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.