Monkey Mountain.

Are you afraid of monkeys?

I didn't think I was.

I was wrong.

Let me walk you through how this new fear developed.

Me & my dear friend Anna made our way to a random hiking trail we had heard of in Kam Shan Country Park a.k.a. Monkey Mountain. 

Mostly we were just super excited to see wild monkeys.

After walking about 2 minutes we came across a whole bundle of them.

It was really cool because we could get so close to them.

Of course at first we were way stupid and unknowingly took  pictures all excited about being surrounded by monkeys.

We then began the real journey up the mountain. Interestingly there was basically a staircase the whole way. I guess when you have millions of people in such a small place you have the man power to build stairs on a hiking trail.

There were tons of great photo ops along the way.

The hike was absolutely gorgeous.

Pictures don't do it justice. We were walking through an intense rainforest.

Then just when we were getting used to enjoying the scenery all monkey-free, we noticed one in the distance. Anna was trying to point it out to me for a couple minutes when all of the sudden this little guy creeped up behind us. I was taken extremely by surprise and my heart was going a million miles a minute the whole time he meandered past us on the path.

More beautiful hiking...

More monkeys on the trail...

THEN everything changed. Apparently you aren't supposed to stare at the monkeys or they'll attack. Unfortunately we didn't learn this until we read a sign a few kilometers later. So as I'm trying to take a picture of this cute monkey family the mom goes all nutso on me, makes this face and lets out the most evil hissing noise you have ever heard. I booked it away from them, but somehow managed to snap this picture just in time.

After that experience I was terrified of the monkeys.

They are not nice.

This one was pretty cute, mostly because of the distance though.

When we turned the corner and saw this there was no distance to protect us anymore.

And that car had been feeding them out the window.

HEY GUESS WHAT CHINESE PEOPLE, WE DON'T HAVE A CAR TO PROTECT US!!

We conquered them though. Just walked straight forward, scared stiff, making zero eye contact.

Those silly foreigners in the background of this picture were acting exactly like us at the beginning of our adventure before we really got to know the nature of feral monkeys.

I did find one more cute monkey though.

Then I took another look at the stunning beauty of Hong Kong.

Anna did as well.

And we watched the sun set on an incredible day.

Asia really is better than you can imagine.