We did quite a bit of sleeping in on Saturday in an attempt to rest our weary feet. We had logged 30,000 steps the previous day! Our hotel room was decked out with a Nespresso machine, so it was nice to make our own coffee in the morning and watch people walking about from our window above the street. During the night I had woken up a few times due to loud thunder and heavy rain, and in the morning it was still raining a bit outside. Luckily we brought our portable umbrellas and we were ready.
We checked out of the hotel and hit the road, and by the time we left the hotel the rain had pretty much petered out. We took the metro to Prince Edward station near Mong Kok, and found the tiny restaurant “One Dim Sum”. There was already a line of people waiting to get in when we arrived, and we joined the queue. At 10 am they opened, and they seated almost everyone in front of us and then gave us a slip of paper and told us to come back in 30 minutes. No problem!
We did some exploration around the area, and got a feel for the old Hong Kong. One street was closed to vehicles and filled with stands selling fruits and junk, and another street was lined entirely with tropical fish stores. It was interesting to see walls covered plastic bags of water and fish, just hanging and exposed to the elements. Inside the aquariums were well maintained and there were some pretty dramatic colors and unusual fish there. If I was setting up an aquarium, this is where I would go.
We killed the half hour pretty easily, and we went back and got a table at One Dim Sum. The menu was extensive, and half the fun is choosing what to eat. We picked a large selection of different dim sum, and it was just as good as I was hoping. The shumai were plump and juicy, with a perfect balance of pork and shrimp, and we really liked the beef and coriander balls that glistened with oil and soy sauce.
We ordered quite a bit but didn’t overdo it – we had plans to go to another dim sum place soon enough. One Dim Sum was a great place to eat, worth the wait, and certainly worth the price – we paid 120 Hong Kong dollars (about $15 US) for everything.
Next we walked south through the Mong Kok district towards our next dim sum destination. On the way I stopped at “King of Coconut” for a freshly made coconut milk drink that was sweetened with condensed milk. The ice cold drink was just what we needed to keep our energy level high as the day was warming up and still humid from the overnight rainfall.
Our next dim sum place was all the way over in Central. Called “Dim Sum Square” it is a small corner restaurant that looks traditional but feels like an American diner inside. We joined a line outside but the wait was only a few minutes. Here we ordered lots more dim sum. They had my favorite dim sum – the salted egg yolk buns, and they were great – maybe my favorite of the trip. We also had some steamed fried rice with abalone, and crispy fried buns filled with barbequed pork. The place was busy and the staff looked a little harried, but we really enjoyed the atmosphere and the food.
With our dim sum cravings satisfied, we decided to go find a nice place to relax and enjoy the view. We ended up at a European style restaurant terrace, overlooking Hong Kong harbor sipping prosecco. The day was turning out to be very, very nice.
As we walked around Central, we kept noticing huge crowds of Asian women lounging around on patches of cardboard. They weren’t really doing anything – it seemed like they were waiting around for something. At first we thought they were attending some sort of conference, but there was no way to know for sure. There were so many – I’m not good at estimating crowd sizes, but it was definitely in the thousands. Later Kuniko did some research on the internet and it turned out that they were all mainly from the Philippines, and they worked as housekeepers and maids in Hong Kong for wealthy locals. Saturday was their day off, and they liked to meet up and get together and talk. It was really interesting to see just how many were there, and I felt like it might have been a subtle show of force – I wonder if they were unionized.
Believe it or not, we still felt like we had a little room in our stomach, so we decided to try to find some wonton noodles. We ended up in a pretty nice restaurant at the top of a shopping center, eating a very small meal of noodles and wontons. The wontons were juicy and perfectly formed into round balls, and the noodles were the small thin eggy noodles that I can’t seem to eat enough of. We struggled a little to figure out how to eat the dry noodles that Kuniko had ordered – the dish came with a small bowl of thick sauce and a small bowl of soup, but we weren’t sure on the procedure. Some more research is required, because I don’t think we got it quite right. They were tough to eat, but so good!
At this point we were pretty satisfied, and having nothing left to do on our list we figured we might take a train out to the airport early, do a little shopping, and maybe have another meal there. Before that, we walked one last time around the harbor to burn off (some of) the calories from all the food we had eaten. We noticed as we walked the harbor that there were a lot of barriers being placed and more police than usual. Signs indicated the directions to “viewing areas” and it seemed like something was up. I asked a policeman what was happening, and he told me that today was a national holiday (National Day in China) and that there was going to be a fireworks show over the harbor from 9 pm.
Wow, perfect! This timing worked out pretty well, and so we started to make a plan to watch the fireworks and then rush to the station and get to the airport in time for our flight. We still had some time to kill, so we found a nice restaurant with a bar that had a view, and had a couple of glasses of red wine with a big platter of mixed prosciutto. It was a nice way to while away an hour or so, and then we went out and got into position for the show.
The fireworks were nice – big, loud, and dramatic. I guess Chinese people know a thing or two about fireworks. The crowd was big, too, and we were lucky to find a good place to observe. About halfway through the show we left to get out in front of all the people who would probably jam up the sidewalks at the conclusion of the show. Everything worked out fine, and we hopped a train back to the airport and arrived with plenty of time to eat dinner.
Our last meal in Hong Kong was at a Taiwanese restaurant called Crystal Jade. Kuniko had wanted to eat there for a long time, and we were lucky enough to get a seat pretty quickly. We ordered the tantanmen (spicy noodle soup) and also a basket of shorompo. The shorompo was really good – I think we were close to ordering another basket, but in the end we showed a little restraint. The soup was on the sour side more than the spicy side, but still it was pretty good.
The rest of the trip was easy – we boarded our flight right on time, slept for the three hours back to Kansai airport, and then drove home from there (with a short detour to Costco).
Although the first day of the trip didn’t go as expected, we more than made up for it the second day. Kuniko wanted to treat me right for my birthday, and by the end of the trip I was more than satisfied. Hmm… when should we go back?
Now we’re taking a little travel break and instead concentrating on visiting with folks here in Japan. The next trip won’t be until December, so time to tuck away the passports and stay home for a while.
