The Year of the Dog

Beginning on....i think 28th of january, the celebrations of the chinese new year last 4 days. i've often been told, people in HK wouldn't celebrate chinese new year that much, but after those 4 days, i wouldn't say that, but I'll start telling from friday on:

Stanley

After wrinting the previous blogentry, i took a bus to stanley, a british settlement on the other side of HK island, that i afterall don't like as much as the rest of HK;
for my taste it's just too western-orientated there, you got Steak or pizza restarants, the landscape isn't too interesting and after all there's not too much too see,
exept a really nice big market that truely is worth a visit and the murray house (pic) a big colonial building that stood somewhere else on the island some years ago, then they moved it brick for brick to stanley and after rebuilding it, they had 4 columns and didn't know where they meant to fit.
there's also a temple that's over 2000 years old, located in the centtre of stanley.

Lost the Connection

in the evening, i came across a really huge Chinese New Year fair, where thousands of people came to wste there money for dog-balloons or crazy hats;
there afterwards i wanted to meet my american friends but didn't reach them anymore,
so I desperately tried to reach them the whole night, because they where the only connection to the rest of the group and when there suddenly completely strange chinese people answered my calls, i knew that i propably won't see them again.

So i went to the club we met on the thext day and asked the waitress about mandy and happily she knew and called her immediatly;
in the meantime i met Joe, an journalist from london who told me, his company would pay him an apartment although he already got his own and offered me to stay there till it runs out; of course i couldn't say no
so the evening turned out to compensate for the night before and when mandy finally came, everything was right again.

Celebrations

the next day i went to the New Year street Parade, that moved throug several streets on HK island and attracted thousands of peoples to watch the event.
unfortunatley the light conditions weren't too good, but finally i shot some nice pictures though.




afterwards I was invited to do karaoke, first I didn't know if i really wanna do that but then it turned out to be totally different than i expected;
they don't have karaoke bars like i thought of; they got a whole floor filled up with Boxes, arranged like living rooms, whith a big TV-thing and a table full of snacks and drinks, wish we had something like that in viena because it was so much fun (and of course i sang like a god...mmmh....)

on monday i moved from my guesthouse into Joe's apartment and what should i say;
it's amazing (just watch the pictures and compare to the picture where you see my guest-house-room) it got a Kitchen, Bath, a big HDTV with Digital TV with about half a million of channels (at least half a million, for sure...) and it's for free!
I can tell you I'm a lucky guy and the best thing is>>> it's located in central on HK Island (it's the Manhattan-like part of hong kong) and it takes me only 5 minutes to the clubs from there.

but after all it's only for a few days till it runs out (that happenes tomorrow)
and then, joe offered me to get to his new apartment, which has an even better location in Soho, one of my favorite districts of HK (it's the district with this longest elevator thing) and even closer to the nightlife.
so as you see, i met a good guy (only got this blurry pic of dancing joe, but i think you got the idea)

monday evening i went to the big (really big) Fireworks at the Harbor, unfortunately i had not the perfect view but i shot some nice pictures tough.
The rest of the night I spent at Bars and Clubs till i couldn't stand any longer...

Finally Lantau

next day, the weather was just gorgeous good, so i finally found my way to the ferry heading torwards lantau.

Lantau is ...i think, the biggest island of HK, twice as big as HK Island and covered with woods, so it's the best place to go hiking or visiting the temples there.
the real attraction you can find there is the worlds biggest buddha statue (you may already have noticed, Chinese people love buddha) and i can tell, this 200 ton-buddha is really amazingly big!

near the statue there is a big complex of temples where i saw shaolin monks performing martial arts.

afterwards i took a bus to tai o, a small fishing village with a really strange but beautiful atmosphere.
it got a footbridge that was so long, that sun set while crossing it.

when returning home i had to wait about 1 hour to get into the bus, because there was a waiting line through the whole village (so if you ever go to lantau, don't do that on sun- or holidays)

now the pictures: