After Christmas, we decided to do a family activity. I suggested marathon gaming. They went on a road trip to Death Valley.
The best part of it was the run. Here’s us getting ready to run.
Then we ran.
It was so good we needed a nap afterwards.
I had this idea once we were back home again that we would be getting right onto our gaming machines.
Instead I learnt that all the family was already in town, and that gaming would have to wait.
At least the positive was that I got to build a B-Wing space ship featured in a movie that I haven’t yet seen yet.
There’s got to be some positive to that?
I’m good at directing things to be built.
It’s Christmas! It’s one of my favourite holidays again! It’s a strange Christmas though because we had no tree and hardly any Christmas decorations. But at least we have Christmas gifts!
We’ve been away for a long time so I’m sure my bud must have gotten me some cool game presents to make up for it.
I was in such a good mood I made the effort to 3D print some cool Christmas name tags. I focused on blinging out the name of the giver. That’s the important part after all.
And then it was time to open my presents.
First I got Canadian Smarties. They’re cool. But I’m already a pretty smart bear.
Then my bud got a bandana. I took it and put it on. Looks better on me anyway.
Next I got to the packages that were from my bud. I can’t wait to see what they are!
STEAM GAME CONTROLLERS! Yesss! I have more ways to game. I knew my bud would come through for Christmas.
To the media room, Nicholas!
Can’t wipe that grin off my face. I’m heading home!
And I’m heading home in style! I get to hang out in the Cathay Pacific Business lounge in Hong Kong with bowls full of Tim Tams*.
Gaming here we come!
Tim Tams :
(these will do when a bear’s desperate enough)
Shortly after we arrived to Hong Kong, Peep disappeared. I didn’t pay much attention to that, and assumed he was off hunting for coffee.
I guess I started getting worried after a few months had passed. One day I happened to look up and found out that, for some unbeknownst reason, the ridiculous bunny had decided to dangle himself off the ceiling beams.
I eventually realized that the bunny was trying to do a leap of faith into the coffee pot below, but naturally, didn’t think through the logistics before he got himself all tangled up there.
Well he wasn’t bothering anyone up there…so I left him there.
Today we are finally leaving Hong Kong. So I (reluctantly) told Nicholas that we better rescue the bunny.
“You ready to come down now Peep?” I ask.
“Peep.” said Peep.
That crazy bunny still wants to do a leap of faith.
“You realize leaps of faith are for experts? Not everyone can master the jump.” I caution.
“Peep” said Peep.
I sigh. “Fine, let the bunny do what he wants.”
“1 - 2 – "
Peep falls to the ground and promptly faceplants himself.
Sigh. I still don’t know what to do with that bunny.
At least he recovered enough to still have a go at the coffee.
The countdown has begun. I get to go home soon! In celebration, I even got my very own suitcase!
T-3. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!!!!
Duffy and I are suffering in our hotel-prison. Can’t…hold…on…. Need meds….
The whole reason we are in Hong Kong is because of my minions. I’m a little mad at the Peers but I have to maintain a good facade when I’m around these Peers. So here I am buddying up with P4 even though I want to smack him.
Smile and wave, fellows. Smile and wave.
Today I played tourist.
We actually went to one of those tourist attractions that had been advertised all over Hong Kong. This attraction was the Ngong Ping 360 - billed as the longest gondola ride in Asia.
Which meant we stood in line like every other sucker tourist.
At least I got to sit in Nicholas’ lap. Everyone else stood.
And we waited in line like suckers.
For like hours.
And hours. During that time, I learned that Ngong Ping 360 had partnered with Hello Kitty.
So this attraction was going to be littered with kitty propaganda and merchandising.
Great. During this wait I learned more than I cared to about that cat. Pokin also used up all her data and got billed twice. Ka-Ching for the cell phone companies!
Well after said hours of waiting, we got there.
I willed myself to be excited. After all, I had to justify to myself why I just spent the last 3 hours of my life waiting in line for a tourist ride. Ooh gondola ride! I am SOOO excited!!!
