11/19/2012 11:50pm
After the long hike on Lamma, Julie definitely wanted a little pampering and had her eye open for a foot massage. They're quite abundant in Hong Kong so it didn't take too long to find one. But they all walk a fine line of your personal comfort level with "sketchiness", as they're frequently located above street level, up a dingy set of stairs and down a hallway. The one we picked walked this line indeed, especially since the lady at the top spoke little English. No matter; all sorted we sat down, WiFi password in hand, to have our feet taken care of.
Times Square in New York is a large gathering place, like, you know, a square. Times Square in Hong Kong is also a gathering place, but it's a mall. Aside from the small plaza in front of the entrance, I think about the only other thing it shares with the more famous version is the large, brightly lit billboards that surround the place. But still, it's pretty neat. Tonight LEGO took over and created a small Lego-Land Christmas scene that was made to be a small village, complete with bakery, restaurant and houses. The bakery's display case was quite impressive with its Lego cakes and pastries. So many people were milling around taking so many pictures of every little Lego figurine; I wonder what happens to all of these photos? Also, seems the new overly-large-to-be-a-phone Samsung Galaxy Note is the phone-du-jour here. I took a lot of people's pictures with theirs.
We had some dim sum in the mall at Crystal Jade whose "xiao long bao" was quite good. We wandered around the streets amongst the shops for a while before things started to shut down around 11. We had been to this area (Causeway Bay) way back in 2008 and it has changed: the bamboo-supported local ads are gone, replaced with new corporate advertisements. It's definitely not the same but there are many other places in HK to find those.
We took the tram (yup, old style electric double-decker tram) home and I got one of the best time lapse videos I've ever done, aside from the one of our drive through New Zealand's Southern Alps. Dunno how to share it...
