Back in the Saddle Again - China Light

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We Have Lift Off - Again

The second leg of the M.P. took us from Newark to Chicago to Hong Kong. The flights over were fairly uneventful and filled with awful entertainment options from United. The trip also highlighted the difference between typical New York area people and the friendlier Midwest. At the United 1K check in counter in Newark the agent could not understand our itinerary, because it started in Singapore rather than the US. She asked if were permanent residents overseas, and after we explained our situation - round the world trip with an emergency return to the US, she still went through my passport page by page looking for a residence card (is that generally included inside the passport?) and who knows what else. She did not explain what she was trying to determine, but she just spent a great deal of time checking it out and asking weird questions about how long we were staying in Hong Kong and why don’t we have a visa permitting us to stay there (answers: one week and no visa needed). The woman in the Red Carpet Club was equally standoffish and downright rude as we tried to change a United flight the following week. Our flight attendant was also not too cheery. Then, welcome to the Midwest. We tried to see Eric’s lady friend, Linda, at the Red Carpet Club but she was on vacation. Instead we spoke with her friend Cheryl, who remembered us as the world travelers that Linda spoke of, and who we had met before. She hooked us up with free internet and a friendly smile. The other Red Carpet Club rep offered us free drink coupons. Then, we ran into a partner from work and his wife who I spent a few minutes talking with. And, to top it off, our first flight attendant on our long haul journey was not only pleasant, but cracking jokes and offering us free wine (which was a coup, considering United no longer offers free alcohol in coach on international flights). Wow! What a difference. The most important thing, though, was that we were off. Again.

Jumping Back In - Feet First

Hong Kong truly is bright lights, big city. Neon signs everywhere. Sidewalks filled with people. After checking into our hotel on Nathan Road - the Golden Mile, we went for a walk north towards the Temple Street Night Market. The first thing that struck us was the humidity. It was not heat per se. It was probably only about 28-29 degrees Celsius, but was probably about 80% humidity. It was a Friday night and everyone was out walking and shopping. The Golden Mile has some fancy stores, but mostly has chain jewelry shops (there are more of one jewelry shop on this road than Starbucks in any big city), Chinese medicine shops, and tailors. Whereas the call on the street in other cities has been “hello tuk tuk” or “hello transport,” in Hong Kong it is “copy watch.” The touts on the street trying to push business cards into your hands for quality tailoring and fancy watch knock offs, is unrelenting. They kept trying to get Eric’s attention yelling “Hello Boss.” We kept our heads down and did not even say no thank you, which apparently eggs them on even more because they feel like they have a live one on the hook. After winding our way over the long mile, we hit the night market.

The Temple Street Night Market is a fairly short but condense and fairly typical Chinatown style market. I kept asking Eric on the bus from the airport “where’s the Chinatown here” ha ha. It is all one giant “Chinatown.” Hong Kong does appear to be “China Light” in the same way that Singapore is “Asia Light.” The market was a scaled down version of the Chinatown markets we have seen in other cities, and most closely resembled Kuala Lumpur’s. T-shirts, souvenirs, knock off hand bags, DVDs, copy watch - you name it, they got it. All in a tightly manned space with two rows facing in towards the centre of the street from the curb, leaving very little room to maneuver down the center lane. There were some street stalls serving food, mostly to tourists, but it reminded me of the Chinese food stalls in Kuala Lumpur - over priced and not as good. Instead, when we turned south onto Temple Street, we chose to walk along the curb rather than the centre of the market to find a restaurant. What we found was what reminded me of a Chinese diner - crowded tables with Formica tops and wood chairs, with white tiles along the wall. The place was filled with Asian eaters, and we were the only westerners, which is always high on my list of clues as to whether to eat somewhere. After a quick and decent meal of Won Ton noodle soup (fresh pork and shrimp won tons and buttery noodles) and beef fried noodle, washed down with Chinese tea, we were satisfied with our meal that cost less than US $7. I did notice, however, that the locals were receiving tea from a Lipton jug near the register, poured into dark plastic cups. When we ordered tea, we asked for Chinese tea, and received a full pot of Jasmine tea. It was good, but we were charged a little over a dollar for the tea. Were the locals receiving free tea? Something to ponder. After eating, we finished quickly perusing the night market and called it a night.

In the morning, we hoped the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbour from Kowloon, where we were staying, to Hong Kong Island and the Central Business District. We felt like we were back in Sydney at the start of our first leg of the M.P. hoping on the ferry in Sydney Harbour. Only here we were more surrounded by large buildings, and high rise apartments the likes of which we have never seen. We hoped the ferry out to Lantau Island to see the Big Buddha and Po Lin Monastery. It was a good one hour ferry ride out there and it was amazing how quick the high rise developments of Hong Kong Island gave way to quant, lush, green tropical islands, some with beaches, and all with little or no development. Once the ferry arrived we took a bus that wound up the narrow roads through an area replete with landslide dangers. It made me a little nervous in our rickety bus climbing up the mountain. We were dropped at the apex, a tourist village with all kinds of souvenir shops. The humidity was dense and the fog that settled over the tips of the mountains gave the entire area an eerie feel.

