Hong Kong Trip: Day 1

Via the magic of the internet, I bring you a day by day account of my trip to Hong Kong, with U-rim.


July 26, 2004 - Here is a picture of the plane U-rim and I would be flying out of Korea on. We were headed for Hong Kong.


I have flown on several occassions, and have no anxiety about doing so. U-rim, on the other hand, has never left Korea. She was a little less enthusiastic about the notion.


I was able to convince U-rim no harm would come of her. Here we are in slightly better spirits awaiting our boarding announcementat Incheon International Airport.


Here's a picture taken by U-rim of the sky as we flew towards Hong Kong.

After the flight, we arrived in Hong Kong, and met up with our tour guide, bus driver, photographer, and fellow travelers who consisted of young married couple, middle aged married couple, and old married couple.
From the airport we were wisked off to some Korean resturaunt for some lunch, and after that it was off to Repulse Bay.


This is the first picture I took in Hong Kong. This is a dragon at a Buddhist (?) shrine in Repulse Bay. My one mission while in Hong Kong was to see a dragon, and within a two hours I accomplished said mission!


Here are some turtles in a wishing well at Repulse Bay. They were awesome turtles.


So those of you who have been to Korea, or read any of this webpage know of Korea's (especially older men) obsession with spitting in the streets. Here in Hong Kong such behavior will cost you buddy! If I were king of Korea I would impliment a similar law. And incase anyone is wondering, $1500 Hong Kong is like $150 US or 150,000 won.


So we went to a quasi-Buddhist shrine thing at Repulse Bay, and this was one of the many statues they had going on. Kitschy!


His stomach had been rubbed for good luck so many times, that the paint had come clean off...


These are some beach front apartments on Repulse Bay. It beats the crap out of my stupid my neighbor's roof front housing I got. According to our tour guide the apartments are roughly the same size as mine...only they are supposed to house a family, not me or some poor ass college students.


This is Hong Kong's version of Haetae. It looks a little more fierce than the small and cute looking haetae I've seen at various castles and fortresses here in Seoul.


Here I am in Hong Kong with an awesome dragon...he has some gem encrusted eyes, as well as other gem encrusted body parts.


This thing was some sort of diety riding upon a giant chicken. There were several strings of pearls attached at the base of the statue which I had to pose with...


Here I am with U-rim at Repulse Bay in Hong Kong. Look at us! We're damn cute!


Here you see Wyatt Dunn "praying" to a Buddhist statue in Repulse Bay.


This statue was totally awesome. That's what I'd want a statue to look like if I ever owned a statue of my own....


U-rim is getting her wish on at Repulse Bay...

After Repulse Bay we headed to some amusement park where we rode a cable car and took a look at the islands around Hong Kong.


After going to Repulse Bay, our tour group went to an amusement park (I believe it was called Ocean Park). The reason we were going was to ride a cable car which looks out over the bay. Waiting for said car was a little tedious due to the huge number of tourists from mainland China. To say the stunk would be a huge understatement. Anyhow here is U-rim sticking her head into some item that yelled greetings at us in Chinese.


Here we can see some "workers" hiding out under a tent as we went up a mountain in a cable car. Check out the trees. That was one thing that amazed me about Hong Kong. Unlike Seoul, they kept plant life while developing a metropolis.


Here's a view of the bay taken from the cable car at Ocean Park.


Here's another view...wow it's impressive!


Here is U-rim posing in front of a tank of impressive fish at Ocean Park.


Here is U-rim being pissed off at the behavior of some Chinese bastard who smelled horribly and pushed her aside (as she was possing for a picture) so he could have his picture taken.


Here's a view of Ocean Park, the bay, and the surrounding islands. U-rim or I took this picture while riding some strange amusement park ride.

After hanging out at Ocean Park for awhile, we got back in the bus and headed up some mountain known as "The Peak."


A view of the city from atop "The Peak." Rockin' and Rollin'!


Here are U-rim and I atop "The Peak," at dusk with the city of Hong Kong as our backdrop. U-rim looks cute as hell (as usual). I on the other hand was not holding up to well due to buses and humidity and Chinese food and wind...
Anyhow from the top of "The Peak" we took a tram down to the bottom of the mountain, where we learned we would be riding in a friggin' double decker bus!


The picture is kind of horrible, but there's the double decker bus coming to pick us up.


Here's U-rim on the double decker, open roofed bus. Look how excited she is.


The man who is on the left of the picture (with half his face cut off due to my poor framing, or the fact I was just trying to take a picture of the building), was our trusty tour guide and translator, Mr. Kim (what else would his name be). He was a pretty decent tour guide in spite of the fact that if I was not 100% focused on what he was saying I only caught about 20% of it...since he spoke in Korean the whole time.


After riding in the double decker bus, we took a cruise in a ferry. This is a picture taken from said ferry of the city.


U-rim and I spotted this cat as the ferry docked. We had no choice but to take a picture of him in his little sailor suit. Dig the star!


This is Hong Kong's version of a boonshik-chib (분식집). These resturants are cheap, fast food. In Korea they provided roughly 89% of the pictures of food I've taken.
One has to look no further than this picture to see how something like SARS broke out in that country. I know the quality is low, but those are pig and duck carcasses hanging outside in an alley next to the garbage...yum!
Quick note here to further turn your stomach...one of the items served there: pidgeon! That was enough to prompt moans of disgust from a group of Koreans...people who's main culinary contribution is fermented cabbage...


This 青島啤酒, a Chinese brew that we consumed on the first night of our trip to Hong Kong. Now Korean brew is not the greatest beer in the world, but compared to this...d^.^b (thumbs up).
As an aside I had to order a Korean brew during our flight home...damn I am becoming a Korean.

So concludes Day 1 of my Hong Kong Trip.