard to believe that it is so old, it looks like it is in really good condition.  We also walked over to the Guia fortress that is right near the ruins.  It is way up on a hill, and has a really good view of Macau.  The fortress is really big, and we took a bunch of pictures from there.  

After we finished up there, we walked down through town to the Grand Lisboa Hotel.  They have two, the old, original one, and a new one.  We went into the newer one, and walked around the lobby for a bit.  It was very impressive, almost over the top.  They had a few different statues, some jewels, and a lot of carvings.  Had a couple of mammoth tusk carvings and also jade and other stones.  They had a bronze horse head in the lobby that was donated to the hotel.  It was bought for $69.1 million HK, which is a world record for any Chinese Qing Dynasty Sculpture.  There were also a couple of jewels, a Fortune Emerald that was 210.34 carats and 41.25 x 29.12 x 19.1 mm, and a D color diamond that was 218.08 carats and is 39.85 x 36.25 x 17.81 mm.  We went out to the bus stop to try to go down to the A Ma temple.  The person in the information booth told us which bus goes over there, so we got on that bus.  All of a sudden it was back at the bus stop so we stayed on it thinking that maybe it would loop around and then go down near the temple.

We were on the bus and realized that it wasn’t going anywhere near the temple.  The bus stopped and we were around the island, and then we got on one that headed back to the stop near the casino.  During the first loop, the bus went past the Macau Tower so we decided to stay on it until it went to the tower.  In the end, we were on the bus for an hour or hour and a half to go to a place that we passed 5 minutes into the ride.  We had been planning to go to the A Ma temple and the tower on the way back, but by then it was dark so we decided to skip the temple. 

 At the tower we bought tickets to go up on the observation deck and took a bunch of pictures.  Macau is really pretty at night, all of the casinos are lit up.  The tickets we got are to go out on both decks, the “indoor deck” and “outdoor deck.”  It was a little hard to take pictures because both of the decks are closed in, I think the outdoor one is called that because you can bungie jump off of it or go out onto the platform that circles around the tower (separate tickets).  The decks are also pretty bright, so there was a bit of reflection from the inside, we were still able to get some pictures.  

We finished with the tower and then went down to catch a bus back to the casino.  We picked up food from a restaurant near the casino to bring onto the ferry, and then took the casino shuttle to the ferry and rode it back to Hong Kong.  When we got through immigration we stopped and took another group picture and then took the MTR back from Sheung Wan to Causeway Bay, ended up getting home around 12:30.  

Sheung Wan

TurboJET Ferries

Kowloon from the ferry terminal

Ferries

TurboJET

The Ferry that we took to Macau

Hong Kong Day 33 -- Happy Hour with other employees

Friday!!!! Today was the same pick up buns, eat at the desk, and then get to work routine.  We worked on our project, our report, and our final presentation.  We went back to one of the same restaurants for lunch.  Today I got Twice-Cooked pork.  It had some cabbage and other vegetables with the pork and came with rice and soup.  This was good, but I think I like the other things that I got there better.  The sauce did taste pretty good with the rice, and the pork was really tender, but it wasn't quite as flavorful as the other things I've had.  We also met with Chris today to go over our project some, get some more specific details on parts of the project and conclude other parts.

Since this is the last Friday of the month, the Holdings department (20th floor) had their monthly party. It is the same one as they had our first week here, celebrate any birthdays and company anniversaries that occurred during the month.  there were quite a few birthdays and anniversaries.  Ana made cream puffs and they had other chips and snacks and also had some wine.  The cream puffs were REALLY good and they were gone in no time.  We were up at the party for a while, talked to a few other employees, and just hung out for a bit.

After the party, Evelyn, Ciara, Ana, and I went to get frozen yogurt.  We went to Yo Mama, the same place that we went before.  This time their special flavor was dark chocolate.  I got half green tea and half dark chocolate and had green tea mochi as the topping.  It tasted really good, the chocolate was really rich and thick, it was almost like fudge.   We ate for a while and then went to a bar down towards the center of Wan Chai to see Jan.  She leaves for the Crown office in Malaysia and a couple of other places, so this was the last chance to see her.  The first bar we went to was really busy and since she wasn't there yet we decided to go to a different bar.

