7.1.2018

https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/a1ab55932a94d6c01572dd0957b175e3/exploring-hong-kong/index.html

Today I accidentally climbed a mountain. Yu Laoshi recommended going hiking to nearby Buddhist monasteries. I googled how to get to one and after a delicious lunch (I had vegetable curry and rice), RB, Haley, and I headed towards the temple. It was about a 20-minute walk away and we just looked around for a bit. I had seen on google maps that there were some green and blue spaces by the temple, so we went in that direction. We passed a quarry and found a large dam, with gorgeous turquoise waters. After crossing the dam, we discovered some trails and decided to take one that went along the reservoir. We went down to the water, which had become a river, and rested for a bit before continuing on. After about an hour, we began meeting people on the trail and eventually came to a fork, where we turned left to the top of the mountain. It was a steep climb up, but definitely worth the trek. At the top, we could see Shenzhen and the Chinese mainland and different coasts – we also spotted Tuen Men and Yuen Long from above.
We decided to go back the way we had come, instead of venturing on another path that looked like it lead to Yuen Long because we wanted to get back before it got dark. The walk back was a lot quicker and we got back to campus to find that what we thought would be a short trip to the temple turned into a five-hour hike. I will be sore tomorrow, but it was an amazing experience.
Adriana joined us later and RB found a bbq place – but this was no ordinary bbq joint. After speaking some Mandarin with a woman at the front, we entered this huge parking lot that looked kind of like an amusement park at first glance. Most of the lot was filled with tables and we handed a slip of paper to a guy, who wheeled a grill/fire pit to our table. Then, we went to the side and they gave us skewers, plates, forks, gloves, sauce, waters, and a basket that we haphazardly filled with meats and veggies. After some instruction from a group of Cantonese ladies (through a lot of pointing and nodding and demonstrating), we put the food on our skewers and cooked them for a bit and then put the sauce on and roasted them some more. It was very tasty and another exciting excursion.
This day I thought was going to be a calm, lazy day turned into a wild adventure – I can’t wait to see what Hong Kong has in store for the rest of this trip.