Chapter 2: Hong Kong (Part 2: 6th - 8th July)

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So, after the monster few days we had experienced, by the 6th of July there was only one way to describe ourselves. Absolutely buggered.

We awoke late but still felt like we had been flattened by Mack Trucks. We had missed ‘regular’ breakfast options, so we decided to find a sandwich shop as described in our Lonely Planet Guide.

Lonely Planet is only helpful to a point. This is past that point.

After wandering helpless and hungry through Kowloon we found ourselves back where we started - originally - at the Ferry Terminal from Macau. Damn you Lonely Planet. So we gave up, and enjoyed a croissant (Andrew) and a blueberry tart (Tori) and coffee all round. It was tasty but not so… planned.

Without the impediment of massive luggage, we were able to do a little exploring of the shopping centre attached to the ferry terminal. It was an interesting excursion. In Hong Kong there is a random chain of stores, quite possibly Japanese (but it turns out on later examination they are not) in origin called Aji Ichiban or something like that (it’s been awhile). Basically they take regular items of a snack food or similar and repackage them in ‘bulk’ i.e. why buy a Cadbury share pack with 12 bars in it when you can buy one with 50 and that sort of thing. It works out to be no cheaper and is rather silly, but they are everywhere, are presented really nicely and have the added appeal of bulk purchases that only people in Asian countries understand - like 50 ‘Fish’ sausages in a packet, or 2kg of dried pork something and similar. These things are curious and fascinating - we couldn’t help but gawk. The shopping centre also presented us with another cultural investigation: KFC - Hong Kong Style.

So it was 11am and we technically had eaten breakfast, but for the sake of science we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to investigate Asian KFC. The hot chips were the most fascinating bit - essentially slices of potato latticed and deep fried - brilliant. After chowing down on some tasty mid morning deep-fried chicken (the results fundamentally concluded that it was all pretty similar), courtesy of Octopus, we determined that we needed a plan - a slow, easy plan that required minimal effort.

We decided to head back to the Salisbury to relax and plan out the next few days of our trip. As we progressed through the street, we came across a supermarket. Again not to pass up any experience immersing ourselves in the local culture, we headed in to “Wellcome” (Yes, not a typo) and enjoyed the wonders of local supermarket shopping. Now, not being experts on Hong Kong supermarkets we have no idea whether this is the regular style of all supermarkets, but this one was essentially like a crazy, winding IGA, with easily accessible alcohol. w00t.

So, armed with some exciting purchases, we made our way back to home base, with the plan of enjoying our tasty snacks and making further plans. This worked only mildly. After about two hours of little planning and most of the way through a packet of BLUE (naturally blue too, allegedly) potato chips amongst other things, we determined that the official potato snack of jetBlue was in fact not tasty, not filling, not satisfying in any way and mostly creepy, which about sums up what most passengers apparently think of jetBlue too by the by, and more importantly, we needed to go do something constructive for the day and find some tasty eating.

Well, we did well on all counts after that (must have been those chips). We headed out with intentions of visiting the Hong Kong Walk of Fame and perhaps indulging in ‘famed’ Yum Cha at the Hotel Intercontinental. The plan seemed foolproof, except, despite the fact we were in WET season Hong Kong, we didn’t really count so much on the rain. It was torrential. It rained so hard that we couldn’t see Hong Kong Island anymore, but we didn’t care so much. It was brilliant. If we could have scooped that rain up and brought it home, we would have. We would have been national heroes; drought broken, everything fine, all wrapped up in a neat little package.

We couldn’t get a seat at the Intercontinental straight away, so we made a reservation for later and then headed into the torrent to get up close and personal to Hong Kong’s golden celebrity stars. There is an awesome Bruce Lee sculpture at one end of the walk and people, despite the rain all jostled around for a photo. We braved the wet and went in search of stars we knew. There were stacks and stacks, and obviously we knew very few of them, no doubt all acting gods and goddesses in their own right, but we skipped them mostly, and found all the ones we did know - Michelle Yeoh, Jet Li, Chow Yun Fat, John Woo, Jackie Chan (who appears to be either a godlike figure in Hong Kong, or a brand (lots of licensed memorabilia that has nothing to do with him available) and of course Tori’s favourite, Bruce Lee.