We ended up going to the Splash bar that is right near the office.  It is the same bar that we went to before going to eat Hot Pot last week.  It was Ciara, Evelyn, Ana, Jan and I at the beginning, and then Mark, Vivek (another Crown employee), Chris, and Alena joined us.  Josh and Vana came a bit later, and Yan also came out after she finished some shopping she was doing on Kowloon.  It was SO much fun.  We were all in there just talking and having a good time.  Everyone was telling stories, and just talking about our lives.  Jan and Josh even got into a debate about the passion in sports, started with the meaning of Wimbledon and then morphed into whether Rugby or the NFL was the better/tougher/stronger/etc sport.  It was so fun to watch and listen to because they both were insulting the other sport and backing up their sport at the same time.  We were at the bar for at least 3 hours, and the time flew.  There was also a band there that was really good, they were playing a bunch of different songs, including quite a few Beatles songs, "A Horse with No Name," and a lot of other classic songs.

Ciara and I left around 10, we are going to Macau tomorrow and are going to try to get a pretty early flight.  Also, another band started playing and they were much louder and not as pleasant as the first band, so it was hard to hear and was a bit too loud in the bar.  Today was a really fun day, I think it was just about the most fun evening that we have had.  The pub quiz was a lot of fun and this was right up there with that.  It is nice to be able to hang out with the Crown people outside of work and just be able to talk. They are all so nice and welcoming

Lunch -- Twice cooked pork

Cream Puffs at the "Happy Friday" party

Cream puffs

Frozen Yogurt

At the bar, Left to right:
Ana, me, Jan, Vivek, Josh, Mark, Vana

Left to right:
Mark, Vana, Josh, Alena, Evelyn, Ciara, Ana, Me.
Chris didn't stand up for the picture, that's his shoulder between Mark and Vana

Hong Kong Day 32 -- HK French toast at "tea time" and Japanese for dinner

Getting close to our last weekend.  We picked up buns for breakfast and worked on our project.  For lunch, we went to the bar across the street from the office that we went to last week.  They have a lunch set where you can choose between a soup or salad and one of four entrees.  I got the "caesar salad" that had what tasted like a honey mustard dressing.  It was more of a house salad than a caesar salad, so it wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but it was nice and fresh and the dressing tasted good. We decided to get two entrees and split them so that we could try two dishes.  We got Beef Tenderloin and prawn with mashed potatoes and gravy, and the pork ribs with "chips".  They both came with cauliflower and carrots.  It was really good, the ribs were probably better than the beef, just because parts of it were pretty tough.   A good amount of the beef was cooked perfectly and was nice and tender, but there were parts that were kind of hard to eat.  

After lunch we went to a place that makes Hong Kong Style French Toast.  It is a thick piece of bread with peanut butter in the middle, and then it is coated in egg/batter and cooked in butter.  Most places that have it only make it during tea time, which is 2 or 2:30 until 6, so during the time we are working.  We started our lunch a bit late today so we were able to pick some up at the beginning of tea time and bring it back to the office.  It was pretty good, but I saw one thing about it that said sometimes there is jam in the middle also, so I might like to try that.

We went back to our apartments after work and changed before going to an early dinner.  We went to a Japanese BBQ place, it was good, but kind of expensive so we didn't order a ton, and then went and picked up some street food after.  At the Japanese restaurant we ordered some stir-fried noodles and also some prawns to share, and then we each chose one more thing for ourselves.  I had grilled chicken wings.  It had a choice of salt rub or Szechwan spice, and I got it with the salt rub.  It was really good.  The noodles and prawns were also tasty, we got the spicy prawns, and the sauce that was on them was tasty.  After we ate we walked over to the street food place and I got lobster balls again.  The Japanese was good, but since it was expensive we just decided to get inexpensive street food instead of ordering another dish.  We ate our snacks and then went over to a store before heading back to our apartments

Salad

Beef Tenderloin with Prawn and mashed potatoes

Pork ribs with chips

French Toast

Dishes at the Japanese Restaurant

Hong Kong Day 31 -- Pub Quiz!

Morning and afternoon were pretty much the same as the other weekdays.  Today we got buns from 7-11 for breakfast and then headed into the office.  We worked until lunch, and then went to a noodle place and brought soup back to the office to eat.  I had shrimp wonton and flank steak soup today.  We then went back to work for the rest of the day.

