On monday me and Niina decided to be proper tourists again and go see the Big Buddha on Lantau island. We had to do some stuff for school in the morning so we couldnt head out as early as we would have liked but we still had a nice day out. Lantau is actually the biggest island in Hong Kong, the airport and Disneyland are located there as well but other than that and the Big Buddha, I got the impression that theres not much else happening there. They probably have quite nice beaches, at least I spotted a few. Oh and some fishing village where you can see some pink dolphins and a more rural scene. We didnt have enough time to go there but we are planning on going again.

Waiting for the bus in Tung Chung.

The Buddha was located on top of a big hill but it wasnt as big as I thought it would be so I have to admit I was a bit dissapointed. It was really windy up there but that was just nice and made me want to stay there for longer to keep cool. About halfway through the steps there were loads of dragonflies that really flew right in your face! Not a good place to start freaking out about it though cos there are a quite a few steps on the way down to make your fall very very soft...

Its really weird, dont know if you can see it in the photo, but the Buddha had a massive nazi mark (hakaristi) on íts chest.. They also had them on the gates at the bottom of the stairs and Ive seen them in other places in HK as well... Have to check out whats up with that.

Some scenery from the top.

There were also quite a few temples and apparently as the Po Lin Monastery is located up there too the monks have sessions in them quite often. Of course we didnt see one but never mind, if you cant see them pray, just do it your self...

And as no blog entry would be complete without talk of food I have to tell you about our lunch experience as well! ;) As the monks are vegetarians you can only get veggie meals in the area. That was more than fine with me as I havent really tried tofu yet and the meal set we got included two different kinds of it (or at least I think it was tofu... :D). It was just a shame that the restaurant they had up there was massive and basically empty apart from us and maybe two other tables. It felt a bit akward to eat when the whole staff was standing next to our table and watching us try the dishes.. But it all went well and the food was quite tasty.

Niina is scooping out the massive whole mushroom in the soup...

The rest of the meal with some boiled rice in the pot as well.

Weve actually started to go to lessons now as well... A lot of them were cancelled last week so we basically had time off till last thursday. Were taking courses in Airline management, visitor management, exhibition management and China hotel & tourism. Everyone here is clearly focusing on a certain area like aviation or MICE or hotel management etc. and me and Niina and Olli dont have anything like that since at Jyväskylä we just study a bit of everything and dont really specialize in anything... so I guess it just feels a bit weird as all of the locals and most of the other exchange students know what theyre gonna be doing after they graduate. Anybody have a clear vision in Mankola...? ;)

On all of the courses we have to do group projects in groups of 5-6. We only have one group together so far and it seems to be working out ok (most of us are exchange students tho) but well see how its going in about a month or so... Hopefully still ok. The cool thing about most of the courses is that we get to go on field trips! And not just to any stupid place that you really couldnt care less about but really cool destinations... Like on China hotel & tourism were doing a 3-day field trip to Shanghai and on Exhibition management were going to.... tadaa... South Korea!!!! How cool is that!?!? But we dont really know if were gonna go as they are quite expensive and were already stressing about saving money anyways.. Well see, it would be such a great opportunity though! :)

One more from Lantau... again they had loads of incense sticks everywhere. In the background you can see a massive pot with 3 really big ones.

Today we were looking for cheap fruit and veg as theyre quite expensive in the shops. We didnt really find cheaper places but we did find a market that a local girl told me about on saturday... and well, it was quite an experience. We saw a guy gutting a living frog, chicken in tiny, tiny cages going to the chopping block, fish gasping for air next to water tanks (yes next to them, not in them), meat hanging from hooks etc etc etc. And it was actually for the first time during our stay here that I felt a bit uncomfortable or maybe more amused by the local peoples reaction. Everyone was staring at us and one of the booth keepers even took a photo of us. I guess that not a lot of tourist go there, it was a bit on the side of the main roads and not very clearly signed.

What would you like? Weve got some testicals or hearts or brains....

We finally also applied for 6 month visas to China today ($460). We should get them on thursday morning, and then we can come and go whenever we want and how many times we want :) We still havent quite decided if were gonna go this weekend.. some other Finnish guys are going to Macau so we might go with them and spend a few days there. Maybe well get exteremely lucky in one of the dozens of casinos and triple our travelling money... or than again lose everything.. with my luck and gambling skills... losing everything is more likely to happen... :D But really, this weekend we ARE going to go somewhere out of HK!

This photo has got nothing to do with any of this text, I just wanted to show you the big tree I found in central HK the other day :)