Mai Po Nature Reserve

 On Sunday, we went to the Mai Po Nature Reserve and went on a bird watching tour. This was arranged for us by the marketing coordinator of the Mai Po Nature Reserve who we interviewed for our project. He believed that they were conducting ecotourism on the reserve and he wanted us to experience it. We took one of their few English-guided tours and got into the reserve for free. The reserve is way up North so it took awhile to get there.

This is Amy, licking sugar cane paper...

2.4.12 - Macau

On Saturday, we went to Macau. They ferry ride was around an hour long. It was a hydro-planing boat which was really cool. We had to go through customs to get to Macau! We had to go through customs to leave Hong Kong and then go through customs to get into Macau. This meant that in total we went through customs 4 times in one day. Lots of stamps in my passport!!! :D

 We took a tram through Central to get to the pier that the Macau ferries left from. The tram is kinda like a hybrid between a double decker bus and a street car in San Francisco. They are quite rickety and are known as ding-dings in Hong Kong due to the sound they make.

 This is our ferry. Look how fancy! It's like an airplane! Fancy seats, seat back pockets, service, TV, etc.

 The first thing that we did when we got there was to head to Macau Tower. This is one of the views from the 360 Observation deck.

 "Why live on the edge when you can jump off?"

Four of our fellow students decided to bungy jump off the tower. Can I just say that i was SOOOOOOOOO jealous??? This is now DEFINITELY on my list of things to do. It was close to $350 USD without buying the video, photos, etc. For thrill events, this is not absolutely ridiculous, but still expensive... I couldn't justify spending that much of my budget... I still regret not doing it

 The MGM Grand Hotel is Macau.

 Beef and noodles at dim sum

 xiao long bau - soup dumplings

 barbeque pork buns!

 beautiful park!

 some sort of statue...

 Amy in little Miami. Look at all the Palm Trees!

 This reminded me of New Orleans!!!

 There were monks EVERYWHERE

gorgeous flowers

 Flashy! So much like Vegas.

 Look at this monstrosity! Kinda cool lit up...

Catholic Cathedral

 Cool leftover decorations from Chinese New Years

 Me in the plaza

Friday 2.3.12- work, dinner and the Peak

On Friday, I still was not feeling great but I didn't want to stay home from work again/be cooped up in the apartment all day. At work, we spent the day outlining our findings chapter. We all worked together in a Google Doc to create our outline and make topic sentences and introductory paragraphs for the major sections. For lunch, Amy and I went to the supermarket (Taste) to get food to bring back to the library. I got a chicken Caesar salad. It was so nice to have a salad!!! It was the strangest Caesar salad I have ever had, but really good. It had romaine and iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, Parmesan, bacon, chicken and croutons. After work, I went home and relaxed for like an hour. Then Andrew and I went out to dinner at the Dumpling Kitchen.

 Pork and leek pan-fried dumplings, beef shin and rice and hot and sour soup :D

Andy eating a dumpling

Then we took the Peak Tram up to the top of the Peak to take some night pictures of the city and do some souvenir shopping.

 In front of the entrance to the Peak Tram in Central.

 View from the tram while we were going up.

 The exit of the Peak Tram on top of Victoria's Peak.

A lot of the other pictures are just similar pictures of the skyline, but with different camera settings.

 There were posters of this all around Central. Andrew and I decided to make our own rendition to submit to the Tourism Board.

 That green spec in the background? That's Langham Place. That is right near where we live. I think I see my house from here?

 Andrew and I

Grounnnnnnnnnnnnddddddddddddddhog Day

Unfortunately, I was not feeling well today so I stayed home from work and wrote the background chapter in my apartment. That was the my day. Writing and resting.

Wednesday, February 1st

Wednesday was a day of writing. I spent most of the day writing our background. Katie, Paul and Amy spent most of the day writing our methodology section. We also prepared for our meeting the following day. That night, we had a meeting with all 26 of us at the Caritas Learning Center. We went over how to write a findings chapter and how to prepare our final presentations, focusing on our results and recommendations rather than background and methodology.
That was the extent of my day. Woo!