After getting a good honest soaking, and feeling very confident that our knowledge of Chinese actors and other celebrities had in fact increased a total of nothing, we headed back to the Intercontinental, presenting ourselves at the door to the plush dining room and smartly dressed waiter like drowned rats. We didn’t care, and the lovely staff were all too friendly and polite to acknowledge our bedraggled appearance.

If you can only splash out on one thing in Hong Kong, which would be unlikely, given the exchange rate, this should be high on the list of things to do. It cost us about HK$1000 (AUD$150) including drinks, for the lunch set menu, but man-o-man it was worth it.
Words cannot describe the exquisite morsels we enjoyed. Essentially like a cross between Yum Cha and a western degustation, we were presented with tasty treat after treat and after about 10 rounds of bite-size delight you do feel just satisfied. Highlights included everything, such as prawn dumplings with abalone and truffle; melt in your mouth BBQ pork; crispy, fatty duck and other assorted joys. To end, we were served with a cold melon tapioca soup. Tapioca never ranks high on our list of preferences but it was delicate and subtle and refreshing and a lovely end to the meal. We could have died and gone to heaven and felt no different. The service was exquisite, the view fabulous and the table setting beautiful - right down to jade accessories (even jade embellished chop sticks). It was awesome.

After that meal, rain nor any other seemingly solid impediment could stop us; this was holidaying. We decided to round off the day with an exploration of the Hong Kong Museum of Art. On reflection, Andrew only remembers one thing; horses. Sadly, this is both not surprising and about as much as Tori remembers. Actually, this is less true; Tori remembers more, but cares for about as much. The museum was interesting from a curatorial point-of-view. It was interesting to see an Eastern interpretation of a particularly Western art display-format. What was even more interesting was Chinese contemporary artists - of about the same calibre as what you might find at Primavera - meh. It was a good way to while away a few hours and there are some pretty ceramics but if you are looking for important art, this is not a priority. One thing that the gallery did have which was great was the shop. This shop was great. It had everything. Tori is a particularly big fan of Art Gallery shops, good ones, but more often than not, they are crap. A good gallery shop should be choc-full of books. Further, you should be able to get all sorts of fabulous Art related things. This shop did that quite well. Tori could have trawled the shelves for hours. The one down-side to this shop is it introduced Tori to an addiction of epic proportions.
After picking up a nifty book of Chinese symbolism in art (just some light reading), Tori encountered a mysterious collection of boxes. In some gallery shops, sections are devoted to just quirky things - gifts and the like, which make good presents or a feature point in your house. The Hong Kong Gallery Shop had a lot of quirky things, but this was by far the best. You could purchase little boxes with a random collection of tiny (I’m talking millimetres and centimetres here) versions of popular yum cha dishes in plastic. You could also purchase an old-school yum cha trolley to match (about Barbie doll proportions). Oh it was on. One of the most exciting parts of this process is that all the little boxes are identical and its complete luck-of-the-draw as to which dishes you get. Oh, and did we mention the accessories? You get mini steamers, tongs, tea, plates, chopsticks - the works. So, Tori snapped up a box and the yum cha trolley, and proudly took her new purchases home. It began that way, and is now ‘le grande obsession’.

These items are not so popular, and given that all the box is in Chinese, it’s no easy task to find them. So Tori spent the entire rest of our time in Hong Kong (and Japan) looking for them. Next person to go to Hong Kong will have strict instructions to get some more for her. She must have all the dishes, all of them. Mmmm plastic tiny yum cha.

So, some what fatter, fuller, and loaded with plastic yum cha, we finally headed home, satisfied with our day. We did some washing and some research and planning and went to sleep. The next day we were going to do the other thing Tori was mad keen on. Lantau.

After a refreshing nights sleep we awoke, bright-eyed and bushy tailed (he he, tails) ready to embark on our journey to Lantau. July 7th was somewhat drizzly in Hong Kong, but this did not deter us - counting on the distance between Kowloon and Lantau for the sun to appear. Lantau is one of Hong Kong’s smaller (only just) islands. The islands are well known for their beaches, rainforests, fishing villages, temples and other bits of cultural significance.

We caught the MTR to Central where we had to change trains. This wasn’t really our preference as there was a lot walking involved (technically you change stations via everyone’s favourite - elaborate subway), but Hong Kong is the land of convenience (mostly) and has embraced escalators like they are going out of style. Seriously, this is a place that will put an escalator in to replace 8 steps - ‘individual escalator-ettes’ as we like to think of them. Subsequently, by extension Hong Kong is also home of the travelator (moving walkway). We had previously discovered their love of travelators at the airport; the terminals are absurdly long but are mercifully well serviced by trusty mechanical steed. At Central, travelators ultimately are a thankful sight as well.

