In Hong Kong, I'm studying in Hong Kong Baptist University (gotta write another post about this cool university!). During our study here, all the affairs related to international students (the exchange students) will be managed after by an office called international office. They were the one who arrange our arrival pick up, orientation programme and also outing activities for us to explore Hong Kong. And our first outing activity was..... hiking!

When I woke up on Saturday 17 September, it was a really bright Saturday morning. The sun was soooo strong despite the fact that we should've had a typhoon on Thursday and people said that it should've been raining on the following days. Without the rain and typhoon, I assume that it was the purrfect day for a hike!

The meeting point was at Diamond Hill MTR station, 2 stations away from my university's nearest station, Lok Fu. I went there together with several other exchange students who also join the hiking. In Diamond Hill MTR station, the student ambassadors has been waiting for us (with our $50 deposit!). We did a quick absence-check and deposit refund process before we headed to the bus.
From Diamond Hill MTR, we took the bus no 92 to Sai Kung and continued with bus no 94 to Park Tam Chung. Each bus costs $ 6.8 and in total it took us about 1 hour to get the to destination.

We arrived at Park Tam Chung at around 11PM. Once I off from the bus, my first impression was:
Without the rain and typhoon, Mr. Sunshine dominated the whooole blue sky. It was terribly bright and terribly hot. The Hong Kong government even forced the yellow fire danger warning on that day which indicates that the weather could easily cause fire. I believed the temperature was more than 30 degrees Celsius.

So the hiking trail that we were going to conquer at that day was Maclehose Trail. It is a 100 kilometres long of hiking trail, consists of 10 stages of hiking section. Henry, one of the student ambassadors who lead our way, said that for this hiking, we will "only" finish the first stage of the trail. First stage is supposed to be the easiest stage! But FYI, the first stage's distance is one tenth of the whole trail, which is approximately 10 kilometres. OH YEAH!

Group picture first! (Professionally captured by Hugo Mattsson)

It was supposed to be an easy hike, because the track is mainly a flat road. However, the hot weather made it an extremely hard hike for me. I knew I will be OK with the walk, but I couldn't handle the heat. However, the show must go on. I couldn't turn back. Leggo!

Our destination is the Long Ke. 10.6 kilometres to go!

Luckily, the struggle to walk under the heat was accompanied by magnificent views. Along the tracking path, we were able to see all green and blue scenery. I saw the big mountains, completed by the green trees and the wide blue ocean. It was wonderful. Enjoy yourself some pictures I took during the hike, without the need to feel the heat ;)

My advice for you guys who are going for hiking, no matter in raining day or in the super-heated day like mine, always bring your umbrella. I know it's kind of coquettish to open your umbrella and walk under it while your other friends bravely walk against the sun. Trust me, it will be your best friend (aside from your bottled water) throughout the hike (at least it did for me).
The heat on that day was very strong that I couldn't bear it. I put on my blue cap and opened my pink umbrella. I was the the first among all the participants to use the umbrella (pioneer!). I remembered my Netherland friend asked me, "Why do you open your umbrella?" I told him that because it's too hot. Then he was kinda confused to see the fact that I use the umbrella to avoid the sun... I guess it was because the western people love the sunshine! While, I don't *smirk*

All-covered-up-me to avoid the sun. It's hard to stay pretty under the heat.

Meet my best companion for the day, Chloe!

After 3.5 hours of walking, finally we arrived at the destination point at 2:30 PM. The final point of the first stage is located after a very big dam. 

Once we arrived at the destination point, it didn't mean our journey ended there. There's a beautiful beach called Long Ke beach behind the mountain. Henry said that it probably take 30 minutes to reach the beach and another 30 minutes to go back from beach to our current final point (1 hour in total). At first I kinda lazy to get to the beach; because it was still hot, I was tired and I knew I wouldn't play in the water. However many people told me that the beach was our reason to walk 10.6 kilometres under the heat. The hike gonna be meaningless if I didn't see the beach. Alright! Challenge accepted!

And I regretted my decision after the first 3 minutes of climbing the stairs...

We arrived at the beach and there were so many people there. Some of the people built their tent and stay there for 1-2 nights. I saw youngsters chilling out by the beach, families gathering with their loved one and self-travelers cooking their lunch. I noticed that they brought food supplies with them, mostly canned food and instant noodles.

The interesting part was the existence of an ox there. The ox tried to find food in the rubbish area. However as he found nothing, he started to invade the other area that got the food... He headed to one of the stone table with quite number of food belong to a guy and started to eat them! The guy rushed to his table with anxiety and tried to save the food. The sweet thing is, the guy didn't have any attempt to hit the ox. He just waving his hand to ask the ox to go and even give a pack of his food for the ox. How sweet!

When we went back from the beach, we supposed to take taxi to go back to the bus stop. However, as it was quite late, there were also many people looking for the taxi. It was quite hard to find the taxi  due to the high demand and low supply (and no uber service there). Some taxi even tried to increase the fare because they know we need them. The usual fare to go to the bus stop would be $70 for one taxi (4 to 5 people), but there was a taxi that wanted to charge us $100 per head! Crazy!

Finally we able to get the taxi that doubled our fare from $70 to $140 for 5 people. Quite a good deal though.

It was a very tiring yet fun day for me. Such an experience to walk for 3.5 hours under the heat and another 1 hour to see the beach. If you want to go there, just remember to bring umbrella, water (I finished my 2.5L)  and probably some fresh fruits that you can buy from the supermarket. Those things will be useful to ensure you stay alive!

That's all for this post. I hope you enjoy it :) See you on the next post!