Day 13 - Stanley Markets and Top Ten List

We got going early today because we wanted to make it to the Stanley markets on the south side of town. We had heard that the markets here were good and that this area along the water was rather low key compared to other areas in Hong Kong. We took a taxi from Wan Chai (about 30 minute taxi ride). There are numerous vendors here with pretty cheap but nice goods, as well as a few more expensive stores in the area. We enjoyed the shopping and there were definitely fewer people roaming around this area. I have to admit that it was nice for a change to not constantly dodging hundred of people on the street or train! We had a nice lunch- I loved my crab cakes and Rich loved his fish tacos and IPA.

After taking a taxi ride back, I needed a long nap after last night's dancing into the wee hours. (at least for us). I guess even I have my limits! We then traveled to Central district to meet Doug and Suzanne, who are Americans that have lived in Hong Kong for many years. Doug is the brother of one of our Atlanta friends. We met them at the American Club and enjoyed good conversation and food. I have to admit that a good old American cheeseburger served as the perfect comfort food. We really enjoyed meeting Doug and Suzanne, and appreciate their hospitality!

Our plan for the night had been to go back to my second favorite club in Wan Chai (right after the salsa club), Dusk Until Dawn. I want to point out here that I will always remember the name because of a vampire movie by that name that starred a younger George Clooney. But, oh well, let me be honest here – I just did not have the energy tonight. There! I have said it! Rich did find the movie “The World of Susie Wong”, made in 1961 and filmed in our Wan Chai district! It is neat to see how Hong Kong has changed – fascinating!

So we leave to go back to the good old USA tomorrow. Since this will be probably my last blog for the trip, I want take this opportunity to discuss my most memorable and best moments of our Hong Kong journey.

Best food experience: Me – Pierre's – fabulous in every way; Rich – Ho Le Fook and Pierre's

Most Humorous adventure: Hiking the wrong way on Dragon's Back Trail, facing hordes of Japanese tourists coming toward us.

Worst experience: Okay, say it with me ladies: Squat toilets in the mainland!

Now for my “Top 10” list of most memorable and best things about the Hong Kong trip:

Honorable mention: The young, cute Aussie guys at the bars

10- Zumba class with JC – Zumba is the universal language!

9 – Looking for MJ's sequined glove in Macau – Okay, so the exhibit is closed and the glove is now who knows where. It was a fun experience. Don't worry, Allen, I will keep searching. It may be a difficult task, but if it were as easy as One, Two, Three, life would be pretty dull!

8. - Transportation -I do not like to drive -never have. So the idea of being able to get around on trains, buses, walking and taxis totally appeals to me. System works great in Hong Kong.

7 – Shopping – From the expensive Causeway Mall to the cheap street markets, I loved shopping here (and Rich will tell you – I am a shopping expert!)

6 – The flower markets in Kowloon – a flower lover's paradise (that will be my job if we move here!)

5 – The Wan Chai District – We totally enjoyed having an apartment in this area. We were right next to the Grand Hyatt, had good restaurants, and great music and dancing.

4-Peak tram – These are still the most unbelievable views of this beautiful city!

3 – Night views of Hong Kong – Every time I see the gorgeous, lit up skyline at night, I feel like I am in a dream! I always feel energized! (except when I have celebrated too much the night before)

2- Central district and SoHo – I could totally spend every day roaming the streets in Central, and enjoying the vibrancy of the night life. What a fascinating mix of old culture, modern architecture, and people from everywhere!

1 – Finally – The people of Hong Kong- I have such respect for the locals in this great city! They are friendly, helpful, polite, and peaceful. I want to travel to a place where I will feel safe while I am exploring new adventures. I always felt safe here! We have had other recent and former travels where we were constantly looking over our shoulders or pick pocketed on 2 occasions in different cities. I love this city and the people! What a fantastic experience – hope to come back again!

