Second Weekend

Hong Kong did not have the nicest weather this past weekend, but with only 5 weeks in this incredible city I would not be deterred from staying as busy as possible. On Saturday one of the exchange students who was here for the spring term and stayed for the summer term took us to his favorite hiking trail in Hong Kong called Dragon's Back. The trail has a reputation for being one of the most beautiful in all of Asia and despite the cloudy skies the trail lived up to its reputation.

Hiking Group

The beach we celebrated the end of our all day hike at

Celebration dinner of the best beef noodle I've had to date!

Saturday was exhausting and we woke up to rain on Sunday, but after it cleared around 1pm a small group of us took the MTR for about an hour and a half to the other side of Hong Kong, boarded a 25 minute long cable car ride, and visited what is likely the most famous landmark in Hong Kong: The Tian Tian Buddha (or just Big Buddha). The clouds greatly obscured our view but the huge figure still commanded a grand presence despite only allowing clear shots of it every 20minutes or so when the clouds favorably parted.

From the cable car, you can see a hiking trail that would take hours as the alternative route

Tian Tian Buddha

Close up

Despite the weather it was great to visit this famous Buddha and I couldn't help thinking about how thankful I am just to have been there. Sure the pictures are not on some blue sky background but just the fact that I could visit this Buddha gives me an overwhelmingly lot to be thankful for. I think that's the mindset to be in while you're abroad. It was another incredible weekend and now I've put off studying for my second Mandarin quiz long enough so I gotta get to it. Also got my final paper topic for government and politics so I'm going to have to start on that essay soon too. Midterms came up fast in this 5 week summer session!

Working on my characters for Mandarin!