Once at the temple, we climbed the almost 300 steps (that was more than the Hindu temple in KL) to see the giant sitting Buddha. We circled the base of the Buddha and even went inside to the museum for the “special” exhibit. The museum was not in English but had many intricate carvings and calligraphy. The museum also held a tooth relic from the Buddha. This was our second tooth relic we have seen, the other being in Singapore. I wondered how many teeth the Buddha had. After descending, we walked over to Po Lin Monastery. The grounds held several meeting halls and shrines, but is most known for its restaurant, which serves a vegetarian meal to visitors. I guess in my mind I assumed that robe clad monks would be serving us modest meals while we constantly bowed in respect to them. Instead, it was a giant restaurant with bright yellow table cloths and many rooms serving family style meals. Not a robed monk in sight. The food was decent - fried spring rolls, spicy corn with tofu, bean curd and vegetables, and mushrooms with bok choy. Even Eric survived the veggie fare.

Bataan Death March - Yep, Feet Firs

After spending a month in the US eating way too much food - Jersey Mike’s subs, NJ pizza, Five Guys Burgers, and even a trip to Taco Bell, along with, of course, some home cooking, we were worried we had put on a bunch of weight we had lost since the beginning of the trip. It was not just the overload of large portions of fatty food, but we lived a suburban life for the four weeks. We drove from one strip mall to another to run errands. I went to Kohl’s three times in a week. We drove an SUV. It is not the life we are used to in the US - living in a city with our Mini Cooper and walking a decent amount. It certainly was not the life we were used to on the road where a taxi ride is unheard of - we walk almost everywhere, unless we are taking public transportation. We were eager to get back on the road, and more importantly, to start walking again. So, when the opportunity for a hike came our way on the first day, I suggested it to Eric and he agreed.

We read in our book that you can walk down the mountain we were perched on and end up at the bottom at the train that would take us back to Kowloon. The book said the route was a little over 7 kilometers (about 4 miles). This would have been one of our longest walks yet and we did no preparation for it whatsoever. But, we figured it would be downhill, so how bad could it get? First, it was about 85% humidity, and although most of the start of the route was covered by trees, after a few kilometers we were in straight sun all the time. Our shins and hips started to hurt from the angle the road took down too. For the first half the scenery was pretty nice, tropical jungle, small monasteries, and occasional views of the airport, so Eric was enjoying it. About the half way mark we saw something we have yet to see on the trip yet - a snake. It was just a skinny brown, probably (let’s hope) not poisonous tree snake. But, snakes are the one thing that totally freak me out, and I screamed and jumped and ran around it down the walkway. Eric made fun of me, of course, but I think the reaction was totally justified. It was a snake for god sake.

As we started to get tired, the signs marking the path also disappeared. The first ¾ kilometer seemed to go real quick, but when we hit 5 kilometers to go and we were already getting tired and sweaty, I knew I was in trouble. When we started to see signs of life and development and the signs disappeared, I thought I could feel Eric’s eyes burning a hole in the back of my head. We got lost once in the city and ended up backtracking a bit before finally taking a bus to the train station. The DK Eyewitness Guide was way wrong about where the path ended - they need to check the research. We were both sore from top to bottom (mostly the bottom) and were sore for the next several days. Eric started to refer to it as the Bataan Death March I put him on. I messed up my ankle which took awhile to heal, and I needed to stay off of it as much as possible the following day. It was not my best moment as far as organizing goes, but it was certainly memorable.

Madame Dim Sum

At this point, you should know that we have an infatuation with two things - dim sum and Anthony Bourdain. In Hong Kong, the two met. We knew that Hong Kong was an eater’s paradise, and we certainly enjoyed it as much as Singapore. On our first full day we went over to Central on Hong Kong Island because our friend Cathy recommended the dim sum at the restaurant at City Hall - so did our concierge. We went over on a Sunday, which is an interesting day to tour Central. Apparently the low wage workers in Hong Kong are predominantly Indonesian and Filipino, and Sunday is the one day they receive off. Most of them are domestics. It is a similar situation in Malaysia, and when we were in KL there were huge demonstrations because the Indonesian and Filipino nannies did not get a single day off each week. There were calls for legislation to ensure they would receive a day off, but the households that employed them said the households would collapse if they received a day off. In Hong Kong, the households have not collapsed with their help taking one day off a week. What is interesting and relevant here is how they spend the day. All of the Central Business District - Central - turns into a giant picnic ground. Any stretch of road or sidewalk with shade is covered with sheets or tarps. Woman set up little picnic areas and meet to gossip, read magazines, and eat food out of Styrofoam or Tupperware type dishes. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. All of the pedestrian subways that descend below the busy city streets were filled with blankets and sheets of women. It was quite unique. I digress.

