Ni Hao. Wo hen hao.

We went on a sweet adventure on Monday.... We went to the immigration tower to apply for my Hong Kong permanent id card (just a technicality, don't worry we aren't staying permanently).  And then we handed in our passports for a few days to get visas to go to Mainland China. We're also trying to plan our trip to Japan, which I am super stoked about as we are going for "koyo" which is the autumn celebration of the leaves turning red.  So we will get a fall after all, and we'll be there for my birthday too!  

Anyways, continuing on, since we were in Wanchai we just wandered around, like we do in most neighbourhoods that we end up in.  Here are a few shots!

~Uncle Rocca!~

~Uncle Rocca needed a haircut, it turned out to be one of his longest ever... and one of his best! (This is the before picture) ~ 

~Rolls Royce that looks as though it's a taxi, the paint job is a shame~

~I dig that my skin matches the brown seat that I'm on... (sarcasm) ~

~ Our first time on a tram, so much cheaper, and we're not ever in a hurry! ~ 

~We're still a bad influence even from the other side of the world!  This is one of our favourite things, chatting w/ family... especially Mr. Prycen! ~

 We went wake boarding again on Tuesday w/ the Lews and Smiths, it was a lot of fun.  Lockey helped one of the kids to do his first tantrum, so that was cool, and the girls were getting some air... as for me, well I got up on a wakeboard for the first time in 2 years (and remembered why I like skiing much better!)  But it was fun to be out in the bay, and of course Lockey did all his moves like it was nothing, but the salt water and slight chop is way different than being on a glassy lake in Montana!   

Afterwards we went on a hike that Gary Lew recommended for us, and it was beautiful, clear skies so we could actually see the view... the whole time... because we were exposed the whole time, it's just a lot of bushes and shrubs!  So this is Lockey putting on sunscreen, we did a whole photo shoot of it, but this was the winner. 

~we saw several different city views, and they were all amazing! ~

~This plaque was on the trail, it's interesting, you should read it! ~

~ Oh so many stairs... the trails are all super well maintained, and there are millions of stairs, Lockey and I went somewhere around 17 Km ~

There is a HUGE spider in this picture, almost right in the middle... can you see it?  Unfortunately I couldn't do my spider stance as it was above me and it would probably have eaten my face! ~ 

 After our hike we were spent!  We went home and had a nap, and then got up and decided to try the dim sum place around the corner from us... dim sum literally means "snack"  so you get little appetizer sized dished, like tapas.  it's awesome, and in this picture I am REALLY excited about my BBQ pork bun... I heart carbs... it's a terrible thing!  And then there is eggplant w/ a teriyaki type sauce, and we had dumplings and wontons, and glutinous rice cake w/ red bean, and gluteus rice ball w/ black sesame filling... so delish and cheap, and just around the corner... We'll be back!

And as for the title of this post...  Ni Hao means "you good"... this is the mandarin greeting, it replaces Hello.  If you are asking if someone is good, you say "ni hao ma"?  which means "you good"?  "Wo hen hao" means "I very good". No need for "am" or "are" in mandarin! 

So I have now been to 2 mandarin lessons, and the language is very difficult, I have said before that it's like a song that my voice doesn't want to sing.... but I'm improving.  I have 4 more private lessons (I got a groupon!)  so we'll see how I do... perhaps we'll put a video up once I've mastered how to say "I'm called Cami". ha.  But I am enjoying learning, and coming home and showing off to Lockey what I've learned.  

Lockey actually tells me about some of the things he's learning in class too (he's taking Basic Chinese Law), today he was telling me about some things about Chinese law, it's interesting, and bizarre.... Perhaps he can write a bit about it in his next post! 

Oh also The last couple of days I've gotten up at 6:45am to go running just to beat the heat.  It's only 4 or 5 degrees Celsius cooler, but it actually makes a big difference!  And the trick is that you need to go to the harbour first and then run hills, b/c if you do it the other way around the sun starts shining on the harbour and it gets HOT!  today when we were running past one of the ferry entrances and a bus stop... you know, where there were actually plenty of people around I ate it... ya, thought maybe I could catch myself... I didn't.  I ate it, and didn't look at anyone except for Lockey as he offered me his hand and then kept running... I'll be watching my step on those brick walkways a little more closely, only for embarrassments sake! 

Plan for the weekend: Madame Tussauds ( I read a historical fiction book about Madame Tussaud during the french revolution, but it would probably still be entertaining even w/out the background!)

