Bright lights, big city. Times square, HK

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...

Rural experience in HK - Lamma Island

11/19/2012
One of the goals of this trip to Hong Kong was to explore the further reaches of the territory. So today we got onto a ferry and went to Lamma Island, a small island about a 30min boat ride SW of HK. Cruising west out of Victoria Harbour it is interesting how the dense concrete jungle suddenly ends at a steep hill at the sea's edge and is replaced by thick green vegetation. You're reminded that you are in fact close to the tropics.
Leaving the rows upon rows of 40-storey apartment buildings behind, we pull into Yung Shue Wan that has just a smattering of 3-storey buildings.  Disembarking and walking along the quiet main street (you can actually hear birds chirping!) it feels as though we went from downtown Toronto to small-town Manitou. Except here there are large tanks of fish, abalone, scampi, clams and prawns at the side of the small street and there are no vehicles, aside from these neat little lawnmower engine-powered trucks.
Our purpose here is to do a walk from one end of the island to the other. Julie got the info from discoverhongkong.com and it said it would take about 4hrs. We got a little bit lost at first trying to get out of the village (having a GPS-enabled tablet is pretty handy!) but we found it, and armed with a waffle slathered in peanut butter and condensed milk, we wandered off down the sidewalk in the shade of the large trees.
Shortly a beach comes into view and with the sun trying to burn through the clouds, it's almost tempting to take a dip, but the sign that says "stay within shark net" makes one think twice. After the beach the path goes upwards out of the trees and into the drier grasslands. We stop for a snack at one of the half-dozen pavilions (rest shelters) that dot the route.
Coming down out of the hills a final pavilion offers a grand view of the bay and the village of Sok Kwu Wan. Walking through the village, seafood restaurants hawk their catch with the catch phrase that the ferry doesn't leave for over an hour - enough time for lunch! We take the bait (pardon the pun?) and sit down at a seaside place after the lady convinced us of her set menu lunch and julie bargained for some sweet'n'sour. HK$198 got us a plate of clams (slathered in a tasty spicy black bean sauce), shrimp, calamary [sic] and our first taste of abalone, served in the shell.  We actually had to get the server to get the meat out of the shell for us since we'd never done it before.  The sun came out and it was quite nice sitting there next to the boats bobbing in the water. Couldn't enjoy it for too long as we had to chug the final bites and dash to the ferry.

Lan Kwai Fong - we love this place!

5:20pm on Sunday, touchdown in HK!
We're getting to be pros at this now - I even remembered the bank machine at the airport that lets you withdraw a higher limit. And with our experience from last time with the airport-hotel shuttles, we easily sailed into the city (which was surprisingly dark already) gazing at the lights of the skyscrapers. Stepping out of the shuttle bus I immediately smell the familiar scent of the place - something like humid fried noodles, followed shortly by that sweet lemongrass scent that Holiday Inns in Asia manage to all smell like.
We're located in Sheung Wan and only a 10 minute walk to our favourite party place Lan Kwai, a concentrated block of restaurants and bars.  This weekend they were hosting their own version of Carnival.  The narrow streets were even more crowded with tourists and locals crammed in between small booths on the side of the street selling beers, sangria and rum punch, plus an assortment of food.  Suddenly we spotted a dense crowd blocking the street. Getting there all we could see was what we could view on people's camera/phone screens in front of us.  But then the drums started and feathers bobbed above the crowd and there we were - in the midst of a Carnival parade!
Guessing that they'd be coming round the block in a while, we ventured off the other way and got a nice big glass of sangria in time to see the parade come by.  Drums banging, whistles blowing! It was pretty fun!  For some reason, after the parade passed by, we became photo subjects - must be Julie's Latino looks?

