Introduction
This is a rather verbatim transcript of some notes I took during a trip
to Hong Kong in June 1998. It's not meant to serve as a guidebook, but
if you're going to Hong Kong maybe it'll give you some idea of places to
see or good things to eat.
Table of Contents
6/17: San Diego
Finally we were finished packing and ready to go. We got to the airport early and thought maybe it was too early -- but soon our flight was canceled and we took another airline's last flight out! In LA we had no checkin problems, shared a ramen soup in the waiting lounge, and few Air China 6 to Taipei.
6/18: Lost in crossing the dateline
6/19: Hong Kong
We arrived in Hong Kong around 0845, after a stop in Taipei. The flight was good -- we slept a lot. For breakfast we got the choice of Chinese- or Western-style breakfast. Chinese-style was good -- rice pudding with meat and preserved mushrooms and cabbage!
Airport luggage storage would cost as much as the hotel,
so we put it all in a taxi and went to the STB Hostel where I had made
a reservation. The driver didn't speak English but we had a map with Cantonese
names on it -- so we were able to point out where we wanted to go.
The hostel is in the Yau Ma Tei district of Kowloon. Most tourists seem to
stay in Tsim Sha Tsui, with its shops and hotels -- I found the
STB Hostel over the internet, and with their reasonable rates (US$32/night)
decided on staying there. We had a half hour walk to get to the waterfront,
and we are right in the middle of all the hardware stores, with bolts,
nuts, pipe cutters, and tools.
After a shower we walked first to Mong Kok, the opposite direction of where we wanted to go to -- we took the wrong turn outside of the hostel door. After a dozen blocks of hardware stores we turned around and went to Tsim Sha Tsui, the touristy section by the water. It was a nice walk -- there are a very few tourists where we stay so I felt like we were seeing something more original. In Tsim Sha Tsui we mostly walked around -- there are lots of stores, most with high-tech or designer stuff, but on the way we saw fruit and vegetable markets and Chinese silk stores. Harleen tried on some silk jackets, but didn't find one that really liked yet.
The rest of the day was spent in Kowloon -- walking. We searched for Bodhi, a vegeterian restaurant recommended by the guidebook, but it went out of business already. For dinner: shrimp-dumpling noodle soup!
6/20: Hong Kong Island
In the morning we walked to Tsim Sha Tsui and had dim-sum lunch at the Gangdong Hotel. It was very good, but the place was rather fancy -- all in all it cost us US$30. Mango pudding dessert was excellent.
Then we went to the Star Ferry and took it to Central, on Hong
Kong Island. The ride was short. The ferry itself has two decks: the upper
deck is low enough that I thought it was the lower deck, and the actual
lower deck is even lower!
At the Central pier sit a few rikshas, but mostly for photographs -- they apparently hardly ever take anyone for a ride. We spent the rest of the day walking -- first through Hollywood St to the Western market, stopping in lots of antique stores along the way. This part of the island is very developed, full of high-rises and lots of people, although there are some parks. From Western we walked to Wan Chai, where we had lunch in a street-side restaurant -- rice noodles with beef and sweet-sour pork on rice (Harleen).
All this walking in hot weather was a bit tiring, so we walked some more to the ferry, then took the MTR from Tsim Sha Tsui to Yau Ma Tei.
Back at the hotel Harleen called the brother of a school friend and we agreed to meet at the top level of the Excelsior at 2130. We got there by MTR (the high speed commuter train), which runs through a tunnel under the bay. At the Excelsior the top floor houses a bar/club called TOTS (Top Of The Something). We had a few drinks with them but we didn't really enjoy ourselves. By the time we left we were at the Hyatt disco, where I almost wasn't allowed in because of my tennis shoes. We had to return by cab as the ferry/MTR did not run anymore. Later we found out about a bus we could have taken -- the whole evening was a bit of a waste, hanging out with expatriates at expensive hotels.
6/21: Stanley and Aberdeen (Hong Kong Island)
Now that public transportation opened up some possibilities for us (we weren't walking everywhere anymore) we decided to see the south side of the island. But first, breakfast. After an MTR ride to Tsim Sha Tsui we found a small restaurant where we had soup noodles with meat and lunch meat (spam, ham, hotdog, two pork cutlets). Followed by a tea with condensed milk it turned out to be a breakfast of champions.
