Ngong Ping

Met Angel and her mum in town this afternoon, and we went to a small museum called Mei Ho House, which is a part of a block of old flats which had been repurposed into a YMCA. Mei Ho House originated from a devastating blaze that broke out in 1953 which caused 58,000 people to become homeless. In order to provide long-term housing to a large number of fire victims, the government built the first batch of resettlement blocks on the site of the fire. Mei Ho House marked the beginning of Hong Kong’s public housing policies, providing affordable homes for those on low incomes. The museum focused on the history of the local community and was really interesting, even though it was small, my favourite museum in HK this far.
Afterwards we grabbed some sushi as well as some tofu dessert. I then was left to wander the city on my own, and I went to seek out some neon signs. Hong Kong was known for it's brightly illuminated streets, before I came away, my friend from work was showing me photos from his trip here 7 years ago, and it looked so different. The government has increased public safety regulations for neon signs, and according to google, over 12,000 signs have been removed since 2003. I understand the safety concerns, however it's a shame as it seemed to give the streets real character. The one corner I found looked so vibrant with the multicoloured lights, even though they only belonged to a couple local restaurants and shops, nothing fancy.
The next day, I joined Angel's family up the Ngong Ping cable car up to Chung station. They'd bought us the best ticket up, so we were in a completely glass cable car, and got 360 views for the 30 minute ride up to the top. Was pretty cool, even when half way up we lost our view and were surrounded by fog and clouds. Once at the top, we grabbed lunch in a restaurant in a monastry. We then climbed up to Tian Tan buddha, before hopping on a bus along to the nearby old fishing village of Tai O.
It was very quaint little town, I'm not sure how much fishing still happens, but was nice to wander down the little streets. There were so many stray cats! We grabbed some Chinese doughnuts from a food stall, and also took shelter from the rain in a nice coffee shop before heading back to the mountain to get the cable car back down. The weather was even worse on the way down, the clouds only really cleared for the last 5/ 10 minutes, and at times we could barely see the forest below. Luckily we just had a normal return ticket, so the fancy cable car wasn't wasted.
In the evening we went bowling, which just reminded me how bad I am at it. I did actually get a few strikes the second game, but also had rounds where I didn't hit any pins 😅 I was happy with a respectable 2nd place for the second game (not gonna mention where I came for the first). Then grabbed some yet again yummy veggie Chinese food for dinner. I've eaten so well in HK!Read more