Thanksgiving and Hiking at Shek-O Peak

Happy Thanksgiving!  I am very sad to say that this Thanksgiving I sat in class all day and even had a pop-quiz.  How's that for a holiday?  Amanda and I enjoyed a lazy Thanksgiving in, chatting with parents and family via Skype and resting up for classes the next day - nothing extremely exciting.  But, on Friday, three Americans from North Carolina fixed us a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner!  We had all of the fixings, I am so surprised that they were able to find the ingredients that were needed.  Amanda and I definitely did not have the courage to tackle making a Thanksgiving dinner in Hong Kong and were so happy that they put on such a great dinner.

After dinner, I headed to my favorite place - the Avenue of the Stars overlooking the water.  We enjoyed some wine and the view for a few hours... I will really miss that when I leave!

Carving the turkey

All of the ladies at Thanksgiving dinner

 On Saturday, we stayed in, got some rest and enjoyed dinner with our German friends at our favorite Thai restaurant.  Never in my life had I had curry, or Thai food, until I came to Hong Kong, but I love it!

Sunday, we headed off to hike on Hong Kong Island.  The hike was only about 5 km and supposed to take about 2.5 hours, but we finished much quicker.  After taking a ferry, train, and bus, we had finally reached our destination and began the hike.  It was quite busy since it was Sunday and the trails were mostly filled with foreigners.

On our way we met an American from NY who was actually here for work and teaching at our university.  Surprisingly she said that she hated big cities and such a busy lifestyle, it did not make sense since she was from NYC... Anyways, she proceeded to say that she hated Hong Kong and that all of the teachers at the university had taken her out to crazy restaurants to have the HK delicacies.  I really felt bad that she had such a horrible experience, so we gave her some suggestions to finish off her trip - hopefully she will enjoy the city more!

After finishing up our hike, we went to meet our friends at Big Wave Beach - there were actually huge waves!  Our friends had went there for the day to surf so we joined to watch the fun.  It was perfect weather - sunny and warm.

On the bus to go hiking!

View from Shek-O peak to Shek-O beach.  Great golf courses and beautiful beach homes!

Big Wave Beach

Notice the speedometer.

We took public light buses that seat about 15 people.  They don't have a running schedule but simply leave when they are full.  You can ask them to stop when you need to get off and enjoy getting to your destination quicker than a normal bus.  However, the drivers are quite crazy.  The speedometer in the bus tells all of the passengers how fast the driver is going.  HK law states that these drivers aren't allowed to go more than 80 km/hr (about 50 mph), otherwise it starts beeping to tell the driver to slow down.  Thank goodness.

This week is our last week of classes at PolyU until our marathon month of finals.  I wish that I could just get the finals over with before the holidays, however I have exams until the 23rd of December.  Yuck!  We have many plans to explore the rest of the city between studying for finals.  It is amazing that we only have 3.5 weeks left to be here.  Time sure flies.

Caitlin