Day 12 - Livin La Vida Loca

The theme for this day is to live like the locals. One of our goals for the trip was to be in Hong Kong for 2 weeks and try to imagine how it would be to actually live here. This meant having an apartment, hanging out with the locals, and even exercising as those who live in Hong Kong do.

One order of business today, though, was to get up early and go to the Starbuck's across the street. Rich had read that an interesting activity when visiting a large city like Hong Kong is to attempt to see the city when it is quiet, before things really get going. Indeed, I had seen a pre-code 30's movie where the director had shot scenes from Paris in early hours, and it was neat. We did get going early for us, but unfortunately not early enough to see Hong Kong sleeping. (probably would have had to make it 5:00 instead of 7). Anyway, it was worth it to me to get a really good cup of coffee to start off the day.

My next big adventure for me personally today was to go to a zumba class. As some of you know, I am a zumba fanatic and I thought it would be special to shake it in an Asian zumba class. I researched it before the trip and found a California Fitness center within walking distance of our apartment that had zumba classes. Rich and I walked there, and he went shopping while I went to class. The fitness center was modern and nice. The zumba women were dressed in appropriate attire for this exercise and all appeared to be Chinese locals. Before the class, our instructor introduced himself to me – his name was JC (short for Juan Carlos). Being Hispanic, his English was better than most and we had a nice conservation about zumba. He even invited me to a zumba marathon being held tomorrow in Causeway Bay. JC's class was phenonenal- great Latin music, a lot of salsa, and a little hip hop. But the biggest surprise was that the last song we danced to was an MJ song- his version of “Horse with no name” on the Xscape album!! This was my best dance, of course. What a fun experience – wish I had the energy to attend the marathon tomorrow!

Rich wanted to go an another urban hike. He researched a found one that was very close to our area, Wan Chai. I was actually energized after the zumba class, and we did this hike. Although the first part was a lot of uphill (even more than Asheville), it did become flat, and was a nice paved trail. What was cool were the great city views from above on the left side of the trail, and some partly woods views on the right. There was even a small waterfall! Many locals were walking or running on this trail. It is obviously a fitness activity for them. This walk helped us to get back to our fitness level of several days ago. Great news, because I can now order a dessert tonight!

Interesting tidbit: Yesterday while strolling in Central district, I noticed a lot of “Chairman Mao” memorabilia. These included items such as Mao busts, paper weights, and even large statues. Some of the statues were as large as the Buddhas that are often used in Asian gardens. Unfortunately, forgot to get pictures. Having a statue of Chairman Mao in your Asian garden would really create a different kind of mood!

Tonight we ate in our Wan Chai District. We were going to repeat our experience at the tapas place, 22 Ships, as we had enjoyed it so much. Because of a long wait, we decided to go to a “fast food” Korean place called “Baab”. We both had the traditional stone bowls and enjoyed it – cheap but good food!

We then went back to the salsa club, Xperience. The scene on Friday is even more lively than our Sunday night experience. There are many serious Asian salsa dancers – good to see and enjoy. The Hong Kong residents have apparently decided that Latin music and salsa dancing is a fun addiction. I know what they mean – between my zumba dancing and salsa tonight, I am a slave to the rhythm!

Day 11 - Buddhas, Beer, and Ho Lee Fook

Yesterday, Rich told me that today was my choice as to what we would do and where we would go. My immediate response was that we spend the day and evening in the Central district, which is my favorite part of the city. We decided to take our time and got there at late morning. Our first stop was to a relatively new shopping area that was formerly the “police married quarters”. These were the living quarters of the police and their families. Unfortunately, the shops were closed when we arrived but we returned later in the afternoon and strolled. The shops were modern and extremely artistic. This area has art galleries and antique shops, so the shops are geared to be artsy.

