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Published: October 16th 2012
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The train journey to Hong Kong was one of the easiest so far. In a much more organised fashion than previously experienced we boarded the train, clearing customs, from Guangzhou to Kowloon. The train took only 1 hour and 50 minutes and we were greeted at the station by Dan's friend Matt. Matt took us on the MTR (HK subway system) to the Lucky Hostel. After dropping our bags we headed straight for lunch just off Nathan Road at a restaurant called 'Eat Together'. We both enjoyed our first milk tea and I had spicy cucumber with rice and Dan sampled a fried chicken curry. To burn off our lunch we headed to the arcade to play on Matt's favourite arcade game, 'the drum game'. The Japanese game requires two drum sticks to be beaten onto two giant drums in the sequence displayed on the screen. It was absolutely brilliant fun, both because of the amusing Japanese music and the fact it was impossible to get the hang of without playing it a million times (as we realised Matt had).
Matt headed off to work and left us to our own devices until we would meet up with him again
after work at 11pm. This would be the latest we had stayed up in about 3 weeks so we decided to have a lazy afternoon at the hostel. At about 8pm we headed out in search of dinner walking towards the waterfront to meet Matt later. Finding a suitable place to eat with a extensive vegetarian restaurant proved difficult. We found a few solely vegetarian restaurants but people were queuing out of the doors! We stumbled upon a fantastic looking Japanese restaurant so decided that after our very tasty Japanese meal in NZ we would try it again. The food didn't let us down and the atmosphere in the restaurant was brilliant, even though nobody spoke any English including the staff. Unfortunately whilst ordering the food Dan's requests got lost in translation and he only ended up receiving one of his dishes instead of two! You can imagine his disappointment and he made it known numerous times throughout the evening, despite it being his second cooked meal of the day! We met Matt and spent the evening sat on the water's edge admiring the magnificent view of Hong Kong island and enjoying some beers. To drink in a restaurant/bar over
here is extremely expensive and with it being so warm all evening street-drinking is a fantastic alternative! We stumbled back into the hotel at 3am, the boys having enjoying a sausage in a stick on the way!
The next day was the grand arrival of my Mum. We got up and moved to our next hostel, two doors down and Matt greeted us for breakfast. It was then I sampled my first bubble tea (there is an intriguing new bubble tea shop in the lanes in Brighton so I was keen to sample the real deal in China first!) I tried a taro and coconut milk tea which was absolutely gorgeous but very filling. A taro is a type of Chinese sweet potato and the drink is purple in colour and is made by mixing the taro pearls with coconut milk. It was that good that I ventured back to the same stall a few hours later for another one! We stopped for lunch and the boys enjoyed a Chinese curry. Dan enjoyed his first beef brisket curry and vowed to learn the Cantonese words for it so he could order it again as he loved it so much!
We headed off on the airport bus and meet my Mum at HK Int. Airport. We got the bus back into the city, dropped off her bags and headed straight to the water's edge again to see the symphony light show which was scheduled to start at 8pm. Poor Mum had been awake for hours, flying from Jersey to Gatwick, bussing to Heathrow and then enduring the 11 hour flight to HK. The light show was awesome; the lights changing in symphony with the cheesy music being played from the public address system. Matt and his girlfriend Evelyn met us at the water's edge and we took a taxi to our dinner which we were eating with their friends in Yao Mah Tei. With new native people, lots of interesting new dishes to sample and the beer flowing we enjoyed a fantastic evening. We sampled melon, deep fried egg plant, pissing shrimp, oyster cake, ribs, vegetable noodles and fried squid. We all had an absolutely brilliant time, the funniest translation slip up being "jizzling pork", should have been "drizzling"!
We were up early the following day to head over the HK island. We took the MTR to Tsim Sha
Tsui go get the Star Ferry across the river. Once on the island we headed straight for the tram up to the peak. The incline of the hill being 27 degrees in places! The view from the top was impressive but it was difficult to see very far due to the smog. We set off on the 2 mile peak walk and came across several gigantic spiders hanging from the trees! We shot back down the hill on the tram and got the MTR all the way back to Prince Edward station to meet Matt, Evelyn and their friends for lunch - everyone in HK just loves to eat! We were to try Yum Chei, branded the MacDonalds of Cantonese food as it is so naughty and fatty. Much excitement was had from the lazy Susan and Chinese tea was flowing from every direction! It was today Dan was to try chicken feet! We enjoyed octopus, sweet and sour pork, minced fish cakes, chilli tofu, rolls with satay sauce, pork buns, dumplings with soup and gravy pork, prawn omelette and egg tarts for dessert! My mum demolished a whole chicken foot and described it as tasting exactly like a chicken
wing, unfortunately Dan was too chicken to try it despite everyone's "bullying" tactics! Wimp.
After lunch we headed to the flower and bird market which was great fun. The flowers, both synthetic and fresh, were beautiful and lined the streets. The bird market was also spectacular, we saw lots of colourful finches for sale, parrots, African grey tail and we even saw a toucan! The toucan was mesmerising and didn't look real! We then stopped in the arcade to enjoy a few more rounds of the drumming game, Dan and I were getting better by this stage! Evelyn was then kind enough to take Mum and I round a shopping mall selling clothes, jewellery and handbags imported from Japan and Korea. Afterwards we had a walk through the Ladies market where we picked up some souvenir gifts and then headed for dinner, the eating here is relentless. We again ordered and sampled a selection of dishes, Dan enjoying another beef brisket curry! Mum and I also sampled an ice cream covered in Horlicks powder which turned out to be really yummy!
We went back to Matt's house for a few hours to meet Chairman Miaow, his Persian cat and the boys sneakily played on FIFA 13 whilst us ladies chatted. We got the taxi home at about 1am with the funniest taxi driver ever who was bobbling along to "save all your kisses for me.." blasting from the radio. I endured an involuntary giggle fit at how funny it was and ended up crying all the way home! We had a big sleep ready for our flight from HK to Xi'an the following afternoon.
Kayleigh
Xx
(When I say we in this post in relation to eating, I am still vegetarian, I only sampled the vegetarian dishes!)
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