And probably another hike on Saturday.  Perhaps it will be a cooler day.

Quick run down....

OK, so this is what we did this week... 

Took pictures of cans on the street.

Went to Avenue of the Stars in Tsim Sha Tsui

Saw Bruce Lee's Star... And Lockey showed off his sweet moves. ( I especially appreciate his grimace).

Also saw Jackie Chan's star!! Even touched his hand marks, his hands aren't that big... yet still bigger than Lockey and I's! 

And saw Jet Li's star too.... my hands almost matched his! We figured we'd find Bruce Lee's, and Jackie Chan's stars, but forgot about Jet Li... Lockey recognized some other person who had something to do w/ Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon too.  

Lockey and Bruce Lee = Same same....

Still not sure what this piggy was doing on the avenue of the stars...

We also found this big Indian market when we were in Tsim Sha Tsui, and there was great Indian food to be had!  I saw some Aloo Paratha in one shop and had to have it... This was the restaurant... Ha! (The guy even gave Lockey a stool to stand on for the picture... I'm not sure he got the joke...)

And this was Lockey's legit face after drinking the "Lemon" soda... w/ the after taste of rotten fish.... very bizarre... but we didn't get sick! Phewf! But the samosa's and the aloo paratha were phenomenal... perhaps I'll go back to Butts... 

Then we went to the park in Tsim Sha Tsui.... this was a great series of pictures... the whole scene made me laugh, we narrated while watching! :)  

Face off....

Turtle put's his head in his shell and attacks!!! Bird flies away... seems as though Mr. Turtle has victory... 

But wait!  unbeknownst to Mr.Turtle, that sneaky bird snuck up behind him!  

The bird makes his move, and off Mr. Turtle goes, escaping into the beautiful green waters of the park.  Who's the winner now?  

Hanging out in front of the flamingos in the park

There was also an Aviary in the park

Later we found some senior citizen workout equipment in the park, so decided if they can do it, so can we!  And in a dress no less!

Then we stumbled upon the symphony of lights.  (we literally just went to see the skyline and then all of a sudden there was an announcer that said there was going to be a show), so this is the skyline before, that's facing our apartment, we are a few streets back from the harbour just to the right of the taller building w/ the red light on top in the right side of the photo... did you catch that?  

And this was the light show, there were lights on the building that changed colour and pattern and such to music done by a symphony, (not a live symphony), the music was kind of lame, but the lasers and lights on the buildings were neat. It didn't look over the top spectacular, but it would be a lot of work and synchronizing to get all of those buildings to light up the way they did!  It was cool to see once!  

Then I was starving, we had a LONG day that day (we had gone out initially to let the cleaning lady do her thang)... this is what we got...

That's right... it's chicken feet soup... but we didn't know that when we ordered it... 

I was brave and figured since we ordered it and I'm in Hong Kong I might as well try it!  Lockey was APPALLED when I bit into a foot... he was seriously shocked, it was quite funny actually... I had to encourage him to try it... and I had more than one bite... it was a little creepy though b/c they had all the bones and the talons still... 

I have since heard though that this is actually a delicacy in Hong Kong.... No big deal...

Then another evening we went out for dinner w/ a few people Lockey goes to school w/ (Arik and Evelyn) and then a couple of Arik's friends, (Joseph and Jeff and Greg) and of course Arik's lovely wife Charis and kids.  We went to a lovely restaurant and saw a chef making noodles. 

Evelyn and I 

Charis Jeff, Greg and Joseph (Joseph was our lovely host, the perfect ambassador of Hong Kong!)

Love birds!

We also got invited out wake boarding w/ the Lew family from our ward.  Lockey gave the girls, Sammy and Jessie some tips and they were both excited to get some "big air", and he also tried to teach another boy from our ward how to land a tantrum.... And of course he put on a good show.  It was cool b/c we were just in a harbour, so it was still salt water, it was rougher in the beginning, but it actually got kind of calm!  Afterwards we hung out at the beach (It was at repulse bay beach) and I treaded water for 35 minutes while Lockey dove off of the thing that said "no diving".... it was in Engligh so no excuses I guess... But it was fun, and the beach wasn't too busy while we were there. 

The whitish building towards the right of the picture has a square hole in it so that the "dragon" can come down from the mountain and drink from the ocean.  We figure he must have some sort of an internal filter for the salt... 

