Like riding a bike

District 9 was good. love that movie.

Yesterday was quite interesting. I went to Cheung Jeu island, something like that. I completely forgot the name.

Anyway, there are no cars on the island except for an ambulence or police or something like that. You have to bike everywhere.

Oh, and so far the poeple I have been hanging out with are Dawn, Josie, and Lindsay, who are a group of Scottish girls. Wouter, a Dutch guy, Justin from Chiacago, and Julian from Deutschland. Cameron from San Fransico, Lawerence, a local student, Alexander, a scottish guy, James from the UK, Sarah and Leah from australia. The island was myself, Dawn, Josie, Lindsay, and Wouter.

Anyway, back to the bike thing. I haven't ridden a bike since living in Korea. Nearly 12 fucking years. So I am really putting to the test the age old addage that its just like riding a bike. And it look a while to relearn. There was much laughter from everybody, particularly Josie. After a while, I got the hang of riding over flat terrain.

So we rode around for a while, going through the harbor and surrounding rodes and then went to a hill. You have to leave the bike at the bottom, and then go walking up. There is a rocky beach sort of area, and very dark, very narrow cave you can explore. It was cool, we sort of in a queue and using 1 flashflight and cell phones for light. There were no lights. Every once in a while, I could hear Julian yell something out because he hit his head on something.

After the caves, we got back on the road, and this is where it got fucking ugly. Fuck. The roads go up and down a lot more, and I can barely ride a bike. And the bikes sort of suck. There is 1 gear and the brakes are pretty shit. So going down one hill in partiuclar, you could hear me yelling FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK as I went down really fast, plus the squeeling of both brakes, and my feet out the sides also trying to stop me.

I didn't crash. So go me. Or hit anybody.

This portion of the island had a lot of graveyards, and we kept riding. After a while, we got around and rode through the streets. There was a small temple that was pretty cool. No pictures were allowed, but they had some artwork, incense, and a really old sword. And outside was a basketball court where this tiny kid was like a Chinese Kobe Bryant. He kept making three pointers. We stopped at a corner store and had water, and it was fucking amazing. Rarely has water been so good.

After that, we rode along the other side of the harbor and went by a beach. There was a look out point that gave a view of the island. I didnt go because it was straight up a steep hill and we had to the bring bikes. I was fucking out of it.

So, Josie Dawn and I waited at the bottom of the hill for the others and we went back to return the bikes.

And there was lunch earlier in the day too. I forgot about that. I had fried noodles with pork. Good shit.

So we returned the bikes, and had to wait for another boat to come back. I ended up eating McDonalds since its next to the harbor and I was hungry like a wolf.

The night was the Mid Autumn Festival. I got it mixed up with Fullmoon Festival, something different. However, the Mid Autumn Festival is still celebrated during a full moon. Anyway.
You generally have lanterns, eat moon cakes, look at the full moon, and spend time with families. Local students think its boring as hell, exchange students are all giddy. Went to the Victoria Harbor for the festival, and they had a ton of displays out. Different lanterns and shows. I saw this lady that had about 15 hula hoops at once. And had a hula hoop slinky. And some random dances and stuff. It was cool. Next to the park, there is a family field kind of thing and we went out there to light the lanterns, burn candles, and generally sit under the moon light. I tried a tradtional moon cake. They look amazing, but I didn't like the taste that much. It's a bit of a running theme with desert items here, they look amazing but taste underwhelming. The best cheesecake I have had ended up being from Taste (supermarket next to school) which was a frozen sara lee cake that was imported from australia or something.

Shit.

But back on topic. The night was nice. Just sitting there, playing with fire and such. The mooncake i had was lotus seed with an egg. It's okay at first, but the egg is gross and it sits quite poorly in your stomach. Afterwards, I went to McDonalds again and took the MTR home with Lindsay. Everybody else went to a bar/club in Wan Chai (I went home around 2:30 am). And apparently they didn't return until day light.

Fun times.

My ass and nuts still hurt from that bike seat.