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After we “touch down” with the cable car, we went for Food and Shopping ! We bought a few clothes and had a late lunch, or was that an early dinner?
 
Anyway, just as we were shopping we took some pictures of “Nu Ren Jia” ladies street in English. Here are some of the pictures:
 

 
And here:

That street is actually a road with stalls and tents setup for you to shop for a very wide varierty of stuff. Well, that street is mainly for tourists, so beware ! In fact, that street is opened only around 7pm - midnight. Which means in the day time, you won’t get to visit it, and by 630, you’ll see alot of people “building” tents manually. And then they take the tents down.

To get there, alight at Mong Kok station, or “Wang Jiao” in Mandarin.

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This will be the last series of my travel. Hope to travel to Australia in my next trip.
 

From today onwards, I will some of my sensitive information about myself. This money management category will published articles about my savings, investments and expenses, where I will document down all my Money $$ and how I manage my money online.

Managing money is a myth to some, a chore for some, but an art to me. Be it managing funds of a company, of an investments, or day to day living, it is still something that we all can learn.

It will consists of a monthly reports on how much I earned, how much I spent, what I spent on, and how much I used to generate more income, be it savings or investments. Along the way I will show where the cash flows are, so I hope this motivates you. Whether you are just browsing through, passing-by this site, need financial management tips, or just plain interest, I welcome you!

My last visit for the half day tour was to go up LanTau Island (Da Yu Shan)

To visit this island, we need to take a ferry. The boat routes around the island, travelling pass the airport. They say during this route, you could see Dolphins, especially pinks ones, jumping around. But due to the stormy weather we did not see any of it

 

Stormy Weather:(

 
 
No Dolphins… O and thats the cable cars

At last we arrive here, board a bus, and went up the long winding hill, to visit the great Buddha. This one of the motivation why asians, or in particular Buddhist religions come here, to pray for peace and safety, and to take a look at the majestic statue of the Buddha.

 
What a big Incense pot!

Before the climb, we had a vegetarian meal that was delicious and healthy. This is a special meal that is provided to every visitor. And then, they say you should exercise after eating… So I went up the steps!

 
And finally I reach the top ! Great view here.

A closer view of the Buddha statue. This is at least ten storeys high.

After this climb, we walk pass some visitor’s shopping area, and we travelled down to mainland by cable car. Actually there’s a shortcut up. That is to take the cable car up, and it should take us less than 10 minutes. Whereas we took the long way up, at the pier, the ferry route, the bus route. Well it’s worth.

This is the map. We started from top right, travelled to Tai O at the bottom left. Board a bus form there and went to the center of the island.

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Back from the cable car, we had our own shopping spree at the Factory outlet at Tung Chung MTR station. Nice shopping mall for spending tourists like me! Big brands at cheap prices…

I have written a post on the other site of mine at http://www.singwithpiano.com, which describes some of the common ways how music is performed. I guess it is quite interesting to understand how a performer plays a particular piece, for those of you who likes music.

This article is at http://www.singwithpiano.com/2008/08/5-ways-of-playing-music/. My tip here is, you should study them and then use them onto other areas of life. For example, studying, meetings, presentations etc.

The second place the tour guide brought us to was Wong Tai Sin temple. I am sure this is a tourist attraction because there were many tourists just like us. Before we arrived here, we actually drove past the Kowloon park, with the guide explaining the history how Kowloon (it means nine dragons in chinese) came about, and the Old Hong Kong International Airport.
 
If you stood at the Kowloon walled city park and look around you, you’ll see eight hills that stradegically forms a buildup area around the park, and the ninth dragon, was the king himself. (You probably should google more if you are interested.)
 
For a few moments I was disappointed after see the Old Hong Kong International Airport with just an empty piece of land. I was looking forward because I used to see Hong Kong films with planes flying across rooftops very closely to the housing areas and CBD. Now this is all history.
 
This is one of the pictures I took outside the temple. I didn’t really went in, because there were alot of burning incense with a thick smoke. Furthermore it was about to rain. So I remained outside.
 
Lets look at some of the interesting pictures here.

 
This is Wong Tai Sin’s temple. I suppose it is a taoist temple. To reach here, you can take the MTR to Wong Tai Sin station, which is quite convinient.

