The Green Side of the Island

Hello again! On Wednesday, September 26th we were blessed with a vacation day! It was the Mid-Autumn Festival here in Hong Kong which is considered the second most important holiday after Chinese New Year. Traditionally, family members get together and have a nice dinner and carry brightly lit lanterns through the streets. This is also the holiday were you give each other moon cake which is a Chinese pastry made from lotus paste containing a salted duck egg which is so full and bright and yellow, if you bite it in half it looks just like the moon! And, no, it doesn't taste very good to me, but the folks here seem to like them. Our HR department at the office passed out a box of moon cakes to everyone in celebration of the holiday, and being that both Tony & I are here, we were fortunate enough to get two boxes of them. I feel bad that we didn't like them very much because they are quite expensive and very difficult to make (i.e. you don't bake them at home kinda thing). If they didn't have an expiration date on them (probably due to that darn egg) I would bring the rest home for you...interesting taste to say the least.

In any case, it was a day off in the middle of the week, something that we hardly ever get in the US except for maybe the 4th of July, but that is always more fun when it is attached to the weekend anyway. Tony and I slept in, went to the gym, had lunch and then we realized how gorgeous it was outside that we decided it was time for an adventure. We decided to take the train over to one of the other islands which make up Hong Kong called Lantau. This is about twice the size of Hong Kong Island and it is worlds away. The island is gorgeous, filled with mountains and beaches and green everywhere you look. There we were headed over to see the so called "big Buddha" which is the world's tallest outdoor seated bronze Buddha (lol!) After a 30 minute bus ride from the subway station through the winding mountain roads, we arrived!

The real name of the statue is Tain Tan Buddha, and it is sat on top of a lotus throne, 34 meters high and weighs 250 tonnes. The construction cost of the big Buddha was $68M but it is free to get in. You have to climb up 260 steps to get to the top but the view is quite worth the hike. It was so beautiful as you can hopefully see from these pictures.

We roamed around the island a bit after that and found what appeared to be a very nice trail through the woods which we will do next time when we are more equipped for a hike. It is hard to believe that this world of green lies so close to this big city yet it seems like another planet. It was great.

After our long journey home, we headed out to dinner in our neighborhood. We found a great little place called Paul's Kitchen which Tony is now in love with. There is a set menu which changes every other week, so I think we will be back for sure. We started with a peach salad with mozzarella, prosciutto, and greens in a honey dressing, followed by mussels in broth then I had the grilled prawns and Tony had rack of lamb, and we also eat got dessert. For the set it was $260 HKD, plus we got a bottle of wine, total was about $125 for a four course meal and wine! It was very delicious.

We have a three day weekend coming up here as well (so much vacation, so little time) and then many many adventures planned for the month of October, so stay tuned for more frequent blogging by yours truly. Till next time, I LOVE YOU & MISS YOU!