Long Ke Wan

My life in Hong Kong continues to be unpredictable. Since the start of the new semester, I have made some great new friends coming to study abroad from the States. Craig,a sophomore at Samford University studying pre-med and calls Memphis, TN home. Jason, a recent graduate of Fresno State University with a degree in Business and calls Las Angeles, CA home. And Vanessa, a senior at Taylor University majoring in International Studies and calls Louisville, KY home. I had the pleasure of having these three great people as companions for a hiking adventure to the east-side of Sai Kung.

What an adventure we had! After packing up our clothes and necessities, we all headed for the grocery store to get s'mores, veggies, snacks, and fruits. We intended on making some dinner over a campfire while at our campsite. We had no idea what to expect, but we loaded up and headed out on our trek with a full tank of energy. After following the map of bus routes to take to get to Sai Kung, we finally arrived to the area where only taxis go. But no, we would not even dare take a taxi, even though they kept slowing down as they passed us wondering why we were dumb enough to hike uphill and such a long distance.


After 2-3 hours on Maclehose Trail, (would have been 2 if Craig wasn't such an avid photographer!) we finally saw the sign pointing us to the direction of Long Ke Shan campsite. We soon passed by a leapord cat in the bushes, so I was already getting excited about where we were and it's obvious remoteness.Then we came around that corner. It was ridiculous. Jaws-dropped, eyes widened, we just started to react dramatically to the view before us. The mountains surrounding the ocean, and then a perfectly placed beach in between the mountains.

With only about 30 more minutes of sunlight, we hurried down to begin setting up camp. We saw a campfire down below so we knew we weren't alone. But almost, because there was only one other group of college guys from City U. Two of the six guys were from Hawaii and the others were from Indiana and Michigan. Unfortunately we wouldn't be hanging out with them because their intentions were to get drunk and wake up with a hangover. They entertained us nonetheless as they were searching for wood with flashlights at 3:30am.

Thanks to Vanessa and her 10 years of being a girl scout, we had a nice dinner and campfire. However, thanks to me and my reliance on a magnesium stick for starting the fire, we had to go ask the City U guys for a lighter because the wind was making the sparks from the magnesium stick difficult to catch twigs on fire. Lesson learned: always bring matches no matter what other kind of cool fire starting technique out there exists. After our hobo dinner of broccoli, potatoes, sugar snaps, and green bell peppers we started roasting the marshmallows for s'mores! Ahh, I love s'mores. I used an entire chocolate bar to shovel down 4 s'mores. I probably could have had 8 if I didn't feel bad for being the only one still eating.


After that amazing meal time by the campfire on the most amazing beach, I pulled out my cell phone with full bars (PCCW rocks!) to check the time for the sunrise. 7am was the time and so with it being 11ish we went ahead and started to get comfy for bed. I brought my sleeping bag (thanks Hallie!) and boy did I need it! Not only was there a cool breeze all night, but sleeping on the sand wasn't all as easy as I thought it would be. Once comfortable, I just sat there and began to think about the Lord. My whole world was still, with only the sound of the waves and crackling fire to distract me. Being able to just lay there without a care in the world and look up into the sky (no stars though) was something I will forever cherish. Times when I am still are few it seems and to be on the beach was a perfect setting to feel God's presence. I spent an hour just reflecting in my mind over all that was going on in my life. It was like I was having a conversation with God Almighty. I was just telling him my thoughts and he would respond, "I know". haha, it's funny to think like that because in actuality he does know and so why would I be telling him? I'm not sure how to answer that, but what I do know is that communication with God is a must for us and we all really need more time alone with our Maker.

Craig aka Fireman was rebuilding the fire at 6:30ish and that's what woke me up. First thing I looked for was the sun....which was no where to be found. I really was upset that we didn't get to see the sunrise due to the cloud covered sky, but that didn't take away the beautiful scenery surrounding us. Waking up there was special and I prefer seeing that beach over my roommate anyday! Jason was our nightwatcher; according to him he didn't really sleep at all...I wish he would have taken my sleeping bag that I offered to him. He and I both pulled out the word and started flippin' through pages looking for God's Word to jump start our engines for the day ahead.

