Hong Kong Pt 2

Here are some more good photos from my trip to Hong Kong. This first one is from a cable car ride we took in Lantau Island on my last day, a few hours before I had to catch my plane back to Spain. This was the same place that had the mile-long line when we tried to go on Saturday. This day (Tuesday) there was maybe a line of 5 people, which was really good considering we were on a very tight schedule.
This is Shelley standing in the middle of her school, Hong Kong PolyTechnic University (I think). It's a cool campus with some really cool classrooms/labs for textiles. She showed me one of her classroom buildings for a few minutes.

Here's some food from a Vietnamese restaurant we went to. Shelley of course got hot milk tea to drink.

A view of the city at night during the 'light show'. Several of these huge buildings have special lights that are synchronized together with some very entertaining music. This light show lasted about 20 min and happens every night. Seeing the city lit up at night by itself is pretty amazing, but why not have a nightly light show?

Pork knuckle in noodles. Not the best choice for lunch... but I had to try it.

This staircase (in the middle of the picture) has a tv screen on every step, which makes the effect of one big tv screen from the street. I think it was showing ads for some apparel company.

A very intricate carving that was on display outside a fancy store we walked past one day.

The view from the 15th floor of the biggest mall I will ever see in my life. Each floor was filled with all kinds of different shops.

A good shot of the city during the day and a huge cruise ship docked in the harbor.

Shelley being scared standing on the edge of the 15th floor of the biggest mall I will ever see.

Some cool lights hanging down from the ceiling of the biggest mall I will ever see.

The mall had escalators that took you up 5 floors at a time.

Pig intestines that we bought from a street corner chef. Not bad, but not particularly great either.

Fried sushi roll from KFC in one of the malls. We had to see what Asian KFC had on their menu, and decided that we had to try this. It was delicious.

Another mall we went to had an indoor ice skating rink on the 5th or 6th floor.

Some really cool escalators in a different mall.

Here's some more skate footage from a skatepark that we found in Hong Kong. It was really hot and humid that day, but fun to skate on the other side of the world.

Hong Kong

From April 8th - 19th I traveled the globe for Easter Break (Semana Santa in Spain). I took a flight with good old RyanAir to Barcelona, where I skated around for the day and ate like a hobo (a burger and cookies for lunch and cookies for dinner). I stayed in a hostal and the next night took 2 planes, from Barcelona to Munich, then to Hong Kong to visit Shelley. The total trip from Barcelona to HK took 15 hours. Shelley was kind enough to meet me at the airport and be my designated guide through the massive city.

The culture shock I got from the first few days in Hong Kong was much stronger than from Spain. Shelley has been telling me for a while now that Asians are going to take over the world soon, comments that I sort of brushed aside until I actually walked around in Hong Kong. The city is amazing. Everywhere we went in the city seemed to be bustling with people of all walks of life, from fancy businessmen selling real estate on the sidewalk to street vendors shoving stuff in your face to packs of kids and adults staring at their PSPs (portable video games).

Here are some highlights:

One of the many corner stands of food. This one had all kinds of meat, from fried intestines to big fish balls.
Eat Together restaurant: a chain restaurant that makes really good handmade noodles.

Shelley holding up some roasted corn and ... chicken kebab I think. Both were delicious, especially after a 4 hour hike.
Shelley on top of the mountain (Dragon's Back). It was really windy up there.
Striking a pose on the mountain with a good view of the Pacific Ocean.
Pointing to the new world. In the background you can see the trail along the 'spine' of the mountain, hence the name Dragon's Back.
Buena vista de la playa.

I was pretty excited about that rock, and representing NC State.
This is the end of the line that we found when we first tried to take sight-seeing cable cars to popular Lantau Island. The following pictures show a nice panoramic view of the line.


In the front of the line was an entirely new line that lead up some stairs and into another humongous line that you can't see. We learned that it gets kind of crowded here on Saturdays.
A good shot of Hong Kong (Mang Kok I believe) at night.
Some good noodles with fish balls.
More good noodles with meat.
Shelley and I on my first night in the city.

Traveling Man

I am currently in the middle of Semana Santa, Spain´s Easter break. I just got back from a 5 day trip to Hong Kong to visit Shelley. My plane from Hong Kong was 16 hours, overnight. Right now I´m in an internet cafe in Barçelona waiting for a 10 hour overnight train-hotel to Sevilla to visit my friends Calvin and Brandon from Ocracoke. They are both teaching English here in Spain and Calvin is living just outside of Sevilla.