Carousel Goes Global: Hong Kong and Taipei 2012: Which way to the beach?

Today was saweeeeeet. We took our big bus tour over to Stanley, which is a super touristy area of Hong Kong and browsed the markets there and then hit the beach. It was AMAZING at the beach. Hong Kong is so sick because it's like every vacation in one, there are beaches like the Caribbean and city areas like New York. A bunch of u s swam out to this raft off the coast, and about halfway there (it was a long swim) this automated message played in the beach about staying far away from the SHARK PREVENTION NETS, which sped up our swim exponentially. The last thing we need after all our trAnsportation issues is for someone to get eaten by a shark. After everyone was sufficiently burned, we headed back to Central and then took the ferry across to Kowloon again. We ate in a restaurant that was only the New York Times top ten restaurant list or something that was famous for its dumplings. The food there was awesome and we all loved it, it was legit authentic Chinese cuisine (even though I'm quite positive that there are franchises of that restaurant in the states... Lol). Then we went to the ladies' market again for souvenirs and such. The highlight of the night was when we were shopping for a fake Rolex for Elyse's dad. Those are super illegal to sellin the markets, so we asked this guy to show us his Rolexs and he all sneakily takes down this like fake designer bag and takes all these sketchy watches out of it under the counter and it was the most black market thing I've ever experienced and then Elyse haggled like a champ and we were all scared. It was mucho exciting. Finally we headed back to the T Hotel via subway (almost lost half the group) and bus (no one pushed the stop button so the driver just cruised right on past our stop and we had to walk a billion miles up a steep incline at 11pm). I think we're really starting to get the hang of the public transportation in Hong Kong. Tomorrow we visit Buddha.