Arrrrgh! Damn pirates!

Charlie and I took our first Hong Kong ferry ride today to a little outlying island called Cheung Chau. 

We explored the hell out of it and I am exhausted and nearing my bedtime, so I'm mostly going to show you photos.

Here are a couple shots of Hong Kong as we were leaving on the ferry.




Whee!




I'm not really a boat person (or into vehicles of any sort, for that matter), but we passed a bunch of cool ones that I had never seen before.

We intersected this one so closely that it looked like we might hit it.


This one was somehow suspended above the water and gliding along on three stilts.


One of many old-looking vessels that reminded me of something out of the Popeye movie.


The legs of this apparent water spider actually have fishing nets suspended from them.


Cheung Chau Village waterfront shops as seen from the approaching ferry.


Our stomachs were growling by the time we docked so we headed over to a seafood restaurant that Tony and Elena recommended.  Outside it had giant tanks full of sea creatures which one had the option of selecting for lunch.  Now that's guaranteed freshness.

This tank contained a giant fish and a manta ray.


More creatures!  There were various types of fish, a giant sea turtle, octopi (one of which had managed to jimmy the lid off of the container he was in), and lots of crabs, lobsters and shrimp.  We discovered that shrimp can jump and were doing so from pool to pool.  There was also a blue crab munching on a small lobster and a big snail, perhaps aware of his fate, attempting to escape.




There was no one in the restaurant, which is usually a bad sign, but in this case we were just very early.  Right away we were served hot tea, small sweet onions and peanuts.


Here is Charlie munching on some appetizers with some of our aquatic friends in view over his shoulder.


We ordered fried squid with vegetables (if you look closely you can see the purple tentacles),


a vegetarian medley of mushrooms, broccoli, and other veggies... half of which we had downed before remembering to take a picture,


and fried shrimp with vegetables (mostly broccoli).


After lunch we wander through the village which had a very every-day feel to it.  Sure, there were plenty of restaurants and trinket shops catering to tourists, but most of it was fresh seafood markets and shops containing everyday household necessities.  One particularly interesting thing about this island is that no cars are allowed, so there were a lot of bikes and small battery or propane powered utility vehicles no larger than golf carts.




A stall selling every imaginable type of dried sea creature.


We wandered into a tea house where the salesman kindly invited us to sample some tea and even performed a little bit of a ceremony for us, pouring the tea back and forth between glasses and then pouring it over a wooden frog with a coin in its mouth (as always, for good luck!)


After some aimless wandering we decided for the first time to follow a guide book - we chose Lonely Planet's walking tour suggestion, which was about 3 miles long.

Our first stop was the Pak Tai Temple, built in 1783.


The temple opened out directly onto a basketball court and playground.  Apparently, Michael Jordan moves are unwelcome.  The sign reads "Dunk Shot is not Encouraged".  As we left the temple we saw a group of young male tourists who we assumed could read neither Chinese nor English because they were trying to devise a way to achieve a dunk shot.  At that point it involved one boy interlocking his fingers to make a step for another boy who took a running start and attempted to use the first boy's hand as a spring board.  They were not successful.


Next we passed a traditional Chinese house.  There don't seem to be many of these left in Hong Kong.


We passeed this is a sacred banyan tree in one of the major plazas in the village.


Then we arrived at Tung Wan beach.  It looked refreshing.


After walking for quite a while, we came across Kwan Kung Pavilion.


Here is Charlie showing that this lion statue outside the pavilion has a movable stone ball in its mouth.


The view from the top of the trail.


This is someone's house!  It was made entirely of stumps of wood and junk.  The door is to the right of the big tree.




A lovely dried-up creek bed.  There were two sleeping dogs and a sunbather in it, but you can't really see them in this picture.


I'm frightened! Why?


Because the sign is telling us about the Cheung Po Tsai pirate cave, our finally destination on our hike.


Rounding the finally bend in the trail before the cave entrance.


We knew we had reached the cave when we saw a long line of people, mostly school children, waiting to go in.  Noticing that everyone had flashlights, I remembered the tour book saying that it was a good idea to bring them along.  We were probably the only people who didn't have them.  As the line moved and we neared the cave entrance I could see people gingerly climbing down into a precarious looking 3-foot wide hole in the rocks.  We both got most of the way into the hole and then realized that it was so dark that it would be really dangerous for us to continue.  Many people tried to light our way for us, but we were carrying so many souvenir treasures that we would not have been able to use both hands to steady ourselves and feel our way around.  So, disappointed, we climbed back out of the cave.

At this point we were a good distance from the ferry terminal, so we caught a kaido (a type of small boat) back over to the main pier.  The tour book said that the price of this ride was $3 HKD.  Charlie tried to had the man $6 HKD, but that didn't seem to be enough so the man selected the fare from a collection of coin currency in Charlie's hand.  We realized afterward that he had taken about $20 HKD, which was even more than our long ferry ride to the island in the first place.  Luckily, that's only about $2.50 USD.

Here's what the kaido looked like.


We saw this cool boat during our ride to the ferry pier.


When we got off the kaido, we were amused by this sign.  Apparently it is illegal to vacuum, explode, drill, poison, or electrocute sea creatures.


It was getting late and we were having guests for dinner (some of Tony's church colleagues) so we made our way back on the Fast Ferry.  It bobbed up and down so bad that it was a little sickening, but we made it without vomiting.  Horray!

Next up, Macau!