Next order of business for me was to find a Buddha. I noticed when we were here last week that Buddha shops filled every corner. Many of these statues are quite beautiful and unusual. My dream would be to purchase one of the large, stunning Buddhas for my garden, but obviously I had to look for a small one that will fit in my carry on. I stopped at a small shop and saw a very different Buddha that I wanted for my collection. The shopkeeper, an elderly Chinese man, said that the Buddha was old, unique and was $80 US money. Rich immediately bargained and tried to get the man down to $60. The man said that he would need to go to his boss, whom he said could not go that low for using credit, but would take $60 cash. We decided to look at other shops to make certain that this was “my Buddha”. We ended up going back and telling our shopkeeper friend that we did want this Buddha and would pay cash at $60. The man said the he was so embarrassed but that while we were gone the “real” boss, a woman, told him that he could not go that low! He laughingly said to Rich that the “empress” and not the “emperor” really rules! We did end up getting the statue for $60. The shopkeeper was a colorful character, and I think he and Rich would have enjoyed a beer together while looking at young Chinese women and discussing how women really rule! Just remember “Zhidao” (translation: Buddha knows).

Walking around Central district is an indescribable experience. There are so many interesting sights that it is difficult to take everything in. Thank goodness for phone cameras, and being able to snap a picture every minute if I desire. The tall vertical buildings are beautiful here, many are very colorful. And the mix of these with the small, old shops just amazes me! I could spend every day enjoying something new (or old) in Central.

Since we were getting hungry, we found a lunch pub that Rich had read about called Globe. The place was packed with businessmen working through lunch, and enjoying a beer! This place was heaven for Rich, as he finally found a place with IPA's and a huge selection of beers. The manager, an Englishman, said that the beer scene is improving in Hong Kong, and spent a great deal of time talking with Rich about this. The food here was great - I had a Moroccan dish, finished with a banana cream cheesecake. I realized that I am returning to my American habits now that we are taking more taxis and less trains- only 3 miles so far today – better lay off on the desserts for a few hours.

After lunch we walked more through Central and decided to take a train back to up our walking time. On the way back to our apartment, we saw a small group of protesters holding up signs in Chinese. We don't know if this had something to do with the protests several months ago. On another note, we had a light out in the shower, and a flickering light in the living room, so we had maintenance come. Question: How many Chinese does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: One with a ladder to reach the ceiling and the other to tell us that he would call the office so they could order the correct bulb for us!

Of course my day in Central also had to include a night in Central, as this is the place for people who live life off the wall, as I do. We went to a restaurant that had been recommended to us by several locals. The name of it is “ho lee fook”, which we assumed had at least one Chinese word. It does not, and is obviously used for shock value. This place was not a disappointment. It has everything going for it: great food, inlcluding pork belly and cabbage/pork dumplings. In addition, it had a colorful atmosphere, music that included the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix, and a group of young Aussie men hanging out at the bar.

We could have been happy ending the night here but we had wanted to go back to one of our favorite places from our last trip. The place is called Sevva, and it has an amazing roof top bar with gorgeous night views. Rich used his trusty GPS to find it. (last time one of Morgan's friends took us there). This place is totally awesome. We wanted to re-create a picture like the last one we got 5 years ago, so we brought our selfie stick, which we figured would not be outlawed here. We were correct on that count, but did not fare so well with our first attempt at using the selfie stick, as you can see. Finally got the waiter to snap a photo. Great evening! Will be going to zumba class tomorrow since we are slacking off on the walking. (Only 5 ½ miles today).

Day 10 - Peak Tram and Happy Valley Race Track

Our adventure today was to go to the Peak Tram and then take a hike back down. For those not familiar, this is a tram that takes one up the tracks and to the top of the “peak” of Hong Kong. There are spectacular views from the peak and this is the most popular spot for visitors to see the whole city views from up above. We went here on our last trip, but unfortunately lost our photos due to a bad memory card. But with 2 phone cameras, we are ready this time! We took the tram up to begin our journey – it is fascinating to look at the views while on the tram car. When we reached the top, I remembered how truly unreal the views are from here. This is a beautiful way to see the city from all angles!

