The Big Buddha

Hello everyone! So for my last post from Hong Kong (at least for a little while), I wanted to show all of you pictures from our trip to see the Big Buddha! The Big Buddha is on a very high mountain in Hong Kong on an area called Lantau Island. Lantau Island is known for its rolling mountains and green areas as well its beautiful beaches (and the Hong Kong airport, rated the best airport in the world!) On this day, though, our focus was on seeing the Big Buddha, or Tian Tin, as he is known here, and the Po Lin Buddhist Monastery. To get to this place, we had to take a cable car over several mountains! We were very high up! At first it was a bit scary, but it was also very exciting. It is one of my favorite parts of Hong Kong, which is why I took so many pictures!

I hope you enjoy!

Jenny and I getting ready to board the cable cars. We ordered tickets for a "Crystal Cabin," meaning that the floor of the cable car was made of glass, so you could see the land and sea below you!

Jenny, Ellie, and I in the cable car!

The journey ahead... (the little dots in the distance are other cable cars)

Starting to go across the bay and up the mountain...

Me on the glass floor! That's the South China Sea below me!

Look how high up we already are!

Jenny decided to lay on the glass floor too, just like me!

There's the Big Buddha in the distance!

Getting really close now!

After walking through the little village that surrounds the statue and the monastery, we only had a little bit to go before getting to the statue.

Me in front of the entrance to the Po Lin Monastery.

About to start climbing the stairs to get to the statue.

Half-way up! Just a bit longer to go!

There he is! He is a BIG Buddha!

There were also several smaller statues, in addition to the Big Buddha. Legend has it that if you get a coin in the palm of one of the smaller statue's hands, you will have good luck for the rest of your life!

After exploring the statue for a while, we went down to the Monastery to look around. It was beautiful! So many beautiful carvings and sculptures.

After exploring the monastery for a while, I took a rest by the flowers outside. It was really pretty at the monastery, with people coming to pray and pay their respects.

This is the sunset from our cable car on the way back from the Big Buddha! It was a wonderful day!

There is still much more of Hong Kong to see, and I can't wait to come back and explore more of the city! Until then, though, Jenny and I are leaving tomorrow to travel to Singapore and Vietnam! We'll be sure to take lots of pictures over our vacation and send them to you in the new year! Happy Holidays everyone!

Meeting Jenny's Students!

Hi everyone! I hope you've enjoyed the posts so far!

After getting to explore downtown Hong Kong for a night, I had an even more exciting night the next night! Jenny took me to meet some of her students! Jenny is a teacher in Hong Kong, where she teaches college students English and History. We all went out to dinner together in an area called "Tsim Sha Tsui," or "TST." TST is famous for having lots of good restaurants and good shopping areas, but most of all for its view of the Hong Kong Skyline. This is Jenny's favorite part of the city, and I think it is my favorite part too!

Here are pictures with all of my new Hong Kong friends:

Jenny introducing me to her students. We had a delicious meal at an Indian food restaurant that night!

Half of her students: (from left) Vina, Luisa, Felix, Me, Billy, Alice, Jacqueline, and Betty.

Jenny wanted to pop in for a picture too.

The other half of her students, plus two of her best friends from college who were visiting Hong Kong: (from left) Joyce, Crystal, Max, Me, Ellie, Martin, Shelley, and Grace.

Jenny and I told everyone all about Texas and how far I had traveled. They wanted the chance to say hi to all of you, so we made a video for you! If you listen carefully, you will even hear some Cantonese! Jenny managed to hold the camera right side up this time, but she apologizes for her loud laughter in the background!

After dinner, we walked over to the lookout over Victoria Harbour (the body of water that separates Hong Kong Island - where we were yesterday - from Kowloon - where we that tonight).

This is Jenny and I in front of Nathan Road. Nathan Road goes all the way through Kowloon and into the New Territories, another region of Hong Kong. It is one of the longest streets in Hong Kong, as well as one of the most famous!

Here we all are in front of the Peninsula Hotel, the most beautiful and most famous hotel in Hong Kong. They have their own luxury shopping mall inside (you can order diamonds from your room!), and they have their own army of dark green Rolls-Royces, one of the fanciest cars on Earth! It is a pretty fancy place!

Here is the Hong Kong skyline and Victoria Harbour! This isn't even the entire skyline, just about 1/3 of it. It would be impossible to get the whole skyline in one picture!

Here is the whole class together in front of the skyline! It's very blurry, but that just shows you how fast everything moves in Hong Kong!

