México - Día 3

Today's visit was to the Mercado Medellin.

Didn't know what everything actually was...anyway, bought some stuff like limes, chile poblano and jalapeño, tomatillos.

Also tried Horchata, some watery drink with cinnamon. No recommendation, though :-)

A stop of the Metro Bus, has its own lane and impressive stops, can serve up to 3 or 4 buses at the same time.

México - Día Dos

Some pictures from today's way home from school. This is the Colonia Condesa neighborhood, very nice and green.

On my way home I came across a Taqueria which my teacher had recommended, El Tizoncito. 

I tried the famous Tacos al Pastor, first a set of four and then again a set of four, really good!

Sunny Miami 2

More balcony impressions, another sunset over downtown Miami..

 ..and a night view.

Here's the beach of Miami Beach..

..and this is how it looks beyond the beach:

Due to the high temperatures I had to order some refreshments :-)

..which I enjoyed very much, overlooking the bay.

Sunny Miami

First evening sunset view from the balcony.

Hongkong - Final Day

And then, suddenly, almost unexpectedly, the final day arrived :-(

I'm not able to describe the way Hongkong is in my heart, it surely felt like a home. So the departure felt like leaving for a vacation....

We spent the day walking around TST a final time, then some more hours in the hotel spa and pool. Eventually we took the shuttle bus to Kowloon station, enjoyed the easiness of the in-town check-in and had a last meal in one of the restaurants inside the Elements mall. It was a Thai/Vietnamese bistro and the taste of the dishes was simply great, a perfect farewell dinner.

We had some braised lamb...

...some Thai-style milk tea and...

...braised beef with 5-spices and basil, perfectly tender.

Even the HK airport is as entertaining as a airport gets, unfortunately we had to avoid most of the shopping opportunities in order to reach the gate on time.

Then there it was, the A380. My first flight with this mega-jumbo. Leg room was rather tight, though. 

Technically it was already the next day when we reached London airport for a stopover, but to close the whole HK story, here is the information that I had Eggs Benedict for breakfast before continuing to Berlin.

Hongkong - Day 56

Finally the sun was back on this day. First thing in the morning was to jump on an island ferry :-)

After some hops we came to Silvermine Beach where we discovered this little fellow in the sand:

Later a perfect sunset crowned this perfect beautiful day.

Hongkong - Day 55

Weather today was once more grey and cloudy. Anyway we went for more sightseeing. This time it was the famous Tian Tian Buddha on Lantau Island.

It was rather empty compared to other days, so we climbed up the many steps.

It is surrounded by six smaller statues, the Six Devas, here are two of them:

Across the monastery, which is a huge construction yard at the moment, we walked to the Wisdom Path. 

The wisdom path follows several wooden posts with inscriptions I wasn't able to decipher. It looked like wisdoms :-) However, the last and most elevated post contained no inscription, it was empty.

After some hard thinking about this fact I felt that I understand the message..and suddenly the sun came out for a couple of minutes, my personal 'enlightenment' :-) 

Back down we came across some animals... 

...like this beetle on a tea plant leaf.

Later, after the ferry ride back to TST I took some more night shots of the HK island waterfront with Wan Chai and Causeway Bay, the area where I lived and had such a good time. 

For dinner we went to a HK cuisine restaurant right next to the hotel. We had a meat platter... 

...Hainanese style chicken...

..with steamed salad and oyster sauce...

...and a lamb pot which was supposed to be cooked right on the table, which is strained my patience a bit since I was really hungry. It was good, though it contained several parts of the lamb which I wouldn't have ordered if I had the choice :-)