Hong Kong Trip -- Cheung Chau Island

The next day we spent the entire time on an island about a half hour ferry ride away from Hong Kong Island called Cheung Chau Island.  It's a tourist trap and boy was it a trap.  I got sucked in immediately and wanted to buy everything in sight.  We bought the kids a bunch of souvenirs there.

We hopped on the typical ferry that Mum and Dad take to cross the harbor to work each day and then hopped on a faster ferry that would take us to the island.

Sorry for the really poor quality pictures.  Smog + super mega ultra zoom = terrible pictures.  Mum has always told us about "dragon holes."  You can see in these two pictures that some high rises purposely leave huge holes in the buildings so that dragons can fly down from the clouds and easily through the city so that they can get drinks of water from the ocean.  No, I'm not kidding.  They consider it lucky.

Cheung Chau Island is partially a fishing village.  The island itself was small enough that we walked around a good portion of it within a day.  There are no cars other than utility vehicles on the island -- only bikes.

The island had my favorite Buddhist temple that we visited.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  The artist in me wanted to stare at it forever.  There was intricate work everywhere -- on the roof, on the walls, on the ceilings.  And there was incense burning in several places as seen above.

All of the doorways in Buddhist temple are raised above the floor because apparently demons can't leave the ground and are therefore unable to enter in.

Not only do Buddhists burn all kinds of difference incense as offerings, they also offer money (as seen above) and food.  I saw lots of plates of fruits offered and plastic bottles of tea.

This incense was really fascinating because it would burn in a spiral.

Another place to make an incense offering.  A lot of Buddhists also had special papers that they could buy and burn in these as an offering.  I'm not really sure what that was all about.

As beautiful as the temple was, a common trend I noticed on the trip was that workers in the temples live on their cell phones and piles of junk and trash are scattered throughout.  It was so strange to see something so incredibly unique and beautiful be treated that way.

One of the fun parts that Ben and I enjoyed was getting lost in the back alleys throughout the neighborhoods on the island.  It was fun seeing people drying fish, hanging their clothes up to dry, and otherwise just being themselves.  

Another sad trend -- Ben and I don't think that people in Hong Kong know that beaches can be used for more than fishing.... maybe it was because we were in Hong Kong in the "Fall" when it was "only" in the 80s and a lot of people were starting to wear their winter gear.

For lunch the four of us got these amazing treats!  They spiral cut a potato -- keeping the entire potato in one piece -- put it on a stick and deep fry it.  Then you season it however you want.  I think we all chose plum seasoning because it was so different but delicious.  Why is this not a thing in the states?  It's like a giant spiral potato chip!  This needs to happen here!

After lunch we walked over to a pirate cave.  An infamous pirate of the South China Sea used to stash his treasure in it.  This was one of the top things on my to-do list since we decided to go to Hong Kong.

The cave itself is completely without light.  You crawl through a tiny hole between boulders and have to feel your way down.  Dad went down first and before he could find the ladder, he accidentally had a scare and fell, dropping his cell phone aka his source of light.  Fortunately he was alright besides some pretty bad bruising. Another problem we had was that Ben had switched from an iPhone to an android right before the trip and he couldn't figure out how to turn on his flashlight for forever!  Ha!  So the two of them were stuck in the dark until Dad found where his phone landed and Ben finally figured out his cell phone.  When I came down, even with the added light, I could barely see anything and I almost fell off a ledge of the cliff where I was supposed to crawl down a ladder.

The following photos were taken with flash because believe me, you couldn't see anything  down there.

It was pretty tight in some places.  At one point I remember Mum and I being amazed that Ben made it through one part with his backpack on.  It's a good thing none of us are claustrophobic, right?

Climbing the ladder out of the cave.

The view outside the cave.

