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Published: February 19th 2017
Today, we’ll fly to Vietnam after a wonderful few days in Hong Kong. The weather here is usually foggy and cool this time of year, but they’re apparently having the same kind of winter as east Tennessee. We’ve had three days of blue sky, blue water, and temps in the 70s and 80s, and spent two days exploring two of the 263 (I did not count) outer islands: Lamma Island and Cheung Chau Island.
You can’t do anything in Hong Kong without crossing water, and dozens of boats and ships are moving through Victoria Harbor between Kowloon and Hong Kong at any time. We took one ferry to get to the central piers, changing to other ferries to the outer islands. Lamma was highly recommended as a place to hike and eat seafood, so we planned to take a ferry to one side and walk to the other, eat dinner, then take a different ferry home. My timing was bad, so luckily, we didn’t commit ourselves to the whole walk over the island, since it was HOT! Since we’re seafood eaters, we decided to try the mantis prawns (BIG shrimp). They’re more interesting as biological oddities than food, but we
Cheung Chau Harbor
Tom says that in the 1970s, junks under sail traveled through Victoria Harbor. All seem to have been motorized.enjoyed sharing our table with three women (mom and daughters) from mainland China. The older daughter is a doctor and the younger is studying accounting at the university in their town. I’ve attached a note the younger girl wrote for us – send her an email and overwhelm her with US friends!
The next day, we went to Cheung Chau Island, which was MUCH more interesting. It’s a fishing village with a protected west-facing harbor. Another day of amazing blue skies and sparkling blue water confounded Tom, who remembers filthy water and Navy doctors’ threats of 18 shots if you fell in.
Last night, we went to the Temple street market, where you can buy as much trashy stuff as you want, all crammed into a single narrow street about three blocks long. I would have taken some photos, but didn’t want to be insulting. What a bunch of crap! Everything from fake jewelry to fake leather purses to gaudy shirts to … We really went to sample Tom’s favorite subject: street food. Here, tables and plastic stools are set out on the pavement. We ordered two different types of shrimp with garlic, and boy were they garlicy!
Goddess of Mercy
On Cheung Chau Island in a beautiful temple, the goddess is particularly apt for fishermen going out into the South China Sea. See photos. Food served at tables next to us included roast pigeon, which must be working, as we haven’t seen many pigeons here.
Our hotel meets those food needs: it has separate restaurants serving northern Chinese food, southern Chinese food, Vietnamese food, Japanese food, and Italian food, plus a buffet restaurant that serves a little of everything. Breakfast offerings include Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and western foods.
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Jim DeBernardi
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Garlic Shrimp
Did you take some to go boxes with you? It is such a pleasure to read your blog posts. We are stuck here in utter poverty and hope someday soon to be able to travel with you guys. Carry on,,,,,