All I can say about blogger.com is I wish I was using another blogging program. Sentences broken, photos lost, blech. Wednesday: Back to Fa Yuen Market for breakfast. The woman at the café where we’re eating is willing to work with us on varying orders, so Leslie ended up with soup with spaghetti, ham, egg – which was okay, and worth getting, but not twice. It was a
leisurely morning with time spent in the office, talking with an English
man about our age – a regular Asia traveler, on his way to China. Photo: Breakfast place in Fa Yuen Market
We caught a bus down Nathan Road (the main road running north/south bisecting the Kowloon peninsula) to the Star Ferry, ferry across harbor, then bus #15 to the Peak at $4.9HKD/person senior rate. Most tourists take the tram straight up, but we learned awhile back that the bus is slower, more scenic, and way cheaper. Had a long, leisurely double espresso high, high above this great harbor, a super favorite thing for us to do. Bus back along Queen’s Road and getting off at exactly the the best place to walk to (surprise) Tsim Chai Kee Noodles for another bowl of shrimp wonton soup, vegetable, and coke and Leslie making friends with a majorly cute server. Our table-mates were an old woman and her somewhat strange son. Photo: These stores selling aromatic things are all over HK
On the way to the ferry we walked through the IFC Centre, a massive shopping mall and office complex. We saw a crowd around a store and went over to check it out. It was an event, including several glam models and assorted beautiful people.
Back across the harbor I left Leslie and took na bus to the Chungking Mansions to change money and walk around among the Chinese, Middle-Easterners, and Africans. There were fewer angry looking men with beards and whatnot than in previous years. I saw the Everly Bros – one of them with his dentures out – in their little store. Meanwhile, Leslie was sitting on the couch in the Dragon office with a German woman with a roach tattooed on her ankle shouting into her computer/skype on the one side and a Brit doing the same thing on her other side, and then a crowd of Chinese people came in talking loud (no surprise there!) with an old man with them wearing a spor
t coat, cable-knit sweater, slacks of dubious cleanliness, white socks, and felt shoes and lighting up what Leslie called “a big cigarette.” Photo: Dragon office/commons area
I’m not sure about Leslie, but I’m already prett
y much outside of time by now. Later she confirms the same. Random notes: Our first room was $240HKD ($31USD) and second was $280 ($36USD).
The second room was 6.5 feet wide, 9.5 feet long, and the bath was 27 x 66 inches. Sign on the wall: “Please DO NOT use the Bath Towel as floor mat,, or clean the stain (such as curry, food, hair highlight color …”). Stenciled on trash cans on Cheung Chau Island: “Beware the shaft.” On Star Ferry: “Take care when crossing the gangplank.” We ate for <$10USD/day/person. Photo: From Pacific Coffee on the Peak. Tram in lower right of photos
Thursday
An easy departure day – same café for breakfast, with “Jenny,” the woman running the place giving Leslie another variation on breakfast noodles. We bought some apples and coconut tarts for the trip. Walked to some gold stores to look at 24K jewelry. I’d looked for in 2005 and again in 2006 for good gold, but couldn’t find any. Leslie noticed a couple of nights ago a crowd of people in a jewelry store and was thinking there would be gold there. Then she talked with a woman waiting for the ferry who said that Yau Ma Tei is the place for gold, thus confirming the reason for the crowd. Sure enough, there was all the gold anyone could want – we’d just been looking in the wrong part of HK. But the price is >$1300USD/ounce, so too much for us. Looking at all the good gold, it’s easy to see why people
get gold fever.
Back at the hostel, said goodbye to Stanley, caught the A21 bus to the airport, going across amazing bridges over deep water channels with huge ships going under the bridges, and here we are in a true world-class airport. Photo: BBQ place in Mong Kok - this is the place where I stopped on a day when I got totally lost in 2006. Check out the goose with its head hanging out.
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