While walking through the island we passed quite a few temples and shrines but I was fascinated when I saw one actually being used.  A woman had lit a bunch of incense and had these special papers that she would wave over the smoke and would then rub her entire body with the papers.  She really scrubbed her face for a long time.  After standing to the side watching for about 10 minutes she was still rubbing herself.  I'm guessing it was some kind of spiritual cleansing process but I have no idea really.  Notice all the food and bottled tea that was offered.

High up in the mountains above the coastline they have several cemeteries.  They all have little pots so that you can burn incense next to them.  Ben and I agreed that being buried in a mountain next to the ocean would be pretty amazing.

Most of the gravestones had photos on them.  I thought that was pretty cool.

When we were done with our exploring we took some time to sit down from a day of walking and shared some incredible spring rolls and sorbet.

Cheung Chau Island is definitely a place I would visit again if we were to ever to back to Hong Kong.  We saw so many amazing sights that day but I think my favorite was when a little 2 year-old girl yelled at Mum when Mum was waving at her.  It was a happy yell, but a yell nonetheless.  I don't think I laughed so hard the whole trip.

Hong Kong Trip -- Church Administration Building and The Peak

Mum and Dad are serving as Area Mental Health Advisors.  In other words, they are counselors to the missionaries all over Asia who are in need of their help.  They cover basically all of Asia except for Japan, the Philippines, and Korea.  They worked way overtime the week before we came so that they could take off every day to spend with us exploring Hong Kong.  Last minute, they had to take a couple of counseling sessions and so Ben and I got to go with them to the Church Administration Building.  I was secretly excited!

Dad's office overlooks Victoria Harbor.  The church really doesn't skimp on the offices or apartments that they put the senior missionaries in.

I loved this painting by Del Parson.

This sculpture is made completely out of jade.  I can't tell you how huge and intricate it is.  Ben and I were in awe.  This piece was donated to the church and kept on Mum and Dad's floor in the Church Administration Building.

While Mum and Dad were counseling missionaries, Ben and I went to an empty room on a different floor so that Ben could work.  He did work some while we were in Hong Kong.  The views out the window were great!

The Book of Mormon in Cantonese

When the appointments were done we went to dumpling restaurant.  It was tiny!  We had to move another table in order to squeeze over to our seats.  

A few times on this trip we had people trying to mask their laughter and smiles while watching the four of us use chopsticks.  

After lunch we hurried and jumped on a ding ding (trolley) to get to our tram that would take us up to The Peak.  Can I just say how many different types of transportation we used on this trip?  Just to make a quick list: MTR (subway), taxi, bus, double decker bus, mini bus, tram, ding ding, gondola, and ferry.  Riding the tram up the mountain was like starting off a roller coaster ride.  The incline was ridiculous.  I felt so bad for the people who weren't able to get seats and had to stand and lean again the back wall.

The view was incredible.  We were at one of the highest peaks on Hong Kong Island and so you could see into Victoria Harbor on one side, do a 180, and be looking into the South China Sea.

Unfortunately there was a typhoon near Taiwan causing the smog to be worse than normal while we were there.  I never got tired of looking at all the islands in the South China Sea during this trip.

Near The Peak is a path that takes you around the sides of the mountains so that you're in the jungle with a sea view the entire time.  I felt like I was living in The Jungle Book.  Mum and Dad took us to the site where the church dedicated Hong Kong for preaching the gospel.  The carving says 7/14/49.  Someone later came back to the site after the dedication to carve it into the side of the mountain so that members would always be able to find it.

You can barely see the engraving.

Hong Kong is very mountainous.  I've only been able to see the Appalachians, Rockies, and Chinese mountains and so far China has my favorite mountains (although it did make walking through the city a little tough).  Everywhere throughout Hong Kong you see these ladders stairs that take you up to private residences and other areas that are too hard to access otherwise.

This day was a killer.  Most days we walked somewhere around 9 miles.  This day we did 13.  I thought I might die, especially since not much of it was flat.  My biggest respect was for Dad.  Senior Missionaries have a dress code too and he did all the hiking in his full Sunday getup -- tie and dress shoes included.