A Hong Kong Day

We wake up excited to see our bay view from the day time and find that we are fogged in. For some reason, this makes me want to order room service for breakfast. Why? I don't know, but it was the last time we ordered room service, quite awful!.

I have been to Hong Kong many years ago, and remember many spots. We start with a walking tour that takes us by most of these Western area highlights: Dried Seafood Market, Herbs & Medicine Markets, Antique Market all closed because it is pre-8:00. We are still off on our time clock but getting better.

We head for this grand escalator 800 meters long, the longest in the world, only to find that the mornings the escalator runs one way down, and we are at the bottom. I am not going to walk up just to take this grand escalator down. Instead we head over to the ferry terminal and decide to go to an island. The first terminal is going to Kowloon, just across the harbor, this is not the one we want. The next terminal the folks ask us where we want to go. Being rather random about our day we don't really care and decide to go where ever this boat is going. A good choice as it is going to the tiny island of Peng Chou, where I lived for 3 weeks when visiting years ago!

Again, not quite understanding the transportation, we get on and take seats in the first class section. This was supposed to be extra money, which they did let us know about the next time that we went to 1st class. The island was charming, lots of new building, but no motorized cars. Carts and bikes were the ride of the day. We walked up a hill, found my old house, back along the waterfront which has an all new walk-way being built. We found the old bar we hung out at, but it wasn't open yet, being just 10am.

Heading back towards the ferry we stop on a street corner restaurant to start researching some new recipes. We had dim sum and shared a big beer. I loved it. The shrimp in rice paper, beef balls, pork wrapped in cabbage and a sweet bread with beef stuffing. $70 HK, $10 US.

We returned to HK on the noon ferry and decided to give that escalator another try and planned to head up to SoHo. We got as far as the first riser, and the escalator was stopped. We didn't know if this continued all the way up or not, so decided that we should just get off and explore where we were. We explored a Japanese restaurant called Coi. We had sushi, quite lovely this eating in little bits all throughout the day! We enjoyed California Rolls, Tempura Shrimp Rolls, Gyoso, Beef in the sticky rice paper and two beers, $212 HK, $28 US. We saw a treat here that neither of us has had before. Not sure what it is called, will look for as we travel, but it is sushi in the seaweed wrapped like an ice-cream cone. Odd as can be.

Leading the fairly sedimentary lifestyle that we do at the Charlotte barely prepares one for all the walking we are doing. Victor's knee is bad and has affected his hip too and he has put on quite a limp. So we decide to get massages. Following the directions and good pricing we find on a brochure, we end of cutting through a dining room to the elevators and up to the 8th floor. This is an elegant environment, not one of the frantic storefront places. The rates do not match the brochure. They explain that is isn't their brochure and give us a different brochure. I get a foot massage and wonder if I will ever walk again. Victor gets a regular beating massage, but really can walk again! I thought the price was $35 us for the two of us, but turns out it was $60. Still a good value compared to traditional US rates.

The escalator is fixed and we head up the hill again to SoHo. Walked a bit of the district and stopped at the Staunton Bar & Cafe, a corner place for some people watching. We then continued to the top of the escalator and then took a cab to Victory Peak. This is the single most changed venue since I was last here. New buildings actually block the views. Very odd! It was still clouding/foggy/(polluted?) that we didn't get much of a view.

It is here on top of the world that we realize that we have misunderstood the exchange rate. I like to figure in a way that I can do it in my head quickly, Victor does it some other way. Some places it is easier to multiply and drop decimals, in others, it is easier to divide....Whatever method, as long as you are close works for me. But I was using a wrong formula. This made everything seem really affordable. I was quite disappointed when I did finally figure out how wrong I was. Ugggh, I can say I was about half right. I was doing something like 100HK= 7US, when it is really reversed-ish, $100HK=13US. Fooey!

We cab back to the hotel with plans for a nap and a dinner at one of the Argentine restaurants we found in SoHo, instead we woke up at midnight. We aren't really lagging, just not acclimating yet.