Erin came at the end of November, and we did pretty much everything there is to do in Hong Kong. Seriously. We couldn't walk after 9 pm.
We took the glass-bottom cable car to the Big Buddha on Lantau. I'd never actually been on the damn thing, since the papers take great pains to publish every mishap they have. It was way too hazy but still pretty cool.
Buddha from afar
After the Buddha we decided to try the "Wisdom Path", which is around the other side of the mountain. Very nice!
Another day, we went and explored the new Heritage 1881 building. It used to be the old police headquarters or something. Can't remember. It's pretty though!
That was on the way to Ocean Park. We did most of the park in relative quiet and then went to the aquarium. Not soon after we got inside, there was a low humming... which turned into a full-on stampede of Mainland-Chinese tourists in red hats. They were literally shoving us out of the way to take pictures of Whatever Sealife Was In The Tank with the FLASH ON. It was miserable, so we got out of there as fast as possible. But not before I stuck my fingers in a few shots. Heh.
We went and saw the pandas, too. They took away the panda corns, though. Lame.
They had a goldfish exhibit in a different area. I felt bad for laughing.
Freaky.
Goldfish waterfall.
The last day we went shopping in Central and saw the zoological gardens. Good times.
A week or so after Erin's visit, Matt and I went hiking up Cloudy Hill. On the way up, we passed an "exclusive" subdivision called Hong Lok Yuen, which was freakishly American-cookie-cutter.
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky...
I also found the Stupid People's Park (rough translation). There was a tape player hidden on the shelf, playing lo-fi buddhist chants. Spooky.
View from the top.
Sunset on the way home.
Christmas was really great, we're taking a nice long break from work. We couldn't find any tickets out of HK so we're just hanging out, but it's good to lay around and catch up on movies & books. Also, Matt got me GUITAR HERO 5 for the Wii so I've been plenty busy. ^^
Hope you had a good holiday! Happy New Year!
