Hong Kong Day Two -- How Did We End Up Here?

Today we rarely found ourselves just where we meant to be, but it turned out to be a fun day anyway.  We got a pretty late start to the day because I decided that I was going to tackle the disorganization of our hotel room.  I emptied every piece of luggage and then repacked everything that we absolutely would not be using during the remaining days of the trip.  Then I laid out only the clothes we would need until Monday and packed the rest away.  Hopefully that will keep things cleaner around here since everyone won't have to empty every bag looking for what they need.  At least it will make packing on Monday a piece of cake because I'll only need to pack the things we have used on Sunday and Monday morning.  While I organized Herman took the kids around the neighborhood looking around and then to the rooftop to swim.  It was a bit of wasted time that we could have been sightseeing, but it was time well spent.  The great news was that after organizing things it looks like we won't need the two extra bags we used on the way from Guangzhou to here.  That will make our trip through the airport a bit easier.

Although we had decided not to do our laundry again during this trip since the cost was seriously hurting our feelings each time we got it done, we did some investigating and found that the laundry across the street from our hotel did laundry by weight rather than charging per piece like they had in China.  That makes a huge difference when you have as many people in the family as we do.  We decided to go ahead and get a few things done while we were here.  I dropped off the things we  had and just about cried when the lady working there gave me the price.  It was so much cheaper than our China prices for laundry.  Thank goodness!  I wondered if we just hadn't looked hard enough for a laundry in China which charged by weight or if that was just the norm there.  Herman wondered if maybe in China the reason they charged per piece rather than by weight was because they were doing all the laundry by hand.  I can't imagine.  It did take considerably less time for them to finish the laundry here than it ever did in China.  I'm just glad it is getting done for so little.  Hurray!

One thing that I noticed while dropping off my laundry that I have noticed throughout my time in China was that when there are construction projects on the tall buildings of the area they seem to use scaffolding that is made of bamboo.  I'm not totally sure if that is what it is, but it definitely is not the steel scaffolding that I am used to seeing.  It is a little scary to me to think of the workers so high up and relying on bamboo to keep them safe (not to mention keeping us below safe as well).  But I guess that bamboo must be much stronger than I think.  No one else seemed to be worrying about it.

So today our big plan was to head out to one of the outlying islands of Hong Kong to see the Big Buddha statue and ride the long cable car offering awesome views of the surrounding area.  As we talked to the Australian man yesterday he talked a bit about Big Buddha (I can never talk about this without getting that Big Bootie game that the girls play at Girls Camp in my head because I always thought they were saying 'Buddha'), and I could have sworn that he said that we needed to get on the ferry at pier four so that it could take us to the correct island.  Pier Four took people to Lamma Island.  I was sure that was where we needed to go, so we took the bus to the Kowloon pier, took the Star Ferry across, and headed over to Pier Four.  We got there as the boat was almost ready to leave, so we hurried aboard.  As the gangplank was being prepared to be pulled up Herman asked me if I was sure that we were headed to the right place.  I assured him that we were.  But then I started to have some doubts, so I pulled out my guide book to double check.  It turns out that we were supposed to be heading to Lantau Island not Lamma Island.  We were on the wrong ferry.  Oh no! 

The Infamous Pier 4 that led us on our adventure today!

Where are we supposed to be going?

I looked up Lamma Island in my book to see exactly where we were headed.  It didn't bode well for us that the island didn't show up as an interest until almost the end of the book.  It turns out the Lamma Island is a small island that contains a couple of small fishing villages.  No cars are allowed on the island, so it is pretty peaceful.  We had a choice to run off the ferry in the one minute before they raised the plank, but we decided to have an adventure and head to Lamma Island.  It was a longer trip than the one we took on the Star Ferry when we headed across the harbor.  The view was absolutely beautiful.  We left the area around the buildings of Hong Kong and headed into more open waters where you could see several different islands with little population on them.  Instead of buildings we saw only tree filled hills rising from the depths of the sea.  Very nice!

Lamma Island's seaside.

That's an expensive living space!

When we arrived at the island we debated whether we would get off the ferry and explore or if we would just stay on the ferry and head back to try again and see the buddha.  We decided to check the island out.  I was glad that we did.  This wasn't really an island that catered to tourists.  We landed at a small little community that had several little shops along a main path by the water.  They weren't touristy type shops that would be full of the sort of junk that tourists like us would buy.  Instead they seemed like they were mostly full of things for the people of the island to use.

Some of the pretty plants lining the garden areas
of the island.

We walked around the island for a bit, savoring the quiet calm that we found there.  Once we left the main street we were in the areas that were mostly used by locals.  There were several beautiful gardens in the area.  The weather is great garden weather.  Today was super warm and humid.  I would almost describe it as sultry, and that isn't a word I use very often to describe weather in November. 

Beachside property.

We noticed as we walked that the island seemed to have several British people living on it who were either retired or living there while working in Hong Kong.  There were several places that were advertising apartments for rent or sale.  I'm not sure what the going rates are for real estate in Hong Kong, so I don't know how it compares, but it seemed like the cost of places on the island were crazily expensive.

Our quaint little seaside restaurant.

Looks good to me!

