Weekend In Hong Kong

Jess's grandparents are on this amazing around the world cruise. They started on January 8th in England, and just over a week ago, we met them in Hong Kong.

We both knew they would dock in Hong Kong in early March. What day was the issue. Jess has a very busy schedule, so taking weekend trips can be tough for her. I, on the other hand, have five day weekends, so this trip down to HK was no sweat on my work schedule. They arrived the morning of Sunday, March 1st and left the following night. Perfect for my schedule, but Jess had to reschedule a few of her Monday classes so she could make the trip.

Jess went ahead and bought us the train tickets to Shenzhen, so I went up to Jiujiang that Friday morning to meet her before we departed. It was another overnight on hardsleeper, 14 hours this time. We arrived in Shenzhen very early in the morning. It was still dark out. We wandered around the train station trying to figure out how to procure our return tickets up to our respective homes, but found the ticket booth wasn't open yet. We waited in a small diner until they did. After getting our tickets, we walked down to the Hong Kong border, just a few hundred meters from the Shenzhen train station. Immigration over the border is actually pretty tight. First you go through one immigration line where the officer examines your passport and the card you have to fill out. Then you put your bags through the customs x-ray. Then you go through another line and see another immigration officer who checks out your passport and another form you have to fill out. Security is even tighter than going to a foreign country! Fortunately, it was very early in the morning and the lines were fast moving.

We caught the subway into Kowloon from the border area. We exited the subway at Tsim Sha Tsui East, right next to the Mirador Mansion on Nathan road, where a bunch of hostels are located. We found a room on the 13th floor in one of the little hostels, and it actually included a large bed, private bathroom, and a TV. The bathroom was private for us, but it was really just part of the room, separated by a glass sliding door and shower curtain. Good enough for 250 HK dollars a night though.

The weather was already great when we had gotten in to Shenzhen, despite it still being the wee morning hours. I already needed to remove my long johns then, which keep me warm in the wet cold of northern Jiangxi. We showered up and changed into warm climate clothes and set out for the day. Our first stop was the mansion right next to the Mirador, which had all sorts of vendors and Indian restaurants. We went to a shabby little Indian stall, where we got some chicken briyani, roti, and an okra based curry.

After that delicious meal, we walked over to the Star Ferry, which is right next to the Ocean Terminal, where Jess's grandparents were to dock the next morning. All of this was only a 5-10 minute walk from our hostel. I rode the Star Ferry back in 1996, when I first went to Hong Kong on a family trip. Seeing the city from as 23 year old's eyes as opposed to a 10 year old's eyes is pretty different, but it was still the Hong Kong I remembered. The ferry seemed to be exactly the same. It's pretty quick, it provides a great view of the Hong Kong island skyline, and it's only 1.7 HKD's.

After getting off the ferry, we followed the herd into the International Finance Centre. We wandered around a bit and found a nice little ice cream shop that sold the most amazing juice. We both got bottles of the Strawberry/Blueberry combo. It's like they freshly blended these fruits together and bottled it right there. Jess couldn't even bring herself to call it juice, rather than a smoothie, it was so good.

We exited the IFC and entered a new mall, sipping our juice as we walked. This mall we found behind the IFC seemed to cater to Hong Kong's Filipino population. Many of them were out picnicking on the walkways around the malls of Central. Jess saw some things she liked, as she does when we go shopping most places. I did the usual stand around and observe, as I hadn't brought a book to deflect situations like these.

We did some more walking and shopping deeper into the city, seeing all sorts of outdoor markets and art galleries. We even saw the fire department handle a situation right off of Hollywood road. We moved along towards Admiralty after that, enjoying the little parks and squares on our way to Pacific Place. I had stayed at the Conrad above the Pacific Place back in 1996, and remembered this great little figurine shop called King & Country. I had seen it again once in 2003 during a different visit to HK, and sure enough, it was there as I had remembered it. Jess was fond of the Old Hong Kong themed set. I'm still all about the World War II theme. They seemed to have some new stuff like an Alamo theme, which Jess thought was pretty cool, taking her Texas heritage into account.

We were pretty exhausted after all of the walking. Even a little lounge session in the Island Shangri La lobby didn't re-energize us. Nor did the tea and sandwich break we took at Starbucks. We hopped on the MTR back up to Tsim Tsa Shui East and took a nap in our room. We got up and grabbed dinner at a nearby T.G.I.Fridays. I was in need of another quality burger, and Jess wanted some comforts from "home." Dinner was pretty satisfying, and the giant oreo ice cream dessert Jess ordered was the icing on the fatty obese potbellied cake. We can't keep eating like this our whole lives...

