Hong Kong Trip Day 2

Our second day in Hong Kong was just as busy as our first, but first things first...gotta get your cup of coffee!

We took a taxi up to The Peak, where you can get a great view of the city. It took a little getting used to seeing cars driving on the left side of the road, and the driver sits on the right side of the car. We were originally planning on taking a tram up to The Peak, but the wait was 2 hours and for the same price you could take a taxi...and when you include the heat and humidity...of course we chose the taxi!

Tall building from the bottom of the hill. 

 

Can you see the same building in this picture?

 At The Peak we went to visit Madame Tussauds' wax museum. It was quite fun. I saw famous actors and historical figures I was familiar with, and many that I wasn't.

Always a favorite...Iron Man!!!

Lots of famous Chinese actors were in this wax museum.

I got to meet Jackie Chan. Hehe

Guess who's royalty?

Yup, it's Hitler. Stalin was also there and so were several other dictators.

Also got to meet Johnny Depp. It's amazing how life-like these wax figures are. I would see some people and think that they were wax figures, and then be surprised when they suddenly moved. Then see wax figures and think they were real people until you got real close.

No...I'm not short, Yao Ming is just that tall.

Panoramic view of Hong Kong from The Peak.

We ate McDonald's for lunch. It's just one of those things you've gotta try in each country you go to. We also had to make up for the interesting breakfast we had earlier that morning. The menu was exactly the same as that in the states, however I was told that they do have a couple Hong Kong specialty items on the dinner menu.

For dinner, we met up with one of Krista's friends, Oscar, and went to the Lantern Festival. There were so many people everywhere! Hong Kong is like New York City...at least half the population are tourists.

At the Lantern Festival. 

So many pretty lights!!!

 

Puppet show.

A High School orchestra getting ready to play at the Festival. The night before there was a traditional dance performance.

With Krista and Oscar.

This half-dome was covered with lights that changed with the music.

Getting ready to ride the Star Ferry.

Enjoying the city skyline.

As we were crossing over to Victoria Bay, this old Chinese ship crossed our path. Very cool!

I was told that while I was in Hong Kong, I had to try some mango drinks. Oscar took us to a well known mango dessert chain restaurant. It's a pretty popular place, especially with the heat. We had to wait outside in a line to get our drinks, as there was no room inside.

Got our drinks and are happy as can be.

Yummy mango shake with mango jelly.



Hong Kong Trip Day 1

During my Chuseok holiday I had the opportunity to go to Hong Kong with Krista, my friend from high school in Ecuador who also happens to be currently living in S.Korea.
I'm glad I brought the game Dutch Blitz with me, as our flight time kept on changing so it was nice having a game to help pass the time. However, it is much more interesting when you have four players instead of two.

On our plane, ready to go to Hong Kong.

I was a bit sick, so I wore a face mask. I spent the duration of the trip sounding like a dying frog whenever I tried to speak. For some reason, whenever I get a cold I completely lose my voice.

Can you guess what the first thing we did when we arrived in Hong Kong? Go to Disneyland of course!!! It's quite a bit smaller than the Disneyland in California, but it's also half the price. They had a bunch of the popular rides such as Space Mountain and Jungle River Cruise and a couple of fun new ones (Runaway Mine Cars and Mystic Manor). No Pirates ride though...or pineapple ice cream...so sad. What was really cool was that there were NO long lines. I think the longest we waited for a ride was 30 minutes.

It's Mickey!!!

Happy, happy, happy!

At the Sleeping Beauty Castle.

Space Mountain at Tomorrowland!

Snow White and her dwarves.

Adventureland! The Jungle River Cruise was here...it had fountains and shooting fire. Pretty impressive. The Runaway Mine Cars roller coaster was also quite fun. The part of the ride where we started going backwards was quite unexpected.

Tarzan treehouse.

Mystic Manor where the monkey touches the forbidden jewel and all things come to life. The monkey has got to be related to Abu.

Do you think I qualify to enter Monster's U?

We hadn't realized before going to Hong Kong that we'd be there in time for their Mid-Autumn Festival. It was perfect timing though, since we got to attend some great cultural events. Our first night there, we went to the Tai Hang Fire Dragon dance. In the 19th Century the people of Tai Hang began performing a dragon dance to stop a run of bad luck affecting their village. More than a century later, Tai Hang has been all but swallowed up by Hong Kong's fast growing city, but the dragon keeps on dancing. The people of Tai Hang no longer fish or farm for a living, but they still perform the fire dragon dance during the three days of the Mid-Autumn Festival. The event involves 300 performers, 72,000 incense sticks, and a 67-meter long dragon.

