Saturday

Not much to report except that jet lag symptoms are improving and Rob and I went on a great hike up to The Peak this morning. We stumbled upon the Hong Kong Zoo on our walk. It was incredible. All of the cages are large and outdoors. The zoo rests inside the land that I believe is designated as the botanical garden, so it is all very lush and pretty. AND I have never seen so many monkeys/baboons/orangutans/lemurs in my life. They were adorable. We observed 2 baby monkeys play and swing together from wall to various wall of their enormous cage. I kept wishing they would swing on the monkey bars that hang in the cages. Anyway, the monkeys are housed in cages according to family. The monkeys actually determine the housing arrangements on their own, as they naturally form families. It was really cute and quite remarkable to watch each family of monkeys interact. One mother monkey had a newborn baby which she held on her belly as she moved through the cage. The baby was tiny and kind of resembled a kangaroo. Words can't describe how cute and remarkable it all was, especially since we just stumbled upon the zoo.

For Dad: One exhibit at the zoo was of North American Squirrels and Raccoons--rare creatures in this part of the world! These petite creatures were quite fascinating and beautiful to the Chinese onlookers. If only they knew...

After we finished exploring The Peak, we ventured down into the Chinese markets, which are down the hill/mountain and closer to Central. Not surprisingly, the prices for produce and goods at these markets are MUCH cheaper than anywhere else I have seen. I can't wait to plan a meal and go shopping in the market for all of these things. It will take some planning, as all of the signs on prices for produce are written in Cantonese. I'll probably need to Google and attempt to write down the characters for the items I need before heading to the market. Maybe I'll make Pad Thai, dumplings or just rice...it may be overwhelming if I attempt fish head soup...indeed, they do sell enormous fish heads in the street.