This is where it stands on the google map.

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This is where the kowloon walled city park stands on the google map. You have to be physically there to see the 8 “dragons”.

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You could see at the lower right hand corner of the map, where the old Hong Kong International Airport. It is now an empty land for futher developments, like Casinos and entertainment areas =)

Learning by watching is a very very useful skill and not many artists could do that.

I remember we had this dragon round in my traditional Taekwondo, where a challenger, usually a martial artists from another art, who wants to take on some of our best fighters in my club.

Then we put some mid level fighters who are there to try out the skills as an exchange of skills. (We meant to be friendly you know.) We have our own strategies so the challengers will usually give up by the 2nd and 3rd round if their skills are not up to match.

This is when my sifu, and other talented fighters, will sit in a corner to observe each and every move made by the oncoming challengers. They could tell each person’s strength and weakness just by watching. They will then discuss the strategies on how to beat you.

For example, understanding your favorite kick or move, how agile you are, how you react to attacks like dodging, blocking, or simply steping back, how fast you react, and how calm you are.

If your fighting style have been characterized, this information would be shared among other fighters, and the next fighter to fight the challenger will have a better chance of winning. So like most martial arts says, it is better leave your best till the last fight. Once you show your weaknesses, its more or less game over for you unless your strengths could cover it up.

Since Bejing Olympics is under way, I am sure Taekwondo event will be one of the most exciting sports to be expected, besides competitive swimming, athletics, or basketball.

Because this is a individual contact sports, with high speed legs kick around and fast pace action, you should get yourself ready for some knockouts. Do look out for Korea (Taekwondo originated here), China and Taiwan fighters.

Heres a video on Taekwondo and some “exciting” knockout videos. Notice most of the KO kicks are back hooks, or in other words “spinning whip kick”.

If I am not wrong the rules states tat you will be deducted half a point when you fall and touch the floor with one hand, but who cares. Complete Blackout for some.

On the second day of my Hong Kong visit, we went with a tour guide coach. She brought us to several places. The first was Hong Kong’s Hall of fame (Xin Guang Da Dao )

I have located the position on google map, where famous actors, directors and people gather and leave their names and a handprint on cement floor tiles. They are people who had contributed to Hong Kong film arts, one way or another. They include Bruce Lee, Jacky Chan and many others (was only interseted in these 2 !)
 
 
These are some of the photos taken there:

Me, Bruce Lee’s statue and very strong wind !

Directors @ work

Jackie Chan, our international action movie star

Another reason why you should visit this place because of the scene. From that position, you can have a full view of Hong Kong’s financial CBD area and the sea that separates the 2 islands. This reminds me some of the old Hong Kong movie filmed here.

Map of Hall of fame (Xing Guang Da Dao)

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This video here are for people who are good at observing moves and are practical. It is possible to incorporate Wing Chun into their existing art. I am not trying to compare which art is good or bad, but view Wing Chun as a practical fighting art.

Sometimes other martial arts may be lacking in one way or another or it is just so plain unrealistic. This is my third and last post for Wing Chun and hopefully you guys picked up something :).
 
 

 
 

This is my Hong Kong Trip series with a few posts coming up. I only got hold of these photos after
quite sometimes as my friends were all very busy.

I went there around end of May, touched down on a SIA plane flight of about 4 hours from Singapore, on the 27th May about 6pm.

After getting our luggage, we went to grab some brochures with maps about Hong Kong. (I guess thats the first step anyone does… right ?) Together with my friends, all of us bought an Octopus Card(a stored valued card for buses and trains)

Next, we took a bus from the Hong Kong Changi International Airport Bus Interchange to our hotel, Prudential Hotel in Mong Kok. It took only about 45 minutes, as we expected to be longer, and more crowded due to after office hours.

I had my first meal in Hong Kong at around 8pm, together with my friend’s relatives. This was a Chinese Restaurant at the basement of the hotel, beside the entrance of Jordon MTR station. Do remember this if you wanna give them a visit.

And this was my dinner…yummy

 
It is located here on the map Both the hotel and the restaurant:
 

 

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More Hong Kong photo blog series to come!