Last week Chris told us about a pub quiz that they go to, and asked us if we wanted to go.  It was on the day that we went to the horse races so we told him that we would go this week.  The pub was Delaney's in Wan Chai, and it didn't start until 8 so Evelyn, Ciara, Yan, and I walked around Wan Chai for a bit, Kathy went back to the apartment to drop some things off and change.  We walked past "The Pawn", a famous restaurant/bar/pub.  It used to be a big pawn shop and they turned it into a bar.  We stopped at a few different shops and then went to have dinner at a restaurant nearby.  They had chicken wings with stir fried instant noodles, so we got a couple of orders of those to split.  It came with so much food, it was a good thing that we split.  I didn't take a picture when we first started eating, but I took one after we ate about half of each order.  

After we ate we walked over to Delaney's for the pub quiz.  We were going to make a team just ourselves, and there was a group from Crown that goes regularly, but most of them weren't there.  Josh got there a little bit early, just a few minutes after we got there, and he was the only one of their group for a while so we joined in on his team.  Their team name is normally "Ice Truck Killers," but Evelyn added an R to the beginning of the sign, and we added a "featuring" to the end of the name, so our team name for the night was "Rice Truck Killers ft Blue Ivy > North West." (Blue Ivy referring to Beyonce and JayZ's daughter, and North West referring to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's daughter).  Mark came right before the quiz started, so we made a team of the 5 of us and them.  Each team is only allowed 6 people, so the quizmaster warned us that he would have to dock a point per round since we have more than 6.  This would only really apply if we ended up being the winners.  

The quiz was really fun.  The topics tonight were: In the News, Sports, Geography, Famous Speeches, D.I.S.C.O., Sci-Fi.  He asked questions about news from the last couple of weeks.  The sports questions related to sporting events that are happening, just finished, or are coming up.  He asked a couple of questions about Wimbledon, NHL, NBA, soccer/football, golf, and rugby.  Geography was showing portions of flags and we had to identify the country.  For most of them, it was just the little emblem from flags.  Famous speeches had an audio portion of a speech played and we had to name the speaker.  There were quite a few American speeches; JKF, FDR, Martin Luther King, George Bush, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Hitler, Winston Churchill, General MacArthur, and one other speech were played.  For the disco category he played a few seconds of the beginning of a song and we had to name the song and the artist.  Mark named just about all of them, both artist and title, within the first 5 seconds.  We helped out some, but he had most of them, we got 9.5 out of 10 points.  The last category was Sci-Fi.  He played a scene from a bunch of different sci-fi movies and we had to name the movie.  Mark and Josh got them all really quickly, and got all 10 right.

We had a really good time tonight, may go again next week, it will depend on what else we are wanting to do.  Vana also stopped by tonight around halfway through.  After the quiz we walked with Mark to another bar where Chris was, and said hi to him and then headed back to the MTR to come back to our apartments.  

The Pawn

The Pawn

Stir-fried noodles with chicken wings

Delaney's Wan Chai

Before the quiz

Hong Kong Day 30 -- Gym again!

Today we went back to the noodle place for breakfast.  We haven't been there since the first couple of weeks, so it was pretty tasty.  I got spam, egg and instant noodles and it also came with bread.  Basically the same thing that I had the other times.  We went into work, and kept going with our project and our report.  It didn't really rain at all today, which was nice.  It was raining some overnight and early this morning, but we didn't have to walk in it at all.  There were also a lot more people out than yesterday since it wasn't raining.

For lunch we walked over to the same street, and I got food at a restaurant next to the place that I went yesterday.  I got shredded chicken in spicy sauce, and it came with rice, soup, and tea.  It was good, it wasn't too spicy, just the right amount.  We met with our sponsor after lunch, and then after work we headed back to our apartments.

Got to go back to the gym today.  Evelyn and Kathy also went today, we got there around 7 and worked out for a while.  They did a class at 8, and I just worked out on my own.  Spent a little bit of time on the treadmill, and then did some things with the TRX.  I also did a lot of back, arms, and shoulder stuff, and then a few minutes of quick, intense core/abs.  After doing all of that I spent a few minutes rolling out my legs with the foam roller.  Rolling was definitely needed and it felt really good.  The whole workout was awesome, felt good to get back in the gym again, nice to go two weeks in a row.