Ferry to Central, and before going to Stanley we went to
the Central Market -- it is a 3-story structure where all various foods
are sold. First floor has fowl and fish. Second floor has beef, pork,
and vegetables. Very familiar smells of markets in Rio, vendors chopping
fish and meat on wooden blocks, squatting on the floor.
We took bus 6A to Stanley which was a beautiful trip along the coast. Narrow and curvy roads, double decker bus. Stanley was a pretty town with a hue junk market (clothes, etc). We had a ginger (Harleen) and Irish (me) brew at the Lord Stanley's Pub and looked over the bay.
The Tin Hau Temple is small and very pretty. We reached it after crossing a construction zone and some hard-hat areas.
From Stanley we took the bus to Aberdeen, skipping Repulse Bay -- although it looked nice, it also looked like mostly just a beach.
Aberdeen has a large harbour with three floating restaurants. Harleen bargained us a sampan tour and so we went around hte bay. It was very polluted, with trash floating all around. We decided not to eat at the restaurants and eat good food elsewhere.
While we left some films at a one-hour photo we went to another Tin Hau temple. Tin Hau is the goddess who protects the sailors and fishermen -- there are lots of temples dedicated to her. Althought the temple is a holy place, two old men listening to the radio, with their feet propped up on the table, lounged inside. It seems like a healthy way to worship -- respectful but reasonable. I was not reminded of the Catholic Church.
We returned to Central in a minibus and took the tram (lower deck) to Causeway Bay. The Sze Chuen Lau restaurant was recommended by the guidebook and it was truly excellent. We had:
pomfret in chili sauce on a hotplate. served at the table, the pomfret comes on a hotplate and the sauce is poured over, sizzling and filling the air with aroma
eggplant in garlic sauce with minced pork
chicken with capsicum and green peppers
Harleen asked for hot pepper sauce which drew surprised looks from the waiters -- since we were there before regular dinner hours we had six people waiting on us in turns. We splurged on this meal, and it was well worth it.
With more than full bellies we took the tram to Wan Chai and walked
to the Victoria Peak tram. The tram ride is steep, almost at 45deg for
all of the trip! It's strange to see the highrises from that
angle. Initially cloudy and rainy, the sky cleared up to give us a
beautiful view of HK Island and Kowloon.
6/22: Macau
With bananas in our pack we took the 0845 ferry from the Canton St pier. The HK Ferry is a spacious hydrofoil that takes about 70 minutes to reach Macau.
Macau reminded me so much of Rio! Except for the Chinese, the buildings, the climate, the tiled walkways and signs in Portuguese were just like Rio. The street are much cleaner here, and we saw no pivetes or mendigos (street urchins and beggars).
From the pier we took the bus to the Centre, Senado Leal. Most of the colonial buildings were being repaired, so we didn't see the inside of the senate. Through narrow, cobblestone streets we walked to the ruins of St Paul's -- a 1602 cathedral which was destroyed around 1835 and only the facade is left. The facade shows a dragon, a ship, the Virgin Mary, and is only a meter or two deep!
Above the church is a hill with the main city fort. From its cannons the Dutch were bombarded until they desisted from taking Macau. One of the cannonballs had hit a powder store on a ship and literally blew the ship off the water.
The fort museum was closed but we had a cafezinho and walked on the green and wooded terrace where the cannons are. The ladies in the coffeeshop spoke Portuguese and recommended a restaurant for lunch: A Vencedora. We found it, and had:
sopa de batatas com torradas (potato soup with croutons)
lulas fritas, batata (fried squids with potatoes)
sopa de repolho com macarrao (cabbage soup with noodles)
bacalhau com grao de bico (dried cod with chickpeas)
Served with azeite (virgin olive oil), chilled red wine, and bread it was excellent. I haven't had such good Portuguese food since leaving Brazil. The squids were the best I had in a very long time!
Again walking with full bellies we rounded the southern tip of the peninsula and visited the Maritime Museum. It was nice, but I was mostly interested in the local maritime history -- although there were many models, no full size boats could be visited (like in Barcelona).
A video tape of the mud fishermen was amazing -- it showed how they
make traps from water bottles, "surf" out on semi-dried mud fields, and
set traps for 1,2-inch fish. Amazingly hard work, and I'd assume that
not many fish can be caught. The trap is made like this:
That was the lesson of the day.