Most people ride the tram car back down. However, in our effort to reach our 8 mile a day goal (not mine, by the way), Rich decided that we should hike down. We took the Hong Kong trail to the reservoir. The Hong Kong trail is a total of 30 miles and winds down various areas of the mountain. The reservoir trail is apparently not the route that most folks take down, as the trail was pretty isolated. But it was actually an excellent urban hiking trail, with concrete paths and steps down. It was a total of about 4 miles, and I would call it an easy trail. Yay, Hong Kong for maintaining a fitness trail for locals!

We rode a bus back a (our first bus experience), and then chilled out at our apartment. I ate the leftover chorizo bread from last night's dinner for lunch. Excellent!! I must say that we are now leaning towards taxis instead of trains for getting around. My legs can only stand so much walking. On another note, I want to comment on the safety of this city. Both Rich and I feel that we are always comfortable walking around in crowds of people here. We never worry about getting mugged, shot, or kidnapped. I have a lot of respect for the people here, and for their less aggressive culture. Very refreshing to me!

Tonight we headed to Happy Valley race track. My stepson, Tash had mentioned that this was a nice way to spend an evening. (thank goodness we have a younger person to inform us about the fun things!) It was indeed quite a spectacle! The night lights of the city are behind the race track for horses. There are apparently quite a few racing enthusiasts here, as the place was packed. The area is very large, with a private jockey club as well as a large outside area for the commoners like us. The common area has live music and entertainment while you are watching the races. This is certainly an international setting as well, with locals as well as the usual Aussie tourists to get the party started.

This is a great people watching scene, even if you are paying no attention to the horse races! But there was definitely some serious betting going on as well. The drinks and food are cheap, so it really is a nice escape from the usual.

This was one of those nights that I desperately needed a dessert, so we ended up at the Starbuck's right across the street from our apartment. I must say that I am a Starbuck's fan, and it is comforting to see so many of that American tradition here. The desserts are somewhat different here, but the molton chocolate cake that I had was superb, and Rich liked his blueberry cheesecake. This was a fun day and night. Still 3 more days to go before we leave on Sunday. I am getting so used to the place that I will be putting down Wan Chai as my permanent address when we return to the states!

Day 9 - Macau, MJ, and Ferry Rides

Today started out with our going to Macau.  This is also know as the "gambling city" of Asia.  Apparently Macau generates as much or more gambling money than Las Vegas.  People from our last trip encouraged us to go there but we never made it.  Another motivation to go there this time was to see the famous sequined glove that Michael Jackson wore on his "moonwalk".  My Asheville friend, Allen, who is a huge MJ fan as I am, said that it was exhibited at some Macau casino.  Upon research, I found that  this is the Sofitel in the older part of Macau.  So we took an hour long ferry ride to Macau for today's adventure.

I noticed more pollution when I stepped out of the cab.  It also appears to be a much poorer city than Hong Kong.  We started out looking at some old relics of the town.  The Portuguese settled here in the 1500's, so these included an old fort.  We looked at this from the bottom, as it was closed.  We then went to an old Chinese style garden, which seemed to serve as a peaceful resting place for the locals to enjoy.  We saw the old St.Paul Church, which had attracted numerous tourists.  There were were several other relics on Rich's 's list, but I wanted to move on to MJ's glove.

We took a taxi to Sofitel Hotel and went up to the second floor - the MJ gallery.  To my dismay, I was told that the exhibit is closed until May!  This information was not on their web site, and I had checked every day.  This news was certainly no "thriller" for me.  The gift shop was  open, including a fake sequined glove - had my picture made beside it.  Although the tee shirts were okay, there was not a full video of MJ singing, as I had expected.  Over all, I would say the MJ gallery was "bad, really bad - you know it's bad".  I suspected that the glove might be hiding behind this velvet curtain
 I confronted the shopkeeper, who said that it was stashed away somewhere that no one knew.  After
 buying my tee shirt, I tried to hide my great disappointment, but then decided that Allen and I could open a much better MJ venue  -"I Wanna be Startin Something" in Asheville!  Rich and I then "beat it" and headed to other Macau sights.

