Hong Kong managed to worm its way deep into my heart in no time at all. Hong Kong was pretty much what I envisioned it would be, but managed to surpass my expectations in a number of ways as, despite being so small, it still has everything that one could possibly want and need. Though, one thing that did surprise Michael and I, is how SLOW Chinese people are; I imagined it to be a fast-paced aggressive city but, if anything, it was the opposite. People literally dawdle along the streets, even in Central which, for us, would definitely take some getting used to!
I loved the "Asian-ness" of the place, with all its bright colours, Chinese writing, dim sum and great street food. Although there is an expat community, it really is no way a Western country or touristy, which I actually really liked. In fact, Michael and I only really saw fellow whities in the financial district and popular bar area. The weather wasn't amazing whilst we were there, with temperatures in the low 20's but fairly overcast most days, which in no way negatively affected our trip but, much to our amusement, resulted in Michael and I wearing short-sleeveds and shorts, whilst everyone else was clad in actual winter coats and boots; spot the tourist! I could quite happily get used to their "Winter".
I could, and genuinely want to, live there. Watch this space, and fingers crossed!
The long:
Monday:
Michael and I caught the super efficient metro from the airport to Soho, which is where our hotel was located. After dragging our suitcases back and forth along the same road a number of times, we spotted our new residence tucked away slightly behind some other buildings. Home sweet home. The room was gorgeous and, being on the 30th floor, gave us a beautiful view out over Hong Kong, although I will admit that this was more so the case at night; high-rise grey concrete flats aren't too pretty in the light of day! Since Michael hadn't managed to get any kip on the plane I let him have a 2-hour snooze before promptly prodding him awake at 6pm sharp. Play time! We put on our finest garb ready for a very special (if ever so slightly delayed) birthday night at Aqua restaurant.
The view from the restaurant was unbelievable:
We were seated in the bar area just in the knick of time to watch the daily "Symphony of Lights" show, which involves strobe lights and flashing adverts being emitted from many of the high-rise buildings, which was great to have such prime viewing seats for. I ordered my favourite girly cocktail in the form of a cosmo whilst Michael got a pint of Asahi. Being me it naturally wasn't long until the cosmo was all down my right and arm and all over the floor. Thankfully posh places care about service so I got a free refill in no time, otherwise I would have been a very sad girl! We quickly learnt that tap water is not safe to drink in Hong Kong, nor is filtered water offered at restaurants, so bottled water it was. Wonderful news for the pair of gluggers that we are; don't you just love spending £22 on water?
After wolfing down some freshly baked olive and sun-dried tomato bread, with what we later learnt was garlic mayo (I knew it tasted familiar but couldn't place my finger on it... great news to hear i'd just eaten a bucket of mayo; oh well, it was tasty!), we shared starters of lobster salad and foie gras.
They were both utterly delicious yet, amazingly, the main event still managed to supersede them. We both chose pasta dishes. Michael's was linguine ladened in a creamy sauce with crispy pancetta and mine was black ink spaghetti topped with chili and mussels. Food heaven. We both ranted and raved about every mouthful.
I should not fail to mention the impeccable service. "Olympio" the General Manager flitted to and from our table several times, checking that all was in order, offering us top tips for the duration of our stay and bringing us complimentary glasses of foamy limencello to cap off the night and accompany our dessert.
Considering we were actually celebrating Michael's birthday, it was for once only fair of me to have reserved under the pretence of a birthday, and thus fitting that the restaurant delivered on its free b-day treats.
It was an amazing evening and introduction to Hong Kong.
We were both in very (very) high spirits upon leaving the restaurant having gotten rather tiddly and had a hilarious journey home on the MTR, which involved chasing a potential "he/she" around the tube station, although I won't go into that. With jet lag and broken sleep to catch up on, we pretty much fell into bed and were taken straight to dream land until the following morning.
Tuesday:
Despite both having 9 hours sleep, when the alarm went off at 10am it felt as if someone was smashing a hammer into my head. Regardless, it was "tiiiime to get uppp", and so we did. I was my excitable self as we were headed out to meet my No.1 gal, Abi, who is working temporarily in Hong Kong for a few months, for dim sum. We took the MTR to Causeway Bay where Abi and I lovingly ran into each other's arms, before embarking on a short walk to lunch. En route we passed the main student protest, and none of us could help but laugh at how non-eventful it was; literally, it was just a couple of Asians lying in the middle of the road sleeping.
