Hong Kong Adventures: Hong Kong Day 14

Today we went on a bike ride in New Territories with Ana and Mark (Crown Employees). It was a lot of fun, and it was nice to get some exercise. It was a 40 kilometer round trip bike ride, 20 kilometers each way.

We woke up and took the MTR to Wan Chai at 11:30 to meet Ana and Mark, and from there we took a bus across the harbor to Hung Hom on Kowloon. While on the bus we saw a McDonalds motorcycle delivery guy, picture below. Then we took the MTR to Tai Wai, and then transferred to another line and took that to Tai Shui Hang. When we arrived in Tai Shui Hang we walked to a little shop that was renting bikes. We rented bikes for $40HK (a little under $6US) for the entire day. After we got our bikes set up we started our ride, at around 12:45.

There is a really nice bike path/trail set up that goes from around where we rented the bike out around the lake to the dam. We rode along the water, stopping a few times to take pictures. At one spot near the beginning we could see across the water to where the end of the path is. We took pictures of the view from there and we also took a few pictures of us with the view behind.

At one point we were riding along and it started raining a little bit. We stopped near a shelter for a minute deciding if we should stop there and wait. It wasn’t raining very hard and seemed to be letting up so we decided to just keep going. About 5 minutes later we were riding along and it started POURING (VIDEO BELOW!!). This wasn’t the same light rain a few minutes before, this was really hard, heavy rain. Evelyn, Yan and I were riding ahead of Mark, Ana, Kathy and Ciara, and we stopped under a tree, hoping that it would help. Mark came up from behind and told us that we should go back to a shelter we passed a little ways back (not the original one, another one that was closer).

We quickly turned around and raced back to the shelter. It only took us a minute or two to get to the shelter, but by that time we were completely drenched. Every part of us was wet, water was dripping off us, and our clothes were soaked. We stayed in the shelter until the rain lightened up. It took about 10 minutes for the rain to slow down. We started riding before it had completely stopped, but it was pretty light at that point. It was also really warm out so the rain felt pretty good. Cooled us down while it was raining, but it also made us feel a bit sticky. We continued our ride to a little town near the end of the path where we got lunch.

We ate lunch at Pataya, a Thai restaurant right next to the bike path. The food was really good, we ordered a bunch of different dishes to share. There was a sweet and sour type of chicken in a pineapple; pad thai; lemongrass, kaffir lime, and pork lettuce wraps (which were REALLY good, probably my favorite); a beef dish; a soup; fried shrimp; a vegetable dish, and a few more things. It started to sprinkle right as we got to the restaurant, and by the time we put our bikes in the side/back of the restaurant lot and sat down it was pouring just as hard as it had been earlier. The rain was pounding on the roof, and it was really loud. That batch of rain passed within 10 or 15 minutes.

After lunch we continued our ride out to the dam and the end of the bike path. There was a bit of an uphill climb, and then it was just a flat path along the dam to a turn around. We rode to the end and then went back about halfway on the dam and sat for a bit looking at the view. We then started our ride back. There is a big white buddha that we saw on our ride out, so we stopped at one point on the way back to take a few pictures of it. The bike path is not all that close to the buddha, but close enough that you can get a pretty good picture at various points along the ride.

There wasn’t very much rain on the way back, it started to sprinkle once so we stopped at a shelter but that rain didn’t amount to much. A couple minutes later we were hit by bigger rain drops so we decided to stop at a shelter. This time it was a good thing because it started to rain pretty hard while we were in there. After the rain stopped we continued the ride, stopping at one point where people were selling ice cream. I got a frozen pineapple ring that was really good and totally hit the spot. We finished our ride and got back to the rental place around 6:15. From there we walked to the MTR station, took the MTR back to Tai Wai, transferred to another train and took that to Hung Hom, and then took a bus from there back to Causeway Bay.

Ciara and I went back to our apartments to shower and Evelyn, Yan, and Kathy went to get milk tea. After taking our showers, Ciara and I walked out to a little street food shop around the corner from our apartments. We got lobster balls and some little dough balls that had pieces of squid inside and a really good sauce on them. The lobster balls were really good, I got them with a spicy curry sauce, which smelled amazing when they handed it to me. Ciara also got some, but without the spicy sauce. Each came with 4 on a stick for 12 HKD (less than $2US). We split an order of the dough balls (which we saw being made and thought they looked good, so we ordered some even though we didn’t know what they had), and then went back to our apartments to eat. We ate in my room, just sat on the bed and ate our food. It definitely hit the spot. The dough balls were $20HK for 6, so we got all of our food for only $22 each.

After we ate we looked at some of the things we would like to see for the rest of the trip, and tried to figure out how much time we have to see everything. There are a lot of things that we would like to try to see, so hopefully we will be able to fit it all in. We have 4 more weeks of weekday evenings, and also have 3 weekends. Most of our weekends are planned, but not completely yet, so we have time. Next weekend is kind of booked, but the other two are still a bit open.

I will add captions to all these pictures tomorrow (Monday, Hong Kong time). They took a long time to get uploaded, so if the captions aren't there, check again because they will be.