Okay so I didn't blog yesterday because I was to tired by the time I got home, so I will do yesterdays and todays as well. So yesterday I met up with Judy, Andy and Yumee to go to the Big Buddha. We took the mtr all the way to the one station, which was on one end of Hong Kong, then we went and lined up for the Crystal Cable car. My goodness there were a lot of people! You know when you go to the airport or something and you line up to go through security and they have those rope things and its like winding rows? Yea well there were 3 long long long ones full of people waiting to go on the cable car. We waited for about an hour before we even got to the desk to buy our tickets! So we eventually got on the cable car and the floor was glass and so were the sides, it was so cool! It was like we were just floating around. You could see everything below you and all that jazz, it was really cool. The ride took about 25 minutes and then we were up at Ngong Ping village, which is just an area with restaurants and souvenir shops before you get to the area with the temple and the buddha. We walked through there, ate Subway and then made our way to the buddha. The day started off not that hot, but of course by the time we get to go climb the 268 stairs it just heated right up! I was dying by the time I got to the top! Imagine, 268 stairs plus 30 some degree weather, plus humidity! Talk about workout and a half! It didn't take that long to get to the top surprisingly. Maybe 15 minutes? But my perception of time is not that good, so maybe longer. We got to the top, walked around and took many pictures. After that we walked down, then went over to the temple. It was just like any other temple you see anywhere else in an asian country, nothing to special. We took a rest there, as we were all really hot and tired. After we finished there, Yumee and Andy went back home and Judy took me to this place called Tai O. It is an older community that used to be a big fishing area, but now the fishing industry has declined in Hong Kong, so there is not much there anymore. Mainly older people live there because there is nothing to do there, so all of the kids move away to work or go to school. In Tai O, everyone used to live in boats and such, as they were fishing all of the time, but now that they don't anymore, they have built their houses in the water, held up by bamboo sticks. They don't like to live on the land, so they built their houses in the water. The houses were first of all the most basic houses ever, nothing fancy at all. Second, they were pretty much all falling apart and very very old. I would not be able to live in them, I would be scared that they would fall apart on me! So we walked through this place, and there were vendors everywhere selling fish, fish skin, fish stomach, everything to do with a fish pretty much. There was even a shark skin hanging there, it was crazy! I will post some pictures below when I am finished writing. After Tai O, we went to Mong Kok to meet Joe for supper. We went to this Japanese noodle place in a mall called Langham place, something like that. In this mall, there was the largest escalator I have ever seen in my life! It was huge! It took you from ground floor to the 5th floor or something like that, it was so crazy! We went all the way to the top, which was the 13th floor and there was this area where you could go and look down at the mall. There was glass there so you couldn't fall over the edge, but I couldn't go up to the glass because I was way way to scared! I had to hold onto the railing by the stairs and just peek over! We walked through the mall a bit and then headed home, we were all so tired! That was pretty much the day yesterday, it was quite filled and lots of fun!
Today, I went for Dim Sum with Joe and Judy, it was quite tasty, I did enjoy it. Then after that they had to go to the Bank of China, it was the headquarters I believe, and take some stuff to the safety deposit vault. I went with them, this place was soooo big! Every piece used to build the bank was brought from China, let me tell you that was a lot of building material! We went down to the vault and I wasn't allowed to go in, but I sat in the chair and looked through the glass, it was pretty cool. It is really high security in this bank so you had to get a visitor pass and everything. After that we went to the HSBC one and that was also cool, very architectural and such. These buildings are quite famous apparently. The HSBC building can be taken apart piece by piece and built up exactly the same somewhere else. There were also these large gates that come down if there is ever a typhoon. After that adventure Joe had to go to work and Judy took me to get a tourist visa for China, they are going to take me into Guangzhou one day to see what China is like, I guess its quite different from here. They actually eat dog, cat and snake there, for real. They eat pretty much anything Joe told me. So we are going to go there and venture around sometime. After the visa, I went home and took a nap, man I was really tired today, I was barely functioning at all. Judy took me a few nights ago to get this chinese herbal tea, it is supposed to help you sleep. It worked really well, so she took me to get some again today, and when I got back I passed right out for about 2 and a half hours, felt good to take a rest. But I am still really tired! All of the not really sleeping sleeps are catching up to me. That pretty much concludes yesterday and today, pictures will follow..