More Food and More Exploring

When you are new to a place, no matter where it is, it is always exciting to explore it. To look at the statues, lights and of course experience the different forms of cuisine on offer. In Hong Kong especially, there was no difficulty finding a new place to eat, whether it was a small Thai restaurant hidden away, a popular all-you-can-eat-and-drink Chinese shop or a restaurant in a massive plaza/mall. And you know the best way to experience all these new foods, is to have someone whom you share a common interest with - Desserts and leaving campus.

Lamma Island

Loooop - It's all edible!

Flower Market

To reach Lamma Island, you need to catch a ferry, considering that both Mai and I get motion sickness, it was definitely a feat to make it there and back to the Island. I also managed to make her eat vegetarian western food, and climb one of the peaks.

A fading Big Buddha

Disneyland HK

Ngong Ping 360 (cable cars)

Churros and Icecream

And Bubble Tea! <3

With this one person, I experienced so much, she became my dinner buddy as I became hers. Together we tried out so many different kinds of icecream - difference flavours, decorations (like eggettes and churros); I tried Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, Mexican, and Thai food with her.

Some of the best and memorable days were spent exploring with her. Take the day we visited the Big Buddha. We had kept putting it off because of the weather and classes, until it got to the point where I said, lets just go. It certainly wasn't the best day for the Buddha and the cable cars, as it was very cloudy and raining constantly, but it definitely was memorable. Also as we increased altitude, it got colder and we were not dressed for the weather we got that day.
One of the appeals for the cable cars is that you get this amazing view of Hong Kong - what we got, was a fuzzy image of the area and eventually the fog got so heavy that for 40 minutes out 50, we could not see a thing.




 This fog stayed with us the entire time and yet it did not deter us from our mission. As we walked through the village, we grabbed some lunch (an excellent excuse to get out of the wind and rain), and tried this bean custard, which was deliciously perfect for the day, and then we made our way to the bottom of the stairs leading to the Buddha.
I feel I may have been misled about how many stairs there actually were going up. I had the impression that there were at least twice as many stairs as I saw, but because of this, when we realised how few the stairs were, we became more determined to climb to the top.

Just the little queue we were stuck in

It was beautiful. We may not have gotten clear skies that led us to see for miles, or warm sun, but the view and the sheer enormity of the Buddha, plus the day we had just had (did I mention we were in line for about 3hours), all mixed together, gave me the feeling of accomplishment, awe and dare I say it, peace. Sadly, however as we walked away from the Buddha, the fog grew thicker and eventually even the silhouette of it faded into nothing.







Other adventures we had include going to Disneyland Hong Kong!! Now that was a day full of childish fun, yet being adult enough to buy our own toys souvenirs and go on all the rides.

The last showing of The Lion Kong

Then we went to the Tai O fishing village, which as the name suggests, had a strong odour of fish, which some hoe managed to actually stick to us..

We challenged the Victoria Peak tram. On a Sunday. For those of you who don't know, sunday is the only day many migrant workers have off, so they congregate in central Hong Kong, and many take part in tourists activities. We should have remembered that, it was like experiencing a rush hour that never ended.

And finally, we had our day trips to Shenzhen and Macau. I'm going to say this, if you ever go to either one of these places, remember to take your passport and check your going to the right stop, or else you may end up having to walk back from the MTR to get your passport, and spend at least HKD100 and several hours just to get into Shenzhen, which is exactly what I did. What did make the trip slightly enjoyable was the obvious attempt to get me ie western person, to go buy "copy watch, copy bag; Louis Vuitton, Gucci" and my attempt at avoiding them and saying no. Definitely a lifetimes worth of giggles were produced that day.
Macau on the other hand was more successful, as I had remembered my passport, and there is only one TurboJet to the main island. Easy in comparison. But here is the annoying thing, Macau actually has it's own currency which looks similar to Hong Kong money, but its obviously not. Macau accepts HKD but Hong Kong does not accept Macau currency. Which meant we had to spend all our Macau money, if we got any, whilst at the island. We did manage it, as well as walking a ridiculous amount and then missing the last train back to our university, instead having to take one bus to Mong Kok (which was as close as we could get at 1.30am) and then walking the rest of the way.


In short, with out Mai, I probably would not have tried such a variety of Asian foods, desserts, nor visited as many places and had the experiences (both good and bad) that I had. And if there is one thing I will undoubtedly miss about Hong Kong, it's my dinner/dessert buddy.