Shek O

The old adage may be that revenge is a dish best served cold but everything else is best served in a pineapple!

Okay so I think I have finally gotten caught up with this blog, I apologize for the poor timing. Today is a lazy Sunday, slept in and have been writing this blog and getting various errands done, laundry and steaming my clothes, no iron. I am not writing to tell you about what is going on now, I am writing concerning yesterday, possibly the best day in HK so far. Our main goal for the day was to find Shek O which is a beach about an hour from where we live and find the Thai restaurant that serves food in a pineapple, little did we know how much of a success this would be. We got on the MTR headed for Central and got off at the Admiralty stop where we transferred to the Chai Wan route, from there we got off at Shau Kei Wan and headed for the bus. We got on the number nine bus and took to the end of the line, Shek O, this bus ride was quite the adventure for you most buses are rather massive double deckers and the driver maneuvers it as if it were a Ferrari. The views on the ride to the beach are stunning, vast views from windy mountain roads that make leave in awe and great fear that you may go over the edge. Once we arrived to the quite seaside town of Shek O we could not have been more excited, the vistas from the ride over only built anticipation. We wasted no time finding the Thai/Chinese restaurant that our seminar professor told us about, we quickly found it and grabbed a table for three. The restaurant only has al fresco seating and is covered in a tin roof with many fans blowing the 95 degree air about, it looked just like something you would see on a travel food show. The menu was the best I had seen yet, it had anything and everything you might want from both sides of the Thai/Chinese mixture from sweet and sour pork to pad thai, but we came for one thing and one thing only, the pineapple. Now for anyone who has yet to try it, I highly recommend eating something cooked in a pineapple. I ordered the fried, Andrew ordered the vegetarian fried rice and Rodrigo ordered the chicken, all in pineapples. When I get back to the states one of the first things I'm going to try to cook is this dish. After we finished the most satisfying meal of the trip thus far we headed for the beach, only a minute away we were stunned when we finally came across it. This may have been the most beautiful beach I have been to, surrounded by mountains and small rocky islands the beach was as secluded as you could get in one of the most densely populated places in the world. We were told that the weekends in Hong Kong meant that the beaches were mobbed, we found though that Shek O was relatively quiet compared to our expectations. The beach was clean and water was perfect, it wasn't clear like the Caribbean but the temperature was in the 80's and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. This beach was the perfect way to beat the HK heat, 95degrees and humid and made for a great day trip. All in all this trip was a great success, we had great food and great beach time all only an hour away from our lowly digs at the Caritas Bianchi Lodge.