What a weekend! Our trip to Hong Kong was a good one, and I think we were completely satisfied with what we did and what we ate.
But it didn’t start out that way.
We drove to Kansai Airport early in the morning, and arrived with plenty of time to board our 3 ½ hour flight to Hong Kong. I dozed a little during the flight, but mainly I stayed awake anticipating all the yummy food we were going to eat. The weather forecast had said that it would be sunny on the first day of our visit, and partly cloudy with a chance of rain on the second day. We planned to do a little bit of sightseeing near the airport since the weather forecast was good, and then go into the city to start the dim sum marathon. Unfortunately, fate had other plans.
As we touched down at Hong Kong airport there was a thick fog everywhere. It looked like it had been raining recently, and it was pretty humid out. We were expecting the humidity, but everything else was a surprise – the weather on arrival was surprise #1. We took a train from the airport, and soon enough we were walking towards the ropeway to the giant Tian Tan Buddha near Ngong Ping. The first time we came to Hong Kong we had failed in our attempt to see the Buddha – the staff at the gondola said it would take too long to get up there and back and still catch our flight. This time we had all day, so we bought a ticket on the ropeway. There was quite a line to get in a gondola, however, and we had to wait about twenty minutes to finally get on board. The gondola ride itself was a little longer than 20 minutes, which is actually a long trip inside a little room suspended on a wire above the jungles and mountains.
Probably on a clear day the views are dramatic, but the higher we got the thicker the fog became. Soon we couldn’t see very far outside of our own gondola, and other gondolas would suddenly appear out of the mist going the opposite way – spooky! Of course we were worried that once we got to the Buddha we wouldn’t be able to even see it, but that’s life – we’d just have to wait and see what the situation was like on the mountain.
The scene at the top of the mountain was really touristy. I mean it – over the top tourism. Starbucks and Subway restaurants were there, and loads of tourists shopping at cheesy souvenir stores. We walked through tourist town on the way to the statue, but we did stop at a food stand run by an old lady who was frying shumai, corn, and other snacks on sticks. I approached to order some shumai, but when I tried to take a picture of her cooking she said “No photo”. That caught me by surprise – and I was ready to go buy some shumai somewhere else but Kuniko talked me down and then snuck a photo later on. The shumai was pretty good – a deeply fried, simple snack.
We reached the bottom of the steps, and at the top, instead of a giant Buddha the only thing we could see was a blank white space. We walked all the way up the steps, getting in some good exercise, but sure enough when we reached the top we could barely make out the outline of the huge Buddha statue through the mist and fog. Kuniko was a little disappointed – this was one of the big reasons she wanted to come back to Hong Kong – and since this was the second time we tried to see the Buddha it was a little more disappointing to be that close and still miss out. Missing out on the Buddha due to unexpected fog was surprise #2. Maybe we’ll have to try again (for the third time) someday in the future…
We went back down the mountain on the gondola, still enshrouded in fog, and were able to catch a train to Central to have a little lunch. Our first stop was to try wonton noodles at Mak’s noodles, but unfortunately they were closed for construction (surprise #3). Luckily, another restaurant that we wanted to try was just down the street. The restaurant was Yat Lok Restaurant, a Michelin starred restaurant popular for their roasted duck noodles. We ordered up a couple of bowls, and wow, delicious. Crispy roasted duck with plenty of meat and fat underneath, in a savory soup that balanced out the dark duck meat very well. Highly recommended!
From there we went into Tsim Sha Tsui to check into our hotel. We stayed at the Hotel Pravo, and it was a really nice place. We liked the disco dark lobby, and our room layout was really interesting, with a corner bedroom that had nice views of the neighborhood. Outside one window was a giant ESPRIT sign that changed designs by alternating colors of the LED lights – mesmerizing. The minibar was filled with freebies – beer, soda, and juice, and once we got the WiFi going we were all set. Nice place!
For dinner I selected one of the dim sum restaurants recommended online, and since it was a few blocks from our hotel it was a natural choice. We walked to Lei Garden, which is a small chain of popular restaurants in Hong Kong that is known for the consistent quality of dim sum. We found our way to the big building, and then went downstairs where the restaurant was supposedly located. There was construction everywhere, and just when I thought we’d be disappointed again, we spied some staff herding customers into their restaurant down a hallway. We walked in, and it was a really nice place. They had beautiful aquariums in the front of the restaurant and the décor of the place was quite nice. A traditional, upscale Chinese restaurant.