Afterwards we went to the Stanley market  

Taking a break from the Stanley market... Drinking our (2nd) Kiwi Slushy w/ Black Pearl Tapioca... delish!!!

This was on our bus ride back to central.... we were again on the top of the double decker bus, and this is our view of our almost collision w/ another bus... the other bus driver was over the middle line, and had to stop and reverse and go over the curb to get around us... and this is just on a regular street!

We also did a few fitness classes this week as we had a 7 day free pass that we signed up for at fitness first, it is a really nice facility, and we did a yoga flow and pilates classes, as well as worked each other w/ Muy Thai pads and gloves and such, and we also did a spin class... our first ever... The room is cool, it's all painted like space and has black lights and such, it reminds me of glow bowling, but by the end of class I was pretty sure that I would rather kill myself than walk the 8 minutes home in the hot humid outside... my legs weren't working... killer workout, but it made me a little angry, but given the opportunity I just might do it again! :)  

Oh and today was "Linger longer" at church... We met a nice couple from London and ended up chatting a while.... and we lingered longest. 

Living it up in the HK

So we are finally here in Hong Kong and we've already had a bunch of exciting adventures.

So we flew in from Singapore on the 31st of August and had no problems in the HK airport as we are seasoned veterans there. We hopped on the MTR from the Airport to Central, and the Trains and buses here have free wifi, take notes calgary. Oh and they cost a fraction of what the trains and buses cost in Calgary. Typically the fares are under a dollar and they have these sweet octopus cards that you don’t have to take out of your wallet (or money clip if you are a minimalist contemporary man like myself) you just place it on the receiver and GO. Anyway they are sweet and once I get my student octopus card I’ll pay like 30 cents per ride. That’s right 30 cents like 2.5 hong kong dollars, also the price of one MacDonald’s ice cream cone, YUMMMM.

So anyway after surfing our way to Central station we grabbed a taxi, and met up with Jimmy(I'm betting not his real name) at our Apartment to let us in. 

Our Apartment- Literally is fifteen feet by seven feet. I’m sitting writing this and I can reach Cami laying in bed sleeping, our one dresser, the door, the fridge, our hot plate and if I stretch I could reach our one sink that we use for everything. Our whole walking space can be stepped across in one large step. I was slightly relived when I saw our place (as you never know exactly what you are going to get from pictures), but it kind of took Cami’s breath away to realize how small it was. But four or five days later now and it’s home. We have a small tv over the bed that gets HBO, star movies and Discovery Channel, it also has a dvd player. The internet connection is pretty good and I use my macbook pro as a router and share the internet to our other devices and Cami has been rocking the Hot Plate. She’s made us yummy oatmeal, grilled sandwiches, stir fries and all sorts of yummy stuff. Oh and Biscuits. Her biscuits were delicious. 

This is a picture of the Apt. but they switched out the table chair and sheets for older ripped ones, oh well...

So we went to sleep in our stiff, less than double bed, after sleeping in cushy King Sized beds all month, but it was just fine and woke up to a tasty oatmeal breakfast.  I had class, so we walked down to the University (After stopping by the park behind our house for some photo ops).   

Hollywood Park - named for the forest of Holly trees and not for the Californian Movie centre

Hollywood Turtle for my Mommy dearest - she likes turtles -

Funny signs everywhere in HK

And when I mean walked down I mean walked up.... waaaay up.  Like stairs everywhere up.  The University is a twenty minute walk, but practically all up hill.  So good exercise right.  

The first of many hills - the flat part wayyy in the background is where our Apt. would be

Cami decided to come with and she hung out while I was in class.  The only class I had this week was Law and Literature taught by Marco Wan - The class is all about the intersections of law and literature and I think it is going to be really interesting.  We went through the syllabus and then read a parable by Kafka about the law, or the messed up version of what Kafka thought the law was like. The link for all of those nerds out there Anyway my schedule in case I haven't mentioned it is fantastic.  

Wed. 2-5pm - Intellectual Property Law in the People's Republic of China, 6-9pm Regulation of Financial Markets 

Thursday 2-5 Law and Literature 6-9 Introduction to Chinese Law and Legal System 

Also there is another canadian guy from Kelowna and Western that has all of the same classes as I do.  Crazy right.  

So anyway, after class we went back to the apt. and Cami made a yummy rice stirfry on the hot plate - It was delicious!!!

