Of all the hiking I've done so far, Sunday had to be the coolest trip so far.  I took a long bus ride to an area called Pak Tam Au, then I hiked a strenuous path for about 2 hours through vast mountains with spectacular views (and cows that were blocking the path!) until I got to Ham Tin, a village where the beach was., and Tai Long Wan, which I heard may be the most isolated area in Hong Kong. The beach was huge, and mountains surrounded it with no modern buildings anywhere in sight.  There were huge rocks on the north side of the beach, so I climbed them but they turned out to be more like stalagmites than rocks due to the beating they have taken from the typhoons over the years.  The rocks led up to the water, so I got to see huge ocean waves crash upon the rocks, which looked awesome.  Then I walked another half mile to another beach, but instead of going to the beach, I used the advice of a book my mom got for me and I followed a somewhat hidden path that led to an absolutely gorgeous waterfall, natural swimming pool, cool rock formations, and a river that led to the ocean.  The water turned out to be swimmable, but I didn’t bring a suit because I just wanted to explore.  Not only was it swimmable, but apparently it is so deep that people jump off of the surrounding cliffs ranging from 5 to about 30 feet high into the water!  I climbed to the top of the waterfall and read a book for a while, which was spectacularly relaxing with the perfect temperature, water crashing below me, and a true sight to behold.  Then I walked back to the beach, and then hiked to a road about two miles away (seeing some even more spectacular views), and I caught a minibus back to town. As I have said before, minibus drivers are crazy, and this guy apparently has driven this route one too many times, because he was too comfortable driving full speed along a cliff for my likings, but we made it back safe, so that’s all that matters.

       As I said in my last post, these last two weeks have been chaotic because the middle of the semester is when they load up all of the coursework, tests, and presentations. Thankfully, I am all done with that (except for two papers in finance and operations management, which is more like something fun I would love to do in my free time as opposed to homework) until finals, which the schedule just opened up for.  My last final is on April 30th, and I leave Hong Kong on May 28th, so I have almost a full month to travel around Southeast Asia! I haven't made any plans yet because I did not know how many days I would have to travel, but I am going to hopefully decide soon on where I will go! If anybody has suggestions, I am all ears!

                                             Halfway through the hiking trail to Tai Long Wan

                                                We seem to have a roadblock on the path...

                                                   The beach was enormous!

The "stalagmite" rocks by the water (this is actually common in Hong Kong due to the heavy rain they receive during the typhoon season)

                                                The back of the beach...

                                                      ...and the front of the beach

                                                 Birds-eye view of the beach

                                                          On to the next beach!

                           Natural swimming pools and waterfall in the mountains that leads to the sea

                                                      View of the river leading to the sea

                                                 I guess I had to be in at least one of the pictures...

                                        Just your average place to sit down and read a book

On the way out of Tai Long Wan

 My marketing team after our big presentation-they were lots of fun to work with! Also I had to borrow the suit from a friend, so I realize its not the best look

We are oh so cool...