Hong Kong - Big Buddha

The last sightseeing trip we did while in Hong Kong was to see the Big Buddha at the Lantau Island. We took a long gondola ride to the top of the hill where the world's largest outdoor Buddha was waiting for us. Unfortunately, we got there when the sun was right behind the sculpture of the Buddha so we were unable to get good pictures.
The interesting part was getting back. Colin told us that there was a challenging path back from the Big Buddha, so we decided to take the path. Well, what an adventure. The path was a collection of uneven path with lots of steep ups and downs. At one point, I was ready to die. I had overheated so much from going uphill that we needed to stop and rest for a while. The good thing was that we had a bag of M&Ms as I needed energy. After we wolfed down the M&Ms, we were back on the path. At one point, the path turned into a steep drop of stairs. I don't have a fear of heights, but at this point I had to stop and calm myself. The stairs down were so steep and narrow that I had to go down the sideways. My foot would barely feet on the step, even when my foot was turned sideways. SCARY!!!

This path is actually built to be used for rescue crews in case the gondola breaks down. The path was about 6 km long, and even with all the breaks with took and hiking up and down the hills, we were able to finish it in hour and a half. The view from the path was breathtaking so I am really glad we took this path. You can see the airport to the left.
One drawback of this 'excursion' was that my knees and calves were killing me for the next four days. I could barely take the stairs my knees hurts so much. After a few massage sessions in Beijing, I was back to normal. Phew!

Hong Kong sights and shopping

We took a bus to the Peak (overlooking Hong Kong and Kowloon) at night, as the view at that time is amazing. The bus ride was a bit scary as the road was windy, narrow and with a steep drop on one side. After we got to the top, Colin led us up a footpath to a place with an amazing view of the city. Take a look at these pictures.

Another night we took a Star Ferry over to Kowloon. Standing on the Kowloon side, we had a beautiful view of Honk Kong. They really light up the buildings nicely at night. Other places of note in Honk Kong that we visited were Causeway Bay and Time Square Plaza.

There are a lot of shopping malls in Hong Kong. Causeway Bay was full of them. One building had two floors of just electronics. Yes, I DID enjoy it. :-) The electronics they had on display were not cheaper than here (much to my dismay). But they did have some things that I have not seen here (like various cordless Skype phones).

Kowloon side had a larger collection of stores carrying cheaper merchandise. I hit the jackpot when I got off at the MongKok MTR (their subway) station. They were selling electronics EVERYWHERE. Cell phones, laptops, TVs. Crazy! I found an electronic mall called Sim City few blocks from the station, and this mall had four floors of only electronics stores. Heaven!!! And this stuff your could bargain for. Some of their web cams were no name, and thus the quality was questionable, but the rest of the stuff looked legit. I loaded up on memory cards, USB hub, headphones, and computer memory. I wanted to walk away with a lot more, but I had to keep it together. :-)
Ladies Market in this area had a lot of good and inexpensive items. Knock-offs were also on display (purses, suitcases, watches, etc.) Good place to go shopping if you don't mind bargaining. If you are not willing to bargain, you will pay too much.
More to follow...

A new goal

I was doing some thinking and thought that I needed a tangible goal to work on. Something where I can see progress every day, but at the same time, something that will have a great impact on my health.

I decided to set a goal for myself of performing 10,000 push-ups by June 1st, 2009. That means that, on average, I will have to do 55 push-ups a day. That's quite a few push-ups, but just think of the effect that this will have on my body!

I am setting up my life so that I align the things that I like to do with the things that I want to achieve. I love tracking things, but I also love to see progress on a daily basis, so a goal that can be worked on every day is perfect for me. Also, having a goal which can be worked on from anywhere is another way I am setting myself up for success.

Finally, I am posting the goal and the current progress on my blog page, so that I have the accountability and motivation to achieve the goal. Encouragement is appreciated. :-)

Visit to Hong Kong

This is a summary of our trip to Hong Kong along with the description of Colin's wedding. I will write another blog entry specifically about our visit to Beijing.

