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Published: June 24th 2006
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Charlotte and the dreaded KFC Chips!
Chips in KFC here are not as we remember! Hello again from Sunny Hong Kong
Well after last nights efforts we decided to start off a little later today. Not that this stopped us getting to all the things we wanted to see. Waking up in the hotel after a well deserved sleep we got ourselves organized and headed out to find a suitable place for breakfast - one of the small drawbacks which we thought would be easier to overcome than it really is was that breakfast was not included in the package - so we wandered down Mody Road and found a Starbucks Café. Boy was this an insight. The croissants are covered in coconut and everything comes with Ketchup! I think that the secret is to breakfast get to Starbucks before 10 am! Then off we went on our daily travels. We slowly made our way up Nathan Road. One more interesting fact is that Nathan Road is 3 kilometres long and has approx 5 000 shops according to Steve the wonderful guide from the airport. And of course these do not include the Hawkers and Touts! And trust me - they are everywhere!
On our travels we came across this little shoe shop. We
Tin Hau Temple
This temple is amazing - right in the middle of a busy area it is an oasis of the old Hong Kong in the middle of the changing city bought the girls sandshoes each for $HKD59.99 which equates to about $AUD10.00 so that makes 2 pairs of sandshoes for the princely sum of $AUD20!! Not bad shopping but certainly this was not the place to bargain! But talking about bargaining, we made our way to the ladies Market. For the first purchase was making sure Charlotte replaced her hat lost somewhere between Jordan and Mong Kok - choosing a pink Eagle in Flight hat. This ended up costing a massive $HKD60 which had started at about $HKD 68 (approx $AUD12) we wandered through the top half of the markets on our way to the Goldfish Markets.
The Goldfish Market is a series of shops which cater to pets (no, not restaurants although there was a fair share of those as well between the pet shops selling unspecified meat products - we didn’t ask what they were just kept moving) and Goldfish which are so important to the Chinese with the whole Feng Shui thing happening. The tanks were amazingly varied in shapes and sizes. One interesting point was all the small shrines dotted along the street with copious offerings and incense burning! Important note to self - definitely
Those amazing neon lights
Everywhere you look the Hong Kong people show their love of Neon lights. wear comfortable shoes that enable you to sprint across roads otherwise you will never get across!
We then headed back to the Ladies Market. I know I thought the Night Markets were fairly large but the Ladies Market left it for dead. The variety of items and the masses and masses of stalls to see. Be sure to check the prices of items and be prepared to bargain hard. I still don’t think that I am as good at it as I would like to be. Mark and I each bought a nice lightweight top. Starting initially at $128 for both we ended up paying $100 neat (about $AUD20 for 2 tops)
We also saw the Tin Hau Temple in Temple Street. An amazing site. It is sort of smooshed in between new buildings, old housing/ apartment blocks and gardens. The shrine had gardens both in front and behind. We have also put in a photo of the temple showing the amazing issues that seems to best identify Hong Kong with the Old and the New being mixed together to form a curious mix of culture and modernity. The temple itself was an amazing building, with very large incense coils hanging from the ceiling. The shrine had a large type of altar at the back and a smaller one at the front. Outside the actual temple there was another shrine just on the roadside, however we did not see any fortune tellers today. The shrine had two small stone lions to protect the entry and many friezes which are obviously very old above the doorway and exquisite carvings on the roofline. What an amazing building!
Ah yes and I nearly forgot the Jade Markets, interesting again. Many lovely items with a lot of skill involved in the carving, but if you point to something the sellers come running to show it to you and do the hard sell. This was very difficult for the girls because every time they saw something of interest they just had to point. So fighting our way through the sellers who kept offering to sell us items we quickly exited. Definitely great items but a place to haggle.
Mark also was regularly accosted by people wanting to sell him suits. “Hey bossy bossy, buy this, good suit very cheap” and other things along this line. The girls thought this was extremely funny and would hold onto the giggles until just past the person wanting Marks business and then almost collapse in fits of laughter!
After about 6 hours of wandering we finally made our way back to the hotel for a rest (the girls were knackered!!!!!)
Marks Input
At the goldfish markets we found this fish that was a weird cross between a Catfish and a Goldfish. There was only one shop that had these. We also saw a shop with a very tired Dory (from Nemo) =( (please read dead sitting on the bottom of the tank)
Electronics are not great buys. There is very little if any difference in the prices that we have seen so far and what we have seen at the markets make us think it is very dodgy about buying those sorts of things there.
The Hong Kong are extremely proud of their Mobile Phones and a crowning achievement was when they could proudly boast of being able to use their Mobiles in the MTR. And subways are not the train stations but a place to walk under the road!
Charlotte’s Input
At the Ladies Market we found the Shadow of Infinity Yugioh! Cards. The Jade Markets I saw a lovely Jade dragon which is about 2 foot tall and there was another which was next to a big Jade Boat and a jade lion and it had a red dot for an eye. In a movie shop we went into I saw a Yugioh VCD
Elizabeth’s Input
The thing I liked best about today was the really beautiful earrings. There were some really nice little heart shaped ones. And I really want to buy a pair.
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Socks
non-member comment
Goldfish
Could you bring me back some goldfish please - I can't catch these ones here!