Hong Kong Day One!

We arrived in late last night and everyone went straight to bed after making plans for meeting up in the morning.
I was going to go see the Big Buddah on top of the mountain with three other girls from the crew in the morning, meeting at 10AM and heading out for breakfast together!
Here is my whole day in photos!
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

 Chinese Breakfast - Congee - It's a rice and milk based hot soup and I selected to have shaved pork in mine along with spring onions and little deep fried bread pieces that tasted like doughnuts! Yum! 

 Rice Sheets with BBQ Beef inside! We also got a shrimp one too.

 Cable Car Adventure to the top of the mountain where the Big Buddah is - it took 30 mins! 

 First cable car portion out of 7! 

 Hello Little Fisherman!

 Brittany and me in the Cable Car on the second portion of the ride.

 Second portion still - you can see the Hong Kong Island Airport on the left side of the photo!

 Shore Line and Hong Kong Airport

 Third Part! Yes - those stairs down there mean you can climb all the way up four mountains to get to the Buddah if you don't want to pay the 110 Hong Kong Dollar ($14 CAD) Admission Fee or are just feeling super adventurous! 

 Almost done the Third Part!

Fifth Part! Finally we came around the second mountain and could see the tiny buddah from far away! 

 End of the Sixth!

 Finally the end! Seven part Cable Car Adventure done!

 So close yet so far! Up 274 steps to reach him! Made it into an aerobics class with the girls, double step time "It's good for the butt!" says Elenora! HAHA

 Decorative Square with Pillars and Temples

 Reached the top where the Buddah sits! 

 Petting the lucky pig! 

 Offering gifts to Buddah.

 He's like "No Thanks Ladies!"

 More gift offerings! Dudes popular! 

"Seriously, NO!"

 Heading back down the stairs.....lots of stairs...

 Some of Buddahs gifts inside the base of the statue. We found out his personal preferences - Oranges, fake flowers, Iced Coffee in a can, plastic fruit baskets, lanterns with red lights only please, and single candies left hither thither. Interesting guy..

 Bye Buddah!

 Brittany, Myself, Dominika and Elenora

 Weird pipe cleaner trees! 

 There was another sign that said No Jumping! - does that happen often? You think people would be struggling enough to make it up the stairs that there would be no jumping happening 50 miles from here.

 Say "Buddah!"

 Killer jungle surrounding the staircase! 

Chinese Temple

 Burning Incense 

 The little ones looked like giant cigarettes and the big ones looked like giant cigars!

It smelled horrible..

 From far away we thought there was going to be a fireworks show..I mean come on, that looks just like a firework! 

Vegetarian Deli - I know, don't ask.

Almost sunset!

 Warriors for the Chinese New Year Animals, this is the Dog.

 This is mine the Tiger!

 Here is Vlad's the Rooster! We figured it out that there was an animal on top of their helmets and that each one we looked at was one of the New Year Animals! 

 Local wildlife - Cows.

 Do you See what I see?!

 Chinese display of animals for the cable cars?

 Chinese Cat with the moving arm!

 He's so tiny from here! We had to walk for about 30 mins to get from the cable car to the stairs up to the Buddah through little town of shops and knick knacks! 

 The famous Pennisula Hotel - Best Photo I could take in such short notice!

 Harbour Night Light Show!

 There's even a boat on the water all light up!

 So many signs, so many lights!

 This is where we ate dinner. You don't even want to know, and I don't even want to talk about it.

Behind Brittany is where they washed all the plastic dishes with a hose in the alleyway. 

 Street Food - I gingerly tried everything to make it look like I was eating something when I really wasn't. I stuck with the rice and even then we had to use creepy plastic over used chopsticks to eat.

Day One Complete! After dinner we went bargain hunting in the Temple Street Night Market - Thanks to Elenora our expert haggler we all went home with two or three bags full of sweet items! I spent $240 Hong Kong Dollars which is $32 Canadian Dollars. I even picked up a couple of Christmas Gifts! Oh secrets secrets! I don't have any pictures of the market because most of the time you aren't allowed to take photos and I was busy buying not photographing! 

Can't wait for Day Two! 

However - I left a little piece out of the story. I started to catch another cold the night before I had to fly to Hong Kong, so I started taking an arsenal of cold medicine and went to sleep as quick as I could. My ears ended up getting blocked upon decent into Hong Kong. Great! When I woke up this morning my ear was feeling better and was fairly clear for the most part but I was still having to deal with a sniffly nose. All was fine and dandy during the whole day until we came down in the cable car to go have dinner and head to the Night Market on Temple Street and on our way down my ears totally blocked up..AGAIN. I felt even worse and it hurt like hell. I am so not impressed with getting sick all the time lately. :( Still soldiered on for the rest of the evening with the girls half deaf in one ear. Please let tomorrow be better! 

Leanna xo

P.S I saw a bathroom that was a hole in the floor literally - I've heard about them but I actually saw one. There wasn't a door or sink or mirror, it was this open space with six holes in the floor one next to the other. Whoa - brings a whole new meaning to communal toilet. On a side note a special thanks goes out to McDonalds on Temple Street for their lovely western toilets, soap and paper towel! Thanks for helping us get by old friend! :D