Hong Kong, China

Ok, sorry for the long delay between posts. I bought a Chromebook for the trip for ~$150 for the following purposes:
- Having a real keyboard
- Being able to watch videos
- Backing up photos to a flash drive

It performs admirably at these tasks, really. What it doesn't perform so well at is opening up photos from my flash drive so I can look through them and figure out which ones to post. Since I'm impatient, this does not work well for updating my blog. Sorry, it is what it is. Here's the post I had typed up from Hong Kong with pictures I was finally patient enough to go through.

Day 1
Arrive, get settled in

Day 2
Hong Kong Museum of History - This is a museum that goes through a history of Hong Kong, from how it formed as an island to colonization and so on.
Central - Mid-Levels Escalator and Walkway System - The longest outdoor covered esclator system in the world.
Peak Tram to Victoria Peak - Victoria Peak is the highest mountain on Hong Kong Island and thus provides an awesome view of the area (when it's not foggy like it was for us). There's a pretty steep tram that takes you up that we took to the top.
Light Show - At a certain time of night, the buildings all create a "light show". What that really means is they just randomly light up beams of light from the top of buildings for 15 minutes in no particular order.
Outdoor Market - What is Hong Kong really known for? The markets. It was fun walking through until you realized that every 5 shops had the same thing.

Selected pics:

The ridiculously steep streets on Hong Kong Island and the escalator system to the left.

The skyline of Hong Kong Island, or at least the part I could capture in this photo.

Day 3
Tian Tan Buddha - Giant Buddha statue near the Hong Kong airport in a village called Ngong Ping. There's a really scenic lift that takes you to the village in about 20-30 minutes.
Po Lin Monastery - Monastery next to the Giant Buddha statue.
Blooming Tea Demo - This has its own section because I thought it was pretty cool. There's this stuff called blooming tea that we got to see made live. This thing starts as nothing and ends as a flower in a vase filled with tea that you can drink. Here's the link to a demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRlgM4MYdpg

Selected pics:

Big Buddha.

Looking out from Big Buddha.

360 view of the Po Lin Monastery.

Day 4
Leave

Random tidbits:

• Hong Kong Island is very, very hilly (which is probably why they have a system of escalators installed... so people aren't discouraged from walking around).
• I actually thought 2 days in Hong Kong was perfect. It's probably a cool city to live in, but there's not necessarily a lot to DO there. The only thing I would change is adding 1 day to the trip to take the 1 hour ferry to Macau, explore, and come back.
• People are extremely aggressive about selling there, especially when they sense you're a tourist. There was a white guy wearing a giant backpack and walking off a tourist bus there, and 4 people followed him for a while trying to get him to buy their fake watches. I was actually a little scared for him.
• Hong Kong has the most impressive skyline I've seen. Sorry, NYC.
• In most places in the world, the direction you drive on is generally the direction you walk on (escalators, street, etc.). In Hong Kong, they don't like doing that. Instead, they decided that what side you walk on should be random, and they would have arrows indicating which side it is for wherever you are. It's really, really confusing.