After feasting on some Psalms, I was ready to feast on the fruit and granola bars! Thanks Jason for the Fuji apple and your welcome Craig for bringing my jar of Skippy peanut butter haha. We were pretty hungry I guess because we just kept eating everthing we had and it seemed that we could finish it all! But with hiking the area on the agenda I figured we better save a bit for later.


We first headed towards the mountain to our right to climb the rocks with crashing waves. Craig being a photographer made sure to get some great pics (along with great video production; check YouTube and his blog craigthiessen.blogspot.com). Vanessa showed us how she could keep up with the big boys as we climbed some interestingly shaped rocks with somewhat difficult angles to get to what we initially thought to be a sea cave. It wasn't.

With nothing else to really explore on that side of the beach, Craig pointed at the other side and declared that we "climb straight up". Yea, lol, so it was an ambitious proposal but none of us objected and headed that way. When we approached we began to see that there was no real easy way (aka marked trail!) to get to the top, but we were up to the challenge. We get up 50 feet rather easily, and then we were slowed down by what I call "marshmallow bushes". Craig on his blog says "mushroom mountain", however I prefer marshmallows because I love s'mores and had my 5th one that morning (yummy!). So we were struggling. Jason didn't have a long sleeve shirt on like the rest of us and was really getting itchy from rubbing up against all the bushes. Wow, this trek was ridiculous! What were we thinking?? I have no idea but amidst all our struggles we were just laughing histarically. I was being my usual goofy self and pretending to be playing Mario Bros. by bouncing on the bushes up the mountain haha. Jason and I got competetive and started to race to the top...haha dumb idea I don't know how we didn't break our legs our our ankles with the fact that we couldn't see where we were stepping. Really dumb, but wow it was fun. With sweat dripping and hearts beating rapidly, we finally made it to the top.


Turning around to see the view was unforgettable. All four of us just found a spot to sit (which was kind of difficult so we had to spread out) and we sat there basking in the beautiful panoramic wonder for at least 15 minutes it seemed. Wow! I was so lifting up His name on high and I never felt so aware of God's power and might. Then suddenly Jason and I look down a ways and see three black leopard cats walking along the mountainside! I didn't get my camera out in time though...

After we had memorized the view, we headed back down to the beach only to be welcomed by this local woman who seemed to be the beach's caretaker. She started pointing at us and talking in Cantonese. I was the only one who had any idea what she was trying to say and luckily what she said was something I could understand: "Put your things here!" She was wanting us to clean up the mess that we left on the sand and put it in the brush. So we did! As we packed up and cleaned up, we all decided to head back to Sai Kung for lunch. We were pretty beat and decided to take a taxi back. However, we still had to hike up the most dreadful flight of stairs you will ever come across. Leading the way, I tried to run up them and get it over with but it was impossible to run up these stairs no matter how hard I tried. When we approached the flat part of the trail, we passed by 30 or so workers who were carrying various supplies that I guess were for the Rehab center that was behind our campsite. That druggie haven was the only building site in the area and so we were kind of nervous about some druggie coming out at night haha.


The taxi we took cost only 60 HK and got us to our destination in only 12 minutes! Next time we will definitely be taking a taxi there because hiking there was quite a long ways. When we arrived to Sai Kung we started looking for a good place to eat. After saying no to all the expensive seafood restaurants along the coast, we decided to look up for something cheaper and better on openrice.com. I love that website and I love the fact that I have internet on my phone! Craig chose a Vietnamese restaurant on Fuk Man Road, lol. Well this place was very tiny but had exactly the type of atmosphere we were wanting: small, comfy, no people, cheap, and a good menu with English. Yes, it was perfect! After the vietnamese sausage pho noodle soup and rice noodle rolls with mango and fried crab we went out to look for dantaat (egg tart). So Craig is a bit addicted to this stuff and luckily there was a bakery just next door. This day was just going really smoothly and so we got on the bus and all took wonderful naps on the long bus ride back to Choi Hung MTR.

This ended our adventure and I am now ready to start my next adventure: backpacking in Kunming, Dali, and Lijiang. Stay tuned.... Happy Chinese New Year! 新年快乐！