Day 27

This week my weekend started early because we all needed to go to Hong Kong to get our passports stamped.

We got to Hong Kong by taking the casino shuttle to the Taipa ferry terminal and then bought ferry tickets to Hong Kong. The tickets were only about $140 MOP which isn't that bad. The entire ferry ride took an hour which was really nice. When we arrived in Hong Kong it was 1pm and we decided to figure out how to get to one of the male student teachers cousins. We took the subway to get there which was really fun and then walked a short ways. Once we met up with his cousin she showed us to a traditional dim sum restaurant. Unfortunately she did not have time to stay and eat with us so we ate lunch and made plans to meet up with her after she got off work. Dim sum was so good! I think we had about 8 dishes to share between the four of us. It was really good. One of my favorites was a steamed bun with pork and broth inside. We had three orders of those alone haha. Delicious! After lunch we started to make our way to the Hong Kong park, however, as we were walking we ran into a group of college students who were conducting a survey and asked each of us some questions. I thought it was a lot of and they were able to give us directions to the park which was great. This park is huge.. As American when we think of park we normally think of a decent sized grassy area with some play equipment, benches, and water fountains. Well this park was huge and absolutely beautiful. The first place we went to in the park was a Tea Ware Museum. This displayed the progression of tea sets through various dynasties. It was really fascinating to read why they had changes and the symbolism behind the colors in some of the tea pots. In addition to tea ware, this museum also show cased Chinese seal stamps. These are stamps that have calligraphy carved into the bottom and then that is pressed into ink so it can be stamped on paper. Some of these were very large and so intricate. I can't imagine how long it would take to make one. Once we finished looking around, we went to another tea ware museum around the corner. There was a gift shop there so I explored and looked at some of the tea pots. I really wanted to buy one and bring it home but I was worried it may break.

The next place we went to was the plant conservatory. This was next to an Olympic stage. Not really sure what it was for because it was pretty small but it had the Olympic rings. In the plant conservatory we went through different rooms that had a collection of plants from different climates around the world. It was to go from dry and arid to wet  and humid. Once we left the conservatory, we wanted to go to the building in the Dark Knight where batman jumps off it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uI9tBS_1C0) but decided we didn't have enough time as it would take us twenty minutes to get there and we were meeting with the other student teachers cousin in forty minutes. We will have to go next time! On our way meeting up with his cousin, we walked by a cathedral that was really lovely. I'm not sure what religion it was but the stained glass windows were so pretty! We stayed for a few minutes and listened to the music and then headed on our way. When we got to the building in which his cousin worked, I was thrilled to find a Starbucks. They served red velvet cake! I was very happy. Before we were allowed to go up the 47 floors to where she worked, we had to screen our bags and go through a security check and then were given a visitors pass.  When we finally met up with her, we headed back down to the bottom floor and decided on a place to have dinner. We ended up going to a food court place that had burgers and pasta! I found a grill that had a pesto and salmon sandwich only their grill wasn't working so I couldn't get it :(. Instead I got a burger and a FRESH cucumber salad. I was super excited to have fresh vegetables, that is one thing we are not getting here.

After dinner we said headed bought tickets for the tram and headed up the peak. This is a lookout that is taller than all of Hong Kong. It was so cool. The tram ride was about a 60 degree incline.. eek! Once we got to the top we were able to go outside and see the city. Unfortunately the fog was starting to roll in so we weren't able to see that much for too long. As we waited in line to head back down, we talked about how this was similar to a ride at Disney Land. We waited in line for forty minutes! After we got the bottom it took us 5 hours to get home. We tried to take a different ferry than the one we rode over on but there was no-one selling tickets so we had to take a cab to the other ferry terminal which was a lot further away than we though. Once we were there we encountered a man who was being extremely rude. We were all waiting in line buy our tickets and this man had already cut in front of someone and then kept hitting my roommate with his bag and tried to cut in front of her. She and the other male student teacher called him out on it and said he was being rude and that she was there before he was and he swore at her in response. I think we were all ready to go home by that point. It had been a very fun but very long day and we were tired. When we got to shore, we had to figure out how to get home since we were in Macau not Taipa. I thought the casino shuttles would be there to pick us up but they were not so we had to take a cab again. It took a while to explain to our driver where wanted to go but he got us to the casino which is fine, its only a five minute walk from our apartment anyway.

We ended up getting home at 3:45 and probably walked near 6 or 7 miles. It was such a fun day but my bed never felt better!