After we were done, we headed back to Causeway Bay to eat at Hysan Place.  Ciara ate while we were working out but she came over to get some dessert at one of the shops.  I had a fried pork cutlet that was stuffed with spinach.  It also came with rice and a little cabbage salad with a sesame dressing, and a fried egg.  I was really hungry after the workout, so I ate it all really fast.

Breakfast.   Spam and eggs with instant noodles

Lunch -- Shredded chicken with spicy sauce

Building that the gym is in.  It's on the 16th floor!

Dinner -- Pork cutlet, cabbage salad, rice, egg

Hong Kong Day 29 -- Shaved Ice and Ikea Meatballs

Today was a quiet day.  This weekend was really busy and we had work, so we didn't do a whole lot.  Woke up and headed down to work.  On the way we stopped at the bun place and picked up some buns to eat for breakfast and to have for a snack during the day.  We worked on our report and our project throughout the day.  For lunch we went back to the area that we went last week.  There are a few different restaurants on that street.  I had the chicken, rice and vegetables again.  It comes with two big pieces of chicken for $42 HK, which is less than $6 US, a pretty good deal and it tastes so good.

We kept working throughout the afternoon and then headed back to our apartments.  For dinner, Ciara and I walked around to see if there was anything that jumped out for dinner.  We also wanted to go back to the dessert place and get shaved ice, so we walked that direction.  There wasn't anything that really stood out to get for dinner, looking for something that would be fairly quick, so we decided to get dessert first and then go get some dinner food.  The shaved ice was REALLY good.  It was a big pile of shaved ice with some red beans and grass jelly underneath, and had a bunch of fruit around.  The ice was covered with a mango sauce of some kind, and we had a little bowl of cream to pour over it.  It was nice and sweet and it was really nice to have a bunch of fruit to eat.  We ate the shaved ice pretty quick, and ate every bit. 

After eating our dessert we walked over to the supermarket to get some snacks to have at our apartments and pick up a few other things.  There is an Ikea right next door so I got some Swedish Meatballs and some chicken wings.  It has been a long time since I had Swedish meatballs so they were tasty.  Had cream gravy poured over them and some of the lingonberry jam.  The chicken wings were really good too, nice and juicy.  Both hit the spot, and were really inexpensive.  We then headed back to our apartments to relax and have an earlier night than we have been having.  There's less than 2 weeks left of work, and just about two weeks left here in Hong Kong, it has all gone so fast.

Lunch - Chicken and Rice

Shaved Ice before the cream

Shaved ice with the cream

Causeway Bay

Chicken Wings and Swedish Meatballs

Hong Kong Day 28 - Giant Buddha

LOTS of pictures again today!!!

Today we went to the Giant Buddha in Ngong Ping.  We took the MTR down to Tung Chung, and then walked over to the cable car terminal to take the cable car over the hill to Ngong Ping where the Giant Buddha is located.  There was a pretty long line for the cable cars so it took a while.  We got our tickets and then got in the line for the cable cars.  Ciara and I decided to take the "crystal cabin", which has a clear glass floor.  Evelyn, Yan, and Kathy took the regular cabin.  We decided that it was worth paying a little bit more for the special cabin.  The ride over was really cool and it had some amazing views, it took around 25 minutes.  Unfortunately it start to rain right as we left, and it was also kind of foggy so it wasn't quite the few that it could have been.  I took a lot of pictures, and it was really cool to just look down and see the tops of trees.

We got off in Ngong Ping to some rain and clouds.  We walked into the little village they have up there and decided to stop at a little shop for lunch.  Since it was raining we decided to eat right away and see if the rain would stop.  I had noodles with chicken wings and wontons, and also got some "thick toast" with blueberry jam and peanut butter.  The soup was good, the wontons were really good, and it was nice to have some peanut butter and jelly.  The village also had a bunch of cable cars from other countries.  It was neat to see the different colors, designs, and looks that they had.

After we finished eating, we went out and started to walk to the Buddha.  There were a couple of neat archways and also a bunch of warrior statues along a walkway.  We took pictures of those, and then got to the bottom of the stairs leading up to the Buddha.  It was foggy off and on the whole day, at times it was so foggy that we couldn't see very far, and there were other times that we had a really clear view.  We could kind of see it at the beginning, it was a little bit foggy, so there were some clouds in front of it, but not too many.  As we walked up, the fog came and went, so we were able to get some more pictures.  At one point we stopped and asked someone to take a picture of us, but the camera was zoomed in a bit and I don't think he realized how to zoom out.  It ended up being a pretty funny picture, a close up of all of our faces, and you can just see a tiny bit of the Buddha in the background.  We got to the top, and walked around the Buddha a couple of times, took some more pictures and then headed back down.  On the way down it cleared up some so we were able to get someone to take a picture of all of us in front of the Buddha.

