Weekend April 8-10

Building with a hole for the dragon of the mountain to escape

The weekend after Shanghai, I wanted to spend my time exploring the parts of Hong Kong that I had not had the chance to so far. On Friday I set out for the southern side of Hong Kong Island to visit the beaches there. I visited Repulse and Deep Water Bays and spent the day finishing some of the reading for my classes while sitting on the beach. The beaches were very nice, and there are also very cool buildings surrounding the beaches, including one with a hole in it to let the dragon of the mountain behind it out.

Sunset over Ocean Park

After laying on the beach, I took the bus to the city of Stanley that is also on south Hong Kong Island. I explored the Stanley Market for awhile, but for the most part it was not much different from other markets I have been to in Hong Kong. I ate dinner on the seaside, and then headed back to campus for the night.

Golden Bauhinia

Convention Center

That Saturday I headed back to the Island. First I went to see the Hong Kong Convention center, and to see the Golden Bauhinia the statue that was given to Hong Kong by China  during the turnover. This statue is much hyped but in person it looked pretty fake and not very impressive. The location, which is currently surrounded by construction, does not seem all that impressive either.

Afterwards I finally got to take the Peak Tram to the top of Mount Victoria. The tram was very neat, it goes up at almost a 45 degree angle and makes the  journey not take very long at all. 

Peak Tram

View from Peak Tram

Once at the top I headed out to walk the Peak Circle trail which goes around the Peak of Mt Victoria. I headed off the main trail to take a secondary trail to the actual peak of Mt Victoria. The view from there and all along the rest of the Peak circle was excellent, and I got many great views of both sides of the island. And some nice views of Hong Kong at night.

While on the top of the peak, I had a moment where I realized how cool that I was at the top of a mountain overlooking downtown Hong Kong, and how lucky I was to be able to be doing this. I am very glad I was able to come to Hong Kong, and it has been a very enjoyable experience so far.

Sunset from Mt. Victoria

City at Night

Peak Tower

Sunday was a pretty chill day. I went to a nearby beach with some other exchange students and we spent the day there. The location of the beach was very cool. You had to take a ferry to get to it, so it was relatively secluded. It is also possible to see HKUST from the beach which was cool. The water temperature was very nice, and I swam out to the diving platforms a few times, but mostly my time was spent laying on the beach (Which I regretted for the next week from the burn).

Trio Beach

After the beach, all of us headed to the nearby town of Sai Kung, where we had an excellent seafood dinner. The location is very cool. Every restaurant has tanks where they keep the live sea animals. And depending on your dish sometimes you are even able to pick the actual fish or lobster that will be cooked for you. You can’t get any fresher than that!

Tanks of Fish