We passed throngs of the women to make our way to City Hall to find out that the restaurant is closed for renovations. So, we took a recommendation from Anthony Bourdain. His restaurant was a little bit of a hike, but not of the Bataan Death March variety, to Wellington Street. When we finally arrived, it was hectic, and we were told to find any two seats we could. The tables held from 5 to 12 people, so we would be sharing with a group. One table only had one or two people sitting at it, but he assured us the table was completely full. I was getting flashbacks to lunch in Singapore China Town, where I tried to find two seats at a table to share. It is very much like high school. You don’t know if the seats are actually taken or if they don’t want to sit with two strange, tall, white people. Someone directed us to two cramped seats at a table of five or so other people. We sat down and looked around at the mass chaos that surrounded us. This was much different from Phoenix in Chinatown, Chicago, which always seemed like it was crazy. Now we know different.

Dim sum usually progresses with several women wheeling around metal carts with various types of small dishes on top. Here, the women never got too far from the kitchen door. They were immediately bombarded by hungry eaters. It was suggested that we get up and circulate the room grabbing what we wanted. We were totally out of our element. Luckily, we were seated between two very nice people. A gentleman on our left spoke pretty good English. He became our tour guide, suggesting sights to see in HK and restaurants to try. He also explained that he comes to the restaurant every Sunday. He told me the retired people come for dim sum every day, just like the woman who was sitting to Eric’s right. She totally took us under her wing.

Madame Dim Sum started by teaching us how to clean our plates and stuff. The waiter put down a Chinese spoon, small plate, tea cup, and chopsticks. We knew to watch out for the cleanliness of chopsticks because Brian and Cathy gave us traveling chopsticks for our going away gift with a warning - if you see people washing their chopsticks in boiling hot tea, don’t use the chopsticks without cleaning them the same way. At this restaurant they actually placed a large bowl in the center of the table. You are supposed to fill your tea cup with hot tea, and run that over the rest of your table setting, depositing it in the bowl in the center. Madame Dim Sum was trying to show me, but I think I did not do it right, so she just took care of us. Every time we took a sip of tea leaving a small opening in the tea cup, she immediately refilled the tea. She kept encouraging us to drink more and more tea. She also kept arranging our plates for us in the same way she had hers, but I was not sure the reason. She enjoyed watching us try the food and if we ate something we did not like we felt enormous pressure to finish it anyway. She spoke about as much English as we speak Chinese, but she kept trying to speak to us anyway. The other people at the table would try and translate some of it, but she kept trying, assuming that any minute we would say “oh, I finally understand Cantonese.”

At one point, Madame Dim Sum complimented me on my beaded necklace - one that I bought in Bali for about $2. By the end of our meal, I felt indebted to her for her hostessing skills. So, I gave her my necklace to show my appreciation. You would have thought I gave her a million dollars. She wanted to pay for our meal. She did not want to leave the table without giving us something in return. Someone at the table explained to her that we were thanking her, and that it was a gift in exchange for her being so nice to us. She kept giving the thumbs up sign and placing her hand on Eric’s to show she cared. Eric informed her, through a translator, that she was his second mother.

We also need to give some credit to Phoenix restaurant in Chicago. That has been our dim sum place for quite some time. We usually go 3-4 times a month, even in the crazy cold weather this past winter. Comparing our dim sum experience in HK with Phoenix, Phoenix keeps things pretty traditional. I always wonder how Americanized restaurants in the US are, but our dim sum was remarkably similar to what we were used to at home, but with a slightly different environment. Phoenix was authenticated as a true Chinese restaurant. The group we sat with really made the experience in HK one of those truly special travel moments. When we returned a few days later the food was still good, but our table was not as friendly to us, and it just was not the same. Thank you Madame Dim Sum. And, thank you Anthony Bourdain for a recommendation that totally paned out!

Happy Anniversary

We joked with people before we left the US that we were starting this trip during our seven year itch. We wondered if we would survive to 8 years. During our trip to Hong Kong, we made it! In the morning we picked up our China Visa (yes, we were able to get a visa to China in less than 24 hours on our first try; take that India, so we are going to China and spending our tourist dollars there instead. Yes we are still a little bitter). Then, we returned to our dim sum restaurant. After we stopped by the Hong Kong office our my “former” law firm, which was a nice little tour. Then, based on a recommendation from one of the lawyers, we took a ferry out to Rainbow restaurant on Lamma island. We departed at just before sunset and enjoyed the one hour ferry ride out to the island. We felt even more isolated than the Big Buddha island, probably because it was at night, so the less developed islands seemed even more dark and distant. Our dinner was quite the splurge for us, but totally worth it. We had red sea crab in fried garlic, scallops in butter and fresh garlic, and razor clams with garlic and black beans. It was quite tasty. The hotel provided us with a bottle of wine and a small cake for our anniversary too. It was a nice little touch.

