Last week in Hong Kong!

Its actually down to my last eight hours now...I'm flying off to London at midnight tonight for a two-week trip through Europe with my friend Jamie. We will be country hopping through Edinburgh, London, Paris, Brugge, and Amsterdam before returning to Atlanta on August 14th!

This past weekend was a whirlwind of excitement...I went to Macau on Saturday morning for a day-trip, and it was (sadly) the closest I got to mainland China this summer! Macau is grimy and crowded, but the East-meets-West architecture and lifestyle were very interesting. I felt like I could be walking through a little Italian or Spanish town. The Portegeuse influence (it was a colony until about ten years ago) is most vividly seen in the pretty churches and delicious food. I ate wayyy more in 10 hours than any rational human being is supposed to consume. We also stopped by the infamous casino strip for a touristy light-animal-craziness show at the Wynn where a friend managed to win 600 HKD playing blackjack, completely accidentally. I don't trust my luck enough to do that!

Sunday I made the trip to Lantau, one of the largest islands near Hong Kong and only about a 40 minute ferry ride away. We took a cable car trip through some pretty treacherous cliffs to reach the tallest seated outdoor Buddha made of bronze in the world. Apparantly there are others that are larger, but they are not seated, outdoors, or made of bronze. Anyways it was very pretty and i will put up pictures when i get the chance! We then took a bus to the south of the island and had a scrumptious meal on the beach at a south african restaurant and enjoyed a night stroll before heading back.

Work was a whirlwind of goodbyes and wrapping up projects this week. I also go to go out and interview some people on the street Monday because the broadcast journalism was out sick...I was on the 9 am news!

Its the last day so i need to go finish up everything! Next update from Europe!