Hong Kong

Hong Kong
Flying into Hong Kong is a privilege with the views of the ocean, ships, and small islands. The temperature was around 72 degrees and the skies were sunny. Needless to say, a dramatic improvement from the 50’s and haziness of Shanghai. We hopped on the train to the Hong Kong station and then took a cab to Wang’s auntie Grace’s apartment in the Causeway Bay area of downtown. This is a beautiful area packed with amazing shops and tons of people lining the streets when we got there Sunday evening around 5ish. Auntie Grace met us downstairs on street and showed us up to her 14th floor apartment. My introduction to auntie grace was an interesting one. Please note the formality of her title, Auntie Grace. The first thing she actually said directly to me was “you will call me Auntie Grace”. I had been warned of her love for certain formalities and seniority so I was very happy to honor her request. She was a very blunt woman but she was an exceptional host as long as you were very aware of her rules. The layout of her place had a guest room with a bathroom in the back and that is where we put our things and planned to stay for the nest two nights. Auntie Grace quickly shuffled us out of her apartment and to Peking Garden. We took the metro to the restaurant but not before Auntie Grace gave us both metro cards and filled them up with enough money to get around the entire time we were in Hong Kong. This was an extremely hospitable gesture and way over the top, but as we learned… Auntie Grace was an exceptional host. She was also very adamant about the fact that the food in Hong Kong is better than anywhere in Asia and her first example was Peking Duck. She ordered us a dinner that could have fed 5 people and to her point the duck was actually better in Hong Kong than Beijing but the wrappers were better in Beijing.
After dinner we walked through the park and in Auntie Grace style, she shuffled us to the next thing on the agenda which was The Peak Tram. Before we had a chance to realize where we had followed her, we were standing in line waiting for the next tram. We quickly thanked her and would see her in the morning.
The Peak Tram took us up the Mountain, sometimes at a 45 degree angle, to the mall and observation deck that overlooked the entire city. The city of Hong Kong is beautiful during the day and even better when lit up at night. We spent about an hour taking pictures and just gazing over the city. The weather was amazing and the wind on our faces was just like being on a speedboat. We took the Peak Tram back down and waited in line for a bus. The double-decker bus took us though the city to the ferry docks on the very short waterway separating Hong Kong Island with Kowloon. Once to Kowloon we walked down the “Avenue of Stars” which provided a great view of the city at night across the water and who could forget the always impressive handprint of Jackie Chan.
The next day we work up to Auntie Grace literally banging on the door saying “wake up”. We had told her we usually woke up between 8 and 9 and we had slept till 10. Heaven forbid. So we woke up and the maid had set out various types of fresh fruit for us to eat before lunch. We quickly took showers and it was off to the races again with Auntie Grace. We had to take a bus to the other side of the island where we hopped on a water taxi. I think Auntie Grace had the cell phone number of her preferred water taxi driver because we sent away several before settling on a woman that Auntie Grace was obviously friends with. The driver was instructed by Auntie Grace to take us on a tour of the harbor before doping us off to lunch at the “Jumbo Floating Restaurant” which was to serve us our Dim Sum style lunch. The tour around the harbor had everything from multi-million dollar yachts to the old houseboats that many of the poor in Hong Kong used to live in. it was quite a contrasting sight. After the tour was lunch and Dim sum is generally a wide range of Chinese dishes served alongside tea. The Jumbo Floating Restaurant was delicious and the service was as Aunty Grace expected… Perfect! After lunch we headed to the expo center and walked practically all the way across the city. Hong Kong isn’t really that large so walking across a major part of it only took a few hours. After our walk we headed back to the docks to have a ferry take us back over the river. We spent a couple more hours in Kowloon and then it was time for dinner.
Our plan was dinner around 8:30 with a high school friend of Wang’s in SOHO. Her name was Kalina and she worked in Hong Kong for Morgan Stanley. We met at a restaurant and had a great time and ended up at a bar a few blocks over. We had a beer at one bar that overlook and awesome road packed with small bars and people and the set out to find the very difficult liquor to find in Asia… Crowne Royal. We actually found a bar with it, had our last drink and headed home.
Our last day was started with another table of fresh fruit and this time with the addition of coffee brewed in something that looked like a mad chemistry experiment with a burner included. Breakfast was delicious and after we showered up and packed out bags for our flight later. The maid was busy working on boiled dumplings which were to be for lunch. Once cleaned up and packed we sat down for lunch but ate quickly as to make it in time for the last attraction that Auntie Grace had on our agenda. It was the Hong Kong Noonday Gun which is fired off every day at noon in some symbolic military event.
The trip to Hong Kong was short but long enough to make it to the top of my list of cities we have been to thus far. It had great weather, amazing buildings, beautiful waterways, and the hustle and bustle of a large city that I love so much. It was also formally a British colony so there was a ton of English and having less of a language barrier is always a pleasurable experience for foreign travelers. Next is Bangkok!