The past 5 days (easter break) Nate came to visit me from his study abroad program in Spain. I became a tour guide. I hadn't done too much pre-planning since I had some big projects due the week he arrived, so instead I sort of figured out where we could go and what we could do as each day came. This is probably why I got lost a lot and the reason why we wasted a good amt of sightseeing/eating/shopping time in transit. But it was all apart of an experience of HK i guess. Anyways, I enjoyed it and I think nate did as well :).
We used both our cameras to take pictures. Nate has much more than I do but here's some that I took.
FRIDAY
picked nate up from the airport. showed him my room. took him to the Anne Black YWCA where we'd be living for the next 4 nights. The
Anne Black YWCA is a hotel where a lot of the PolyU exchange students are staying. Then we had some dinner and i showed him some hong kong night life in Wan Chai and Lan Kwai Fong. It was quiet in Wan Chai but ridiculously packed in Lan Kwai Fong. We didn't go into any of the clubs tho since we weren't dressed apporpriately and we didnt' really want to pay to get in :/. However, we did see a live band and got some drinks at "club" 7-11. Unfortunately, neither of us remembered to take any pictures the first day.
On the way to pick up Nate I saw this in the mall by the student halls. A cute little talent show. Well at least this girl anyways. She didn't actually do anything.. but that may have been better than the next girl that came on.

This was the next girl. I can't believe her mom dressed her up like this. I took a video of a small bit of the brittney spears-like dance she did. It was crazy.

SATURDAY
We shopped around the ladies market and went to Lan Tau Island only to find that the line for the cable cars was waay too long so we rode the MTR all the way to the other side of hong kong to hike Dragons back and see Big Wave Bay. We were going to go back out that night to Lan Kwai Fong dressed to impress.. but i was so exhausted from the hike (during which we took a very wrong turn that ended up adding an hour or 2 to our total hike time) that I couldnt bring myself to get up to go out, sorry nate :/. However, we were energized after a 2-3hr nap and decided to get some food. It was 2-3am when we went out to find some food and surpisingly.. a lot of people were out.. and a lot of food shops were still open! I took nate to eat some centry egg congee, you tiao, and ox tail rice sheets.
Here's some pictures in transit, the market, and on the hike.
Mong Kok station

one of the many street markets (tents on the left shops on the right)

nate and I deviated off the trail and explored another side of dragons back

feeling triumphant? :)

There was an amazing view

I tried to capture the steepness of the mountain/rocks we were exploring.
I was actually kind of scared.. it was really windy. I'm happy to say though that my converses kept me pretty well grounded despite their lack of features for hiking.

SUNDAY
Nate and I went to Mei Foo Park for a skate sesh. Rode the star ferry to HK Island then had some dinner in Times Square.
Mei Foo Park was huge..

Skater kids :)

We met some guys from NY or NJ..?

Nate doin some trix. I got some good footage of a trick or two as well on Nate's camera.

Nate on the ferry

Hong Kong Island from the Star Walk

Hot Pot Dinner - best handmade dumplings i've ever had not pictured.

MONDAY
shopping. we went to 3 malls. starting from the top and working our way down south; Festival Walk (a mall with an ice skating rink inside and hk's largest cinema), Langham Place Mall (a 15 floor mall with 5 story escalators), Harbour City (giant mall along the HK harbour with 700 shops). Inbetween we had tons of little snacks and foods (MOS burger, pig intestine on a stick, egg plant/tofu/pepper snack, bubble tea.. in an ambiguous green color... i forget what flavor.. nate just pointed to a picture b/c sometimes they don't always have english translations, and some more that I may have forgotten)
In Harbour city we came across a Barbie exhibition :).

Diors "New Look" + some others

Random art in the mall

TUESDAY
we weren't sure what to do so after eating some breakfast (we had bakery food for breakfast every morning.. nate has pictures) and lunch (some grilled chicken vermacelli) we decided to go back to Lan Tau Island to ride the cable cars. We figured the line wouldn't be long since the holidays were over and to our luck, there wasn't any line at all! nate has pictures of the ridiculous line from saterday. The cable cars were pretty amazing. It was a 20min ride up and 20min ride back down and we got to run up some stairs to see the big buddha inbetween. Nate has pictures of this as well.. i only got this one before my battery died.
In the cable car.. we got one all to ourselves!

Afterwords we shopped around the ladies market and temple street looking for a fake Louis Vuitton bag for Nate's Madre. We couldn't find one.. but bumped into a friend of mine who told us to go to Stanley Market, which was really far from where we were, so we had to give up. We continued to shop around our area for a while before heading back to collect nate's things to go to the airport... :(.
We had a small bit of trouble at the airport checking in his bag+skateboard but I just talked to Nate and it seems everything arrived in Spain including himself.. safely and undamaged.