Dragon Boats & Llama Island

Hey guys, sorry for such a long wait on the text for these photos!  I've been pretty busy lately getting accustomed to the new summer language classes, and haven't had much time to update.  So, this first set of pictures is from the 2011 Dragon Boat Festival.  Last year, all the IBCE students went together to Stanley Beach to watch the dragon boat races, but traveling there took 3 hours and we missed the races!  This year, Magda and I went together to watch the races a little closer to home, in Shatin.  We arrived around 7:30am, and easily knew we had come to the right place:

It was a little cloudy and rained later on in the day, but that morning, the Shing Mun River was a perfect location for boat-racing:

Notice the carved heads and tails on the fronts and backs of the boats.  In ancient times, the dragon boats were more elaborate and artistic, but the modern version is much more conducive to actual racing:

We stayed for about an hour, but you can watch boat-races for only so long before it gets a little boring.  Nevermind, though!  Our next stop was not only for breakfast, but also for a continuation of the festivities.  We ate the traditional Dragon Boat Festival food:  zongzi!  If anyone knows a place where I can buy bamboo, lotus, or grape leaves anywhere in the vicinity of Columbia, SC, you will forever have my gratitude.  I've grown to love these glutinous rice dumplings a lot, and hope to make my own back in the USA.

That Saturday marked Magda's last weekend in Hong Kong, since she left that Tuesday.  As such, we decided to have a nice hike around Lamma Island.  Altogether, it was just Magda, Chocolate, and me, but we had a good time with just the three of us.  Our journey began at Sok Kwu Wan in the eastern part of the island.

At first, everything was for tourists, and there were seafood restaurants galore.  All of us had to marvel at the enormous fish in the shop windows:

Soon, though, we hit the hiking trails, and ventured out of the village.  Some ways out, we could see the scenery:

Tin Hau Temple:

Since the ferries come only to Sok Kwu Wan, Mo Tat, and Yung Shue Wan, we made Yung Shue Wan our destination since it is, after all, the largest port on the island.  However, that meant we still had around 2 hours of hiking to do before getting there:

Low tide:

Although Lamma Island itself feels far away from the bustling city life of Hong Kong Island, it's actually quite near.  In fact, as you can see, the skyscrapers are still visible from the fishing villages across the channel.

My hiking buddies:

Lamma Island's "claim to fame:" the Kamikaze Grottos.  Supposedly, Japanese kamikazes stored weapons and other supplies here during World War II.

We made a short detour to Lo Shing Beach because we were simply covered in sweat.  From the distance, you can see the coal-fired power station:

The beach looked so enticing, but unfortunately, we weren't allowed to go swimming.  Supposedly, the tides that day were especially strong and everyone was advised to stay out of the water.

Still hot and sweaty (but having fun!), we continued our trek towards Yung Shue Wan with the promise of a delicious seafood lunch to keep us going.  At least there was a slight breeze at the top of the mountains:

Well, eventually we did reach Yung Shue Wan, but all the seafood restaurants were too expensive!  In the end, we took the ferry back to Central still hungry and stopped in Mong Kok to eat at a local diner around 3:30pm.  Everyone was dirty, tired, sweaty, nasty, and starving, but it was a fun day.  It turns out we came back in the nick of time too, because it started raining hard about the time we got back to CUHK.