We had opted for the crystal ride, which had a glass bottom.
I actually dug that part and got a little excited for real. It’s cool to look down and see what’s up.
Our destination at the other end was Ngong Ping village, which is home of the Big Buddha, another hyped up tourist attraction featuring an ANCIENT giant Buddha that was, oh, built in 2003. There’s a picture of the buddha in the background of this photo, which is a picture of my bud eating some bun while I watched him eat the bun.
And here is the path to the actual buddha.
You have to climb 268 steps to reach the buddha. I just got Nicholas to carry me. So the walk up was easy.
Big Buddha is 34 metres tall (112ft). That’s cool. I dig a big buddha. We loitered around the premise for a bit to soak in his bigness. We also took the time to check out the view and take selfies in front of the other statues.
Once we had enough of that we made our way to Po Lin monastery. Po Lin monastery was a legit monastery that was built in 1906, and housed visiting monks – that is until the MTR corporation went and built a giant tourist gondola line leading right to their back yard and began billing the area as a must-see.
Now flocks of tourists like myself go to gawk at the monks to help them master the ability to practice their buddhist-ing ways despite the distraction. I’m sure it’s been great for their training. It’s definitely been great for their budget. This is the shiniest, best kept monastery I’ve seen to date in my travels.
I wonder how annoying we have to be as tourists before the monks get distracted.
I was getting ready to test out my theory when the gang told me it was time to go and move on to our next locale - Tai O. On the bus we go! I guess my plans to disrupt monks will have to wait.
Tai O was once a sleepy fishing village, before – you guessed it, it got turned into a big tourist attraction. Tai O is now known for being a big tourist attraction that also happens to have traditional stilt houses.
I also noticed a lot of these metal houses. Apparently they are shanty houses that are technically illegal but tolerated. Mostly because if they didn’t tolerate these houses a lot of people would be homeless. And a lot of people actually WERE homeless because a big fire that happened in these tin houses a few years back destroyed many of the homes. This house, as you can probably tell was built after the fire.
Here’s a charred house.
A lot of the homes were actually really tiny. Allow me to enter exhibit A, with Daniel standing beside the house for context. This is certainly too small a home for this bear!
We were sort of in a hurry so we ran our way around town. We had to catch the last ferry of the day that left within 40 minutes. We underestimated a little the size of the loop, so after booking it for the last half of the circuit we go to the ferry terminal just as they began boarding.
Glad we made it on the ferry. It would have been a long, windy, long and windy trip back otherwise.
Upon getting back to Hong Kong proper, we celebrated by eating. And by eating again at a dessert shop.
And that was how I spent my day playing tourist in Hong Kong.
With Nicholas’ friend Daniel in town, I’m being let out of my hotel prison a lot more often than usual.
Today we got to go hiking on one of Hong Kong’s most popular trails, “the Dragon’s Back.” This trail is on the southeast part of Hong Kong Island, and runs along the top ridge in Hong Kong. It’s supposed to be scenic and one of Hong Kong’s top 10 trails.
Scenic + Accessible = Hiking at the speed of molasses.
We started off by making sure we had enough energy for the hike. For Nicholas that meant getting some champagne Chinese milk tea. It sounds all fancy and has SUCKER written all over it. It just meant bottles of tea stuck in a bucket of ice at a $10 premium.
Then we took a bus from the MTR station towards the starting point of the trail –
And got in line to wait for the stream of other hikers to move their way along the trail. We inched forward on the trail at the pace of the slowest hiker till we eventually reached the top of the ridge.
View’s not bad. I got to see where all the HK rich people lived.
And I saw where the HK paragliders took off from. This is how humans get to enjoy a taste of what it’s like to fly like me. This is also where all the curious on-lookers completely halted the slow procession along the trail.
Well, trail was fine. I’m glad I went so now I can brag to Quatchi that I’ve trekked on the same trail that ever other person in Hong Kong did during the same weekend.