We started to look through the menus, and the staff were nice enough to give us an English menu to help with ordering. Hmm, I’ll just turn to the dim sum page, and… what a second… no dim sum?!?
“No Dim Sum!” the matronly manager practically bellowed. Turns out that they only serve dim sum during the morning hours. This is perfectly reasonable behavior – dim sum is really meant to be eaten in the morning or afternoon – but my internet source insisted this place was serving dim sum anytime. They were wrong.
Surprise #4. These little surprises were beginning to stack up and take their toll on our optimism.
Since we were sitting at their table we thought we should at least try some other food, so I ordered two dishes that sounded good, and they were. We had lotus root, onion and fried pork in a garlic sauce, and also a stir fry of chicken, mushrooms and Chinese sausage in a dark XO sauce. I really liked the fried pork, and the Chinese sausage was also unexpectedly good. We were really happy with the food there, but it wasn’t really what we came for, so we left soon after polishing off those dishes.
We were kind of realizing that if that place wasn’t serving dim sum then probably others on my list weren’t either. We were not far from the harbor light show that is held nightly at 8 pm, so we decided to walk down there and see what it was like. We found a pretty good spot on the waterfront, and waited a while. It was a free show, and I don’t know what we were expecting for free, but a few lasers, some canned background music and a couple of lit up buildings weren’t that thrilling. Ten minutes later the show ended, and we were a little surprised that that was it. (Surprise #5).
Sometimes when the world is working against you, maybe you should just go get a drink. I had read about a bar on the top of the Ritz Carlton called “The Ozone Bar”. It was situated on the 118th floor of the building, with views of the whole city. It wasn’t so far, so we figured we’d just walk there, have a cocktail, and get a mental restart on the whole experience.
We walked along the harbor and then north towards Austin station. Around Austin there was a huge amount of construction – in fact, we were seeing construction all over Hong Kong during the trip. This construction seemed to be related to a building right next to the Ritz Carlton – it looked like it was going to be a big sports stadium. The sidewalks were all screwed up rendering my GPS navigation out of date and useless. We walked around the construction zone twice before we found the pathway to the Ritz Carlton, and then we walked up to the building but couldn’t find the entrance. We walked all the way around the building, we walked underneath through a parking garage, back out and across the street and then ended up where we started in the first place.
This was almost an hour after the light show, and I was ready to call it quits and head back to the hotel. Kuniko wasn’t going to let us give up that easily, and she rallied my morale and we made one more attempt to find the entrance. She found it at last, and we had to walk through an entirely different building to get to our destination. I think our problem was that we approached on foot, where most Ritz Carlton patrons show up in limousines or sports cars.
Once we got into the hotel, a nice staff member explained how to get up the elevators to the bar, and soon after we finally arrived. It was about 9:15 pm, so the night was still young and a cocktail sounded great.
At the bar reception counter they welcomed us and told us about a new policy they had – no shorts allowed after 9 pm.
Guess who was wearing shorts? Surprise #6!
Luckily, they had a pair of slacks for me to borrow, so they walked us through the restaurant to a men’s room, and I changed into the tiny pair of slacks and carried my shorts out of there in my hand. At this stage I am willing to do just about anything to get a cocktail into my hand. We ordered a couple of drinks, and soon after a space opened up with a view of the city, and then we could relax a little. My borrowed slacks were not able to close at the waist, so it was a little hard to enjoy the cocktail while I wondered whether my pants might slide off.
The view was great from up there, and although the bar atmosphere wasn’t really my style, it was nice to spend some time with Kuniko and just relax. Finally, something went right.
Lastly, we finished up at the bar, and we handed back the borrowed slacks and walked back to our hotel. It was much easier to find our way back since we had already spent an hour exploring the area around the Ritz, and it didn’t take long to get back to our neighborhood. We bought a couple of cold beers at the local 7-11, and then went back to our room to rest up. What a day – it was full of surprises, and although we were a little disappointed that it didn’t go like we planned we promised to have a better day the next day.
And it was no surprise that we did.
