September | 2007 | Living In And Around Happy Street

A side of HK that many tourists won’t see …
Hong Kong

^{I’ve never packed so many pairs of shoes for a trip- walking, running, squash & slippers. That’s half the luggage! But it was worth it as I get enough excercise to complement all the eating & drinking.
Some of my friends would know I already visited HK last year, so … why was I going back again this year? Well, those who bought me a drink last year to get the answer would already knew …*hint* subsidised air tickets thanks to UA. :-p
In addition, Chris already started work in Hong Kong and allowed me to crash with him. So I thought I’d go disturb his peaceful exisitence and rile things up a little, while meeting up wiht a few other friends as well. 🙂
Quite a good trip overall. Played squash with Chris and Wan Man (ex-HKU team player), met up with old friends like Chin Kwang, Philip and co. Also got to hike at Sai Kung, while Wan Man brought me to eat and drink at local restaurants outside of Central. Not bad, I reckon 🙂}
^{Start of travels:
Sep 22, 2007
End of travels:
Sep 29, 2007}

Hong Kong

I actually lost a little weight from this trip, despite eating and drinking loads. (Womenfolk will all be asking ‘How How?’, rubbing their hands in glee) … Well, this was probably due to the fact that I played squash a few times, coupled with a hike in Sai Kung, and walking up and down over 400 steps to the Sha Tin ‘Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastry’. (Yes, I can imagaine the womenfolk all frowning instead now … hahaha)

I have to say this time around, I got to see some parts of Hong Kong which a lot of tourist and first time visitors would probably miss, and I got to eat at a lot more local places that sell really good food that does not cost an arm and a leg. So happy I am indeed. Oh … and before I begin rambling on about the day-to-day activities, just want to point out that there’s a reason why Lonely Planet is THE guide book of choice. For this trip, I used Rough Guide instead of the LP. I have no idea why I did that, because I always used LP, and as the trip wore on, I realised how lousy the Rough Guide was compared to LP. Information was sparse and not well organised, maps were not good nor well referenced. Fortunately, since I was vaguely familiar with HK already, I hardly needed to depend on the book to find my way, else I would have been in deep s***.

As usual, I took a whole load of photos. Initially, thought I would not take as much since this was the 2nd trip in a year, but the views from Sai Kung was so nice that I just got trigger happy again … There are some pretty decent pictures.

Day 1 (Saturday, Sep 22nd)

Same old story. Arrive at airport, buy an Octopus (stored value) Card the minute one steps out of customs, and then head off either to the express train or the bus. As a tourist, I’d actually prefer to take the bus into town … take in a little bit of whatever hazy view one can get, and praying for some clear skies later in the week along the way. :-p

Got into central, alighted near the IFC Buildings, and caught a quick cab ride over to Chris’s place which is in central, mid-levels. I’ve gotta say his place is very nice indeed … We had lunch and then had a game of squash … some exercise to work off the dim sum. 🙂 Headed to Causeway Bay in the evening to meet up with Chris’s gf, Mary, for a quick dinner at a Sushi Bar which was located just opposite the World Trade Centre. This was a popular restaurant though, as while the dinner was quick, the wait to get a seat / table, wasn’t. When we arrived, we had to take a queue number, and there were like 50 to 60 places to go before us. We had enough time to get ourselves across the road to the waterfront and take pictures, come back, and the queue only moved like 20 places in the past half an hour. We ended up waiting almost 1.5 hrs, grumbling to ourselves that the food better be worth it while waiting. Mary assured that it was best value for the price, and she was spot on. Prices are equivalent to what you pay at Sushi-Tei in Singapore, but the food was fresher, and there was more variety. Favourite was the seared salmon and tuna, where the chef behind the counter uses a blow torch (the kind that looks like an oxy-acetylene torch) to sear the meat before serving … tastes absolutely fantastic.

Chris and Mary had to attend a performance after dinner, and I was to meet up with them after that. Hence, with about 2 hrs to kill, there are no prizes for guessing where I would end up … Lan Kwai Fong … in a pub watching the rugby world cup (think it was SA vs Somoa or SA vs Tonga). Was alright with that, apart from the fact that the pub I was watching the game in decided to have an open mic session half-way through the match, and those of us watching the game at the bar counter grimaced at one another at the appalling singing that was disturbing our game. 😦 All this, though, was more than made up for after the game.

