Busy week - part 3

Saturday - I went jogging before we left for Lantau to visit Julie! She lives in Discovery Bay, which she had told us was a resort filled with westerners, but when we got of the ferry both Camilla and I were in shock. We felt like we had come to a southern vacation PARADISE and not just taken a 25 minutes ferry ride from one of the busiest places on earth! It was very resort like, but still nice. Julie is not too happy about all the families with kids who are living there, but with all the other bonuses you get by living there I don´t think it is too bad still. =) We ate dinner and had a drink at one of the newly built restaurants by the sea and relaxed for a couple of hours with Sameer, Smithy (brother and sister and friends of Julie) and Christina (Julie´s room mate). They all live here in paradise and they are all very friendly beautiful people! =) We couldn´t and didn´t want to stay up too late because we were going hiking the next day, but we still managed to sit at one of the tables in the central open places and have a beer untill one in the morning.

Jungle feeling at the very beginning of our hiking trail
Sweaty at the top of the hill!
Waterfalls and dragon pools.
This was the view we left behind - IFC Tower on HK Island

Sunday - We got going for our hiking trip at around one on Sunday, met with Sameer and Smithy and started walking. The landscape is truly amazing in this area with palms, hills, beaches, waterfalls and so on. We walked for about two or three hours and got nice and sweaty since it has suddenly become really humid in HK lately and of course, since we walked up a hillside (I am not even going to try to make you believe that I am in a great shape ;) ). The great parade of Chinese New Year started at eight in central so we needed to get back in order to have the time to shower, get changed and then take the ferry back to Tsim Sha Tsui. We had heard that it would be hard finding places along the parade route so we wanted to be early so that we´d get good seats.. We waited for two hours before it actually started.. Think one of the wagons caught fire and that´s why it was delayed because there was this sudden rush of fire trucks and photographers running to the direction of the parades beginning. Anyway, it was okay, lots of sweet kids in cute costumes, talented folks and cool wagons! Went to a dinner place called Knutsford and met around twenty other exchange students and had a great Vietnamese/thai dinner, a nice cold beer and a sit!!! My feet were so tired by then!

Classic Chinese poster that is put up EVERYWHERE for good luck during Chinese Lunar New Year
Fun red things you could hit together to make noise and hit eachother over the head with during the parade! A lot of fun - even for us semi grown ups..
Classic Chinese dragon at the parade.