Lamma Island

My friend who exchanged at St. Mary's last semester took us (my American friend and me--everyone else was too busy/didn't wake up in time) to Lamma Island. But first we had to meet her at the Central Station, which shouldn't have been difficult but was. Central Station is very close to Hong Kong Station, and since the route to the latter is more direct, we only needed to walk from one to the other.

But first!

A snack! Pictured above: the tastiest pork bun ever. The outside was super-flaky and delicious and the inside was stuffed with scrumptious, bacony-tasting pork...

In the future I'll ask for directions before leaving the MTR station, instead of assuming there'll be signs. We walked around outside (hopelessly) until I spotted a bright yellow Nikon sign I'd seen during our last trip to Central, possibly in the vicinity of the MTR station. Or imagined I had. Anyway, I decided that was the right direction to walk in, so we wandered some more to figure out how to get to the pedestrian bridge. Now that we'd invested so much time into getting there, I REALLY hoped I was leading us in the correct direction.

And amazingly--I was! As soon as we got to the other side I spotted a sign with an arrow pointing to Central Station. We had maybe 12 minutes to meet up with our friend and make it to the ferry, so we hustled. As a side note, I don't like the word "hustle" because it sounds ugly and reminds me of dancing the hustle in middle school gym.

Despite our hustling (cringe) we missed the 11:00 ferry. However, the next ferry left at 11:30 (not 12 as we originally thought) so it wasn't the huge disaster I'd foreseen. Plus I got to spend 20 minutes watching an assortment of parrots and small dogs.

I don't know where the animals came from. First, just a parrot, wearing a leash and walking along on the bricks. Then suddenly there's a puppy scurrying around (and at one point chasing it's tail! I'm not sure I've ever seen an actual dog actually do that!). And next thing I know a friend's directing my attention to another dog that's materialized from out of the blue. Then, as I glance back for a final view of the dogs, I spot a blue macaw that definitely wasn't sitting on that woman's shoulder a second ago.

Seriously. Those animals either teleported or were beamed down from an invisible alien spacecraft. I never once saw them emerge from cages and I was watching the entire time.

Ferries that don't transport cars!
I guess when most people don't own cars that would be a pretty useless feature.
Since the ferry was so small (relatively speaking) and the waves were large we were bobbing up and down the whole time.

Then--Lamma Island!

I nibbled my egg tart before photographing it so I'd know if it'd be worth remembering.
Most definitely.
Warm and melty and mm, mmm...






We found a busy place for lunch where our waitress couldn't have been more than 11 years old.
I figured anything with seafood would be good, so: cuttlefish.


YUM! Like octopus/squid/I-don't-really-know-the-difference-and-I-should!
I highly recommend it, even if the living version does look almost too awesome to eat.


Lemon tea with honey. Why was it green?
...I'll never know...

After lunch we headed towards the beach (with several stops along the way):

Stone lion in front of a Tin Hau (goddess of the sea and fishermen) temple. The name should sound familiar because Stanley also has one. Actually, I suspect they're everywhere.

Tofu fa: a popular Hong Kong dessert.
Also a tasty one.

Although at first I didn't realize most of the syrup had sunk to the bottom and that I needed to stir it up more, so it just tasted like plain tofu and I didn't understand what the big deal was.

We also sprinkled on some red sugar, which tasted like ordinary sugar, but crunchier because of the larger crystals. The internet failed to explain its reddish-orange color, although it did tell me molasses gives the color to brown sugar.

Vat of tofu.
The old lady scraped off the top layer before she began scooping tofu for our dessert.
Then she poured the syrup (not nearly as viscous as maple syrup) from a kettle. Yum!


When we left the tofu fa place we saw that the bird/small dog people had arrived. And the group (not fully shown) had at least quadrupled in size.

Okay, so it's not the most flattering picture of the beach...
But if bricks didn't weigh so much and if I weren't afraid of being yelled at/thrown in prison/I don't know the punishment for brick-stealers, I totally would have taken some from that pile to add to my collection of bricks-found-at-beaches.

After aimlessly sifting sand for a bit we began our hike:

Don't trip over this rock!


Don't become poisoned!


Don't fall into the sea!
(not pictured: coal burning power plant)

The path then led us through a little village,

past fishing boats,

and to a kamikaze grotto (double click on the photo to read it).

At the end of the trail we reached the island's second Tin Hau temple. The ball inside of this lion's mouth could roll back and forth. Only when I returned did I learn turning the ball three times would have brought good luck.

Inside of the temple was a large preserved fish, not as impressive as the tiger skin at Stanley's, but possibly more creepy. It also had a bell people could ring to remind Tin Hau to listen to their prayers. And incense, of course. One of the smaller buildings next to the temple contained large, hanging spirals of incense that looked really neat and I can't think why I didn't take a picture. Oh--never mind, I did:

And then we only needed to walk a little farther and wait a few minutes for the ferry.

We sat on the top deck! Whee!

The return trip cost about 5HKD more. I guess they figure once you're on the island, you're stuck (unless you own magical, teleporting parrots).

After returning to Central we walked briefly through the upscale shopping mall at ifc (click on the link! the most amazing map ever!) which also contains Hong Kong's tallest office building. My friend told me during her university orientation she played a scavenger hunt type game where teams traveled all around Hong Kong. At ifc she needed to take a photo of...something. I forget, or possibly she forgot also and so I never knew.

I'm so happy it never rained! All day I thought it would...

P.S. Sorry for the delay in posting this post. I wanted to complete it yesterday, but my Internet refused to work all evening...