Hong Kong Details: Part 2

Day 3) I woke up early and finished "A Movable Feast" so I could return it to Becca. Then we (Becca and I) went shopping in the Muslim Quarter. I found a set of 4 seasons paintings and I splurged. I talked her down from 800yuan ($115 US) to 270 ($38). She had to go ask her boss if it was okay so that's always a good sign. I was excited. I talked about it so much that Shawn said I was only allowed to talk about the paintings if I scratched his back while doing so. I woke up Shawn around 11:30 and we had a quick lunch and headed to the airport. Since it was actually the Chinese National Day the airport was super relaxed, not busy at all, and our tickets were really cheap! There were hardly any lines for anything and there was coconut milk on the plane! It was delicious. After we got off the plane we crossed the border, went through customs, etc. Then we met up with Carmen (my older sister's high school friend who is awesome and now our friend). She brought us back to her place. We hit up the supermarket and got some sushi and real bread. Then we crashed at her place. Awesome.

Day 4) In the morning Carmen walked us around various parts of Hong Kong and showed us the sights. We saw the incredible skyline of Hong Kong Island and walked the Avenue of the Stars where Shawn waited patiently to have his picture taken with Jacki Chan's hand prints. Of course when we got back none of our students knew who Jacki Chan was. Oh well. We came back to the apartment early so Shawn could take his last practice test. After he was finished we were going to go to the Waterfront Park and then the Nature Reserve (with wild monkeys!) but the Waterfront Part was so gorgeous we just stayed there the whole time instead. It would have been nice to see monkeys, but we weren't sure exactly how to get there anyway. I'm pretty sure we had sushi and bread again that night. This was also when we heard that there was a typhoon a comin'.

Day 5) On Friday morning we got up early and took a bus, then a Ferry over to Cheung Chau Island. It was awesome!! Everything is really expensive in Hong Kong, so when we stopped at one of the island restaurants and had Congee (and local food) we were super excited when it was not only 13 HKD (less than $2), but it was also delicious! We decided to go look for one of the smaller more secluded beaches so there would be as many people, and we ran into a ton of fun stuff on the way! We popped into a few temples, followed a path to what was supposed to be a cave, but just ended up being some cool rocks, climbed some hills that had great views of the island, and finally found a "path" to the beach. We had to climb over a ton of rocks, use a rope to get down from another area, and squeeze through rocks in others. When we got there, though, it was beautiful and there were no other people! We hung out there for a little while. It started to rain on and off. When it was raining a little harder we decided to head back to a different part of the island. Shawn found a really cool lizard near our path, and then we walked by the island cemetery and creamatorium. We went to the big public beach and swam for a while, which was fun and very salty. There were a few ancient rock carvings down one of the paths so we checked those out too. Eventually we made our way back to the ferry and then the bus. Right when we stepped onto the bus it started to rain really hard and didn't stop until well after we got back to Tai Po. It was a good day.