Abi told us that the tents are numbered so that people can send post to them, which we all thought was fairly fantastic. She took us to "Din Tai Fung", a michelin-starred Shanghainese dim sum restaurant, where you can see the workers make the dim sum through a large window, which I absolutely loved.
The place was jam-packed with hungry lunchers and I couldn't get enough of the busy bustle and Chinese chatter.
Unlike our dinner the night before, I could not commend this place on its service, but that's all part of the experience. If you want it, you shout for it, and that's fine by me when the food is so good and so cheap.
^ Me and my main babe reunited. Michael and I fell in love with the dish featured in the bottom of the photo above, called "glutinous rice"; essentially sticky rice encasing beautiful juicy shredded pork in the centre. Deeee-licious. Full to the brim we waddled out for a tour a la Abi of the markets in Kowloon. We popped into a "Wet Market", where I was not best pleased to find live turtles, eels and sea slugs ready for purchase.
However, the most frightening part was definitely the freshly gutted fish laid out on ice, whose hearts were still beating!
Dried squid anyone?
We ventured back outdoors with a delightful waft of fish clinging to our clothing, and made our way through the Ladies Market, which sold all manner of goodies from fake watches; mobile phone covers; clothes; paintings, and fruit, to massages, and so on.
Abi and I grabbed some baby coconuts to slurp and I was happy as a larry.
We passed lots of street vendors selling local delicacies. I must admit that lots of the things on offer look wonderfully tasty (although I didn't pluck up the courage to try anything), apart from this seemingly popular number; tripe, which both smells and looks rather revolting, in my opinion.
Next, we wandered through the Fish Market, which I had envisioned being full of dead fish, but was really a row of aquarium shops, which was a welcomed surprise.
^ Although I'm not too sure what the life span might be for these poor crammed goldfish.
We strolled through the Flower Market, exploding with all types of stunning flowers and bouquets. I have no idea how there could possibly be enough demand for the amount there was available though; I have never seen so many lilies in all my life! I can only imagine the wastage, which seems such a shame as they really were all so beautiful, and I would happily take some off their hands if needs be.
It was such a happy place and I am fairly certain that if I lived in Hong Kong a weekly wander would be in order.
^ How amazing is this tree trunk?
Finally, we hit the bird market, which was neither too pleasant on the nose nor the ears.
^ Apparently "love birds", so named due to their tendency to cuddle, which I think is adorable.
After all that walking we were in need of a well-deserved drink. Seeing as Abi and I are both gin lovers it seemed only appropriate that we got these fish bowl glass G&T's for just under £5 a pop. On top of that, free nibbles and even FRIED CHICKEN was provided... London bars could learn a thing or two from this place!
Abi's friends joined us as they had organised a leaving dinner for her, as she was due to leave for Dubai the following day. They were all really lovely and seemed to genuinely love living in Hong Kong, which was great news to mine and Michael's ears seeing as we are both fairly keen to join the tiny expat community out here in the not so distant future. We ended up sacking off our Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant dinner plans (what too many drinks and good chat does to you) and joining Abi and her friends for food at a place called Wagyu Lounge, which served decent Western food.
More drinks were ordered, followed by more drinks at a bar on Hollywood Road. I couldn't believe how buzzing all of the venues were considering it was an average Tuesday night. I also loved it as Michael and I hadn't seen that many "whities" up until then and it was nice to see that they do 1) actually exist and 2) all congregate together for a bit of Western fun once in a while. We all realised what a crazy small world we truly live in when Michael and Abi's friend Janet learnt that they both went to Stamford School and were only 1 year apart, although neither of them remembers the other, which is rather funny. All good nights must end with a treat, and this one did just that in the form of Haagen Daaz icy goodness.
Michael and I said our goodbyes and made our way towards home a little after midnight, exhausted from the day's activities and jet lag that we had still not yet come to terms with. I was out within 5 minutes of entering our hotel room (although the alcohol may also have had a small part to play).
Wednesday:
After a lazy morning we went in search of "George", mum's very sweet, very Chinese colleague, for a spot of truly authentic dim sum. In contrast to the restaurant we visited with Abi, which served Shanghainese dim sum, i.e. more noodles; buns and dumplings, George took us to one providing Cantonese-style food, i.e. more variety and slightly scarier options, such as chicken feet. Like the previous day, the restaurant was rammed full at lunch time
but, instead of ordering from a menu, you grabbed what you liked the look of off trolleys weaving by your table. Of course, one has to be quick if you don't want all of the best dishes to be snapped up from under your nose! George introduced us to some of his quirkier favourites, including fried yams and turnip cake, which were actually both very enjoyable.
