Kyja and Fiona were in Mongolia and Beijing

Trains trains trains trains! yay! This is the train from Hong Kong to Beijing. 24 hours of awesomeness and tea! (note the thermos.)

We felt sorry for the black kitten.

The sign says 'perilous hill. No climbing please.' The perilous hill continues to about 2 metres above my head.

Yert suburbs, and gandan monastery.

A sad old camel.

Prayer wheels: Way more efficient than anglican orisons.

The sign says 'rich club: we make the world better.' This small town didn't have much food. So we just drank beer and got the next train out.

Yak baby and yak mother.

Gorge-ous. (ha. ha.)

These are the yerts of a family of yak herders a days drive outside of Ulaan Bataar.

This is an awesome baby in a bundle.

Potentially rabid dogs attacking Kyja. They only took a chunk out of her shirt.

Back in Beijing, and eating deep fried icecream, that looks different from deep fried chinese icecream in Australia. So it's true what they say eh.

On the other side of the wall from the mongols.

Some crazy tea with dry ice, at the beijing night markets.

Blog Break

There will now be a big break in my blog, as Kyja and me go to Beijing and Mongolia.

But if you check in 4 weeks there should be photos. Unless we reconsider our attempts at higher education and decide to join a herd of nomadic yak herders. (May be better pay than social work.)

School Excursion!

I went on a class excursion. It was too a historical village in the New Territories. I woke up very excited, and packed a museli bar, and a small bottle of water.


This is my friend Jennifer Kwan. I think this is a very good name. We were trying on sunglasses to make us look like english ex-pats.

This is a village meeting hall.

This is incense inside a temple of the Tang family. Some dropped off and burnt my hand. Dan said it may have been the doing of his great great great great grandfather.

This is my classmate scaring a small child.

This is a garden. It is the first garden i have seen in Hong Kong. They have lots of aloe vera.

Here is some aloe vera jelly. It is very delicious.

Second best bubble tea

This is my second favourite bubble to in Hong Kong. It is from a shop in Mong Kok. The difference with this one is that it's green tea with milk. Strange concept, yes, and i was quite sceptical at first because it seems to go against both eastern and western concepts of tea consumption to add milk to green tea. But it's great! This one is quite sweet, with a subtle yet distinctive green tea teaste, and the pearls and have a really good texture.

For the 1198th time in Hong Kong....HOORAY FOR TEA!

Photo documentary of the glorious torch relay

Today the olympic torch relay passed through my little Special Administration Region.

First it went past Tsim Tsa Tsui, where apparently there were some tensions between Tibet protesters and the China supporters. This is the last leg of the torch relay where people can protest. Interestingly, the Hong Kong government didn't let some protesters enter Hong Kong during the time of the torch relay.

Actually, this morning i was sitting downstairs waiting for my friend Justin, wondering why all the hall residents were coming back dressed in red 'i love China' t-shirts and with huge China flags. I thought it was just some normal patriotism from the mainland students, before i realised it was in fact torch relay day.


But meanwhile, as the torch was running around Hong Kong in the morning, Justin and i were on Lion Rock.

You can't quite see in the photo, but his shirt is orange. We thought this might be problematic because on the way to the rock we saw another friend, who had been to the TST leg, and said torch relay spectators were colour coded - 'red is for pro china, orange is for freedom protesters, and blue is for samsung promotions people.' (it's Hong Kong, gotta put a product in there to balance all the idealism etc.) So we were a little worried Justin would get kicked in the kidneys by the cops for wearing orange accidentally.

So after hiking we went to Wan Chai to see the final leg of the relay, where it ends up at the convention centre with the giant bohinea (the flower on the hong kong flag) that was a gift to Hong Kong after the reunification with the mainland.

It's hard to tell the difference between Chinese flags and Coca Cola flags. 'Communism! Capitalism! ah...whatever.....' People are getting excited because the torch is almost here.......!

AND HERE IT IS!

The torch bearer is the one you can't see because he is behind the lamp post.... sorry.

How many people can we fit in the stair case?

I'd always heard the Hong Kong had alot of police presence, but this is just ridiculous. Look closely in the background and you'll see tonnes of them, just waiting for someone to put on a 'Free Tibet' t-shirt.

Tai O!

It's exam break now, and nothing much to do, so i went with my classmate Priscilla to Tai O which is an old fishing village on Lantau Island. It's like the opposite of the rest of Hong Kong because it's so relaxed, and there's lots of old people everywhere just chilling or asleep on benches. It kind of reminds me of Bribie Island, or my parents, or both. Although there was one old man on a bench who when we first walked past looked like he was asleep or dead, but on the way back was a bit more lively, and he engaged me in conversation for a while and suggested i move to China for the rest of my life.

The biggest tourist attraction in Tai O is the pink dolphins. And i saw some! and they really are pink! I tried to take a photo because they're SO spectacular, but it was hard to get the timing right. This is a photo of the pink dolphin swimming under the water, about to jump out and reveal it's glorious pink colour.

Some fish, just hanging out.

Havn't seen this much in Hong Kong - lovely fresh veges! awesome!

Who wants shrimp paste????!!!

Or salty dried egg yolks?!!! good price for you!!!

Lion Rock Climb

Yesterday i climbed some of Lion Rock with George (Austrians = innate mountain skills) and Katherine.


This is the half naked mountain man on our way over to the ledge where you start climbing. By this stage you're mostly all the way up Lion Rock, so as you can see the view is amazing - alot of Kowloon and over to Hong Kong island aswell.

I love my rope, it's so pretty.

The view from the first pitch. It was so high! Yes, we did spend a long time trying to find our building. There are also eagles, or some kind of bird thing that flies around up high, which you can't see except if you're up a bit.

It was such a peaceful place to sit.