Leaf Eating Monster

This is the caterpillar like creature that ate most of our big leafed plants. Christine thinks it will turn into a butterfly, a butterfly with a five foot wingspan that will eat us all..

Hong Kong

This is the view of Hong Kong at night. This was right behind our hotel. We stayed on the island of Kowloon, which is across the way from the Island of Hong Kong. Right outside our hotel we had the subway system which pretty much took you anywhere in Hong Kong. It was about two dollars to take the subway under water over to Hong Kong Island. We arrived in Hong Kong at about 9pm so we only had time that first day to walk along the water and see the city at night.

Also right outside our hotel on the peninsula is the Chinese walk of fame. The above and below pictures are the only two names we recognized.
Jackie Chan seems to be the unofficial King of China. He is everywhere! He is on every billboard, advertisement, welcome to China video, just everywhere.

They also have a large fixation on Bruce Lee, even though he was born in San Francisco and was a US Citizen, he is a hometown boy.
The above picture was taken as we walked to the Victoria Peak, its just a little opening in a park. These are part time Ninjas in training.

This was at the entrance to the tram to go up to Victoria Peak. I think they meant don't stand here but at least they were polite in telling you where not to be.
This is the view from atop Victoria Peak, like Beijing it was very hazy, but it didn't feel as dirty as Beijing did. It helped also that it was at least twenty degrees cooler here and there wasn't nearly as much humidity.This guy kept yelling at Christine and I to take his picture. I think he wanted us to pay him so he would drag us around, but at the top of the peak there is really only one path to do that and its only about twenty yards long so its not a real good mode of transportation up there.
The next day we visited the Big Buddha. First we had to take the subway for about half an hour, to a train, then get on a bus for an hour. This place was way out in the middle of nowhere, but only about 45 minutes from Disneyland. I believe it is still an active Monk-estary as we saw monks and there were quite a few signs reminding you that this was a Buddhist area. This is also the largest Buddha statue in the world.

Did I mention I hate stairs yet?
This is one of those signs, there were quite a few posted about no alcohol or meat. We got a free "snack" with our admission to the Buddha which consisted of some kind of noodles and mushrooms and a bunch of pastries. Christine ate all the pastries and I got stuck with the noodles.
This is reportedly the worlds longest escalator, it goes on forever, but we noticed that it only goes one way, up, so we didn't venture too far. Otherwise we would have had to walk back down on the stairs and at this point we are pretty much done with stairs.

We did notice that the streets were very clean. There was almost no trash on the streets and trashcans everywhere. Signs were posted threatening heavy fines for any kind of littering, and there were notices everywhere that spitting was neither polite nor healthy. Overall the city was clean.

Ah the complex english language, faces, feces, all the same.

These crabs were everywhere! They take them live and wrap them up in a straight jacket of what appears to be straw or seaweed. They are still alive as you can see them bubbling at the mouth while sitting in their straight jackets. They had little shops like this on almost every block.
This was a meat/seafood market we found when we turned down the wrong alley. Strangely enough we saw no flies anywhere on this street. Which was oddly disconcerting. The fish were still alive, and very much unhappy with their current situation. A few of them jumped so high they actually fell out of the buckets they were in and onto the street. When I say bucket I really mean two inches of water in a pan. This was the only part that really smelled , it was very fishy to say the least. Also trucks kept pulling up with more fish and they were just throwing them into the new buckets from the back of the truck.

For the commuter on the go (aren't they all on the go?), if your too busy to visit a bookstore you can get all your books from a vending machine.

And lastly, although Hong Kong may be the metropolis of the east, it will not get you to Happy Valley, that comes through inner peace or something.

Saipan Leftovers

These our some left over pictures from Saipan, basically our last day. We went to the Zoo and botanical gardens, and for being a zoo on an island smaller than our college it actually had some really diverse animals.

The great thing is admission was five bucks and that includes your very own bag of popcorn so you can feed all the animals. I think it was a trick to get us to feed the animals for the zoo so thats one less person they have to hire.

Here is the first animal you see when you walk in, a bat. And here it is eating popcorn out of Christine's hand. I think since we were the first visitors that day there were fewer employees, because on the visitors channel they showed people actually holding the bat.

Here is a chicken coop, with an escapee!
The obligatory spider shot for my bro.



This pig nearly climbed right out of its pen when the popcorn showed up! It got about a foot closer and higher when the popcorn stopped.

This is lambert the lion. Yes they had a freakin lion, and a huge black bear too. Lambert had a secret though.

Of course to find out what that secret was you had to walk right up to the cage . Because heaven forbid they post this warning in a bigger font or I don't know on the path as you approach the cage!
Here is the botanical gardens.








And lastly a picture from the Saipan airport. Notice the caution, wet floor sign. Then look up and notice the roof leaking. Yes it is cheaper to create a sign advising the floor is wet than it is to fix the leak in the roof. These signs and leaks were on every pole in the airport so its not an isolated problem. But that is island life.