This past week has been filled with fun! Wednesday I planned a trip to the Science Museum because frankly, I am a museum nerd. I went a little bit crazy when we got there...the mirror hall was my favorite--it was fun to sit at a table with a bunch of me's and to see myself upside down, reversed, headless, squat, and tall. On Thursday, I went out to an Italian place with our professors for a group dinner; the topic was book lovers and you KNOW that I had fun with that! We all talked about our favorite books and I have a lot of recommendations now. Lots of people in my group (and in the Global group in general) really love the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Afterward we got yummy frozen yogurt. Friday I also went out to eat with a couple of the girls at yet another Italian restaurant, and got my secret santa their gift! (shhh don't tell. It's PERFECT and I can't wait to give it to him/her). That night we had a big girls' night and watched the movie Love Actually to get us in the Christmas spirit. We'll be watching whatever Christmas movies we can get our hands on in the next few weeks.
On Saturday, a group of us visited the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery in Sha Tin, a beautiful monastery on a mountain that literally has ten thousand Buddhas inside. The walls of the temple itself were lined with little golden Buddhas, each with a light in front of it so that the whole room glittered and glowed. Outside in the courtyard there were Buddha statues of all shapes and sizes, some with extra long arms or legs and all with varying expressions on their faces, from grumpy to insane-looking to extremely serene. It was pretty interesting, and the view was gorgeous. On our way back down the mountain we encountered some scary dogs (thankfully they were behind a fence) and some HUGE monkeys that we were scared to look at because we felt like they could see the fear on our faces and they might attack! But they scarcely noticed us actually. We also stopped at Wing Wo bee farm halfway down the mountain, which was pretty much just a small farm located in the back of someone's house. We saw the boxes where the bees made their honey and literally walked through swarms of bees. They would smack into us every so often but each bee was so busy that they didn't bother to sting us. It took a huge effort not to swat at them or scream and run. We bought some delicious honey too! That night our group had planned a night out on the town, and we went to Central, the bar/club/restaurant center of Hong Kong. It is a happening place late at night for the youth and mid-twenty crowd! We ate some nachos at the Hard Rock cafe, walked around for a bit, and later went to a 24-hour breakfast place called the Flying Pan. That was MY goal of the night, to eat breakfast! And it was delightful.
To end the weekend, today we were taken, compliments of our professors, to an ice skating rink located on the 5th floor of a mall. These Hong Kong-ians are crazy, aren't they? Who thinks to put a skating rink that high up in a mall? Anyway, it was very fun and I only fell once... however I DID make a fool of myself trying to learn figure skating moves from my friend Kelsey. It was so nice to feel like I was doing a Minnesota-type activity and it made me miss home a little bit. Some grocery shopping happened afterward, and now I'm back in the hotel writing to you all! Pictures to come in the next post!