We got down and then went over towards the Po Lin Monastery.  They had some little shops there, and were selling incense to light and put in the various areas.  We bought and lit some incense, walked around a bit, and then went over to get some food.  They have a vegetarian restaurant there, but since we already ate, we decided to go to the vegetarian cafe they have.  We got the bean curd and ginger sauce that we had when we were at Lamma Island, just warm.  

After walking around the monastery, Ciara, Kathy and I walked over to the wisdom path.  It was a bit of a walk to get to it, and then it was a short little walk in an area with a bunch of boards/trees with different Chinese sayings on it.  The whole thing was so impressive to see, the boards were really tall, and there were so many of them.  We walked around for a bit and then headed back towards the Buddha.  I went into a little shop, took a few more pictures of the Buddha and then went into the gift shop.  I bought myself a magnet and a pin and also a statue of the Giant Buddha.

We took the cable car back down to Tung Chung, and it was just as cool of a ride.  It wasn't raining and it was a bit clearer, so we had some clearer views.  Ana had invited us to go to tea with her if we finished early enough at the Buddha, and we also had planned to go to dinner.  We were there for a while, so it was a bit too late for tea since we had dinner coming up.  Evelyn, Kathy, Yan, and Ciara went to the outlet malls in Tung Chung, but I didn't feel like shopping, so I went to Ana and Marks to wait until they were done shopping.  She had made lemon cake, so we ate some of that and just talked for a bit. Yan stopped shopping a little bit earlier than everyone else, so we went and joined her down at another mall, and just walked around for a little while.  We went into the grocery store in the mall, and saw some really fancy pasta.  They had some with multi colored thin stripes, some with thick colored stripes, and also had some with black and white stripes.   Once everyone was done shopping we walked over to dinner. 

Dinner was at a Korean restaurant, and it was with Ana, Mark, Josh and Vana.  The food was REALLY good, I had stone pot rice with BBQ beef.  It had so much flavor, and we had a long day, so that made it even better.  We are going to try to go back for lunch one of these days.  They have a special lunch price, so we will go and have Korean BBQ.  After dinner we walked over to a bakery and had dessert.  I got a peach tart, that was nice and sweet.  I have been wanting something sweet, so this hit the spot.  We then took a tram back to our apartments.

Sign for the Cable Car

Tung Chung

Cable Car Station

Stairs up to the Cable Car line (escalators next to it)

Ticket, bracelet, and the brochure and map

Line for the cable car

Cable Car

On the cable car ride

View through the floor

Hong Kong Day 27 - Trip to Ocean Park

A LOT of pictures, just warning you ahead of time...  Took a bunch today, and narrowed it down to these, wanted to have less on here, but I didn’t want to get rid of any.  The place had so many cool things to see!

Today Ciara, Yan, Evelyn and I went to Ocean Park, which is basically Hong Kong’s Marine World.  We slept in a bit and then left around 10.  We took the MTR to Admiralty and then took the Ocean Park bus from there to right outside the park.  We were able to buy tickets in the MTR station at a little bit of discount, and this also made it so that we could just go in once we got to the park and didn’t have to also buy them once we were there.  There is a storm near Hong Kong, and last night they announced a typhoon level 1 warning.  This morning they changed it to a level 3 for a little bit and then dropped it back down to 1.  Level 1 doesn’t have too much of an effect, it’s mostly to let people know to prepare in case it does result in a big storm.  If it gets to level 3, then some places and things will shut down.  Ocean park stays open with a level 3 warning, but most, if not all, outdoor rides are closed.

The weather stayed nice for us, so we were able to go.   Ocean Park is really neat, they have an area near the entrance that has an aquarium, a panda exhibit, and some other things to see and do.  They also have roller coasters and other animals up on the hill.  To get to the amusement park and marine world part you take a cable car (gondola) or a train up to the top of the hill.  We stopped near the entrance to the park and took a few pictures of the sign and in front of the sign, and then walked over to the cable car to go to the other section of the park.  It was a really neat ride, the cars are pretty high, and they are also right near the edge of the island, so you can see the ocean, other islands, and the park.  