Good Eats and Racial Profiling

The rest of our trip through Hong Kong focused on good eats. One afternoon we asked the concierge for a local cheap place to eat and he suggested we head over to Locke Road, just off of Nathan. There were several typical Chinese kitchens, and one fairly modern restaurant filled to the brim with young people. There was a line to get a table. After checking out all the restaurants on the road, we went back to Rice Noodle House. If there is a line that long, it must be good. They serve, obviously, rice noodles, either on a plate or in a soup. We received a sheet of paper and a pencil to mark how we wanted the soup, how sour we wanted, if we wanted scallions, if we wanted to add in spicy ground pork (yes), pork wontons (yes), and spicy level. There were nine levels of spicy from no spicy to very very spicy. We both picked “medium very spicy,” which was the sixth level of spicy. Now, this soup was phenomenal, but it was spicy. We handled the spicy going down, and suffered some wicked hear burn the rest of the evening, but it was totally worth it.

On another night, we looked for beef brisket, which is a specialty of Hong Kong. Eric had another Anthony Bourdain recommendation - a store owned by a group of body building brothers in the Mong Kok neighborhood. When we decided to go we had no map of the neighborhood, so we made our way to the closest large hotel to ask for directions - we had the name and address of the place. We experienced a typical example of racial profiling.

We have experienced a decent amount of racial profiling in our short time in HK, and I expect it to continue in China. During our first dinner they automatically gave us a fork and spoon, and we needed to ask for chopsticks. We did not get the same tea as the locals. People also keep suggesting we take cabs when we can easily walk. I don’t know if generally Americans will take a cab because it is cheap, or it is too hot, or because they are lazy, but we never take a cab when we can walk. At one restaurant we were given roasted peanuts to snack on instead of kimchi (spicy sliced cabbage). We only receive the flyers on the street for copy watch and tailors. Sometimes people start to give us a flyer in Chinese only to pull it away at the last minute. At our dim sum restaurant there were two types of tea, a contemporary tea, and a more traditional tea. It was assumed we wanted to contemporary tea, even when everyone else at the table had the more traditional. Our search for the Bodybuilding Brothers Brisket restaurant was same same.

At the hotel, the girl pulled up the information from the website and gave us the address, with some warning. She warned “this is a locals’ place.” That warning made us salivate even more. “How did you know about it?” “They might not have an English menu. What will you do?” When we explained we wanted local and it was not the first time we went someplace where no English is spoken, she seemed impressed. We told her if they do not speak English, we will point to a picture on the wall or what someone else is eating, and raise two fingers in the air to order. This is really only a problem when no one else is eating, but then why would we go there anyway?
We took the directions and found the place down an alley with nothing buy car mechanics and stereo shops surrounding it. We sat in the back room and they actually did have an English menu. I am assuming they did not need it before being featured on Anthony Bourdain, but now they are on the radar more. We ordered two beef brisket noodle soups and two “Party” brand beers. The brisket was some of the most tender beef I have ever had. It was so good that we finished our two bowls and ordered a plate of brisket over noodles. It was amazing. And, we managed to order the local food, eat the local food, and pay, all without causing an international incident. So much for racial profiling. We may not speak Cantonese or Mandarin, but we can make our way around a city that is prototypical “China light.” The question is, can we survive actually going to China???

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Photos

View of Hong Kong Island
From the ferry

More Stairs?
Flashbacks to the Hindu temple in KL.

View From the Top
It is amazing to think this is a stone's throw from bustling Hong Kong Island

Goddesses
These were temple goddesses surrounding the base of the Big Buddha

Veggie World
Our vegetarian meal at the Po Lin Monastery

Bataan Death March
Beware of flash floods, and land slides.

Madame Dim Sum
She is wearing my brown beaded necklace.

Ikons of Hong Kong
Double decker tram through the CBD on Hong Kong Island

Sunset on the Harbour
Our Anniversary.

Razor Clams
With Black Bean and Garlic Sauce

Crabs
With loads of deep fried garlic.

After
Our pile of shells - sorry guys. You fulfilled your destiny.

Comments

[Sonja Schiller]

Makes me miss Hong Kong! So glad you're back on the road! Let me know if I can help at all - I used to live in Shenzhen and Guangzhou and I've traveled throughout southwestern and northern China.