Sunday 20 November 2011

Sun 20 Nov - Hong Kong

Today is the first full day in Hong Kong.
I wake up early 5.30am or so (of course) and after taking a few morning photos from the window...

...I went for a wander around our hotel from 6.30am.

Being Sunday, the little old ladies in particular could be been in Kowloon Park (and any other park for that matter) doing their gymnastics, tai chi or just moving around. This is from Kowloon Park:


This is our hotel B P International, which is on Austin Rd, south of Kowloon Park and just around the corner from the Temple St markets:


Back to hotel around 7.30am with some breakfast food from 7 eleven, we went out for a big day of just walking around town. Loosely, we were walking towards the (in)famous bird markets which would take in the flower markets at the same time (and the goldfish markets as well).
This is a heaven for photography, with lots of quirky and interesting motifs everywhere. Here are a few:

A designated crap area for dogs (that is, if they can read...):


Foot massage area in Kings Park, i.e. lots of stones concreted down where you take your shoes off and walk around over them. Hmmm, not sure about this...


Mobile phone "tower", Hong Kong style:


Hong Kong is open for business...


We love Hong Kong streets...



...except for Bloody Pitt Street...


Well, finally we got to the flower markets... It was quite amazing and beautiful and looks of nice smells (for a change):


Literally around the corner from the flower markets are the bird markets...
Noisy, with lots of tiny little birds in small cages, together with anything that you would possibly need to feed them. Live grasshoppers, live worms...


After all that, we started to get a bit peckish and were looking for some dim sum from an eating house with karma. We found it in the Majesty Chinese Restaurant on Nathan Road not far from the markets in Mong Kok. Good karma in that we were the only white people there, it was pretty much full and most of the menu was in Chinese. Of course, Dim Sum is not quite like Yum Cha. You have a notepad and fill in your selected dishes, give it to the waiter and the kitchen cooks them for you.
Regardless, we got a very good meal. Even the Chinese tea and the rice tasted better than normal.

Here is Dim Sum Di:

Note the pictures near Di - when language fails us we pointed to a picture of chilli.
After a great meal we needed more walking and lucky us found the old market area at Reclamation Street.  Quiet on Sunday afternoon except for a strange old man who was fascinated with Di and could not stop staring.
A bit of zig-zagging back south through Temple St and a few others, and via Welcome supermarket across the street, we came back to the hotel around 3pm for a break for a few hours.
As we had a room with twin beds rather than a double bed last night, we got another room down the corridor. Much better use of space too given the smallishness of rooms here.And we still some "grand" views of the harbour.

Resting for a few hours gave us energy for more walking. 
Into Kowloon Park which had a real party atmosphere with the foreign maids all meeting for picnics and dancing on their Sunday off. Some religious groups and some "wailing".


We brave the indian spruikers around TSS and escape without a "copy Rolex, copy handbag madam" or suit and make it to the Kowloon waterfront.

The Star Ferry terminal is busy, as usual, andwith a band playing that seemed to be associated with Falan Gong practioners.  Band was terrible but still drew a crowd and you had to walk on the street in front of the buses to get by.



Then onto Avenue of the Stars, to track down Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.

Di and Jackie...

And here is Jackie again...


Our search for dinner surpringsly took a bit of time because we wanted a place with locals only but with some english on the menu. 
Found it - and with a special price on Harbin Beer we were set. Beer was very good and cold and atmoshpere suited us, with a toilet paper roll for napkins and food cooked on the street and brought in steaming hot. 
Hans chose best with a delicious steamed pot of fish with ginger and leek on rice.


Back to the hotel to use our "free drink voucher" to find choices limited to Carlsberg draft, coke or OJ.  Hmmm.... I ordered a cocktail which tasted half of cough syrup but at least it looked identical to the picture in the menu.  Time for bed.

No comments:

Post a Comment