Chung Chau

We have now been joined on our trip by Cathy and Don Lankford, they are the life of any party and pretty darn good baby sitters to boot!

Yesterday we took the ferry out to Chung Chau, one of the out lying islands, that supposeldy was the home to some pretty scary pirates. Well if there were pirates they were good at procreating, that island was jam packed with folks! It was a 30 minute ferry ride, past many seemingly uninhabited islands. It seems that the islands shape makes for a natural harbour. There were a couple of very nice temples and a lucky banyan tree to check out. But by the afternoon a huge rain cloud chased us back to the big city.

A new Look!

August got a haircut from Raymond down at Tokyo Salon. Raymond took one hour to cut his hair into the most trendy Hong kong style available to the 7 year old set. He even got some "product"! Evita in the mean time hung out with the shampooers and charmed then all out of their bracelets and cell phone charms. Hong Kong folks love children. We have had so many nice comments and she has goten so much positive attention it is great. I think that in general the service and hospitality of Hong Kong has really changed in the years since we were here. Everyone has been universally helpful. Even going out of thier way to explain things to us or show us the way. Every restaurant that we have been into has managed a bit of English and even the girls at 7-11 were giving Evita hugs. Ya gotta like that!

Cable Cars...

What is it with cable cars these days? I can say that i have never been on one untill this summer and suddenly they are everywhere! They can't be cheap to build, the infrastructure is tremendous, so i figure they must be really really popular. Who wouldn't like to view the scenic beauty of any place from the comfort of your own sanitized buble. I don't mean to sound harsh, cuz i love em! I am just curious. Should we be building one in Troncones?
This is the view from the cable car down from the big buddha. It was an amazing ride, over 30 minutes passing cliff and water falls, finishing up with an overview of the new airport, so you can watch planes the size of toys take off as you are coming in for a landing.

Tian Tan Buddah

As it's claim to fame is a rather overly qualified one -- "largest sitting outdoor bronze Buddha" -- one may wonder if he or she might not be getting practiced upon by the good folks at the HK Tourism office. But 'in person' the "big Buddha" is really truly incredibly cool. It is huge and can be seen from the approach at the bottom of the mountain. It is a great day trip. We took the ferry to Silvermine bay where there were at least one million bicycles parked around the pier, left over from the days when there were no private cars on the island. We took a scenic taxi ride up and boom there it was. Of course we have to pay the price of 268 steps to the top. Evita wasn't up for it and fainted dead away. (nap time) and Jim got to carry her She woke up as soon as his foot passed the last step! Maybe it was the free ice cream that revived her...The Monks know how to inspire people!!

I have copied a paragraph from Wikipida describing the details of the statue:

The statue is named Tian Tan Buddha because its base is a model of the Altar of Heaven or Earthly Mount of Tian Tan, the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. It is one of the five large Buddha statues in China. The Buddha statue sits on a lotus throne on top of a three-platform altar. It is surrounded by eight smaller bronze statues representing gods or immortals. Like the Daibutsu in Kamakura, Japan, the Tian Tan Buddha is a image of Buddha Amitabha.
The Buddha is 34 meters tall, weighs 250 tonnes, and was the world's tallest outdoor bronze seated Buddha prior to 2007.[1] It reputedly can even be seen from as far away as Macau on a clear day.

The Tian Tan Buddha appears serene and dignified. His right hand is raised, representing the removal of affliction. His left hand rests on his lap in a gesture of giving dhana. The Buddha faces north, which is unique among the great Buddha statues, as all others face south.
In addition, there are 3 floors beneath the Buddha statue: The Hall of Universe, The Hall of Benevolent Merit, and The Hall of Remembrance. One of the most renowned features inside is a relic of Sakyamuni, consisting of some of his alleged cremated remains. There is a huge carved bell inscribed with images of Buddhas in the show room. It was designed to ring every seven minutes, 108 times a day, symbolizing the release of 108 kinds of human vexations.

One thing that i got to say to Wikipidia, we were up there for a long time and never heard the bell ring. So i was pretty vexed!
The requisite cable car ride down from the top of the mountian sorted me out though. Best one yet!!

Ocean Park

Once place that Jim and i had never set eyes on was Ocean Park. The Hong Kong equivelent to Disney, before Disney actaully came. It was a nice park. Reasonably priced and not crowded at all by any standards. They had 4 pandas, two really old ones that were sleeping and one 3 year old couple. They were frisky and rolling around and playing with each other. Very Cute.
Now i don't know anything about the evolution of OP but it is an interesting set up a tiny bit of the park is pretty close to the main part of HK, with the pandas and some small rides etc, then you get on the longest cable car that i have ever been on and go over a mountain to the other side for the rest of the park. I am getting to be an expert on cable cars and this was a fantastic one, four seperate lines that went for a mile or so up an incredible cliff face and over solid jungle. It was worth the entrance fee to the park.
The rest was the standard roller coasters and the like, but of course build in HK style on the mountain face with incredible views. The kids loved it and we got lucky when a cloud showed up and cooled us off at the highest point on the ferris wheel.

Apartment 6B

Wai On house is still standing strong with a new very classy baby blue paint job. The 7/11 in front of the bus stop is gone though. What is up with that? I was pretty sure that they only added 7/11's here. Fun fact, HK lore says that there is no other place in the world with a higher concentration of the stores. It seems to be true as on the street in front of the hotel there and two in one block!