We enjoyed the pedestrian walking area, filled with Chinese New Year decorations.  It was very colorful and crowded with tourists.  From there we went to the Macau Tower, one of the tallest building in Asia.  We went to the observation point at the top,and saw wonderful city views.  We also saw an opportunity to bungee jump - many young Japanese were strapped, but ended up not doing it.  I decided that this would be on my bucket list if I knew I didn't have long left.  I think it could be fun!

We finally ended up at a Portuguese restaurant called Guincho a Galera.  The menu had traditional
dishes from Portugal, including black pork, which I had never eaten.  The setting was beautiful, and we enjoyed our meal, particularly the bread.  Then got on the ferry to return to Hong Kong.  Overall, my impressions of Macau are not the wonderful ones I have experienced in Hong Kong.  The casinos are somewhat interesting, but probably less so to one who is not a gambler.  It seems much more like a "plastic" city as opposed to Hong Kong and Kowloon.  Macau just does not have the rich culture and lively people.  But I suppose it is good to have a look at everything while we are here  If not, we might have regrets about things we didn't do.  After all, that's only "human nature"

Day 8 - Kowloon: Flowers, Street Markets, and Beautiful Views

Today we decided to go back to Kowloon.  Kowloon is on the other side of the bay from Hong Kong Central.  We stayed on Kowloon on our first trip to Hong Kong, and wanted to go back and spend some time doing some of the activities that we had enjoyed previously.  We took the train and landed at the Prince Edward station.  From there, we had a short walk to the flower markets.  For a garden fanatic like myself, the flower market is heaven on earth!  There is a mass of color and fragrance from the time you step foot into the first shop in the market.   Orchids are everywhere and appear to be the most popular flower in the market. What is intriguing to me is the way orchids are used in container gardens and arrangements.  I love the way orchids are mixed with all kinds of plants to make innovative arrangements.  I plan to take some of these ideas on container gardening to my Asheville classes. It is obvious to me that people in Hong Kong love plants and flowers, and are also using them as decorations for the upcoming Chinese New Year.

Rich had a hard time getting me away from the flower markets, but I was getting hungry, so we ventured on to find food. We ended up at a locals fast food type place called Delicious. The place was crowded so we started out sitting at a table with others. I had the beef curry and Chinese cabbage, and it was actually pretty good. From here, we walked to the Ladies Street markets. This market has hundreds of shops stocked with cheap goods, mainly clothing and accessories. Handbags, shoes, dresses, underwear, sweaters, and jackets abound. And everything is so cheap. I actually felt guilty giving the booth owner only $8 for 3 nice scarves! This is obviously the direct opposite of the type of shopping at Causeway Mall that I was discussing last week! This illustrates the large contrast in the people with money vs. those with very little in this city. (similar to the US, I suppose). As for me, I adore both kinds of shopping and was perfectly happy with my low budget items. One interesting type of clothing apparel that was everywhere at the ladies market today was yellow and hot pink bras, hanging boldly along the street!

I had heard and read about the Temple Street night markets, so we took another “fitness walk” to find these. When we arrived, we realized that the merchants were just setting up for the night markets! Lesson learned: night market means only at night! Our last destination in Kowloon was to return to the Avenue of the Stars along the bay. This area is absolutely the most awesome in terms of views of the city skyline, water, and mountains all rolled into one. I have never seen anything like it in any other city where we have traveled. When you walk here, there are hand prints of famous Chinese movie stars like Jackie Chan, and of course the famous statue of Bruce Lee. This is very popular with the Chinese locals and tourists from mainland China. We took a ferry back to our Wan Chai district. We were off on our walking today – only about 6 miles instead of our usual 8!

