Advertisement
Dim Sum
If you like the look of it, give it a try Hi Folks, Hope you are all ok - sorry to bore you all but we thought it was time for another Blog. Since the last Blog the weather has turned to bright sunny skies but the humidity has gone up too so it’s taking it out of us; with the walking we’ve been doing in this heat we should be 2 stones lighter when we get back home.
Saturday night we decided to head up to Soho and Lan Kwai Fong for a bit of action, it’s quite expensive for drinks in HK (£4 small beer), so we went out early to catch the Happy Hours that go on ‘til about 9pm…….well lets put it this way, I was VERY HAPPY!!! I don’t know if it was the beer, the wine or the tequila shots but something got me very drunk and Barry wasn’t far behind me. Lan Kwai Fong is a fantastic place for a night out; a bit like Matthew St in Liverpool (it even has a cavern club) but with less rain. There are two main streets lined with bar after bar and the atmosphere was great, absolutely no trouble and easy to get a taxi home.
Cat Street
Antiques??? - more like modern tat brushed with authentic dust We ended up in an Indian Restaurant at 2am eating Chicken Korma; the place was run by a couple of brothers from Sri Lanka who had the best Elvis sideburns you’ve ever seen!!!
Hung over the following day we decided to have an easy traditional HK Sunday so went off to Central to a place called Maxims; recommended in the guide books as THE place to go for tea and dim sum. The restaurant must have had about 100 tables and you had to queue outside to wait for one to come free. The food was lovely, a bit expensive but worth it for the experience. The dim sum is pushed around on heated trolleys, if you like the look of it, you take it; or else wait for the next trolley to come by. The waitresses didn’t speak a word of English so we just had to lift the lids on each trolley and try to guess what it was - thankfully everything we chose was good. Outside on the streets of Central the pavements were rammed with women sitting around in groups on pieces of plastic sheeting or blankets. They were playing cards, eating, reading books, and
Temple Coils
Burning incense coils leave you smelling like Guy Fawkes painting each others nails and some were even dancing. It’s an amazing sight that takes place every Sunday; the women are amah’s (live in domestics), they come mostly from the Philippines and on their 1 day off each week they meet up with other family members and friends who are also amah’s in other households in HK. You can’t move for them, they block the pavements and walkways, the gardens and parks are full of them - and they sit there from early morning ‘til late at night, they really enjoy their day off. After Maxims we decided to go and have a look at The Central Escalator - 800m long and the best way to get you up the very steep and long hills to Graham St Market - not for the squeamish, this is a local market selling fruit, veg, meat and live fish and seafood. We saw a fish being de-scaled while still alive, another with its head cut off on one stall with the heart still beating and the prawns and crabs were trying to jump out of the buckets!!! We decided not to buy anything - didn’t think it would go down too well as
Movin' on up
"They should make these things compulsary" a souvenir for any of you lot. After the market we went to Upper Lascar Row or Cat Street as it’s known, here you can buy anything from antique ornaments to cheap jewellery and good luck charms. Man Mo Temple is just around the corner so we dropped in for a look round and came out stinking like a couple of Guy Fawkes - they don’t use scented incense in HK (unlike Thailand and India), and the incense coils are massive, they burn hundreds at a time so the smoke clings to your hair and clothes. The temple was very peaceful and gave us a chance to get our breath back for the WALK downhill (escalators only go UP!!!!!
Monday’s weather forecast was good - sunny and bright, so we waited for Monday before attempting The Peak. It was well worth the wait, the views from up there can’t be captured on film or put into words, despite that we managed to take 117 photo’s (you lot will be soooo bored when we get home!!). One photo that we didn’t manage to get was of a black cobra that came out from the greenery and crossed our path to get
Packed In - but not a sardine in sight!!!
They keep them alive to keep them fresher for longer to the next bit of shrubbery on it’s journey down the mountain (they obviously don’t allow cobra’s on the tram), anyway it was a bit scary - it’s head puffed up as it looked back at us just before disappearing into the shrubs!!! After the peak we went off to take in another birds eye view of the city from the viewing platform on the 43rd floor of the Bank of China Building, again we took loads of pics and enjoyed the A/C for a short while before heading off out again into the sunshine and catching a tram (our first one), back to the hotel to get ready for our night at Temple St Market in Kowloon.
We caught the 8:05 star ferry which was perfectly timed to see the light show this is the best place to watch the show on both sides of the harbour!!! Temple St market is massive, full of souvenirs, tat and of course fake designer gear, including the watches (Barry bought five). I could have bought loads of stuff but managed to restrain myself, especially difficult at the shoe stalls!!! I did have my Palm and Face read by a lady who
View from a tram
The trams are cheap, clean and very popular told me four things: 1. You have a good husband, 2. You have a good husband, 3. You have a beautiful face (well yeh, I know that cos I see it in the mirror everyday), and 4. You have a good husband!!! - what a bloody cheek $100 dollars for that gem of information, but it was worth it just to get it on tape and Barry was almost crying laughing. $100 is only £7 so I didn’t feel too bad; I only did it for a laugh. The food that we later ate at a roadside café in the market made up for the disappointment of the fake reading, the food was the best we’ve had since we arrived and the beer was cheap (£1.80 for a large one) so all in all the market was a good place to spend a night out.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.098s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 70; dbt: 0.0717s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
jeaniewigs
jean bentham
hope you enjoy your last few days there, you will be coming home to typical spring British wet weather!! can't wait to see all the tat purchases.