#17 Kowloon Walled City Park, Cafe O, Caterpillars, Lantau & the giant Buddha

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Rest of May

May 18th
Take the MTR to Lok Fu to buy a mattress. Waste of money. But not a waste of time because we take a look around the area and find Kowloon Walled City Park, a truly elegant place built to replace and commemorate an old walled city slum. Serene, it is landscaped with ponds, flowers, and greenery, surrounding Qing styled pavilions - part of the original wall still exists at the southern boundary of the park.

May 20th
Errands and wandering around (again) today. We stop at new place that seems to have popped up overnight on Queens Road. That’s what happens here. An empty 100 square foot dumping ground of a shell yesterday, no frills cut tag shop or chic eatery today. You can watch the daily progress in Sheung Wan and Central - one block can yield 3 to 5 new businesses each week. Not an exaggeration at all.

This place is called “O”. The advertised coffee & eclectic menu cleverly stenciled on it’s glass walls lures us. Chaos. Ordering takes a bit long, there is a line. We place the order and go upstairs to find an open table, nice atmosphere though overtly trendy, comfy upholstered chairs, low tables, and modern décor. No coffee, no sandwich, no desert for a very, very long time. The sandwich arrives first. It is consumed. Coffee arrives 10 minutes later. No cream. No English?? Wait a minute, this is a place clearly catering to westerners and almost no English is spoken here? The waitress does not know what cream is. She brings up whipped cream after about 5 minutes. Patience worn out, Tony hunts down the manager to get milk or cream & finally it is sent up. The coffee is cold. The desert arrives. It looked good in the glass case, but no big deal now. By this time the whole event has lost it’s appeal. I try to write it off as opening week confusion. Tony doesn’t buy it. We go away mad & won’t go back as it’s not cheap. This is their second location in HK, is the other as much of a mess? Too many of these places are cropping up too close to home. Please help us save Sheung Wan! Keep it as it is - no trendy, upscale, mod, cool, hip, hot, flashy, smart, chic, sleek needed. Alas, it won’t last, Sheung Wan is doomed. “O”, oh why did we go?

Odd occurrence on the way back, we see a policeman ask a man for his ID. This man is doing nothing but walking down the street. He does not react, just pulls out his wallet and hands it over casual-like. Why is he being stopped? Normal looking guy, not threatening, not running, nothing going on. Racial profiling? He looks Indian or maybe Mideastern...

May 22nd
We hike to the Peak on this lovely, albeit extremely humid day. Caterpillar craziness! There are hundreds hanging from the trees on their spun threads, we dodge them in the air and on the ground. Each of us is on the lookout for strings of thingies. I don’t want to be responsible for killing any future butterflies if that’s what these are. Hong Kong has the largest butterfly population in the world. OK, not the largest, it’s just that I’ve never seen so many in one small area - its population density equals that of the people.

Tomorrow we pick up Zoe from the airport! Whoopie! We are planning a cookout for Zoe’s arrival - a real Hong Kong welcome of Wisconsin Johnsonville brats and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer!

May 23rd
We plan to visit the mighty Buddha statue on Lantau before picking up Zoe at the airport. One of the commuting options available, the First Ferry, costs $21HK each for the fast service, much less than the Airport Express train ($100HK), and of course much more fun. We’ll go to Mui Wo from the Central pier, then catch a bus to the giant Buddha, mess around a bit, then take a bus to the airport.

Disembark at Mui Wo pier - the bus terminus is right outside and we hop the waiting #2 bus to the Po Lin Monastery. It’s a very long, winding, but scenic ride up through the hills. Extensive grounds surround the sitting Buddha - temples, lotus pond, pavilions, food vendors and a huge vegetarian restaurant. We locate the restaurant and walk in, but are rushed back out and steered to a booth next door. Hmmm. Ok, I get it - you buy a ticket for your meal before you enter. Two sizes of meals are offered, small and large. We pay for two smalls, receive two plastic cards with a picture of the giant Buddha, but no other information, then reenter the restaurant. Now we are welcomed and seated. There is no menu, you get what you get. Seated at table, tea is brought immediately, then shortly after arrives a huge metal vat of soup, a mound of rice, spring rolls, and a couple of tofu & veggie dishes. Each dish has a unique flavor and texture, though I’m not a big fan of tofu, it is really very good. It’s not exactly cheap at about $60HK ea, but there is plenty of food - we could have gotten away with buying one and sharing.

There are a few other dining options, a bakery outside the restaurant, and noodle shops just outside the grounds. To walk off the big lunch, we head up the long steps to statue. Picture perfect day with white puffy clouds floating by Lantau Peak in the distance. We tour the exterior of the monolith, around each level, then because we have the plastic cards from our meals we are allowed to enter the galleries inside the structure. We can hardly break away from the beauty and serenity, so relaxing compared to hectic HK Island …Oops a little too relaxing - we have to get going. It’s 4:30 and we need to bus it to the airport. Luckily one is waiting at the terminus & it is the one we need, number 23.

Zoe’s flight gets in at 5:10pm. Think we can make it in 40 minutes? Hell no. It’s all up hill and the bus is going 2 mph and stops to pick up people every 5 feet, and there is construction over the length of the route - why is it we did not notice this on the way in? Now, looking at the LP map, you’d think the bus would be taking the shortest way to the airport, which doesn’t look too far. However, we did not take into consideration those lines on the maps aren’t real highways. So, not only are we fighting the slowness, we are taking the longest route there!

We arrive within the vicinity of the airport in about an hour and a half. Next we need to find how to get to the airport. Guess this is not a well-planned outing. An MTR station is nearby so we check to see if it can take us into the airport, but thinking later that is impossible because the only train that goes there is on a separate line. We are directed to a bus outside the station. Catch it & slowly creep around various roundabouts and further pickups, and finally we are there. It’s not clearly marked as to where the entrance is, but we figure it out. Zoe’s plane has long landed and she is waiting for us in the main lobby - sorry Zoe!!! Wonderful to see her at last!

At least one thing goes right, we get a great deal on our Airport Express tickets, normally $100 ea, but with a special it’s $210 for the three of us. That’s a super deal!

Zoe’s beat, but we have a big surprise rooftop cookout planned with Linden, John, Andrew, and Barry - our band/building mates. Great food, lots of fun, and we keep Zoe up late so she can get started on resolving the jet lag.

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