Overall though, I would have to say that I prefer the Shanghainese dim sum, but I was really glad to have been fortunate to have tried both, and to spend time with such a real "Asian" (mum, I'm sure you know what I mean!). Dim sum is sooo delicious and I cannot get over how cheap it is for how good it tastes! The free jasmine tea is something that I also took very kindly too.
We left George on Hollywood Road, at the bottom of "the escalators", which are a bunch of interlinking escalators that take you up through the city from 10am to 6pm, and downwards at all other hours of the day (pretty neat), which Michael and I proceeded to take up to Robinson Road and Mid-Levels.
Once there, we began a long walk to the Peak Tram, which was mostly downhill and ended up being an absolutely killer calf workout.
The old tram is the most traditional way of travelling up to the Peak. You would not believe how steep a hill this old thing is able to climb; both Michael and I were fairly bewildered at how it managed to carry everyone's weight, but that it did, meanwhile providing some excellent views of Hong Kong.
Unfortunately the weather was a little misty so we didn't get a perfectly clear view at the top, but it was still beautiful nonetheless.
We grabbed a coffee and perched on seats that allowed us to just sit, sip and soak it all in. Once we were finished we went to join the queue to take the tram back down to the centre, but with it being just before sunset, we hit the rush of other people all wishing to do the same. So, instead, we walked. It wasn't a long walk, but it was all downhill, and with my calves still sore from our earlier trek my legs were positively shaking by the time we arrived at Hollywood Road. We snaked our way along the busying streets, peaking our noses into all of the antique shop windows and admiring all the wonderful ornaments on offer. I cannot wait to deck my future home out in Asian goodies!
Most importantly, though, Michael and I discover Mr Simms Olde Sweet Shop, which I have previously had the pleasure of encountering in Dublin and had no idea was some kind of a chain. This finding firmly cemented in my mind that I could just about make do living in Hong Kong, at a push, of course.
After popping home for a quick change we went straight back out for dinner, hosted by the "Peking Garden", located in the mall "Pacific Place".
Michael and I got straight down to business and ordered a few of our classic faves, including pork dumplings to start:
We agreed that they were the best dumplings that either of us had ever had, so that was a fairly good start. They were followed by a sharing of peking noodles with pork, lemon chicken, and sweet & sour prawns.
Honest to God the best lemon chicken I have ever had. Although I tend to always love it, some places either skimp out on sauce or don't make the batter crispy enough. Peking Garden had it mastered though! All the yummy food was washed down with Jasmine tea on tap,
and a side order of guilt at the fact that I spilt grease on my gorgeous white Marc Jacobs shirt (sorry mummy, it's going to come home with Michael for you to work a bit of your magic!). We took the MTR back home and attempted to watch the film "Bad Words" cuddled up in bed, but despite being only approximately 11pm, I conked out within the first 15 minutes, leaving Michael to entertain himself with uni work. My sleep didn't last long, however, as my first time in life experiencing true insomnia began at 4:30am, due to having completely worked myself up about soon being left on my own to roam Asia. I tried everything that I could possibly think of to relax my mind and distract me into falling back asleep, but nothing worked, and it was 9:30am before I knew it.
Thursday:
Very tired and a little on edge with my impending lonely travels, we left the hotel and made our way to the Ten Thousand Bhuddas Monastery.
As one might be able to guess from the name, it is a rather incredible place housing 10,000 Bhuddas in all shapes and sizes. To reach the large temples further up the hillside, one must climb (a lot) of stairs lined with gold Bhuddas.
At the top of the seemingly never-ending staircase you come to an open platform with the most amazing view over Hong Kong;
muddled in with all sorts of Bhudda statues, including some rather enormous ones;
huge, beautifully decorated temples,
one of which had inner walls lined with thousands of "baby" Bhuddas, which was rather special;
spiritual "stations" (for lack of a better word) burning incense,
and a waterfall playing serene music, with a big laughing Bhudda having a little lie down after a heavy meal lying in front of it (my kind of Bhudda):
My favourite Bhudda statue of the day though would have to be this one:
As far as religions go, Bhuddism is one that sits rather well with me... It seems to promote happiness and positivism in a way that none other does, as can clearly be seen by the laughing and happy Bhuddas that they honour.
