Tomorrow I’ll be heading back to Hong Kong to start a new job. I came back to Taipei over a week ago to take it easy and clear my head before things started getting busy. I’ve met some great friends here, went to the beach, and celebrated Canada Day way more than how I would’ve celebrated it back home.

This is a pic of a pedestrian bridge at Fulong Beach that carries people from the main town to the sandbar that is actually the beach. It was busy and you had to pay to get on the beach, then you had to pay to rent a spot on the beach! Nevertheless, it was an awesome day.

My favourite kind of shot, as some of you know. MACRO! This is a shot of Squid Finger sushi in a restaurant in HK. Looks a bit creepy but it was crunchy and refreshing. Not to mention so cheap!

Just for fun: Me taking down Bruce Lee! haha. Taken at the Peak of Hong Kong where they had a Madame Tussaud’s.

This is a pic of the famous cathedral facade in Macau from the view of the steps. It was a cloudy, overcast day and the light wasn’t all that great. But I like how this shot turned out with the overexposed sky behind the facade.

It’s almost the end of the second leg of my trip in Asia. My sister is leaving to go back to Vancouver tomorrow and for me, I’ll probably stay in Hong Kong for a few more days, do a bit of work on Booksprouts, before going back to Taipei.

We’ve done a tonne of sightseeing around here. Today, we went to Macau on the TurboJet speedboats. The seas were choppy though and the lady in front was puking the whole way. Poor lady. The casinos were ho-hum but the cathedral facade in the center of the city was very cool. I’ve got some pics that will be uploaded soon.

The latest few pics on the blog are from our trip to the south coast of Hong Kong Island. We went to a neat seaside resort town called Stanley where it’s mostly expats living in fancy glass houses overlooking the water. On the other side is Aberdeen, where we went on a junk boat tour but really saw more fishing boats than anything. The city of Aberdeen itself was a bit rundown and seemed to feed primarily on it’s fishing industry. It was all a bit gloomy but that could’ve been more because of the crappy weather conditions.

We’ve done a lot more but there’s too much to write down for now. I’ll have more pics up soon!

This pic was taken quite a few days ago in a small seaside city called Danshui north of Taipei. I’ve taken hundreds of photos since then and been to countless more places. However, I forgot my USB cable so I can’t get them off of my camera just yet. Hopefully, that situation will be resolved today if I can go get an SD card reader.

About the pic, the beach looks kind of dirty and the harbor looks a bit industrial. It was definitely like that upon closer inspection.

A bit behind in posts. A few nights ago, we went to Shilin Night Market, which is the largest one in Taipei because we heard that they sold puppies there. After walking around awhile, we found the alleyway that had all the animals for sale. They were very cute but it was slightly inhumane considering how we’re used to the way animals are treated in North America. I didn’t take any pictures, but above is a replica of what it looked like. Ok no, they had a bit more space than that. But you get the idea.

In Hong Kong now. It’s warm and busy. Much like Taipei, with more foreigners and no scooters! yay. i’ve decided I don’t like scooters unless I’m riding one myself.

Yesterday we went to the top of Taipei 101. It’s currently the tallest building in the world, with the fastest elevators in the world! The elevators themselves were suprisingly smooth and featured pressurized cabins to prevent ear popping. Though mine did pop a bit.

Once we got to the top, I think it’s natural for everyone to get a bit of vertigo when you first look out the window. Nothing in Taipei is even close to being as tall as the 101. After awhile, we got a bit more adjusted to the view, but I would still get a bit jumpy if switching from outside view to inside view. We also got a chance to go outside but it was so closed off up there that it wasn’t very interesting.

As for the view, it was as expected. Smoggy! You can see for yourself in this picture. However, just being in such a huge structure as the 101 was good enough for me. Also, when you get to the bottom, there’s a really good food court with all kinds of stuff that you wouldn’t find in Vancouver. Not really adventurous foods, but more like creative ways to make food court stuff interesting. For example, we ordered a huge iron personal teppanyaki grill that came with all the food sizzling on top. You could also have food court shabu shabu or huge steel bowls full of noodles. All super-cheap.