We got off the cable cars and walked over to the Hair Raiser roller coaster that is right at the top and edge of the hill.  It was a fun ride, had a few loops and corkscrews.  There was almost no wait at all, so we went on it twice when we first got there.  It start raining a bit when we finished the first ride and then we went a second time in the rain.  The rain felt like a bunch of little pins pricking us, it was pretty weird.  After the roller coaster, we went over to the “North Pole Encounter.”  It is a big series of rooms with animals from the North Pole.  They had walruses, seals, sea lions, and some other animals.  The whole building was cold, but it felt pretty good.  It was also neat to see all of the animals up close.  They are so big, but don’t look like it from far away.  There is a video of one of the spotted seals at the end of the pictures.  He was really cute, and kept sliding and rolling around on the ice thing they had set up.  Of course he didn't do as much once I started recording as he was before I started recording...

After walking through the North Pole Encounter we tried one of the carnival games that were set up.  It was a game where we had to throw wiffle balls onto a board with holes in it.  There were some squares with colors and if you got it on one of the holes you win a prize.  I was able to get one of the balls on a prize spot, and got a travel neck pillow. 

We finished the game and then went on a couple more rides and walked through a rainforest that they had set up.  They had birds, fish, small monkeys and some other animals in the rainforest.  Next we went on the “Ocean Park Tower” a big tower with a seating area that lifts up and circles around slowly.  It has an awesome view, can see the park, the bay, and all of the islands around.  We were able to see Lamma Island, the island that we went to a couple of weeks ago.

We got off of the tower, and then went to go find some food.  The food was a bit pricey at one of the restaurants we stopped at, so we just went to the McDonalds that was at the park.  After we ate we went on another roller coaster and a log ride.  This roller coaster wasn’t very fun, and it was pretty uncomfortable, all of our necks were sore when we finished.  The log ride had a kind of long wait, and it ended up being a bit of a let down.  It was fairly short and gentle, especially compared to what we are used to at home.  Not quite as exhilarating as we expected.

We then walked back up to the Hair Raiser roller coaster.  Yan didn’t ride it when we went in the morning, so we wanted her to ride it one more time with us.  The line was a lot longer this time, we had to wait 15 or 20 minutes.  For most of the day we did not have to wait in line at all, but as the day went and the weather was nice, they got longer.  There were also a lot of tour groups that came as the day went along.

After we went on the Hair Raiser, we walked to the Ocean Express Summit Station to take the train back down to the other section of the park.  We went to the Amazing Asian Animals area and the Giant Panda Adventure.  The Panda area was really neat, they had a few red pandas running around in one area, and the star attraction Giant Panda.  I think we got a bit lucky, because one of the pandas was sitting outside eating some bamboo or something.  It was out there for a few minutes and then walked back into the inside/hidden areas.  Everyone was clustered around where it was sitting, and then as it got up to go inside everyone started sighing, it was pretty funny.  

We went into The Grand Aquarium to see some of the fish and other animals they had in there.  It was really similar to other aquariums, they had some neat things set up.  We then went to the gift shop and then headed out to the bus.  We took a bus back to Causeway Bay instead of Admiralty, so it made it a much quicker trip.  We got back to Causeway Bay and then went to our apartments to drop off our stuff, before going to get dinner.  Today we ate at Hysan Place again, I went to the Korean place and got stone pot kimchi pork rice.  It was really good.

After dinner, we walked over to another shopping mall with a Japanese store and then Ciara and I went to a drugstore so that I could get some contact lens solution.  On our way back we were still a bit hungry, and wanting something sweet.  We passed a restaurant that had a lot of different desserts, so we decided to stop there and get some.  We ordered Mango Pudding with Mango, and also ordered glutenous rice balls with sesame.  It tasted so good, I had been craving something sweet, so it definitely hit the spot.  We finished eating, and then stopped at the market on the way home to get some fresh fruit.  I got small bananas, dragon fruit, and pears.  Already had a banana and it was really sweet, might have a dragonfruit or pear tomorrow.

Ocean Park Ticket

Ocean Park from the bus stop

Me, Ciara, Yan, and Evelyn in front of the entrance

Me in front of the Ocean Park entrance

Ocean Park entrance

The Grand Aquarium.