Air Canada all the way! Boeing 777-300 from here to YVR then all the way to HK!

Interiors have gotten pretty fancy now; glowing lights and everything!

I'll say that the Vancouver Airport has one up on us, fancy aquarium and all.

Finally on the streetcar in HK!

Lights! Camera! Shoes.

Shortest escalators EVAH! Seriously, why not a ramp? In other news, escalators are much faster than those here in the west, probably a throughput optimization thing.

A nice little outside shot by the bay

Old school passenger transports

It's pretty narrow considering all the traffic that the bay gets!

The Jumbo Floating Restaurant... which unfortunately, I didn't get a really good picture of. (I know, I know, ending a sentence with a preposition!)

You wouldn't be able to remove the redeye if you tried, hah!

Anatomically, it's a little off, but pretty cool nonetheless.

Sun is setting at the pier

Look at this guy! He's got his own little island and all!

HK is full of antiquated buildings that stand right next to the modern marvels that line the bay. I've never seen such a strong disparity in wealth and culture juxtaposed as such in my life. Crazy.

More pictures to appease the flora gods...

... but there's stuff in the background as well. Sometimes, the background is more interesting than the foreground (though not so much in this case)

It's super weird how places like KFC (or as we call it, "dirty bird") and McDonalds are somewhat respectable dining places here in HK (they even deliver! what!). Ironically, McD's are just starting to learn that the perception war is worth fighting here with their own fancy McCafe's.

Another panorama. I love taking these!

Colourful!

Lots of feral dogs in HK

And cats as well. This one fell for my Meow and came out to investigate. Muwhahah!

To think that someone was actually asked to draw a "teddy-bear Mona Lisa" is highly amusing.

A closer look (it's actually pretty good!)

Alrighty, this is starting to go overboard!

There was a person in this one who would scare people walking by!

... Alright, I lied, though it would have been infinitely more humorous if there were.

Oh yes. Temples were visited alright.

Fancy.

Don't fly too close to the sun Icarus!

One of the bay

Totally fake. I can see the wires holding them up! :P

I like the bay, the view would be awesome to wake up to.

These totally look like King-Fisher colors, but there's no way that they're related?

Night time in the bay

The IFC building, the largest in HK if I am not mistaken.

I love the night skyline!

The classic Morning Star ferries -- even my dad took these when he was younger!

Dear god, the pressure's rising!

Macau!

I was about two weeks late for the Macau GP2 races... damn! Anyways, it would have been held right on this road. In fact, you can see a part of the makeshift-grandstands in the background as well.

A bridge to the other islands.

"Blackhawk down! Blackhawk down!"

One of the tourist-y exhibits, but it was oddly quiet when we went. Seriously. It was like a deserted theme park there that day.

The amphitheatre which was also empty. No workers, no tourists (except for us of course). Nothing!

A wicked Formula 2 simulator which I played. As for how I fared, lets just say I shouldn't quit my day job. :P

A fancy hotel on the island.

A shot from the famous Ruins of St. Paul. Macau used to be Portuguese run, so there was a rather large Catholic influence. The ruins are of a church that was nearly completely burned down except for the front face. There were also tombs inside. Creepy tombs.

Zombie girl. Just kidding, this was from a painting in the museum, but I forgot to note what it was of, or who drew it.

There also used to be fortresses and such on the island. Ironically, this canon is pointing at one of the towers (that can't be too good for the Feng Shui as my dad points out).

Even Jesus needs to eat AMIRIGHT??? Just Kidding!

The Macau skyline is much lower than that of HK.

Down the steps from the ruins, into the more popular streets.

FOOD! Meatballs, corn, and a bunch of other stuff down the side streets. In case you are wondering, food is going to be a major topic throughout this minidump.

A view from the Macau towers. It's a long way down. Incidentally, I probably should clean up my shoes a bit.

A nice glimpse right down Macau.

A better view of the bridge

Damn, I wish I had bought one of these bungee jumping bears (you can actually bungee jump from the tower). I would install it by my desk and just have it jump for my amusement all day long.

We ended up checking one of the 37 different casinos on the island. Macau is probably one of the craziest places outside of Las Vegas. This one was modeled after Venice, and what you see there is actually indoor lighting (it looks much more realistic in real life).

Did I mention that THERE IS A RIVER IN THE MALL!? Anyways, I lost $20 at the casino this time. So it goes.

On my way to Taiwan. Though not on this beautiful, beautiful Boeing 747-400. Seriously, why doesn't Air Canada fly these anymore!?

A theme park in Taiwan. It's actually kinda run-down, but highly amusing none the less. I ended up riding one of the 4-gee rides, and it was pretty fun. Parrots.

