While my trip to Hong Kong was fun, I'm so very ready to come home! I miss my family. I miss my friends. And I miss my cat!
Last week was completely uneventful, as the whole reason I was over was to work. And work I did. When I'm home, I generally start work at 9 and am done by 5. What can I say, I work out of my house! While in Hong Kong, I began working at 8 and stopped working around 6 or 7. Long days leave for tired me. So I ended up chilling in my room for the most part. I still managed to get to a yarn store and buy some more cheap needles. No more yarn, though. I'm pretty well stocked at home. I managed to finish my clapotis, but that's about all the knitting I did. I have a 16 hour plane ride tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to get a bit of knitting in.
When I return home, I'll update the pictures in flickr, and the blog. For now, though, I best get some sleep.
I have been a busy little bee since I arrived in Hong Kong. On Thursday morning, I visited my company's office here in Hong Kong, and, as luck would have it, a few MTR stops away, there was a yarn store called Cheer Wool. There were many, many yarns, but what I was really hoping to find were Addi Turbos. No luck. I've heard they're super cheap (comparitively) over here. The store did have several Japanese pattern books, which was another item I'd like to have in my posession, however, the price of the one book I wanted - a stitch dictionary - was crazy. The people who worked at the store were semi-pushy. Any time I picked up a bag of yarn, one of the ladies was right there asking me if she could put the yarn at the counter for me. It was very hard to really get a feel for the yarn there. I did manage to buy one skein of yarn - an Italian yarn.
The yarn will make a pretty nice scarf. It has great yardage - almost 215 yards - so it was definitely worth the buy.
On Friday, I spent all day at work. Kind of stinks that I have to work on a trip that work sent me on, right? But Saturday, I had the day to myself again. I took a trip to Lantau Island to see the . It is apparently the world's tallest outdoor seated Buddha, and I have to say that it was an amazing trip. I took the MTR out to the island, and then a 50 minute bus trip over to the statue. The bus trip was the scariest ride I've ever been on! The roads were very twisty and mostly just one-way streets with pull offs for two-way traffic. Every time another bus passed the bus I was it came within about 6 inches. I'm sure it wasn't the first time the bus had taken the trip up the mountain, so I was sure we wouldn't die, but it was scary! And the bus was crowded. I did manage to knit on the bus ride up the hill, as the seats next to me were empty.
Good times knitting on those tiny needles while bumping up and down on a bus. I ended up putting it down about halfway through the bus trip because I was too scared I would poke my eye out!
The bus ride was completely worth it to get up to the village where the Buddha is situated. It is right by a monastary, where I was able to see the temples, walk the grounds, and have lunch. The first thing I needed to do, though, was get up the 268 steps!
I did make it though. Slowly, but honestly it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The views were gorgeous from the top.
And the Buddha was really awesome too.
There was a museum at the top (no pictures allowed) and several statues outside of the museum.
The grounds of the monastary were also beautiful. There were so many flowers!
I have many more pictures of the whole trip, located on my . I will be trying to organize that over the next few days, but for now, its just a hodge podge of images. And, as a warning, there are MANY pictures of flowers! LOADS, I tell you! I just couldn't get enough of them.
After touring the Buddha and eating lunch, I walked over to the . This is simply a series of pillars, set out in an infinity symbol. Each pillar has markings, and the markings obviously mean something. Unfortunately, I didn't do enough research to fully appreciate what each pillar represents. But I did take some pictures!
All in all, the day was very nice. The area around the Buddhas and the temples felt very peaceful. It was so remote that you could barely tell you were less than an hour outside one of the world's largest city. The only drawback to the day was that I was on my feet a lot, and they hurt terribly on Sunday. Since that was the case, I decided to take it easy. Which meant visiting a few more yarn stores. Both Emma Woolen and G.B. Woolen were located in Telford Plaza, right by the IKEA in Kowloon Bay. At G.B. Woolen, I found several yarns that I wanted to take home with me, but more importantly, I found my Addi Turbos! I snatched about six pair up, as they were less than $45HK ($7 US). I may even go back if I have the time to buy more sets for some friends. They only had 80 cm needles, and I wasn't sure about the sizes, as they were written in mm instead of US sizes. I had a pretty good idea, though, and really, I can always use them!
I also purchased yarn for scarves while I was there. I didn't want to be bothered with thinking about yarn for sweaters or other projects. Simple, simple scarves are good to knit. And make great Christmas presents! This yarn, however, is all for me!
This I'm not sure what to do with, though, if I have enough, it'd make a cute pair of mittens. I might have to go back and get more!
I also bought a Japanese pattern book for cabled scarves. I'm going to try to tackle that when I get back to Ohio with this yarn, which I bought at Emma Woolen.
And this stuff just might become a ribbed manly scarf for some special guy.
So that was my weekend. I'm here for another week and a day, so I'll have lots more to update. For now, I have to go to work! Wish me luck that I don't have to be there until 8 p.m. tonight!!!
