The Great Asian Race: Day 5

Okay, so there are two reasons that I am only doing one day on this post. The first is that I am tired and I have not been able to conquer my jetlag even though I have been home for almost a week. The second is that the next two days both have a lot of pictures so this would be a VERY long post. Day 5 was a day that was centered on being on Kowloon Island of Hong Kong. It is one of the main areas other than Hong Kong Island that a lot of people congregate, so we had a lot to see.

Yep, still trying to get the hang of using chopsticks. Just so you know the outcome...I do get a bit better by the end of the trip, but it was a bit embarassing when everyone would wait for me to try to get my food first and then laugh when I dropped food everywhere. This was a pretty good restaurant that we got dim sum at.

These next two pictures are us on the subway. The subway systems in Asia are pretty cool. They are set up well, and everyone rides them because of that. It was really nice to be able to get on the train and arrive at our destination in a couple of minutes without worrying about getting stuck in traffic!

We of course had to start out the day by going to a Temple. That is how most days started anyway :) There was so much incense burning that it was hard to breath and my eyes were burning. But this is all very important to the people here. They also had a lot of food set out everywhere so that their relatives would not go hungry in the after life.

Finally out of the smoke of the main temple and entering the temple gardens.

The temple waterfalls and pagodas were peaceful in all of the chaos.

Then we got back on the Subway and one stop later we were at the LDS Temple! Okay we had to walk a block or two, but really we got there pretty fast!

This is the picture I took as I came around the corner. It is pretty amazing to see the Temple there in the middle of this busy bustling city!!

This is just the front of the temple. I thought it was pretty. We couldn't do a session in the Temple because it was closed the whole time we were there.

This is a Black and White I took as I stood on the street below.

There happened to be two missionaries walking around the outside even though the temple was closed so we chatted with them a bit. Turns out that one of the elders was once an almost neighbor. He is from Mendon, right there in good ole Cache Valley. I made him feel bad when I said I had just left Logan and it was blizzarding (is that a word?) there. I think I made him homesick since he only had 6 months left. Whoops.

As we walked away from the temple this is the sign I saw.....

So the background to this is that Love Hotels are hourly hotels, but they are mostly not seedy hotels. They are kind of a necessity for big Asian cities with lots of people in small spaces with paper thin walls. You get my drift.

Next stop....Mong Kok. It was a very busy area, with street markets, flourescent signs everywhere and neverending throngs of people.

This is just one of my favorite pictures from the trip (I have quite a few). You can see all the signs that are outside the buildings. It is definitely overwhelming.

This is a recurring sight. Chris is a bit obsessed with maps, which is sometimes a good thing since we usually didn't know where we were at.

Let me explain this picture a bit. At first you wonder what and why this picture is important. Well, this is what we call a "Booth Babe". In Asia everything is sold by a pretty girl, and most electronics are sold by a pretty girl in a cute little pleather outfit. We thought this was funny becuase not only did we get to document a picture of a "Booth babe", but as you can see, there are a bunch of guys going crazy taking her picture as if she was some sort of celebrity. the "Booth Babe" Paparazzi.

More of the amazing network of signs in Mong Kok. Amazing.

Last on our list for the day was a good ole laser light show. From Kowloon you can look across the bay at Hong Kong Island and enjoy what The Guiness Book of World Records calls the biggest laser light show around. It did have pretty lame music, but I was impressed that they orchestrated all of those buildings into a whole light show. It is like the water show at the Bellagio at Vegas, except the WHOLE city is in on the show. Pretty amazing. They do the laser light show every night at 8:00.

As you can see, even the boat that was crossing in front of my camera when I too the picture was in on the lights. I don't know if they are always decorated, or if the boats were all decorated for Christmas. Oh well.

There is the Batman building again...

You can also see from this picture that a lot of the buildings had also added some "extra" Christmas flair.

By this time we are all pretty tired, so we all rested a bit before we headed back to our hotels for the night. Paul and Susan's family was staying out on Lantau Island so they had to take the ferry, but like I said before, Chris and I had a short train ride back to our hotel.

Asia Amazing Race Day 6 to be continued....