Hong Kong - Part Three

Vincent had to work on Saturday morning, so I was off on my own. I took the ferry across the harbor (with more stunning views of the skyline) to Kowloon. There I walked along the waterfront promenade (which is also an Avenue of Stars of Hong Kong cinema – I said hi to Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan), pausing to hear the Noonday Gun on the other side of the harbor (the Noonday Gun was one of my favorite things in Cape Town – I marvel at the fact that since that pivotal conversation I have been to several outposts of the British Empire – Cape Town, Gibraltar and now here!) and then went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art (which had exhibits on colonial Canton, ceramics, calligraphy and paintings – and was an air-conditioned break during a hot day). There are markets, parks and other museums of interest in Kowloon (not to mention the New Territories – new meaning 1898, that is) but it was time to go back across the harbor to meet Vincent and some friends of his for dim sum brunch at City Hall. That was delicious – I’ve had dim sum before but this was the place for it – including a mango pudding that I polished off single-handedly, even though I tried several times to give the others at the table a chance to have some.

We then all walked along Hollywood Road, which is lined with antiques stores, to Man Mo Temple – a combination Taoist/Buddhist temple dedicated to the god of literature and the god of war (i.e. the pen and the sword). The temple has fortune-tellers who use bamboo – unfortunately they were on break when we were there, or I would have had mine done! From there it was on to Cat Alley, with bric-a-brac – my favorite items were the Mao memorabilia, but what spoke to me were carvings of the character for double happiness for me and the one for health for my sister.

We then went back to the south side of the island. Vincent lives on Repulse Bay (named for the H.M.S. Repulse) and we went down the hill from his place to the beach for sunset. I used to say that in Chicago I could live in the city and then go down to the beach and swim and where else could I do that – other than Honolulu? Well, Hong Kong! The water was a little cool though, so we went to his building’s pool instead and swam there.

Then it was on to Aberdeen, a fishing community, also on the south side of the island. We took a sampan (Chinese boat) ride around the harbor and then had a drink at a floating restaurant. It’s supposed to have great seafood, but rather than stay there and eat, we went for more exploration - back to Lan Kwai Fong for Thai/Malaysian food (I said I was open to anything, had been in the mood for Mexican but wasn’t feeling it there, and then decided I would veto Filipino…). We walked around some of the historical colonial area – very quiet at night and packed the next day, with (mostly) Filipino women who come to Hong Kong to be domestic workers and fill the parks and open spaces on their day off.

And then it was on to yet another hot spot, Causeway Bay. Shops are open late, but they were shutting down down. Vincent likened the area to the Ginza and Madison Avenue (lots of neon and lots of fashion shops!). I’ll admit that when I first got to Vincent’s office neighborhood I thought I must be in the Chinatown part of town because of all the signs with Chinese characters – and then felt like an idiot when I realized that that whole city would look like Chinatown because guess what! What can I say; I woke up really early to get to the airport….