After making our way down the stairs we grabbed a coffee and the MTR back to Central, where we met Abi, who had wonderfully managed to postpone her flight to Dubai for 36 hours, which meant more playtime for us! She gave us a little tour of Central, and took us to mine and Michael's hopeful future offices to check out the surrounding area.
I must say that Central is pretty damn glossy, and I could very, very happily work there. There are loads of lovely malls, shops, and restaurants in the area. M&S also just so happens to be right next door to White & Case, which I'm still undecided as to whether would be a blessing or a curse!
Furthermore, all of the shops and office buildings are connected via overground walkways, resulting in there essentially being 2 levels of streets, which I thought was utterly amazing.
After meandering around the malls for a while she took us to see a Michelin-starred street food vendor, awarded its star for its famous goose dish:
If it hadn't been for the fact that Michael and I had dinner reservations at Zuma not long after, I would have been right in there trying it out. I guess this just means that we will have to return, sad times. Seeing as this was now actually the last time that we would see Abi we went for a drink at a popular outdoor bar called Red, where we watched the sunset and "Symphony of Lights" show once more, before saying goodbye to her (again) and making our way home.
Michael's second birthday dinner treat was held at the beautiful Zuma.
I just love the interior of their restaurants and the atmosphere that they create. I can never take my eyes off the open sushi bar and kitchen; it is amazing to watch how skillfully they create such delicious masterpieces.
And that they truly did on this evening. We kicked off with prawn tempura;
crab shu mai dumplings;
tuna tartare with wonton crackers and sesame seed spinach,
followed by sushi in the form of soft shell crab and salmon & avocado maki rolls.
For mains, we had my favourite black cod and miso,
and sticky pork belly,
with sides of steamed rice and baked aubergine. For dessert, chocolate bombs were ordered, which essentially consisted of hot chocolate sponge, chocolate sauce and miniature chocolate coated biscuit balls, with ice-cream.
I don't think I really need to elaborate on how much we enjoyed all of this by now, do I? It really was superb food though and, most importantly, we had an amazingly fun night that I will treasure for a long time.
Extremely happy we grabbed a cab back home and attempted, once more, to watch Bad Words, but I failed and fell asleep again before long. Sadly it was to be a repeat of the previous night's sleep though, and I was awake between the hours of 3-9am, tormenting myself with all the worst possibilities for my travels to come. The good news is that I managed to find some great things for me to do whilst I am away online, which really helped to calm my nerves about the whole thing; I even booked a weeks tour of North Vietnam starting the day after I arrive, which gave me some direction and is something to look forward to!
Friday:
Considering how little sleep I had had the last 2 nights I felt surprisingly sprightly, which was good seeing as Michael and I were venturing to Macau for the day. We went to the Central Pier and caught a ferry over, which took just over an hour and was a smooth ride. Once through Immigration we took a bus to the area with the main tourist attractions, admiring the incredibly Vegas-like casino area and its many copycats along the way.
It took me a little while to work out what the 3rd language was from Chinese and English featured on all of the signposts, but thankfully my brain freeze didn't last long and I realised that it was Portuguese. It really is amazing how much of a Portugese influence there is on the streets and buildings; its architecture couldn't be more different to that of Hong Kong, despite being so close to one another.
Our little tourist trail mapped out by my clever boyfriend took us past Ma Temple;
the Moorish Barracks, which are some old army barracks erected to accommodate an Indian regiment;
Lilau Square, which featured a stunning old tree;
St. Lawrence's Church, one of the 3 oldest churches in Macau;
St. Joseph's Seminary and Church, the principal base for missionary work in East and South-East Asia;
St. Augustine's Square;
Senado Square, filled with people and happy chatter, and has been Macau's urban centre for centuries;
^ I really liked the way they disguised the commercial brands into the old style of the buildings.
St. Dominic's Church, where the first Portugese newspaper was published on Chinese soil;
the Ruins of St. Paul's, which I thought were particularly unique and attractive, and are the remains of what was the first Western university in the Far East destroyed by a fire in 1835;
a section of the Old City Walls, a surviving segment of the city's defence structures,
and Mount Fortress, the city's past principal military defence structure.
I have to say that I was impressed by Macau which, having now visited, I would say receives an undeservedly bad rep back home. There is so much history and different culture to be observed than can be found in the rest of China.