I met up with Chris and Mary again (and a few of Chris’s friends who were in town), at a club called Prive, located along Wyndham Street behind Lan Kwai Fong. Mary had managed to arrange for us to get into what was apparently THE club that the celebs currently hang out. Waiting outside, a bouncer in a suit holding on to a list was asking us all sorts of questions, and it reminded me of ‘A Night At The Roxbury’, that I almost wanted to bob my head and shout out ‘Emilio Estevez!!’ (sorry for this joke would be lost on those who did not watch that silly movie) 🙂 …

When we finally got in after about 15 mins of verification by the bouncer, I saw that it was worth the hassle, for right there was the largest concentration of ‘lookers’ per sq.ft. that I have been at in a very long while, HK or anywhere else in the world. However, that was about as much that I could appreciate, for apart from loads of pretty faces, whether there were celebs there or not was lost on me … I hardly follow HK pop scene and culture. But it was a fun night out drinking and chit chatting with friends new and old, with a very very good view to add. 🙂

Day 2 (Sunday, Sep 23rd)

While Chris spent the morning at church, my friend, Wan Man (Man for short, and no punt intended) came by to pick me up for a squash game at 8.45 am in the morning. Yes, it’s early for a person on holiday and was out partying the night before, but Man plays regularly at 9 am on Sunday mornings, so I thought ‘what the heck!’ … I could come back and sleep in the afternoon … (which I eventually did) :-p

We played at the HK Cricket Club … I have to say, the courts and facilities there are nice! But the highlight was reserved for after the game, for it turns out Man is a foodie who believes in playing squash so as to work up a good appetite for a good meal. Man brought me out to lunch somewhere at Aberdeen, to a little local restaurant that sells really good fish balls, beef brisket noodles, fish cake and fried fish skin, etc., (all freshly caught off the bay). It was really good and inexpensive. It was quite crowded too. Satisfied, I was. 🙂 (oh … they also had a picture of Chris Patten shaking hands with the owner on the wall … wander if he really ate there, though … hee hee)

Got myself back to Chris’s place and took a nice (long) nap before we headed out to dinner over at Tsim Sha Tsui (TST), at a Mexican restaurant, to end off the day.

Day 3 (Monday, Sep 24th)

Woke up early to get some work done and sent it to my boss before heading out (yes, brought my laptop with me) close to noon time. It was cloudy and started to rain early in the afternoon, so all I did was to walk around TST to do some souvenir shopping for whoever asked me to buy stuff … 🙂 My original plan was to head over to Macau on Tues and then to Shenzhen on Thurs, where an old friend of mine, Chin Kwang, was working. However, he informed me just before my trip that he had to head out to Hangzhou for the week. However, we had the opportunity to meet up nonetheless as he was coming into HK for a meeting in that afternoon before heading off to Hangzhou. So after I shopped for a while, we met up for a drink and pub grub at SOHO. It was nice to catch up with my ole mate (we go back to primary school) to see how he was doing, for its been quite a while since we caught up.

Day 4 (Tuesday, Sep 25th)

Woke up at 9-ish. Felt extremely lazy and checked emails, surfed the net, etc. before deciding to head out. Decided to visit the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastry at Sha Tin, so got take my first KCR train ride … woo hoo !! (yes, swa ku tourist).

Weather was funny that day. The path to the temple was located beside the Sha Tin KCR station, and it was a 10-15 min walk to the foot of the temple, but halfway there I was caught in a sudden heavy downpour and had to seek shelter along some roadside buildings. Fortunately it only lasted 10 mins, and I was able to resume on my path. The path to the temple is actually more interesting than the temple itself. Firstly, finding the path itself is a challenge as it was not obvious. Secondly, once you reach the foot of the temple, you are greeted with a climb up of about more than 400 steps in order to reach the temple. However, these steps are lined with about 500 gold-painted Arhats (Buddhist Saints), all in different poses, flanking the track. The climb is worth it as there were a lot of photo ops, and the view of Sha Tin from the top when you reach the temple is quite nice.

After that, I headed back to Causeway Bay to meet my friends Philip and Judy for pre-dinner drinks at Inside-Out Bar, before moving on to meet another friend, Vivian, for dinner at a hot pot restaurant. Highlight of the dinner, apart from the food, was Vivian’s pet dog. Extremely well behaved. No barking and fiddling around, as it sat quietly whilst we had our dinner.

We proceeded to Lei King Road, aka Soho East (for the row of upmarket restaurants around there), which was to the east of Hong Kong Island. It was mid-autumn festival, so the waterfront was crowded with loads of people, not just people with lanterns, but all walking their pet dogs. It was quite an atmosphere.