We capped off the night with some tapas at a Spanish restaurant Boqueria high above the street. Amusingly they described their wines as "earthy, crisp, rich and elegant".  Since Julie couldn't decipher the wine descriptions and didn't want a sweet cocktail, she tried making her own from Campari.  Fail.  But my beer was good.  Oh, and they had bacon-wrapped dates. :-)

I love HK

Julie leads us down the rabbit hole for breakfast

One of the challenges of travelling is determining what to eat, where to eat and how to eat. Fortunately Asia makes it easy – the answer is noodles. Noodles for breakfast, noodles for lunch and supper is also often noodles.  I had thought that I’d start the day with a Hong Kong waffle, but no, those aren’t for eating until midday.

Walking further down the street Julie abruptly turned into what looked like a warehousing area for the local florists and produce stands.  She reckoned that at least we could possibly get ourselves a banana or something to tide us over and satisfy my grumbling belly.  I asked the lady who sold us the token banana where we should go for a Hong Kong breakfast. She pointed further down the dim hallway crowded with pallets, boxes and industrial fridges. So we went, and popped out into an open space surrounded with stalls with large pots of boiling broth that filled the nose.

A smiling lady caught our eye and sat us down. I naively thought that this meant she could speak english since we’re obviously foreigners. But on the flip side, how many foreigners venture into this industrial diner? So maybe she thinks we’re living here and can speak Chinese!

Commence ordering by pointing! Take one didn’t work out so well when I received a plate with one runny egg on it. Julie’s noodles looked good though. Julie tried again and this time I got the full meal deal: a few slices of ham, more eggs and a wiener.  The tea in the little plastic glass was super lemony and super sweet – just the way I like it! I think it was HKD46 for us both, about 6 Canadian loonies.

After brekky we wandered through Kowloon Park, which is a lovely park in the middle of this metropolis that can make you forget that you’re even in a city of millions of people.

photos on smugmug - http://kalicinski.smugmug.com/Travel/SE-Asia-2012/Hong-Kong

Oh Hong Kong, one day is not enough

OK, so technically we had nearly 48hrs, but subtracting for travel to and fro the airport and this nasty thing called jet lag (is it better to fly west or east?), we really didn't seem to have that much time here.

Julie and I kicked off our travels with the first debate of the trip - how to get to town from the airport. For future reference the train and an Octopus card are the best bet. The train includes a free shuttle to your hotel once you arrive at Kowloon Station.
We used the last of my Holiday Inn points to get a nice room at the Holiday Inn [sing it] right on Nathan Rd in the heart of Kowloon. Primo location next to MTR stations and loads of action. However our plans of watching the fireworks from the rooftop pool were dashed when Julie went up there and found you couldn't see a thing besides the walls of neighbouring buildings.
In a strange twist of east meets west, HK puts on Winterfest, where they pretend to be in the north. Just like we saw in Singapore last time round, the city was ablaze in Christmas lights and decorations and carols jingling from every loudspeaker. It's certainly a pretty sight and for us Winnipeggers it's a treat to walk around a festive atmosphere with only a sweater on. (I'm guessing temps have dropped to more normal levels back home?)  There are decorations EVERYWHERE; Tiffany’s sponsors giant Christmas trees and a carousel in Statue Square and we even found a skating rink that had real ice!

 

Due to our time restraints we didn’t get to see too much. I had hoped to go on a walking tour after downloading an app onto our tablet and we didn’t even get back to Julie’s favourite global party place of Lan Kwai Fong. But we did happen upon what may be a serious contender to our magical little bar further up the harbour.  Pier7 has a prime spot right below IFC, which is the tallest structure on the island. The view from here completely made up for the long flight and jet lag – I’d do it again and again just to see this skyline.

We did some investigating to find ourselves a party for NYE, and we found numerous options: HKD380 for a rooftop party @ the Harbour Plaza hotel, HKD500 for a party at the Intercontinental on the waterfront or HKD2400 for an extravagant 8-course meal with harbour view. By the time we made a decision we missed getting in on the cheap option - typical!

 

<<original draft written Dec.31. finished in Winnipeg Feb.19>>

more photos online @ kalicinski.smugmug.com