Friday, May 29, 2009

5 years ago today, may 29

May 29, 2004 saw:

lots of hiking on various hong kong islands. Such as this 'family trail' to "cave Kamikaze."

The name comes from WWII...there's a placard a few pics down that explains it in more detail.

We passed this 'cave kamikaze' on our way to a beach, actually.

Phil peers in as Carlos and Che leave the scene of some bad joke I've since forgotten.

Cave entrance sans people.

If you click on the picture and view the full size image, you can read the english section of the placard. It basically explains that the japanese were planning to hide kamikaze boats in the caves, to be used against allied ships if they should approach, but the war ended before that actually took place.

Can you spot the really awesome spider?
A view of the bay from somewhere along the trail.

Carlos in front of a hong kong skyline

Since it is made up of a series of islands, you have to take ferries to get to many things/places.

mountain on our walk. I didn't take any more pics on this walk til we got back to the beach, so I didn't get any photos of the beautiful little beach we found, which had one or two locals but nary a tourist (other than ourselves) and we had a grand ole time swimming in the warm, beautiful, secluded water.

The ferry dock where we had to catch our ride back to the hostel.

Bikes on the dock. Folks will ride their bikes to the ferry and leave them here the way some commuters in the states leave their cars at the train station.

Evening sets in

from the ferry

on the ferry

Hong Kong from the ferry

More Hong Kong from the ferry

Alan and Rose, sleeping on the ferry after a long, adventurous day.

...that may have been the island we had been on? I don't recall. Nor do I remember the names of most of these places. grrr.

Lighthouse

another speed ferry






Carmen had a much fancier camera than I.


I call this one "Pollution."

At the grocery store across from our hostel, Nic found this gem: enlarge the pic and you'll see that the label clearly states "Snake Bile."

Thursday, May 28, 2009

5 years ago today, may 28

I don't have any pics whatsoever from the 27th, which I can assume is because that's the day the official trip ended, and I headed to Hong Kong with a few other adventurous souls. [Also in there was Kir's early departure from the group to spend some time with her grandparents in the yellow mountains (jeal-ous!), where she accidently left her passport behind in our room. Ack! I kind of expected the Tisch chaperones do handle it, but since in terms of liability she had departed the group, they instead just excused me from the group to handle it. Thankfully she had left me a goodbye note with her grandparents' names et al, and I was able to use my pitiful mandarin to track them down (a process I don't remember the details of but involved talking to a taxi driver and being REALLY nervous that I'd screw this all up) and in the end, it was safely returned to her.]

Anyway:

May 28th, 2004 saw:
(From Phil, who also came to hong kong!)












And then, from my camera:

Nick and Rose in the hostel, preparing to go out

Into the hong kong night.

which can, evidently, be very bright.

subways there were SO CLEAN compared to NYC. See? nic and carmen don't look sketched out!

Carmen in our hostel...love the green fridge.

Rose calling home from the hostel phone. 12 hr difference makes it slightly awkward to time.

our bunks in the hostel.


from the ferry

the harbor
I remember being amazed, as the plan landed, how the mountains and skyscrapers played off of one another. successfully or not, they are giants of a kindred-if antithetical- kind.