We arrived at the Hong Kong International Airport after a 11 hour flight from Frankfurt. The airport is located on a man-made island as there was no room to put it anywhere else. The airport is a super-modern place, and is connected to the city by a comfy Airport Express train. HKD$100 will get you to the city in 30 minutes.

Our hotel for the first night was located in the Western District, on the street known to locals as "Dried Food Street." The reason it is called like that is that the majority of stores on this street sold dried fish and other dried food items. At times it smelled REALLY overpowering! We even saw a huge dried shark fin. You want it, they have it dried!

The next day we moved to the MetroPark hotel where we stayed for the duration of our visit in Hong Kong. This hotel had an amazing pool on the roof with a great view of Hong Kong, Kowloon and the Victoria Park. Victoria Park is a huge area with parks and courts for various sports (tennis, basketball, soccer). Every Sunday, this park is packed with Filipino nannies. I mean, you cannot walk through the park, as it is so full. This is the only day off for most of the nannies (which are predominantly Filipinos) so they all go to the park to chat with friends, call home (saw a bunch of phone cards and cell phones) and eat Filipino food.

Our first fancy supper was to a restaurant called Golden Bauhinia. Peking Duck is considered a delicacy here so that's what we had. They slice up the duck so that each slice contains a piece of the duck skin, which is considered to be the best piece. Then, you are given these thin rice wraps to make a tortilla with duck, lettuce and some sauce. Tasty! After that, we had some more good Chinese food. All in all, a great meal.


More details tomorrow...

Time for me to open a currency exchange store

You know you've traveled too much when you look in your wallet and find 8 different currencies. Yes, eight!

After our trip to China, I find myself holding (small amounts of) Chinese yuan, Hong Kong dollars, US dollars, Canadian dollars, Euros, British pounds, in addition to the Croatian kunas and Bosnian KM.

They won't exchange Chinese and Hong Kong currencies here in Croatia, so I'll save them for my future trips to that part of the world. We had a great time there and are definitely planning to go for another visit.

Car is up, Carla is down

It's a case of good news, bad news.

Good news, the car back window has been fixed, though at our expense. If we had submitted the claim to the insurance company, it would have increased our insurance cost for the next year by a lot. Also, if something else happens to our car this year, we would have to pay a high deductable. On a positive note, it feels so good (and warm while driving) to have all car windows.

Bad news is that Carla is not feeling well. She's been sick for a week now. I took her to a doctor yesterday (another long process of run here, run there). The doctor prescribed antibiotics, so we'll see what happens over the next few days.

As such, I have not had the time to even look at the pictures from our trip, let alone chose the nice ones and post them. Not to worry, they are coming.

Back from the trip

Well, we got back to Zagreb on Saturday morning, and had a surprise waiting for us. Our car's back window was broken! Nothing was stolen, but the back window was completely in pieces. Lucky me, I now get to figure out how Croatian insurance system works. :-(

The trip to Hong Kong and Beijing was amazing. I took over 1,500 pictures, so it will take me a few days to go through them all. I also plan to post summaries of visits to each of the cities, so that people can get a nice descriptions of what is worth seeing in each place.

Carla and I are not feeling well, so other then buying groceries (empty fridge!) I don't think we'll do much else today and tomorrow.

Update from Hong Kong

We have been in Hong Kong for 5 days already. The weather here is great, varies between 24 and 29 C. It looks like it will cool off next week, but by then we will be in Beijing, where the temperatures are between 0 and 15 C. It will be quite a change going from here.

Hong Kong is a big place. Lots of really tall high rises, and lots of people everywhere. We have been taking subway, trams and buses everywhere. The transit system is really well setup so it is not a problem to get around.

Colin and Edith's wedding is on Saturday so Friday and Saturday will be a busy days for us, as we are helping with a lot of wedding activities. On Monday, we leave for Beijing, and I think we are going to see a lot more traditional chinese buildings as Hong Kong architecture looks very western.

We are just now watching the results of the American election, and are excited to see what happens. I am hoping that in the next four years we have fewer wars than we've had in the last eight. World needs more peace!

UPDATE: ABC News just predicted (based on the votes in so far) that Obama will be elected president in Election 2008!!! A truly historic moment.