Blogs from Ma On Shan, Hong Kong, Asia

Tonight is my last night in Hong Kong. I've been in Asia for exactly a week now. It seems longer but I've loved every moment. I'm still in the honey-moon stage where everything feels new, exciting, and full of adventure and the unknown. Tomorrow, early in the morning, we're taking off for Xiamen University in mainland China. I really have no idea what to expect. I have been hearing some intimidating stories. Hong Kong is very much westernized. The transition from the U.S. to HK was not a difficult one. All of the signs here are translated into English, and most of the people here can speak English as well. However, China is a completely different story. Most people don't know English, the food is completely different, and I'm not expecting any western toilets either. I've ... read more

Today was the first proper walk in the New Territories. As usual, we walked down to Kowloon Hospital where we acquired two buses. The first group disappeared into the distance whilst our driver decided to throw his toys out of the pram (no idea why!) and took us the long way round to the Sai Kung Peninsula. We arrived some twenty minutes after the first group although we’d only left some 5 minutes after them! Disgorging his passengers near Sai Kung, the little red-topped bus sped away into the distance leaving us in the very hot sun and clear sky to make our way into the Ma On Shan Country Park. The morning was spent going up! Continuing to climb up into the hills, we walked along well prepared stone and concrete paths before eventually arriving ... read more

Hi all, Have been busy with packing up etc to post earlier, so I'll try to wrap up Shanghai before moving on to Hong Kong. The second last day we visited the Jinmao Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Pudong (eastern district of Shanghai). We took the elevator up to the 54th floor and found ourselves in the Hyatt hotel lobby - turns out the hotel actually starts on the 54th floor! We enjoyed some coffee, a creme brulee which tasted like Chinese egg custard (!), and Candy had the Shanghainese noodle stir fry (seung hoi choh chow in Cantonese) which was ok. We were there for the view and to gawk at the tourists there as well, and it was fabulous looking down on the city. Unfortunately when we were about to leave we ... read more