As we slowly (oh lets say, 0.000000000000000000000000000003km/hr) moved along the travelators we had unimpeded views of all the enviable conveniences on offer at MTR stations - shops (including our previously mentioned friend Aji Ichiban) , ubiquitous 7-11’s, bakeries and customer information desks. One intriguing sight was the platform access for the airport line - complete with ‘In-town check-in’ - a process that greatly confused and intrigued us - more research was clearly required. In pride of place along the concourse was an enormous electronic count-down display, informing all who passed by, to the second, how long it was until the beginning of the Olympic Games.

We eventually arrived at our connecting platform and the MTR appeared (as usual) within a matter of minutes with the added benefits of being clean, on-time and fairly empty - everything that CityRail is not. We boarded our train, sat back and watched as the MTR tunnel gave way to exposed scenery as we headed out of the city (well, as close as you can get to out of the city in Hong Kong) revealing picturesque mountains, sea and the everyday goings on of local residents. As Hong Kong Disneyland line connected to ours, many small (and large) faces joined our train destined for the Happiest Place in South East Asia. Andrew pined to join them, until Tori highlighted that a) we would be experiencing Disneyland in a few months and b) Hong Kong Disney by all accounts was particularly crap. Later on, when he discovered that the MTR that exclusively runs between Sunny Bay Station and Disneyland Resort Station feature Mickey Mouse shaped windows and passenger handle bars this pining was reignited if only to ride the train.

We arrived at Tung Chung station, close to Lantau and followed signs to the Cable Cars that would take us the rest of the way. We have previously mentioned the wonders of the cable car at Ocean Park but to Andrew, this one is the more impressive… at 5.7km and a one way trip time of a leisurely 25 minutes the Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car’s statistics are not to be sneezed at. Tori, while being impressed with its grandeur felt that, due to the Ocean Park Cable Car being built on sheer cliff-face, it edged out the Ngong Ping 360 in the game of impressiveness. This disagreement has yet to be resolved.

Unfortunately for us, our hopes that it would be nicer weather were dashed with the steady drizzle of rain falling as we boarded our cable car. We climbed into the cable car pod - built for roughly 10 passengers, but with the weather and time of year, we were treated to the luxury of having a private pod - it was a lot of space for two people, but much more relaxed and comfortable than being crammed in with sweaty tourists all jostling for picture taking space. The views were spectacular. We could see the Airport, lush forests and streams, pristine bodies of water and then mysteriously… nothing. As we ascended towards the mountainous centre of Lantau we found ourselves travelling directly through the low-lying clouds that had provided us with our constant damp. It was a surreal experience, we were swimming in a sea of white. Occasionally, out of the mist, an empty cable car passed us making the return journey (it was like something you might read about in a Stephen King novel) and even less frequently we would catch a glimpse of the ground below us in the thinning cloud. Apparently, on clear days you enjoy delicious views of the approaching summit and all its offerings, but alas it was not to be. We didn’t let this dampen our spirits (ha ha) however, and we took advantage of the stillness and calm that the clouds offered (strangely welcome relief from our buzzing Hong Kong experience thus far).

We eventually arrived at the summit, into a thick soup of cloud which didn’t disperse when we ended up back on solid ground, so with poor visibility we found ourselves in Ngong Ping Village. This was a strange sight indeed. Basically the premise is that of a ‘traditional Chinese village’ theme park. This has got to be one of the dodgiest things ever conceived. Anyone that believes that a ‘Traditional Chinese Village’ includes a French restaurant, a children’s friendly interactive show about an animated monkey, an emporium selling only chopsticks and a 7-11 should be smacked repeatedly in the side of the head with a pointy stick. Andrew wishes to particularly highlight the 7-11 - possibly the most inconveniently located 7-11 convenience store of all time. We are not sure of it’s elevation but we suppose it would only be beaten in inconvenience if they had built a 7-11 on top of, say, Mount Everest or similar.