The performers, adding the incense sticks to the dragon. We found a spot near the tail of the dragon.

And the dance begins. The dragon wound its way through the streets, so we got to see it a few times. It was pretty awesome.

Chuseok

Chuseok is a major harvest festival and a three-day holiday in Korea. It is celebrated the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. It is Korea's version of Thanksgiving where they go to their ancestral hometowns and share a feast of traditional Korean food together with their families. This year, Chuseok took place September 18-20. I had the opportunity to go to Hong Kong with a friend, but before our break my school held a fun day for the kids.

The kindergarten kids got all dressed up in their hanbok (traditional outfits)...gotta take them pictures!

Jacob, the little prince.

The kids waiting for their turn to take pictures to send back home to their parents.

The six year olds playing tag.

Here the kids are making ttakji (paper pogs). The point of this game is to throw your ttakji at the other person's ttakji and get it to flip over. If it flips over, you win their ttakji. The one with the most ttakji at the end wins. I remember playing this game when I was kid in Ecuador. We called the pogs, "tazos".

In the afternoon, we also had a little party with the elementary students. They brought snacks and hung out and then we played games with them.

This game is called "Chicken Fight". You play this game by holding onto one of your feet so that you are standing on one leg and then try to knock the other person over. The first person to put their foot down loses.

Summer Camp

In August, a couple of days before my week off for summer break, we had Summer Camp at our school. The kindergarten kids started on Thursday with a day full of playing games, watching a movie, and eating bbq for dinner. They also had a sleepover party which had them all excited for weeks in advance. Maria and I didn't end up spending the night as we had to be rested for the elementary school summer camp the following day. The kids normally don't get a chance to go all crazy at school, so they thoroughly enjoyed themselves those two days...ice cream before bedtime probably wasn't the best idea. :)

On Friday afternoon, the elementary kids came for their summer camp. Many schools have a week's worth of camp, but we managed to squeeze it all into one day. We started off with the kids going out to play. It was a hot day, so a lot of kids ran around with water guns and had a big water fight. We also had jump roping competitions, and a couple of the girls went hunting for cicadas.
For dinner we had bbq. Korean bbq is not like the typical American steak and potatoes meal. Bbq here is bite-sized barbecued pork that you wrap up in lettuce and eat in one bite with some spicy sauce (gochujang) and rice.
After dinner some of the kids put on a talent show. Three kids put on a drama, and a few of the others played instruments. One of the girls wanted to show her taekwando skills, but she needed a volunteer, and the boys were scared of beat up.
I taught the kids how to play hot potato (with music) and they all had a blast trying to get each other out.

It was a fun couple of days, but boy was I glad to have a week off after this. A couple of friends, Tracy and Vien, came to visit me from the states and we had a great time together...more on that in the next post.

Ocean trip

 I know it's been a while since I've last made an update on what's going on in my life here, so it's time to play catch-up. Summer has been pretty busy but I did get the chance to take off for a weekend in Jinju to visit Krista. Summer in S.Korea can get very hot and very humid, so we decided to take a little trip to Namildae beach. Many of the beaches in S.Korea tend to be extremely crowded, but this tiny little beach has seemed to escape much of the public eye. There was a sign on one of the buildings there that claimed that we were in Orange County...me thinks we're a bit far from southern California.

We enjoyed a little picnic and went swimming in the water. I missed having a buggie board, but since there are no waves there it'd be pointless to have one. What I found interesting is that almost everyone that got in the water had an inner tube. S.Korea is surrounded by water on three sides, but apparently there are many people that don't know how to swim or seem to have . Krista went for a little swim to the buoys and back, and people kept asking me if she was a competive swimmer. They were shocked when I told them that she wasn't, that she just swam for fun. We did end up joining the crowd using inner tubes and enjoyed some time just floating in the water. What's nice about the beaches here, is that you don't have to worry about bringing tubes or umbrellas with you. There are people that rent them out to you for the day. They also have publics bath houses, so no need to travel back all sandy and sticky.

Another thing that we found amusing were the "sun bathing" ladies. They were lying out in the sand fully clothed, covered up with towels and umbrellas. I think they had the wrong definition of what sun bathing really is.