Beautiful Chaos

Asia » Hong Kong
November 18th 2006

Published: December 25th 2006

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CM and J

Where is Kowloon?

The smog was so thick, we couldn't see across to Kowloon from the top of Victoria Peak.

Both of us had been to Hong Kong before it was turned back over to the Chinese so we were interested to see the similarities and differences between that era and today. We stayed near Causeway Bay on the "Hong Kong side" meaning Hong Kong Island as opposed to Kowloon across the harbor on the mainland. Our hotel room overlooked a massive sports complex with indoor and outdoor pools. It was not far to the Bank of China tower which is 70 stories and was the tallest building in Hong Kong when I was last here in 1990. Today the tallest building is the Two International Finance Center (IFC): at 88 stories it towers over the rest of the city. Not for long though, an even taller tower in Kowloon is currently being constructed.

Hong Kong is extremely crowded on any day of the week, but being there on the weekend everyone was out and about. After wandering around looking for a good restaurant for a while, we came across several people entering an apartment building with their perfectly coiffed dogs. After fawning over the dogs for a few minutes, we asked them for a recommendation for dinner. They directed

Special Effects

us to a place just a few blocks away which turned out to be fabulous and packed with locals. i must say being dog lovers has come in quite handy for us in our travels. We've met the most interesting people through their dogs. The same is true at home. If it were not for Salty and his best-bud Riley, I never would have met one of my best friends, Pam (an avid reader of this blog!).

The street markets in Hong Kong are amazing. J got some great shots of the fish, produce, and other treasures that could be found just blocks from our hotel.

We only had one full day in the city so we attacked it with gusto starting with Victoria Peak. Ultra-touristy, we probably wouldn't do this one again but it was fun. You take a furnicular up the mountain to a massive viewing complex complete with shops, Haggen-Daaz, and Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. (told you it was touristy!). It was so hazy, we couldn't even see across the harbor to Kowloon! After a quick look around, we hopped in a cab down to Stanley Market on the "backside" of the island. Right on

Saturday Night Shopping

the harbor, it is a lovely spot with restaurants and an open air market for all of your clothing and trinket needs. I was disappointed to find the market overrun with tourists, it was not so on my previous visit. To get back over to Central, we took a double-decker bus with great views of the harbor from the top. Next, you guessed it, we took the Star Ferry over to Kowloon. We arrived just in time to catch the sunset from the huge open area with a raised walkway in front of the Hong Kong Cultural Center. It was here that J met two local camera afficiandos. They traded tips and tricks for over an hour while snapping the terrific shots of the sunset over Hong Kong Harbor seen below. Afterwards, we took the subway up to Mong Kok for some shopping and dinner. This area was absolutely packed with people out on a Saturday night! We found some great deals on clothing, mostly more wintery clothing that we'll end up shipping home. We had a nice dinner at a local noodle shop and then took the subway all the way back to the Hong Kong side at nearly

Hong Kong Living

midnight.

The next morning before heading to the aiport, we returned to the restaurant we ate at on Friday night for some dim sum. Unfortunately, this was the order-from-the-menu variety rather than the cart variety and the English menu was about a quarter the size of the Chinese menu. Nevertheless we had some great stuff including shu-mai, various hum-bows, and egg custard dumplings.

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