Having crammed so much in to such a short space of time a well-deserved Haagen Daaz was in order, although, unfortunately, our timing at getting them was pretty bad as we had to navigate through some very busy back streets,
which all seemed to be full of cured meat vendors handing out free samples, which Michael and I had said we wanted to try before leaving, and so ended up having a sweet meat ice-cream meal combo, which was interesting to say the least. The meat tasted a lot like beef jerky and Pepperami sticks, so I can't say that I was the biggest fan, although I did much prefer the pork to the beef. We had planned to walk to the Ferry Terminal but, upon asking a policeman for directions, quickly changed our minds as he informed us the walk would take minimum 45 minutes due to some of the roads being closed off for the Macau Grand Prix;
just our luck. Thus we had to wait for a bus instead and, since we wanted to catch the 5:30pm ferry at the latest, I started to get ants in my pants as time ticked on and no bus came. Of course, due to the Grand Prix, the traffic was much worse than usual and we missed our intended ferry by about 15 minutes. We thought fine, no biggie, let's just get the 6pm ferry and get over the lost time but, when we went to check-in for it, we were told that its seats were sold out and that the next ferry with available seats was at 7:30pm, which would completely screw our plans for the evening. With 5 minutes until the next ferry was due to depart, we decided to upgrade to "Superior Class" for £13 each; since it was our last evening, I really couldn't have put a price on time! However, as we tried to pay, we were told they only took cash - s***! We ran around the Ferry Terminal like we were running a sprint race (scaring many Asians in the process) and managed to withdraw cash, buy the tickets, pass through Immigration, and board the boat, all within a space of about 4 minutes, which I must say was rather miraculous and very pleasing considering we were both sweating our heads off. At least it had all been worth it though, as we got into Kowloon Bay at 7:45pm and made our way towards the Ozone Bar, the tallest bar in the world on the 118th floor, to enjoy a goodbye drink and another showing of the Symphony of Lights.
We ended up very pushed for time to make our 9pm dinner reservations at the Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant that we had skipped out on 3 nights prior so as to join Abi's leaving dinner. We flew into the restaurant at 9:15pm, apologising profusely for our tardiness, and took our seats in the minute venue. After scanning the menu for a few minutes I must admit that my heart sank when I could not find any crispy Peking duck with pancakes option, as this is one of Michael's favourite dishes and he had so been looking forward to devouring duck by the bucket before we left, and we had not yet had any whilst in Hong Kong! The prices were also not so easy on the eye, especially as nothing on the menu was grabbing my attention as Chinese food usually does with such ease; sometimes snazzy food simply isn't the best. I suggested making a run for it but to be fair it would have been rude as the staff had done their best to accommodate us, so we plowed on, ordering deep fried crab cakes and fried pork cakes for starters; both recommended, and both fairly bland and greasy in my humble opinion.
^ Not overly inspiring, eh?
We shared mains of prawn fried rice (a little dry), tea-smoked duck (lacking sauce and oomph) and braised pork ribs in plum sauce (the absolute highlight of the meal).
The wine and service, on the other hand, was very impressive, and Michael and I really did have a lovely last evening together; I just wish I could have changed our last meal, and at the least got the boy some duck pancakes! We stopped off on the way home for some dessert, with a chocolate fondant for myself and Belgian waffles with chocolate sauce for Michael, which helped perk up my taste buds a little bit!
It was pretty late by the time we got home, but I was DETERMINED to finish that damn movie. Having had only 9 hours sleep over the last 2 nights I would say that I did pretty well making it to 20 minutes before the end, nodding off around 2am. Thankfully, I slept the whole night through.
Saturday:
We snoozed with goodbye cuddles for an hour before dragging ourselves out of bed and packing our bags. I was SO not ready to leave. A fair bit more time would have been welcomed but we really could have done with just 1 more day. It was sad to say goodbye to our lovely room but far, far worse to say goodbye to one another, for which the time to do so arrived much too quickly for my liking. I am pleased to inform you that we did manage to finish the film though, which really needed to happen to give me some closure (from both the film and our holiday). It was horrible saying bye (again) to my baby boy, but I am already so excited for our family Christmas in Thailand, and all the exciting things due to happen in our lives in 2015!
I must thank Michael though for what was genuinely one of the best weeks of my life, and without a doubt one of our best and most fun holidays. Love you noodle, miss you already xo
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