We woke up to a much lighter rainfall, and with some relief we checked out and walked back outside to head to The Graces Restaurant. Thanks to our failed attempt last night it was a much easier trip. The subway wasn’t nearly as crowded as the night before, and the day was a national holiday, so there wasn’t much in the way of a commute rush.
Thankfully the restaurant was open – I had visions of it being closed on the holiday, or being so packed with people that we’d have to go somewhere else. But we got a table in a very stylish dining room, and we ordered from the dim sum menu. I was happy to see the thousand layer cake listed (listed as ‘nostalgic’ in Chinese) so we ordered two baskets.
Eventually the food started showing up, and we had some great dim sum here. The quality level was higher, and each dim sum was beautifully presented. When the staff revealed not one but two baskets of thousand layer cake he did a double take – did he deliver a mistaken double order? No, no, we just really want to eat a lot of it!
And it was really good. I don’t remember where I ate it the first time years ago, but the light texture, the perfectly balanced sweet and salty taste – yum! I’m not sure why it isn’t popular anymore, but I was glad to finally get to eat it again.
After eating our fill of dim sum we walked around and ended up finding a rooftop bar that served late morning bubbles. It was quite hard to find despite the GPS, and in the end it turned out to be an elite sort of place at the top of a ritzy shopping center. We first had to go to the upper floor of the building and then check with a receptionist who screened us before letting us onto a separate elevator that took us to the roof.
The bar had only a few other people there for some kind of brunch special, but they allowed us to sit for two glasses of champagne and some chips and guacamole. The staff seemed a bit snooty and they had their own DJ spinning tunes nearby, but it worked as a place to stay out of the rain and as a wrap up for the trip. When we left later on the manager saw us off and was super-friendly, so we left on a good note.
From there it was on to the airport on the high speed train, and we killed time at a bar there watching people walk by. The bar was across from a restaurant, and the bar staff sent drinks across the walkway to the restaurant using a robot that managed to weave between fast-moving passengers. We had some beer and cocktails, some fried tofu as an appetizer, and then decided to get a bigger meal when we heard our plane would be delayed.
One more plate of noodles for each of us – I waited for the food at the counter while Kuniko managed to stake out a table. She had to fight off a family who insistently tried to steal our chairs, and thanks to her persistence we could sit while eating our last meal in Hong Kong. For airport food it was pretty good!
Our flight finally began boarding nearly an hour late, which meant that we’d be stuck at Kansai airport overnight – the buses running from the airport to Kobe stopped before we could get there. Next to me on the flight was a very unusual white guy who seemed to be moving and reacting in a very slow way to everything. I thought maybe he was on drugs, and he spent a long time filling in the cover of his journal in pencil as we flew back. Eventually he folded up in half in his seat and it sure didn’t look very comfortable. Thanks to our emergency exit row seats we had more space going back.
So back in Kansai we easily cleared immigration and then took a bus to terminal 1. Here there were more things open, but rather than pay for a hotel room for just four hours we decided to sleep on the bench until the first bus left for Kobe. We killed more time eating a meal at Sukiya (surprisingly good!) and later a breakfast at McDonald’s (as good as you’d expect).
From there it was easy to catch the bus and head on home. Even though the trip was over we still had five days off before going back to work, so there was plenty of time to acclimatize to life in Japan again. And thankfully the weather was absolutely beautiful the rest of Golden Week.
Kuniko and I agreed that it was a really good trip – it had been a while since we had traveled and it felt good to be back out there. As usual Hong Kong’s restaurants did not disappoint, and Macau turned out to be a pleasant surprise, even for non-gamblers like us.
Our next trip is back to California in July so it’ll be a while.