Walking through the village, enjoying the idle pastime of criticising the authenticity of the whole enterprise and being secretly smug that we were not that enormously OBESE American family *shudders* (more on that later), we continued on toward the main attraction of the mountain, which in fact has nothing to do with the Cable Car or the ‘Authentic’ village experience - the Po Lin Monastery and their own drawcard, the Tian Tan Buddha. The Tian Tan Buddha is reputedly the largest seated Buddha in the world (this varies according to how you define ‘largest’ and ‘seated’ apparently (Andrew pipes up “And ‘Buddha’”)). At the top of many, many, oh lord, many steps (Andrew: ‘The most inconveniently located Buddha statue ever’), he sits, in all his bronzed glory on a bronzed lotus, while minor deities offer up different things to him.

Before making the trek up the 268 steps to see ol’Buddha up close, we determined that sustenance was in order, to provide us with the necessary energy to sustain us to the top. For an absolute bargain price (time has erased the memory of exactly how much it was) we were treated to a banquet of delicious vegetarian food featuring- mushrooms, deep fried tofu, lily bulbs, more mushrooms and rice. They even had a ‘black mushroom’ that was as close as you can get to eating steak... without eating steak. It was deliciously…meaty (Andrew’s words).

After a satisfying meal (and a strange desire for flesh) we wandered through the sometime drizzling/sometime pouring rain to the Monastery’s temple. It’s an elaborately decorated structure; everything a good temple should be - with gilded ornaments, lotuses and vivid statues; firecrackers and fruit as offerings, and its own temple cat (we suspect like a church mouse) lazing about on a cushion. After taking a few pictures, we emerged from the incense-y haze inside to the clear streaming rain outside. With guts and determination we approached the steps to the Buddha… with slightly wavering guts and determination we began our ascent. With wobbly knees and shortness of breath we determined that we were a bit unfit. But we kept going, and going on and on and just when you think it would never end, at last - we reached the top - slightly closer to a really big Buddha. And man he was a big one. We did a full 360 around the Buddha, so we could appreciate every angle of the Buddha, and then made our way inside the Buddha (Oh yes, inside - ok well the base of it) and we got to experience the fury of a Buddha relic, given to the monks at Po Lin by some Sri Lankan Monks when they built him (relatively recently - early 90s). It’s a bit of bone (about the size of a single 100 & 1000 that you would sprinkle on a cup cake) that allegedly came from the Buddha himself. The monks are immensely proud of it, and it is kept behind glass in an elaborate golden cage set up with lots of offerings and you view it from a couple of metres away behind a fence and no photography is allowed. Whoa.

So, the relic itself was a little bit of an anticlimax (Andrew: ‘Where is it?”). With that, we sighed a little and made the mad decent back to planet Earth via those 268 steps. Phew. Bypassing the Monk’s gift shop at the bottom - erm no… thanks, we headed slowly back towards the Cable Car via Ngong Ping Village. Supremely satisfied with our efforts (Tasty lunch, extreme exercise, cultural awareness increased) we decided to celebrate by stopping in at the now, ironically, most convenient 7-11 for celebratory ice-cream. As we sat in the mist enjoying our Haagen Dazs, we observed something most intriguing…

As we previously alluded to, there was a distinctly noticeable family group in Ngong Ping when we alighted from the Cable Car Pod. A very large family, both Mum and Dad and the Children - Boy and Girl, were extremely ‘mass challenged’. Now, given Drew and Tori are not exactly the slender supermodels you may think we are, we probably shouldn’t judge - but these guys were massive. We quietly questioned whether they were all allowed in the same Cable Car Pod, but this is not the point, no matter how distracting it may appear to be. When we headed towards the Po Lin Monastery we left them somewhere near the first shop - ‘a traditional Chinese tea house complete with tea sets worth hundreds of dollars’. As we returned to enjoy our ice cream a number of hours later, having seen the Buddha, Temple, enjoyed a tasty lunch and having had a general good explore, they were just making their way into a shop near the road leading to the Monastery. We watched them wander excruciatingly slowly towards the exit to the village, with ‘authentic Chinese purchases’ in tow. Now, given that it was extremely cloudy - nay an impenetrable blanket of fog, it’s not like you could in fact see anything from the gate - you actually had to leave the confines of the village and go to the monastery to visit it. A glance down the road would not suffice. There is a massive sign at the village exit indicating what cultural rewards lay ahead, and the teaming numbers of tourists does in fact demonstrate that there is something worth having a look at up there. But do you think any of this attracted our fat friends? Hell no. They proceeded to casually glance at the exit, off in the mist, turn on their heels (which may very well have been groaning under the pressure) and proceeded down the other side of the village to examine more ‘authentic Chinese crap’. It was amazing to witness. Then again, given their size, maybe someone had tipped them off about the stairs, or maybe they knew the Buddha was envious of their size and wanted to eat them or something. We’ll never know. It was a shame to think that another two spoilt children got within a hundred yards of something worthwhile visiting on a holiday and instead understand Chinese culture about as well as McDonalds understands Haute Cuisine. Tori could rant about this for hours but she won’t - and don’t even get her started on the hysterical tour group ‘enjoying’ their vegetarian meal in the monastery - hilarious.