We weren't really feeling like going out that night, so we just walked around Kowloon a bit. We first strolled though Kowloon park, and then found a nice little night market that had all sorts of typical souveniers and clothing, plus lots of street food restaurants. I was still full from dinner, but I grabbed a glass bottle Coke Zero. I'm all about the glass bottled sodas, and this was the first Coke Zero I've seen in that configuration. As we strolled on, my mouth watered for the roast duck I saw everywhere. This all changed when I saw a roasted goat head pictured outside one of the restaurants.

We then walked down to Toy 'R' Us and looked at all the board games. We were planning a group hot springs trip in Jiangxi for the following weekend, so it'd be nice to have a fun game that could incorporate drinking. Nothing was really looking good. They sure as hell didn't have Hero's Quest. But then I spotted another old favorite. The crocodile dentistry game! I had played this at the bars in Tokyo all summer when working Summer Day Camp at ASIJ. What a classic. I copped that gator, and we went back to the room for sleep.

The next morning we got up to meet Jess's grandparents at the Ocean Terminal. We found them pretty easily, then went over to a nearby Starbucks for breakfast. We thought we'd show them the market we had discovered the night before, but it wasn't really happening since it was still morning. We still got a pleasant walk through Kowloon park. And since it was daytime this time, we got to see all the pretty birds in the aviary. We then decided to just hop on the Star Ferry and see the island. We got that delicious juice for all of us, and did some strolling around Central. The ladies shopped as usual, while me and grandpa waited.

Jess's grandparents had a pretty full list of things to do. One of which was ride the trolly cars around the island. We got on one destined for Happy Valley, but we got off early to check out an outdoor market. We got pizza for lunch, then browsed the market. Jess and her grandmother had some finds, and I got some new lucky red underwear for the year of ox; my year. We then hailed a cab and went to Stanley market, where we all got a little more shopping done. The ladies found some bags, and I found some new rugby shirts for a really good price. We promenaded the promenade and enjoyed the lovely weather. After seeing all the little nice restaurants along the water, I wished we had just waited to eat there.

We caught a double decker bus into Central, and admired the view from the top all along the waterfront roadway. We then caught the Star Ferry back to Kowloon, but didn't have enough time to catch afternoon tea at The Peninsula hotel. We instead walked back to the night market, and grabbed a real Chinese meal on the street. After ordering, the ladies went to look around all the shops. Knowing how the Chinese do food, you order and expect to see your food in at least a few minutes. Jess ignored this and shopped with her grandmother for over 20 minutes, leaving her grandfather and me staring at the food until they came back. I actually dug in early on, because it wouldn't be any good cold. I felt bad for Jess's gentlemanly grandfather, who waited all 20 mintues for them to return. I wasn't happy, but Jess got me some awesome sunglasses while shopping, so those feelings disapeered pretty quickly.

We caught a quick cab down to the Kowloon waterfront, to see the 8pm light show on Hong Kong's skyline. It was pretty nifty. All these spotlights and lasers emerged from the tops of all the skyscrapers, and they danced around to the music that was playing on our side of the harbor. It was a nice way to end the evening with Jess's grandparents, as they were tired and wanted to turn in on the boat. Jess and I continued to peruse the Kowloon streets, looking at shops while drinking some Sam Miguel tall boys. I think this is the real strategy when shopping with Jess. She looks in all these shops, and I wait. It becomes a lot more fun if I just drink beer while she shops. So that's what we did for the rest of the night in Kowloon.

Note: beer drinking shopping sprees become more difficult when bathrooms are few and far between. In the event of this happening in Kowloon, refer to Indian men fronting tailored suits for directions to the nearest bathroom.

The next morning we met the grandparents at the Peninsula hotel. Since we missed tea the afternoon before, we figured we'd grab ourselves a nice breakfast there. We took one last ride on the Star Ferry back to the island, where we did more walking and shopping. This time we showed the grand'rents all of the art galleries on and around Hollywood road. Time was getting close for me and Jess to make our way back to the mainland, so we subwayed up to Kowloon and grabbed a quick lunch at another Indian place. Our meal took some time before it was served, so we had to rush and even pack some of the naan bread to go. We said our goodbyes and caught the subway back up to the border. This time we actually had to wait in line, but we made it on our train just in time. I got off early in Nanchang, while Jess stayed on until Jiujiang. She had to teach classes that morning after getting off the train. Lucky for me, my week doesn't start until Wednesday, so I managed to go back to sleep that day.