I hope you have enjoyed meeting Jenny's students with me! See you again soon!

Hong Kong at Night!

Just for a preview of the wonderful views of the Hong Kong skyline that will come later, I wanted to show you all some of the famous Hong Kong skyscrapers at night. Above is the Bank of China Tower, lit up for the nightly light show. All the lights along the building dance along with the music. Here is a video of the light show! (Unfortunately you can't hear the music, and Jenny also apologizes for filming the video sideways!)

Enjoy!

My First Glimpse of Downtown Hong Kong

Hi everyone! For the first day of our adventure, Jenny took me and her friend Ellie downtown to see the skyscrapers and lights that make Hong Kong famous. As you can see, it was very cloudy when we went - it is often very cloudy in Hong Kong! It rains almost 4 months out of the year! Even though the weather was damp, that did not stop us from sightseeing.

Here I am in front of the HSBC Hong Kong building. It is the biggest bank in Hong Kong. The building is famous because it looks a lot like a machine on the outside. Someone once said it could be taken apart, piece by piece, and then put back together again. That would take a lot of work! I like this building because of how it lights up at night.

This is the Bank of China Tower. Yes, another bank! Hong Kong has lots of banks. It is the most important financial city in Asia. Lots of people come here to do business. That's probably why everyone downtown wears suits! This is Jenny's favorite building in Hong Kong. It looks like a giant mirror in the daytime, and at night, it also has a cool light show.

This is the Legislative Council, or LegCo, Building. Hong Kong has a representative government, much like Congress in the United States, that is different from the Chinese government. Hong Kong is a very special city in China - it has its own government, its own currency (money), and even speaks a different language than much of the rest of China (Hong Kongers speak Cantonese while Mainlanders speak Mandarin). It's a very special place!

This is in Statue Square, in front of the HSBC Building. This gentleman is a British man who built several important banks in Hong Kong. Part of the reason why Hong Kong is a little bit different than China is that it was ruled by Great Britain from 1842 - 1997, over 150 years! In 1997, Hong Kong came back to China in what is called the "Hand-Over." Everyone in both Hong Kong and Mainland China remembers that day, July 1, 1997, because there were big ceremonies and lots of fireworks and celebrations! It was a very proud moment for China to have Hong Kong again, since the city is known as "the Pearl of the Orient."

These are some of the decorations for the East Asian Games, which are taking place right now in Hong Kong. These are like a smaller version of the Olympics, with all of the countries in East Asia participating: China, Hong Kong, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Mongolia, Taiwan, and Guam.

This is the IFC building behind me. It was featured in the latest Batman movie, "The Dark Knight." It is the fourth-tallest building in the world! It's so tall that sometimes the clouds cover up the top of the building!

Jenny took us out for "dim sum" at the most famous dim sum restaurant in the city, Maxim's Palace at City Hall. It was beautiful! "Dim Sum" is a type of Cantonese food that you eat for breakfast or lunch, where all of the portions are little bite-sized snacks. We had shrimp, pork, crab, fish, beef, tofu, chicken, and lots of other food! It was delicious!

Here is our friend Ellie eating dim sum with us!

Here I am with my plate of dim sum! These pieces of dim sum are: an egg tart (the yellow mini-pie), a fried sesame ball with sweet potato paste, a steamed shrimp dumpling, a fried taro dumpling (taro is like a potato), and a barbeque pork bun. It was sweet on the outside but had barbeque on the inside! These look small, but it fills you up fast!

All that's left to eat now is the dessert!

That's all for my first day in Hong Kong! Make sure to come back and check out my next post, where I get to see some of the Hong Kong skyscrapers at night, all lit up!

Hello from Hong Kong!

Hi everyone! My name is Flat Avery, and I was just sent to Hong Kong by your classmate, Avery Holt. She sent me here to visit her old neighbor Jenny, who now lives here as a teacher. It took me a long time to get here, since I had to travel over 8,200 miles to get here! Now that I am here, though, I love this city! It is very bright and busy. There are over 7 million people that live in this city, so it is one of the most crowded cities in the whole world!

I have been staying at the Chinese University of Hong Kong with Jenny, which is on top of a very high mountain in the city. We love it up here!

Over the next few days, I will be posting pictures on this blog of all of the fun adventures that Jenny, her friends, and I have been having in Hong Kong. So far I have seen lots of skyscrapers, lots of mountains, a few beaches, and lots and lots of stores! I can't wait to share more of my adventure with you!