So feeling even more smug (size and culture wise) we headed back to the Cable Car to enjoy another 25 minutes of clouds as we headed back into the throng of Hong Kong. All in all a very worthwhile way to spend the day.

Unsurprisingly, by the time we reached Central, we had determined that we wanted MEAT for dinner. So, heading back to the Salisbury we decided that we needed to find just that. We had a little rest from standing up (sore, tired stair legs) and then lazily decided to investigate dinner. Heading back into central, we found ourselves an “American Diner” style bar/restaurant in SoHo. Working on the principle that all American people are redneck carnivores, we enjoyed a lovely meal of massive burgers (more meat than you or your grandma could poke a stick at), ice-cream floats and beer. Mmmm meaty and treaty.

As we left and headed back out into the street it started to rain - really rain, no you don’t understand - extreme rain - and we were on a steep street - it was like a flood - it was brilliant. So racing back to Central station (mmm drowned rats) we hopped back on the MTR to Tsim Sha Tsu and dried off back at the Salisbury, feeling tired and satisfied and full of meat. With that pleasant image, we went to bed.

The 8th of July proved to be another massive effort despite our intention to have an easy day. Enjoying a sleep-in, we headed off around 11 to Central to indulge in more tasty eating - at a popular noodle bar. And boy do we mean popular - anywhere that you might put people, they did. It was packed to the rafters with diners eating in and taking away. We braved the crowd and ate in, enjoying delicious noodles and dumplings and Chinese Tea. Tasty and fulfilling. After fighting our way back out of the place, we couldn’t decide if it was warmer inside or out (and it was seriously warm outside).

We decided we needed to see, and if necessary ride, the Central Elevator for ourselves. For those who do not know, Hong Kong Island is quite hilly. Further, the higher you go up the hill, generally, the pricier the housing. Anyway, so a lot of people live up the hill (well mini-mountain) on Hong Kong Island, and it seems silly to catch a bus down the hill. It also would be massively inconvenient to catch a bus mostly up the hill. And it would be plain suicide to walk every day after work. So, seeing it would be fairly difficult to build the MTR on such an incline, Hong Kong thought of a cunning way to overcome the inconvenience of walking uphill. Yes, you already have worked it out, you clever people you, escalators. Basically, imagine a system of escalators that run up the hill and like any other commuting method, have peak times and what not. In the morning they run downwards and the rest of the day they run upwards, getting you to your height on the hill with a minimum of effort. It’s a grand idea.

Andrew was extremely crestfallen to discover that it is in fact not just one gigantic escalator (as the name suggests), but a series of large ones, so that you can get off at different points. Now, as a way to get from A to B on a hill, it is a great idea and works well we imagine. As tourists just checking it out, it gets pretty boring, and slanty, pretty quickly. The problem is that once you get on, you, as a tourist feel committed. You need to go the whole way up, regardless of how incredibly tedious the whole exercise actually is.
So about 30 minutes after we started (that’s standing time (we didn’t walk up any of them), we emerged at the very top, on a dull road with ‘escalator legs’ (imagine sea legs but less damp). So - the top. Really not that interesting.

We were in a bit of a pickle, because it was not morning peak, the escalators only go up and being lazy, we had no real intention of walking all the way back down. So instead we formulated what would prove to be an infinitely more insane, more strenuous and in fact down right idiotic plan which we do not recommend anyone replicating. In the daze of having actually experienced something in Hong Kong that was not awesome, we looked at our map and decided that it wasn’t that far to walk to the Peak Tram.