Day 5 (Wednesday, Sep 26th)

When I arrived in HK, Chris told me that Wednesday was a public holiday for mid-autumn festival. ‘But … mid-autumn was on tuesday right?’, I asked, already bemused by the fact that it is a holiday (typical Singaporean). It turns out that since everyone is expected to stay out late to celebrate mid-autumn festival on Tuesday, the next day would be an off-day for people to recover. I can somehow see logic in that perspective. 🙂

In any case, Chris told me that they were planning on going to Sai Kung for a hike. Since I was no longer going to go to Shenzhen as originally planned, I could move my Macau trip to Friday, hence, I could tag along for the hike. I have been told by Andy (Phat Boy) that hiking in Hong Kong offers great views and was something not many tourists know about, so I was glad to have the opportunity to join in the party. We were supposed to have set off at 8.45am and walk over to Mary’s place by 9am, where her friends were coming to pick us up. I got up at 8am, got ready and surfed the net and forgot about the time, and when I suddenly realised Chris hasn’t got out of his room yet, it was already 8.45am. So I knocked on the door and woke him up. Turns out that he woke up at 8am and decided to doze for a ‘little while’ more. Bummer! 🙂

So we were a little late, but no matter, given that Mary’s friends did not arrive till about 9.30 am, so it was just as well that we did not rush. (^0^)/ We took a 30-45 mins drive out to some remote place near Sai Kung where we had to park the car and took a cab for another 15 mins to reach the start point of the hike. All in all, we did not start hiking till about 11 am. Both Chris and I were feeling famished … no breakfast … and have to walk for more than an hour to the first stop for makan … damn … but as the hike turns out, we probably did more eating than walking … and also too in some very nice beach photos and coastline views.

We finished the hike at about 4 pm and managed to get back to Chris’s place at about 5 pm. Given that we were still full of energy (surprisingly) and our legs were all well stretched and warmed up from the ‘not so long’ walk, we decided to play squash! Man and his girlfriend, Daisy, came over to join us for a game as well … so we made sure that we well worked up to the fullest before we headed out for our respective meals … Chris had to go over to Mary’s for her dad’s birthday dinner, while Man and Daisy brought me out for dinner at Java Road Market, Northpoint. Interestingly, I stayed in a hotel at Northpoint last year, and I knew about Java Road Market, but did not visit it as I thought it was just a wet market. However, unknown to stupid tourist like me, the 3rd floor of the market houses a number of eateries that were formerly dai pai dongs. Man & Daisy knew the owners of the one of the famous eaterries, Tung Po, and hence got a table pretty easily without much of a fuss despite the place being packed with people.

I have taken some pictures of the food that we had, but just to name some to wet the appetite … Prawns fried with duck egg yolk, pig trotters soup with clams and mussels, Xi Yao Gai, Cuttlefish balls and vermicelli in Squid Ink, just to name a few … YUMMY! Of course, we had loads to drink too … had as much Harbin beer as my stomach could carry *hiccup* and drink up. And the owners of Tung Po gave me 2 Harbin bowls as a souvenir, from which we were drinking beer from, martial art movies style.

Day 6 (Thursday, Sep 27th)

One year older … am I one year wiser? hhhmmm … Got up at 10-ish in the morning after all that eating and drinking the night before. Man had an off day, and kindly offered to take me out to lunch, so we met up at Causyway Bay MTR and he brought me to a local eatery that serves up roast meat that is still being roasted in the shop by the owners … such eateries are getting rare as it is increasingly difficult to roast meat in the shop without neighbours or landlords complaining, and most are turning to obtaining their supplies from food factories (a familiar story for mature economies). Took a walk later along some shops in Causeway Bay that specialise in selling ‘antique’ toys targeted at adults who could now afford to buy the toys that they used to crave when they were young and cannot afford’em. Interesting … 🙂 Also went to Sham Shui Po to look at electronic goods, where the streets were lined with shops selling all sorts of electronic gadgets, largely for export, hence cheaper … Man left in the late afternoon for a squash match, while I proceeded back to Chris’s place to get ready to go out with him and Mary, who got us tickets to the preview of Ocean Park’s Halloween Party. It was an interesting night, and with some birthday luck (something I have not had in a long long while), I actually won a few stuffed toys at the game stalls, which I duly gave to Mary, of course … (I’d be caught dead hanging on to’em) *evil grin* Fun night for all.