YUMMMM

So the next morning we decided to go for a run.  I searched out some running routes online and found one that looked like it would be like 7-8km through some wooded areas.  It looked fun and nice.  Turns out it goes up to the PEAK!!!  Who Knew?, not me.  Anyway, so we start out and we knew it was going to be a climb for a bit of the way, but it wasn't so so bad. Then we got into this cool park area and found some trails, where no one was around.  It was like being in the middle of the Jungle.  So cool.  So as we are running through the jungle, we come up on a paved road, then around the corner and there is a huge Mall.  Weird.  But it turns out this is the Peak Mall, that most people take the tram to get up to, but not us.  So stinky and sweaty - like really sweaty, Cami's shorts felt like she had just gotten out of a pool or something, - we went up and checked out the view.  It's been pretty cloudy, but it was cool to get up there and look around.  Then we started the run down. 

Pics from the Peak

It was steep, but everything was fine until we made a left at some park and started running/walking through this slope maintenance trail.  Because everything is built on the side of a mountain in Hong Kong they have these Slope Maintenance trails to set up fences to prevent boulders and such from rolling down the mountain and taking out buildings, but you aren't supposed to run down them.

They have apparently had problems with landslides and such

So it seemed like a nice trail at first, then everything was fenced off. so after 20mins of walking we finally found steps down, and a weird access path, with more steep steep steps, then a ladder, like a maintenance ladder that has the circles around them and that goes down into a shed.  Luckily this one wasn't locked and we made it out.  It's always adventures when I plan what we are doing... 

After coming back from our run we took a shower, and had a nap, then went to IFC Mall - also there are no regular malls in HK, they are all Rodeo drive, with Gucci, Prada, etc.  but it is cool to walk around.  IFC mall is only like a fifteen minute walk, so it was fun to walk around with fancy shmancy people.  And the view from there across the harbour is really pretty.  

IFC roof Garden

Next day was Saturday - we went for a nice shorter, less-strenuous Harbour run, and then decided to go hop on the train to go somewhere - we decided to go to Causeway Bay and again ran into a million super nice malls.  And this crazy street protest, claiming that the Communist Party in China is killing prisoners  for their organs, I don't know if it's legit or not, but crazy regardless.

Crazy Street Protest - he wasn't really doing surgery, but we initially thought he was

We ran into some cool stairs from the Olympics in Beijing 

A sweet Mercedes Dealership

Cami Posing it out beside a SLS AMG 3.5Million HKD

Also cool streets with lots of pretty lights. 

The best mall was Times Square mall, but we also had a yummy chocolate Banana thing, and a taro bubble milk yummy drink before we got to Times Square Mall.  

Times Square 

I bought Cami some lipstick that she fell in love with and it was cool just to see all of the hustle and bustle that is Hong Kong.  It's kind of nice because we are so near all of these busy areas, but where we are in Sheung Wan is mostly full of locals and isn't as commercialized.  Well not americanized commercialism anyway, like there are spice shops and dehydrated fish shops and such, but no fancy malls.  But there was some nice looking cars right outside of our place. 

My new ride outside of our place

So Sunday we went to Church.  We took the train to Wan Chai and ran into some missionaries that told us how to get to it, as we might have gotten lost otherwise.  

Cami outside of Church

It is a cool building with chapels on every couple floors.  It even has a small gym and it's big enough it could be a ward.  The members were super friendly and all in all it was a good time.  Cami and I got invited to go for Dinner when she was in Relief Society and I met some guys, mostly lawyers and bankers, in Priesthood.  When we were all done church it was raining and we had no umbrella, so we booked it to the MTR through the rain, went home for a bit and then tried to take a bus to our Dinner date.  

Except buses in HK don't have transfers and the bus driver don't speak english and this one scowled at us when we tried to communicate.  There also aren't any obvious ways of getting the bus driver to stop so anyway we missed our stop and then ended up taking a cab instead.  But we were on a double decker bus which was cool.  

On the double decker BUS - I brought an umbrella this time

They are mostly all double deckers

So we went up into the hills and our Cab stopped at these huge towers.  We went up the 17th floor and there place was practically as big as our house back in Calgary with a 12 person table and we had homemade pizza and chatted the night away.  We got some tips on living in Hong Kong and we talked about running -as one of the guys there was big into running- wakeboarding -they had taken the young men out wake boarding the day before - also the Relief Society gets together all the time and goes on outings and it was pretty fun.  Super nice people.  

Anyway, that is all for now! Peace out and send us some posts!!!