Assembling a Kite

When we first bought our kite, we thought it would be pretty simple to construct it.  We were totally stumped though and had to have one of the kite sellers help us to assemble our kite.  I thought it might be interesting to share how we put our kite together…

Since it is coming on Fall and the winds will be picking up soon (typhoon season!).

1.  Our kite kit came with our kite and a reel of string.

2.  The actual kite comes with three rods and the kite.  There are two black rods and one smaller white rod.  The black rods connect and span across the wings of our hawk kite.

3.  The kite has to be facing you!  So, when assembling the kite, the black rods (which you can connect to make one long black rod) span from one wing tip to the other. There are three little ribbons that the rod passes through, which you can see in the photo below.

4.  On both ends of the hawk's wings, there are two plastic stoppers for you to insert the ends of the black rod.

 5.  The result of inserting the black rod should be sort of like this (if you do have a kite similar to ours):

6.  The final white rod is meant to stabilize the tail of the hawk kite.  Here is where we flip our kite over to the back side (the side of the kite that faces away from us when we fly it) and insert it through the ribbon and stoppers.

7.  The final step is to connect the string to the front of the kite.  We were taught to just tie it to the center of the black rod.  We just double knotted it three or four times and that was it!

Some tips when flying a kite:
1.  Check the weather report for wind!

2.  Fly in an open area!

3.  If your reel of string has a string guider, use it so that the string doesn't get tangled!

4.  RUN to get the kite going!

5.  If the kite keeps falling…don't worry, that's all apart of the experience!

Happy KITING!

Kite Flying: Tai Tong

Over the weekend, we planned to head out to Tai Tong to have another go at flying our kite.  We checked the weather forecast and it said that the wind would be around 7 - 12 kilometers an hour.  I sort of figured that the winds might be a bit stronger on top of the mountains, which is sort of where Tai Tong is.  So, it seemed like pretty good weather for kite flying.

We caught the K66 bus from Kau Yuk Road and jumped off at the second to last bus stop (the one right before the terminal).

It's a nice little 10 minute walk (with slight incline) to the actual country park.  

Some awesome things we found along the way:

1.  A cluster of busy red ants...

2.  A wandering little green worm…

We just went as far as the BBQ area, to have lunch and also to have a go at flying our kite.

The wind was not at all constant.  I think we got a good 15 minutes of a pretty good breeze, but after that, there was a long period of just no wind.

So, we too the opportunity to sit in one of the gazebos and have lunch.

Another awesome thing that found my lunch whilst in Tai Tong:

3.  A bee who was hungry for some of my McCafe Ciabatta…

The BBQ area wasn't as crowded as it usually was.  I think it is because the weather is still quite hot.  But, usually, during the Fall, there are a lot more people up here having family barbecues or on school trips.

It was nice to have the entire area to ourselves…

There were small groups of dog lovers gathering and a few families dotted here and there…but it was such a nice pleasant day with few crowds!

Most people bring their barbecue things with them:  coal, lighters, sticks, etc….and food.  But, there is a little kiosk with drinks, toys, candies, and ice cream available.  The kiosk is also attached to one of two of the public restrooms that are in the BBQ area.

Popsicles (like the fabulous green bean one we bought below) were only 7 HKD, by the way.

It was a good weekend spent, even though there was only 15 minutes of kite flying...

Cyberport Kite Festival

On Sunday, we went over to Cyberport to join in on the Kite Festival festivities.  It was a great day spent, flying our kite with hundreds of other people.  Who knew that kite flying could be so fun…especially on a windy day like Sunday.

How to get to Cyberport:
1.  From Central Station/Hong Kong Station's Exchange Square, hop onto bus 30x
2.  Bus 30x will take you directly to Cyberport's main bus terminus

The Kite Festival was broken up into a few activities.  The major activity was for kids to paint their own kites.

The second activity was the Opening Ceremony, which we didn't really stay to watch.

The third, and most awesome, activity, was when everyone just went out to the waterfront park area and flew their kites.

***Photos of the afternoon***

We bought our kite at the event.  It was $100 HKD + $20 HKD for the reel of string.

There was a good amount of wind, so we didn't have much problems getting our kite up.

My favorite kite was probably the huge strawberry!  We got our kite tangled in this guys line, but he just simple circled around us and untangled his strawberry kite.  

We also decided to treat ourselves to a frozen Coke.  Being that it was a boiling hot day today, it didn't really freeze up.

Though Cyberport is MILLIONS OF MILES away from us, it was a great day trip out there.  It was really awesome to be able to fly a kite, which I haven't done since childhood.  And we got a great souvenir kite out of the event, which we can fly around Tai Tong…future goal!