Chinese New Year (part 2)

We got back from Macau on Sunday with good intentions of going to watch the New Years Day parade in Tsim Sha Tsui later that evening, but then we realised a) it's in TST (the busiest part of HK) and b) we weren't actually that bothered... so what better to do?

Eat pie

Drink cider!

Yep, we went to the Globe again! As usual it didn't disappoint, I keep meaning to watch the parade on youtube and see what we missed out on but keep forgetting.

On Monday it was firework day. We knew some friends would be watching from the terrace at the IFC Mall but we had no idea how busy it would be and how early you needed to go to get a table. The fireworks didn't start till 8pm but we went down with our Kindles for about 4:30pm and enjoyed the view.

The IFC terrace is brill, there's a bar there and nice tables and chairs so you would assume you have to buy drinks / food from the bar? Wrong! It's bring your own so the bar is just there for lazy people who can't be bothered to bring their own or go to the supermarket in the mall!

Stephen returned from one of his trips with the worlds most expensive (but tastiest!) popcorn - yum!

We spent a pleasant couple of hours eating / drinking / reading until others joined us ready for the main event.

This is our view of the fireworks.... but no photos of the actual fireworks - apologies!

The fireworks were a million times better than those for 31st Dec / Jan 1st New Year (I'm trying not to call it 'proper' new year...) - they were set off from barges in the middle of the harbour, 23 888 fireworks in total apparently and they lasted 23 minutes (they tend to be judged on duration over here!). Anyway here's a link to a video of them if you want to watch!

We had a few more drinks after the fireworks and could quite happily have stayed there for a lot longer but Stephen had to be up very early the following day. (Incidentally this is the only time something was shut over CNY that affected us, we were hungry and nowhere was open! As Stephen needed fuel for the following day we jumped off the tube midway home, had a quick slice of pizza and back on the tube!).

On Tuesday Stephen and friends fancied a challenge and decided to tackle the Hong Kong Trail from start to finish. This is a 50km trail from the peak to Big Wave Bay with lots of up and down! If you mention the Hong Kong Trail people tend to ask 'which stage?' people don't tend to walk all 8 in one go! I could maybe have been tempted until a start time of 5am was mentioned... no chance! 

View from the peak at 5am - pretty

I woke up about 10am with a text from Stephen saying they'd already walked 18km (!), since it was a sunny clear day I thought I'd go join them. I looked on a map and worked out roughly where they'd be and set off walking. I didn't anticipate quite how hot it was or how steep the hill was I needed to walk up to meet them. I quickly revised my initial plan of joining them for the last 20km and joined them for their lunch stop instead and walked back down the hill to our flat. (It was still a 15km round trip so I didn't do too badly and had a very pleasant afternoon knitting and catching up on iplayer... much more sensible than 50km no?).

Here's a few photos Stephen took along the way:

Ocean Park in the distance, 19km in 

View from Jardines Lookout - (this is where I walked up to) 

Reservoir 32km in.. 

37.5km...

Shek-o beach in the distance, where beer and food await!

After my lazy afternoon I took the bus to the finish point

The 100th 500m marker (=50km)

They all completed it with various people joining them at various stages - a seriously impressive achievement! Once the 50km was done it was then another 1km to the bus stop (harsh) for thai food and beer - well deserved and very enjoyable!

The not very direct route

Altitude vs. distance.

Wednesday was a very lazy day (not surprising really!) but a good end to a good few days off, finished off nicely with a couple of happy hour cocktails.

Cheers!