A starving tiger. Seriously, it looked like these tigers were unhealthily skinny.

I had no better shot to show this since I forgot to take it, but basically, the animal kingdom section of the park had these self-pedal tour carts that sit on this thin little rail (see on the left). When you pedal, the cart shifts from side to side, and it constantly feels like you are about to fall off. In retrospect, riding this deathly contraption was likely the scariest thing I did the whole trip. :P

Another hungry Siberian Tiger

We stopped at this tomato farm which had several hundred strains of tomatoes (some of which are displayed here), and had a fresh tomato drink which was pretty awesome (didn't taste anything like Clamato or V8, was sweet and you could taste the different types of tomatoes in it).

Stopped at a night market. Not sure where it was though.

Saw one of these inside. Hilarious!

FOOD! Omlette-like things.

Sausages!

Fishballs!

Too..cute......must...resist..temptation....to...

...make..reply... DAWWWWWWWWW SO CUTE. Damn, I failed.

Merry Christmas, or as they say in Taiwan, Merry Christmas. Psych!

A fancy palace. Cost the taxpayers tons of money, now a hotel.

A memorial.

With multiple buildings. There were a bunch of stands that you can barely see that were kind of out of place though -- they were advertisements for a space program on the Discovery channel (seriously).

We also went to this place in the mountains somewhere which had all these small shops selling food and whatnot. Very cool.

FOOD! Making some kind of soft peanut brittle.

Roasting mushrooms!

Escargot!

Some kind of rice pudding!

Some iced desert that I got. Couldn't finish it though, it had a billion of these little chewy balls (this picture was after I ate the other 3/4) and I was getting sick of it pretty fast.

A shot from the top of the mountain. It was really nice there, the kind of place I would like to visit again. (To try more food)

Apparently, Pikachu and Sponge Bob are yellow so they can totally swap faces. :P

Another night market, had some beef noodles at what is supposedly one of the more famous shops (people line up and just eat standing in the street, it's madness!)

Hilarious! This zombie was so weird, she perfected the necessary creepy-ness of the role.

Taipei's tower, the 101. They use this 60-ton metal ball to counterbalance movements in the foundation of the building. I hypothesize that it works by slightly lengthening the cables on the opposite side of the shift, allowing for the ball to roll slightly in that direction to stabilize any motion. I don't see how this would work if the frequency of the motion was greater than the momentum and speed of the pulleys though!?

A model of the elevator at the 101, the fastest moving tower elevator in the world supposedly. Not recommended for people with heart conditions. Seriously. That is awesome!

Psychedelic!

The 101 mascot in Christmas attire.

If you have to ask, you can't afford it!

The tower from the bottom.

Slightly unrelated, just shots of some vegetarian food we got at the food court. Everything on the dish is vegetarian, even the stuff that looks like meat!

And my dad's dish.

Back at one of the more famous streets in HK, the women's street. Formerly, a place for women to go out and buy clothes and other stuff, it's turned into a back-door street for buying pirated things like clothes, shoes, lighters, electronics, toys, and even paintings (I know, I totally got one). What you have to do is actually talk down the price, so I ended up buying a painting (which I thought was really not-too-bad) at a low, low price of $20 CAD. LOL!

One of the many toy shops we stopped at. They lover their toys over there!

Durian cakes. Enough said.

Mango-Tangerine dessert. Yum!

Took a trip up to another temple to pay respects to grandpa.

You can actually buy a bag of fish food there and feed the fish. It is absolute madness though; even if you don't have any food, if they see your hand go over the railing, they will pile all over themselves for a bite.

One of the last few places I went -- the giant Buddha. I'm not a Buddhist, but apparently, this one is the largest in all of asia! You have to take a gondola there though, as it resides on top of a mountain.

It was super foggy that day though.

At the top. They have a bunch of shows, restaurants, and shops that you can peruse. This monkey sketch was particularly humorous.

From the bottom of the Buddha.

You have to walk up a 100 flight set of stairs though to get to the top to see the Buddha though.

More feral dogs

On the way back.

This shot was just epic!

Also went to Hong Kong Disneyland with my Aunt. It was much more enjoyable than I thought it would be -- in particular, the live Lion King show was pretty well done, and Mickey's 3D magic show puts our Real-3D theatres to shame!

Gundams in the MTR. The MTR is the subway system in HK, and it absolutely rocks. It's definitely a model by which other underground transit systems should work. (Are you listening TTC!??)

A lone jellyfish exhibit in the connection area at Vancouver airport, while on my way back to Toronto.