7NNT25: Day 28 – Hong Kong

Soundtrack: “Sunday Morning”, The Velvet Underground

Sunday, day of rest, day of recovering from two very long days with late nights.

Despite hoping that my body would step up, do the right thing and grant me many hours of sleep, it didn’t, and I was awake again and thinking about breakfast earlier than I hoped. It shows how tired I was, as it took me at least 10 minutes to work out what I should have for breakfast. Hmm, what do folks eat for breakfast in this part of the world? When the Hong Kong Dollar finally dropped, those two words fell into the part of my brain I could access: dim sum. I threw those words into the maps, found a place with good reviews easily within walking distance, and headed out.

Sometimes travel is about seeing and trying to understand things that are so very different, but other times it can be about finding the familiar. I probably should have expected it, afterall I regularly have dim sum when in Australia, but there’s just that part of me that always expects the Australian version to be significantly different, like the types of food will be different, or taste different, or the experience itself will be significantly different. It was slightly different, in that there was a menu to order from, rather than circulating carts, but looking at the menu I recognised most of the items. There were the same types of steamed buns, dumplings, glutinous rice, rice flour rolls, etc. Probably the main difference seemed to be more steamed and less deep fried options, I don’t recall seeing squid tentacles, soft shell crab, those kinds of things, and they also had a couple of extra types of steamed sponge cake. Ordered the har gow, siu mai, and a brown sugar sponge cake, and all were delicious. One difference was I ordered the red bean milk iced tea, which tasted wonderful but came in a jug that would have easily served two people.

Full of good dim sum and milk tea, I collected my laundry and headed back to the hotel in the hoe I’d given housekeeping long enough to do their thing. They were just starting my room when I got back, so I stashed my laundry and took a bit more of a wander. My hotel is down the western end of Hong Kong Island, so there are two or three streets running longways, some side streets, and then a fairly steep hill. There might be more to look at up the hill, but after my Philippine experiences, the flatter the better. One awesome Hong Kong thing I spied is they have double decker trams. As it was Mothers’ Day, at various places groups of people were giving out flowers to passersby, apparently it’s a thing here.

Local area explored, I headed back to the hotel and napped. Day of rest and all that.

A bit rested, I headed out to the Temple Street Night Markets, renowned for street for and random shopping, as well as picturesque overhead lanterns. The southern end is all food. In my preparation I read about Hong Kong style French toast, which is served like a sandwich full of peanut butter, and as a stall had this I thought I’d give it a try. It’s not just a sandwich: they make the sandwich, cut off crusts and into quarters, batter it, deep fry it, then sprinkle it with sugar, cinnamon, and a lump of butter. We’re talking one bacon short of an Elvis, I don’t know how HK came up with this and Scotland didn’t. It’s delicious, just remind me not to do my annual blood test for a while. Next up were another HK must try, curry fish balls. Yes deep fried, and yes with some chilli on top, a great snack for eating on the go. Oysters, I’m a fan, but unless I know they are fresh and kept refrigerated, I’ll take mine cooked. It’s a good thing there were a couple of stalls doing just that, loading them up with garlic and chilli, and cooking them on a grill. We’re not talking normal sized oysters here, these ones were huge, the shells were almost the size of my hand, easily 100g of meat. Another stall’s menu included an item “photographs – no charge” and on closer inspection this is likely encouraged by the seasoning of stall with some colourful language: “Why so fucking yummy” was part of the description of the fried pork buns. The non-food stalls were a mix of clothes, souvenirs, random electronics, bags, toys, everything you need really. I also had a wander of some of the cross streets, as there were more food options there. One store caught my eye, I couldn’t read the description, but the banner backdrop image was lots and lots of chillies. Not having a choice I had to check it out. Out front was a big wok, full of the sort of red oil that says spicy goodness, especially as it was also giving off the scent of sichuan pepper. In it floated fish balls that were starting to take on the colour of the oil, and at $15 for 6 ($0.50 AUD each) I had to get a cup. So good, the oil was more sichuan than chilli, so it wasn’t an uncomfortable burn, just a gentle warmth head of my extremities starting to go numb, starting at the lips. The fishballs were also good, moist not dry, and a very balanced flavour. I was very happy. Back to the market, it was time for deep fried pig intestines and deep fried eggplant, the intestines rolled up and fried crispy, the eggplant nice and gooey. I finished off with a sugarcane juice lemon tea, as lemon tea seems to be a Hong Kong thing too, and it was very refeshing, though it wasn’t fortified with sugar like the Uzbek lemon tea.

With a belly full of street food, and a bag full of souvenirs for the folks back home, it was time to get back on the MTR and back to the hotel. While the Philippines were awesome, as my travels progress I’m also enjoying things that HK has, like a working and regular public transport system — this is probably a good thing as Grab doesn’t exist here. I’m also enjoying that not only do they drive on the left here, they also have road rules, cars stop for red lights (even taxis, most of the time). I’m not sure that you could ever convince me that they have road rules in the Philippines: they have a general convention/agreement that drivers will endeavour to stick to the general vicinity of the right side of the road, and that’s about it. They might consider using their horn to let others know when overtaking, but really that’s about it. Indicators, lane markings, traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, all of these things are optional at best. Try to stick right, and tune your radio to an easy listening station, and that’s likely all you need to know to get a license to drive there.

Tomorrow’s the last full day in HK, though it does feel good to stay somewhere for three days, and that should be more food and shopping.