Although the museum offers a junk ride, the junk is motorized and tours just the harbour. We skipped it. Opposite the museum is the A-Ma temple -- she is the same godess as Tin Hau. The town name, Macau, is believed to come from A-Ma-Gau.
The temple is large -- besides the main altar there are steps that leaad up a hill, with many inscriptions and shrines along the way.
From there we walked back to town, had pastries and cafezinho at a
pastelaria. We visited (again) some of the antique shops we saw arlier
-- they sell furniture and beautiful chinese boxes. Eventually we bought
an elmwood box, with a builtin mirrow and drawers for jewelry.
With the box safely bubble-wrapped we returned to HK. As we paid cash for the box, we were left with HK$ 332, which didn't amount much after the ferry tickets (HK$ 320)!
6/23: Lantau, Mong Kok
The big decision today was to pick between Lantau (a large island with Buddhist monastery), Lamma (small, lus, amazing seafood), and the New Territories. We decided on Lantau -- although it might be rather touristy, it seemed more special that a solely food-based trip.
We left the hotel a little later today, and walked along Nathan Rd looking for a dim-sum restaurant. Evetually we found the Treasure Restaurant which had no menus in English. The service seemed pretty curt and after 10 minutes of bewing there still very few carts came by. And none of them had dumplings, but just tripe and sea snails. I'd like to try some of them, but in much smaller portions. We ended up getting out the guidebook and ordering in Cantonese -- the guidebook had names of some dishes, and on our first day we asked the waiter to write down some of our favourite dishes. We got by with our pronunciation so we didn't have to show the writing. It was very good and inexpensive -- HK$ 88 for both of us.
From there, satisfied, we walked to the Star Ferry through Chungking Mansions. They are a huge combination of cheap food (mostly Indian) places, merchandise, and so forth. Higher stories have hotels or dormitories -- very budget conscious.
We arrived to Central at 1230, missing the Lantau ferry. We used the one hour we had to send some postcards and to walk around. At 1330 we boarded the ferry's ordinary class ("deluxe" is air conditioned, and I wanted to breathe normal air) and after some 55 minutes we got to Lantau. It was raining like hell, and we took (again, the ordinary) bus to Pon Li, the Buddhist monastery. The ride was beautiful when we could see through the rain -- lush forests, hills, serpentine road, the sea.
After some 40 minutes we arrived at the monastery, where low lying
fog cloaked everything. We waited in a souvenir store for the rain to
pass or the fog to lift. After 10-15 minutes the rain decreased and we
saw the giant Buddha statue as it emerged from the mists -- it was very
beautiful. Much of the monastery is somewhat new, especially the
statue, so after more fog lifted we were ready to go back. An hour
later we took the next bus to Mui Wo (Silvermine Bay), had something hot
to drink, a basket of chips, and ferried back to Central.
In Central Harleen did some shipping at Marks&Spencer (which was going to be their last store before we arrived to London a few months later). We also bought the silk jacket that she found on Saturday -- she bargained it down from HK$1598 to 600!
The MTR took us to Mong Kok, but the Singing Bird market was closed already. We walked through the Ladies' Market (Tung Choi St) but it was just more of Temple St. On the way we went into a seafood restaurant and ordered through pictures (i.e. Chinese characters on the menu):
stuffed crab claws
shrimp in chili sauce with bamboo shoots
braised vegetable in oyster sauce
It was nice, but not special. We argued with the waiter who brought us cashew shrimp and insisted that it was the chili/bamboo. We were getting nowhere, the manager wasn't helpful, so we gave up and ate what he brought. The bill was also a bit steep, HK$ 180 -- so not a place we'd recommend.
Back at the hote we watched the Chile-Cameroun soccer game -- rooting for the Africans. It was a good game, lots of action. 1-1. We're missing most of the World Cup while we're here.
6/24: leaving for Singapore
We got up early, packed, and taxi'ed to the airport. With our huge luggage (20kg of trekking gear for India) we had to check through the oversize counter, which took a long tme, amindst all other, already checked, passengers bringing their oversize baggage.
For breakfast fried noodles with green scallions (me) and croissant and kiwi tarte (Harleen). Flight to Singapore elapsed 3:20, and immigration went OK. But that's another story.