Cheung Chau

Cheung Chau, or 'Long Island' (iced tea, hee). A small strip of land 40 minutes away from Hong Kong by ferry boat. Around 23,000 inhabitants dwell within the 2.45 square kilometres the island has to offer, living of fishing and tourism.

Before starting our hike, we stopped to play for a while with a typical Chinese product: latex bubbles (or some other weird chemical substance). At some point in my childhood I'd had it in my hands, but it had been 15 years since the last time.

Not sure how long we were at it. Both the islanders and tourists gave us curious stares whenever they walked passed.

The cool thing about these bubbles is that they don't disappear once they burst. They just lose air, the same way a balloon does when you pierce it.

I like to think these chickens were hanging in the back yard of a restaurant, waiting to be served. It would be a bit disturbing to think they were purely ornamental.

We rented a tricicle and biked around the island. We secured it to a pole and started walking uphill until we got to a lookout spot. You could even make out Hong Kong island in the horizon.

Whereas it was the middle of winter, twenty-five degrees Celcius and ninety-five percent of humidity made quite a hot experience out of this hike. I don't even want to imagine how it must be to go there in summer.

Small boat playing pirate. :P

This is pretty much the reason I'll go back to Cheung Chau. Not sure I'll be able to find the right words to describe how good these clams were, but I was close to depressed when they ran out. Come back, oh joyful flavour!

Manthis shrimps being... all manthis-y.

We got to the island around noon and stayed until five. It was a short trip, but a complete success. For what I saw, the pier in Hong Kong island is full of ferry boats going to a bunch full of little islands for very low prices. I'll see if I can visit them all at some point.