adulthood is full of fun surprises like what will break today? An appliance? A body part? My spirit?

Happy Lunar New Year!!

With the park closure, and all entertainment venues closed, this really only leaves hiking and staycations to fill our days. I had been hiking all of maybe twice before coming to HK this time, and now I can easily say I have almost done every HK common hike. 

Our first group hike was to Lions Rock ...well, sort of. The hike started up this massive hill, where we could (and should have) taken a taxi or a mini bus, but we stubbornly decided to walk. This was mistake number one because I was exhausted by the time we got to the top and had not even started the actual hike yet. 

From here, we made a left hand turn and began rock climbing (this was not correct). We ended up not taking the wrong path, and fully ended up bushwhacking our way up the entire mountain, following not only what was not a path at all, but instead a wild boars track up to his den. 

It was much easier to find the path down from the top, and walking down 9 million stairs was weirdly so much faster than having to fight through the trees and loose gravel on the way up.

So long story short, that mountain behind me, we fully free climbed to get to the top. 

10/10 do not recommend free climbing a mountain, but if you do, do it with these clowns cause you will have the best time. 

Another fun outdoor adventure was to visit the Go Green Organic Farm . 

This was a local community farm, where their pride and joy is the pineapple.  

With admission, you will get tokens for the claw machines, and the different activity centers. 

One of the activity centers was hammering your own leather keychain. 

There were also paint your tote bag, stamp collection, balloon animals, and the blessing tree. 

With Chinese New Year approaching, and most Chinese New Year activities cancelled, it was nice to be able to write our blessings on a tree and hang them like you do at the usual blessing tree. 

There were a lot of cute playground items we also tried not to break. 

The main reason for our visit was to see the farm animals. They had rabbits, goats, and of course, the main feature the alpacas. 

The brown alpacas name is Coffee, who was my favorite until he bit me in the arm and on the finger and left his little tooth marks on me, haha (don't worry no skin was broken)

These 2 white alpacas were Snow and Candy. The soft texture of their fleece reminded me of the texture of a sheep. 

This goofy looking guys name was Eat. He had a very strong underbite that reminded me of a dog we had as a child. 

Look at those big eyes!

Each of the 4 alpacas had a card suit shaved into their side, so it was easier to tell them apart. 

We ended the day with pineapple ice cream in a pineapple bun with fresh pineapple honey juice and added our visitor stickers to the walk of fame. It was a lovely day.

One of the best parts about living in Hong Kong is always the ease that comes with travel, but obviously with the pandemic we are not able to do that. We have done some staycations to try and make us feel better about not being able to fly to Japan or South Korea on a moments notice. One of our staycations was a lovely gift from the Trislers, a stay in Tai O Fishing Village. We took the ferry from Tuen Mun to Tai O and began exploring the small village.

Tai O is one of my favorite places because of all the houses on stilts and the boats taking people on dolphin tours. This time, the village was a little more abandoned and sad looking. There were no dolphin tours due to the lack of tourism and only a handful of things were open.

famous Tai o Bakery donughts

For lunch we stopped at a local spot for the best sweet and sour chicken I have ever had (and found cause it does not really exist in HK) at Crossing Boat Restaurant. 

Our other staycation adventure was caravan camping near Pui O Beach on Lantau Island at JK Club.

Our campsite was cozy with our camper, tent, and bbq area, however, there were only maybe two other families staying there as well, so we had free roam of the land. 

Sleeping quarters were quite cozy as well. The length of the bed was the exact tip of my head to the tip of my toes, but the bed itself was surprisingly cushy. 

My favorite part of the campsite was visiting with the goats. 

There were also several small bunnies we got to feed.

We took the short walk to Pui O Beach to watch the sunset, and it was one of the highlights of this trip. We practically had the beach to ourselves, and the water was comfortable enough that we could stick our toes in.

A bunch of native Floridians were very at home. 

The view on the walk to the beach from the campsite was also incredible. Complete with wild cows and beautiful sunbeams.

My favorite part of the trip was bbq-ing over the fire pit with Chef Bayley giving us all the cooking tips. Finishing the night was s'mores was the perfect cherry on top. 

The next morning was an early one for me because I had rehearsal, but everyone else got to make breakfast burritos and go waterfall hiking. 

It is crazy to me that yet another Chinese New Year is cancelled this year, but here we are. Hoping this year of the Tiger is better than some in the past. Since everything is closed, we tried to make the most of the holiday by visiting some temples.

And what is more important than during the holidays than getting together with friends for meals. We had a small get together with our friends at the start of the Lunar New Year Holiday to share Lai See and a meal (bai lin). 

We also played on the Oculus and fish, shrimp, crab gambling  games after to erase the trauma of me finding out my Chinese Zodiac animal is actually a goat and not a monkey like I always thought it was. 

We have also eaten out a lot these days to try and fill the time  Lunch at Chaiwala was one of my favorites-

another amazing set lunch at Crust with Kristina and Elysia-

Lunch at the 1970s vintage food hall with some of the spiciest food I have ever had with Elysia, Scarlet, and Cara.

Restaurants are still required to close at 6pm, which can make going out for dinner impossible, so we do a lot of family dinners at home instead. One of my favorite nights was taco night complete with homemade (gluten free) churros!

Hong Kong has had almost 100 cases daily of Covid, varying between Omicron and Delta. There are theories that this wave started from a batch of imported hamsters who they believe were infected and spread to people, so several infected hamsters were confiscated and killed to "contain" it. However it actually started, we are in the thick of it once again. Park has been shut since January 6, and there is really no guessing when it will reopen. As of now, Mike and I are set to return back to the states in mid April, but with the current international flight ban into Hong Kong, we are remaining flexible and will have to see what happens. 

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