If you only read one sentence in our whole blog the following should be it: IT IS NOT A SHORT OR EASY WALK BETWEEN THE CENTRAL ESCALATOR AND THE PEAK TRAM - DO NOT DO IT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE.

It is a long, miserable and mostly uphill walk, which no basic Lonely Planet map topographically tells you. Curse it, curse it and curse it to hell. It went on and on, in the heat (which is not much better at this altitude) and it’s windy and ugly and ungrateful. When we finally reached the Tram Station, we almost passed out - partially from joy and partially from exhaustion.
Now, we didn’t actually get on the peak tram at the bottom station like normal people either. We managed to walk to one of the fairly unused interim stations. I think even the tram driver was surprised he had to stop to let us on. Boy were we grateful though. What we hadn’t planned on was the (in hindsight, unsurprisingly) full tram and no seats. Now this would normally not be a problem. Oh you, know, it’s like standing on a bus… NOT.

When you get on the Tram the floor is not even flat - it is concaved like waves. At first we had no idea why, but we soon figured it out. The tram steadily arises to a maximum steepness of 48%. This is difficult to stand on. The concaved flooring helps you stay upright, but at first it scares the life out of you. So, having struggled with gravity for a number of minutes we arrived at the Peak; hot, tired, sweaty, with aching legs and an overwhelming desire to kiss solid, flat earth, no matter how high the elevation.

After all that work though it was worth it. We realise that we have been rabbiting on about views and spectacular scenery, and you have probably stopped listening, well too bad. The Peak is awesome. It gives you the best overview of what Hong Kong actually looks like. It is incredible. The city is massive and you get the best idea of it from up there. The Peak features a number of mixed business buildings - where the tram arrives is the major attraction - full of restaurants, shops and bizarrely an EA Games Concept Store (imagine what EA would do if it merged with Apple), among other things. Outside the building (a bit like a shopping centre) there are more viewing points, another shopping centre, a tourist information point (inside an older tram) and a few houses belonging to the ŭber-rich of Hong Kong.

We stood gobsmacked at the view for quite a while. We also enjoyed delicious mid-afternoon high altitude Burger King (Andrew: Most inconvenient place to get a Whopper of all time) with enviable views. After a good explore of all the Peak had to offer (which very excitingly included more tiny plastic yum cha, feeding Tori’s addiction further), we reluctantly hopped back on the Tram and headed down the summit, enjoying all the views that we were too shocked to notice on the way up and too busy struggling with gravity to appreciate (this time we had seats - yay!).

We arrived at the lower terminal to a waiting crowd of people (apparently all year round is peak time (ha ha) for the Peak). We disembarked and conveniently hopped onto an open topped double-decker bus which toured the streets of Central on its way to the ferry terminal. We saw towering monstrosities up close from the base after just viewing their ceilings from above - very surreal and very, very cool.

We jumped onto the Star Ferry and sailed back to Kowloon, supremely satisfied that our day turned out to be less of a bust than it appeared it would be after the escalator fiasco. We collapsed in a heap in our room and relaxed for a little while, but it was not over yet.

At 7:30 we got dolled up and went downstairs to our own dining room in the hotel, for it offered a somewhat famous buffet. We had reserved a table near the windows, which look directly out over the top of the Cultural centre towards Hong Kong Island, and as we began to tuck into our tasty morsels, the lights dimmed and the backing music to the Symphony of Lights in the Harbour commenced. From our table we were able to enjoy a great view across the harbour and some of the best buffet menu we have ever had.

If you want good value buffet, this is the place - all you can eat *everything* is on offer. If you want to eat succulent salmon sashimi all night, you can (and Tori mostly did), if you want roast meats, seafoods, salads and quivering desserts you can too. It has everything. What impressed Andrew most perhaps was the curry. After experiencing the carvery (succulent roast beef carved off the bone just for you) we didn’t think it could be topped, but Andrew made a new friend - a friend who willingly creates the curry of your dreams. It is literally like a self-service curry machine - you pick out all the bits you want - meats, vegetables, curry flavouring, heat etc and a lovely chap will cook it up for you, and when it’s ready, you go and collect it, complete with rice and naan. Brilliant.

So, after a few hours of solidly stuffing our faces - mmmm sashimi, the day was done… like a dinner… and we headed back upstairs, ok, scratch that, we rolled upstairs (and yes we recognise the irony having bitched about the fat people on Lantau) to another satisfying and very well deserved sleep. Another day completed.

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