We decided that we would go ahead and eat at one of the seafood restaurants that lined the water.  It was hard to choose because all of them seemed the same, but we finally picked a place with a super nice waiter/owner who seated us outside near the water.  We ordered a few standards that we knew the whole family would eat like rice and noodles and vegetables.  But then we ordered a few seafood dishes so that we could get the experience of eating the freshly caught items sold on this island.  I've never had this experience before, but the cook came out with some live shrimp to ask me if it was okay if he used those shrimp for our meal.  I had no idea what a live shrimp was supposed to look like before it became dinner, and I felt a bit sad to be sending those particular shrimp to their sad end, but I said it was okay, and the cook proceeded to head into the restaurant to prepare our meal.

We really enjoyed all of our meal.  The kids especially loved the prawns that were brought out with giant antennae and huge black eyes staring at us.  It was a really great meal with a nice atmosphere.  The man who was helping us sat nearby and helped us know exactly how to eat the things we were unfamiliar with. 

Katie was not a fan of the seafood!

Well fed and happy!

All the bikes of the people who commuted on the ferry.

All the fishing boats coming home.

While we were eating the ferry came back, but we just missed it, so we needed to wait another forty-five minutes until the next one arrived.  When we arrived on the island there were few people who came with us, but now it was getting around the time when people were leaving school and work from Hong Kong, so huge crowds of children and workers arrived on the ferry, coming home for the day.  It was interesting seeing just how many foreigners were living on the island.  I'll bet they prefer the quiet of the island to the bustle of Hong Kong. 

Herman and the kids playing on the beach while
we waited for the ferry.

Waiting for the ferry.

While we were waiting for the ferry we talked to a British man who was also waiting for the ferry with his bike.  He explained that he was at the end of a ten month bike adventure that he took from the UK to Hong Kong.  He went all the way across Europe and Asia, including two times going through deserts.  Wow!  That was pretty impressive.  He said he was doing it for some charity.  Very cool.

Lots of Tibet supporters in the area.

Soooo peaceful!

We finally got on the ferry, headed back to Hong Kong.  We all had ended up getting a bit of sunburn.  We forgot that that is a thing we needed to worry about in November.  We tried to decide exactly what to do next.  There are some famous markets that we could have gone to, but after seeing the markets of China we weren't sure we wanted to see similar things in Hong Kong, only with very inflated prices meant for the tourists.  We had crossed the busy street on a pedestrian walkway and stopped for a bathroom break at a local mall.  While we were waiting there we decided that we would instead head on the ferry back to Kowloon and stay on the pier to see the Symphony of Lights.  This is a light show that involves several high rises on the Hong Kong side lighting up and using lasers, all to music that is piped out along the pier.  Supposedly it is the largest continual running light show in the world.

They probably could have used a grammar
coach for this sign.

We headed back across the harbor on the ferry and landed at the Kowloon pier.  There were more people there than we have really seen anywhere in Hong Kong so far, but it still wasn't as crazily crowded as some of the places in China.  There was an hour until the show began, but it quickly became apparent that everyone was already beginning to stake out their place along the pier, so we did the same.  We waited in our great spot for the hour until the show would begin.  While we waited I had to take Minsy on a few walks along the pier because sitting for an hour was not the most exciting things for her to do.  We were stationed next to a big bell tower that was the remaining sign of the huge train depot that used to stand in this area.  This is where the Orient Express ended its journey so many years ago.  On a totally unrelated note about the Orient Express, I was in the middle of reading Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie when Herman and I were first married, and Herman mistakenly thought I had already read it before, so he totally gave out the ending while I was offering my theories about who had done the crime.  It completely ruined my experience reading the book, and we have laughed about that ever since.  At the time I was pretty upset, though.

I don't remember what this building is.

Finally 8:00 arrived, and the show began.  Right as the narrator announced the beginning of the show, the skies opened up and it began raining steadily.  It was the first real rain we have had while we've been here.  There were a few times when it had rained during the nights, but never while we were out traipsing about.  But tonight it poured.  Spencer was the only one of us to have brought an umbrella.  He tried to keep Minsy dry, but she kept pulling on the umbrella so that it would hit the people beside him.  The rest of us just sat in the rain along with the few other people who had decided to stick it out.  The light show was really pretty uninspiring, unless you think about the feat of coordinating all of those big buildings to get it together.  The night view of Hong Kong was gorgeous. Several high rises had lights all throughout their facade wishing everyone Season's Greetings.  Still it was hard to enjoy anything in the pouring rain.  The best thing about the show was that JoJo decided to make the most of it and danced all through the program in the middle of the rain.  He was more entertaining than the lights, although I might have enjoyed things more if I wasn't soaked through.  The worst thing that happened tonight was that it appears that my camera got too wet and is now not working quite right.  I'll let it sit overnight, and hopefully it will be okay tomorrow.  If not we'll be down to using the less clear iPhones for the remaining pictures of the trip.  I hope that doesn't have to happen.

A giant Christmas display on the pier.

Part of the light show.

The show ended quickly, thank goodness, and we hopped on a bus to head back to our hotel.  The whole lot of us, looking like a huge group of drowned rats, arrived back at the hotel, very ready for bed this night.

Tomorrow, hopefully, we will be headed back to the pier to take the right ferry to the island with Big Buddha.  Fingers crossed!

Another Blau Family Adventure successfully completed!