The last plan of the day was to eat at a restaurant in Central called Pierre's at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. This restaurant was recommended to us by Rich's son Tash. This was quite a unique dining experience. The restaurant is situated on the 25^th floor of the hotel with breathtaking views of Hong Kong at night. The skyscrapers are covered with blue, red, yellow, and green lights. These can be experienced right outside of the windows. Rich and I exchanged seats during the meal so that we both could appreciate the ambience. The food was excellent and expensive. I ended my meal with the chocolate souffle, which was honestly the best dessert I have ever eaten Those of you that know me understand how much I appreciate desserts, so this is saying a lot! But my favorite part of the evening was at the very end and were leaving. We were greeted by our 3 servers, who said that they had a special parting gift for me – it was a small lemon cake to go! I kept thinking that this send off reminded me of something I had seen in a movie, and I remembered the last scene in “Titanic' when the old lady first enters the ship and they greeted her. I could learn to like this – Thanks Tash for giving me the most unforgettable dining experience of my life!!

Day 7 - Dragon's Back Hike and Salsa dancing

Today was our day to do our first hike in Hong Kong.  Rich had done research on hiking in Hong Kong and this hike was considered by most to the the best urban hike in the city.  We took a 20 minute train ride to the supposed beginning of the trail.  The trail is called Dragon's Back and is  located in the mountains of Hong Kong.  The trail started at the Cape Collinson  Catholic Cemetery entrance.  What this entailed was climbing up hundreds of steep stairs to get to the trail.  It kind of reminded me of when I was young and my family climbed the Washington Monument.  Rich is not a big fan of stairs, and felt like he had already done the trail by the time we climbed to the trail.  The first part of the trail was level, paved and easy.  Indeed, the review that we had read said that the trail was very easy.  The paved area ended and we entered the woods and began seeing mountain views. What we also saw was that we were going in one direction and everyone else was coming from the opposite direction towards us! And when I say "everyone else", I mean a lot of people.  What we had anticipated would be a tranquil break from the hustle bustle of the train station was in reality a train station on a mountain trail!  Mainly, we saw large groups of young Japanese tourists!

 

I must say that Rich was very apologetic and realized that the directions he had gotten were not the best.  Obviously, the trail is supposed to start at the end opposite of where we had started.  However, I suspect that Rich may have purposely done this so that we could get mental as well as physical exercise.  The other surprise about the trail is that it became more difficult, with large rocks going down and up the trails.  It would be considered a moderate trail for most experienced hikers.  The distance was 5 miles.  Just as Rich hates stairs, I hate extremely rocky trails, particularly when numerous hikers are squeezing in next to me.  Thankfully, I had the hiking poles that Allison had given me for Christmas.  I must admit that the glorious views at the top were worth it all!  It was like Asheville, but with ocean as well - spectacular!  If we included time spent walking in the train stations to get to this trail, our total walking was 8 miles by mid-afternoon!

This brings me to another piece of information that I want to share with those contemplating travel overseas - rent an apartment.  It is great to have a home base to come back to and chill after all of the walking and site seeing.  We spent the rest of the afternoon in our apartment after the hike.  A hotel room can be nice, of course, but is usually not going to have the 600 square feet that we have here.   And it also help you feel more like like a local.  We went through Air B and B.

We decided that we deserved to travel by taxi tonight, and it was great.  Taxi rides are cheap and easy to get.  We ended up in SoHo again, not too far from the escalator across town.  This place is still lively, even on a Sunday.  The name of the restaurant was Aberdeen St. Social Club.  The food was really good, and we sat on the balcony overlooking the wonderful night city views.  Rich enjoyed his duck, and I enjoyed my sea bass.  This was one of our more expensive meals, but worth it.  We also had dessert and were treated to delicious chocolates as well.

Our final destination was salsa dancing at Xperience in our Wan Chai district.  We did salsa here 5 years ago when we were here.  It is a fun dance club and the dancers are pretty serious salsa dancers.  But it was great fun, even though my quads were burning a bit because of the hiking.  If we included the salsa dancing, we did a total of 12 miles of walking for the day!  I will be eating more dessert from now on!  End of week 1 in the great city of Hong Kong!