Last Sunday, Drew and I along with a ton of other people, friends of friends and such, went on a really nice hike. First, we took the MTR to the Chung Tung stop on Lantau Island. Lantau Island is the largest outlying island of Hong Kong, holding the airport, the Big Buddha, DisneyLand, and lots of other touristy things. But, it also has a ton of nice hiking. From Chung Tung, we took an hour long bus ride to the small fishing village of Tai O.
The trailhead was just outside of the town, and after 30 min of flat walking, then 30 min of steep hiking we were there. The pool is part of the reservoir system, so it was man made. But, you can swim in the water, and there is a waterfall nearby. Very nice way to spend an afternoon. The only problem this time was that the water was absolutely freezing. Not as cold as Lake Huron, the your lips will turn blue after 30 min cold, but it was pretty close. Half of the fun was just sitting on the side watching people's shocked expressions as they jumped in. As you can see, very busy this afternoon. Normally it is not that crowded.
There was also a friend of a friend who is an incredible slack liner. He was the same guy doing hand stands on the junk boat from my last post. Anyways, this guy rigged a slack line about the pool, about 15 feet high. He had to hang upside down and slide out to the middle, then flip over and stand up, using only his leg strength and balance. It was incredible to watch.
From the pictures above, you can see a lot of the hikers were young people, mostly exchange students from HK University. Several times Drew and I were asked if we were really married and told that we seemed to young to be married. Haha. These kids probably assumed we were their age of around 20, not 29/25 as is the truth. We immediately bonded to the only other older/ married couple who were there. The husband actually worked for a flight robotics company, and as a first day on the job present, they gave him a quad-chopper, or a helicopter with four propellers. Attached to it was a video camera, so as he was flying it around, he got some great shots of the area. Check out the youtube link below to see the short video he put together of it. In the video, Drew is wearing bright blue shorts standing on the left side of the screen. Pretty easy to pick him out. (Fyi, the guy is holding the quad sideways in this pic)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALBWhOiuhmA&feature=youtu.be
After the hike, Drew and I walked around Tai O a bit, just to see it, since it's not the closest thing to get to. The town is all about fishing.
Most if it is built on stilts over the water, and it's quite pretty. Lots of street stalls, selling smelly things, lots of boats zooming about.
This is also a place where you can buy a short cruise to see pink dolphins, a naturally occurring species that is pretty famous around here.
And we couldn't pass up the chance to try some homemade bean curd. It's a dessert. Drew and I actually tried this last spring at that flower festival. But this time, we got to put on as much sugar or ginger honey (yum) as we wanted. Score. Chinese sweet is not American sweet, so we needed to add a little something something to make it worth the calories.
We also passed a little park bench where the roof was totally made up of leaves and branches from this one twisty vine thing. Very cool.
And, finally, a beautiful flower that I am guessing is related to a bleeding heart. Any help here Mom?
Tai O sure has a lot to offer - aside from smelly fish! Just love reading all about your adventures. Love you two! Auntie Cheryl
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