Cheung Chau Island you are ours

Day 13-14

Day 13

Temple Street Night Market 

The past few days have been eventful to say the least. One evening I decided to elope to Temple Street Night market. It's basically a market...but at night. Among the merchandise sold were countless socks (of which I bought 10 for 100HK$), and many trinkets and doodahs. Most of these one will not ever have any use for yet every now and then you find something useless that you feel you have a need for. 

The hustle and bustle is what I enjoyed the most. You might think you see a lot of tourists but actually  not. A  lot of the times these markets are filled to the brim with locals. In Hong Kong you can set up a shop anywhere and there will be people to fill it. It's a diffusion sort of thing, I think.

The cheaper it is the less you need it @ Temple Street Night Market

Day 14: Cheung Chau Island you have been conquered.

This beautiful Saturday morning, Blaine awoke me once again saying "Time to roll, bro". I had no idea what for, but he sounded enthusiastic and so I decided to roll out of bed.

We were invited to go to Cheung Chau Island by two lovely South African (East London) ladies. I had a quick noodle and unknown-contents take-away before we left on the subway to catch a Ferry from Kowloon to the island. Our Ferry turned out to be a 35min speedy catamaran journey. Warm noodle and unknown-ingredient bowl still on my lap (can't eat or drink on public transport)

This catamaran mimics an airplane through constant turbulance exactly

Next thing we know we strike land. I quickly wolf down my noodles as Blaine gets a Mcdonalds. This led to me having my 2nd breakfast (The noodles didn't make me happy enough). Oh yes and there are no cars on this island. Only tiny comical ambulances and firetrucks constantly zooming all around the place.

An initial exploring reveals a restaurant selling a giant fish for 4800HK$. Yummy?

I enjoyed this lady on her bike with training-wheels very much.

Some cameraception

So our mission:
Find the booklet-recommended pirates cave. After a 30minute walk, we realised we were on the complete wrong side of the island. We continued walking nevertheless. This was just as well because our route to the other side of the island became an unexpectedly scenic one and we ended up taking these photos along our trek.

This is what happens when I hug Blaine with magnificent views behind us

This is the aftermath of me hugging Blaine with a magnificent view behind us

An hop skip and a jump down. Reminded me of Tsitsikamma very much. I miss home too.

This is me, on a boulder. You can see how tiny this island is behind me.

We found a beach! It was quite littered, we were instantly attracted to all of the interesting wreckages. Felt like pirates plundering a village.

Blaine: "Score! A football!!" *best find on the beach*

These can holders (found on the beach) are infamous for strangling penguins. I carried it all the way to a dustbin. Felt good because I probably saved the life of a Hong Kong penguin. :P

This view makes any mile by your sole worth it.

Just an interesting photograph of a tree being held up by some bamboo

We found the public beach. It was cloudy and slightly nippy: Blaine was brave and took a leisurely dip.  He looked like a majestic dolphin in the water.

This is a house. I am pretty sure that beavers built it for the people inside at minimum wage. The silver iron objects hanging from the side are all postboxes. Cats poke their heads in and out of the nooks and crannies, looking for unsuspecting rats. Looks cozy :P

After many hours of trekking and dwindling around, we reached our pirate's cave. This cave was inhabited by Cheung Po Tsai and he was a 19th century chinese pirate. We really expected this "cave" was just to be a
hole in the wall. We built it up just for the sake of the anticlimax of it all.
Anti-anticlimatically, it was so much more and awesomer!

This cave turned our to be a 5minute tunnel to the other side of the rock formation. Pitch black it was yes.

A smart and sneaky old lady outside sold miniscule toches at  inflated prices outisde

After our trip, we were famished. I ordered "chiken ball, lotus leaf and rice" This is what I got. So far everything I have had that didn't say "seafood" in the menu has contained seafood. This dish kept with that rule. But I am still alive! :P

Chicken ball and lotus leaf. We all had interesting dishes, shared with some local beer.

Delicious dim sum sold everywhere

And so to end off our trek of the day, Back on Hong Kong Kowloon grounds, it started to mist rain. Hong Kong truly is a majectic city, with nature and man mixed together in a very appetising dish. Living a very blessed life.

It almost seems as if this building is ending just as heaven begins.
International Finance Centre, Central, Hong Kong.
This is 15th tallest building in the world (88floors, 416m high)
2nd highest in Hong Kong