The Peak

A visit to the Peak in Hong Kong is probably the most popular tourist trip. Today was our sunniest day yet so we made the treck. We got a late start and as we waited in line for tickets (i am pretty sure that i have not waited in a line that long to go to the peak before) Jim read that on averge 8,500 people visit the peak a day. Whoa! I mean in the early 90's there was only one restaurant up there.The second one was finished in 95. What in the world was going on up there i wondered?
Well let me tell you...QUITE A BIT! There is now a new 5 story shopping and entertainment center at the tram station. It was HUGE and full to the brim with people and shops selling little chinese outfist and hats with pony tails. It was all there, every Chinese tchotsky known to man and a few new ones! We got out of there as quick as we could and headed accross the street to the building that used to house the Peak Cafe where i had celebrated my 25th birthday... August and Evita were soooooo impressed. But they quickly changed thier tune when the ice cream came! We ran it off on the almost unused shady trail around the area. HK is so weird that way, insainly crowded in one area and then just a few meters on nothing. It was great.
Oh yea, what about that awsome view!! World class.

Just interesting to some

OK so this is my old office building at Exchange Square, it had a walkway and the harbour in front of it. Now the photo below is of the newly coined by Jim "Chairmans Member" that now dominates the HK skyline, ok, check out in the bottom left hand corner of the photo you can see one of the exchange quare buildings. The member is sitting on land that didn't even exist 10 years ago. Impressive!

Tin Hau Temple

Although there is a minimum of information in English about the temple workings, it is always somewhat of an adventure to find these islands of calm in the sea of crazy urbaness. The Tin Hau Temple is no exception. It is located in Ya Ma Tay, whose claim to fame is being the most densly populated place in the world and home of the "cage men". The temple is to the god of seafarers, as this used to be a little harbour. It is all reclaimed now of course.
The Temple is full of spirels of insence, you can buy the spirals for any person that you want to give luck too, they last for 10 days. The whole place is soo full of burning insence and smoke that the maximim time to explore the inside is about 3 minutes! It is a neat environment and very exotic!

From the city of Lights

I know Paris is the the 'real' city of lights but why. Most cites have lights and i think that Hong Kong has got to be in the running for the most. It is a spectacular city. Soooooo hustling and bustling, full of energy and well some serious smells! We were out and about alot on the first day, boring August to tears with Oh yeah and that is were I worked before you were born, i lived, i ate i am pretty sure he was just smiling and nodding. We loved it. The first night we arrived HK was struck by a Typhoon. Number 8, which is how they rate the storms. The rating goes up to 10. Our windows in the hotel shook and it rained like cats and Char Peis. Well the downside of all that is that it is 5 days later and it is still raining! Yeppers, we are fully waterloged, but also know all of the secret patway though building etc..Lots of the things to do in this city are indoors. The bummer is that most of them involve shopping...he he!
I realize looking at my photos that i have been remis since i arrived mostly because of the rain, but also i forget to take a photo since i have seen most of it before.I will try to be better.

This is on the overpass to Queensway plaza looking at the (bottom only) Bank of China Building. Which used to be the most prominent thing in the skyline, now it is dwarfed by this building that Jim immediatly dubbed the "chairmans member" and many others. My old office which used to be on the water front is 3 BLOCKS back. And many more. There are lots of lovey things that remain the same. Great food at every corner. We had fantastic Korean BBQ the other night, lots of lovely cantonese and every other South East Asian fare. Plus don't forget the cheapest McDonalds in the world!

Bum Boat!

This is the final photo from the Lion City. We went on one of the tours around a kind of inlet into the center of the city and finiacial ditrict. We went in a Bum boat which is named that for the Dutch word for tree, since the boats were all made of wood. I was trying to listen to the recording, but Alison was cracking me up! We love Singapore!

Cable car

The Cable car in Singapore goes over to an entertainment complex in the harbour.It is a great ride and a pretty good bargain. We went on it twice, and this last time in a glass bottomed car. My stomach was in my throat the whole time. The large building in the bottom photo is the mid way point.

The first little blue pill

In little India. Check out the size of this add. There is a guy walking on the street beside it. I won't say another thing.

Requsite Python Pose

It seems like everywhere you go in Singapore there is a guy with a snake and a hat. Well we deffinatelly wanted to be a part of that action!! August was super gung ho at first and then a bit overwhelmed on how heavey the snake was..I guess he had just eaten his last client, so i could understand his concern! Anyway, i like this photo best since you can see how the creature is winding himself around August' leg. We had to use three men to pull it off!

The Singapore Zoo!

The Singapore Zoo is deffinatelly the best zoo that i have ever been to. That being said i have never been to the San Diego Zoo, which is supposed to be pretty dang good too.

What i loved about this zoo was that it was totally shady (and Singpore is HOT!) everywhere we went. And at every area there were LOTS of animals that you could see up close and very presonal i forgot to post the photo of the fruit bats, but we could see every detail of those guys (!) chomping away on thier papaya.

August actually had a lemur walk by him on a branch and brush him with it's tail. Very cool. We were greeted at the entrance by this big black ape hanging on a branch. Every were we went it was feeding time and the animals were out and about. The Bengal white tigers were awsome! And their enclosure looked pretty good from may perspective, not being a tiger and all. In my mind they were the most wonderful of all. Of course there were elephants and giraffes galore and lots more. A good time was had by all!