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| Downtown HK Central |
We arrived in Hong Kong (HK) after an excruciating 16-hour plane ride. Thank God we will spend an overnight in San Francisco on the way home, just to break up the pace. We are staying in HK Central this time, a different section of HK from touristy Kowloon on the other side of the harbor where we stayed when we visited HK back in 2005. HK Central is much calmer and we aren't blinded by neon every time we walk outside like in Kowloon.
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| HK Central at night |
Some quick stats about Hong Kong: with a population just under 7 million, it is one of the most densely populated and busiest places in the world. HK is also one of the world's leading financial centers. HK feels like a melting pot of Asia, but this former British colony also has a somewhat western feel -- all signs are in English and many people speak it as well.
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| HK shops with high-rises in the background |
We have an easy four nights in HK to recover from the long flight and do a little sightseeing. The weather here is a big surprise: it's actually a cold and damp 65 degrees this week; we thought it was always hot in HK! We have yet to see the sun. It rained the first two days we were here, and even now the skies are cloudy and overcast, and look like it could rain again at any moment.
HK Central
The streets are filled with local shops selling all kinds of dried foods especially fish and fish parts, pork skins, mushrooms, large jars of dried (and quite expensive!) scallops, what look like worms and larvae, turtle underbellies (used for jelly making), plus some strange things we couldn't even recognize.
Other shops sell the normal fresh fruits and veggies, but the dried food business is really big here.
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| Typical dried food store |
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| Not sure what these crazy-looking creatures are! |
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| Red paper lanterns for sale in a Temple Supply shop |
Another popular kind of shop is what Anne calls the Temple Supply shops and what Frank refers to as the "Shit for Temple Burning" shops. Here's how it works: the people in HK are very religious, and in fact, many shops have small shrines with incense burning at all times. Fire and incense are an important part of their worship, because the "holy smoke" carries messages and prayers to the gods and the ancestral dead. And the Temple shops capitalize big time on that concept. They sell all kinds of paper products to burn in the sacred bonfires in the temples.
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Packages of items such as watches, eyeglasses, and jewelry
ready for burning |
Strangely, people buy paper versions of things they think their ancestors would like to have in the afterlife. The idea is that the paper items become real in the next world (after burning), and the burner of these items makes points and gets back good luck. Also, the do-gooder will put a smile on their ancestors' faces by supplying favorite earthly items to their dead via the temple fire pit.
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| Stacks and stacks of fake money |
The shops sell paper versions of everything you can imagine: paper money (in denominations of $100,000 bills), miniature fake cardboard sports cars, McDonalds Happy Meals, designer clothing, Rolex watches, and top flight liquors like Hennessy Cognac and Paulliac red wine. All made of paper. You can even give the deceased some spend money by burning an ATM card drawn on the "Bank of Hell!"
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| Fake alcohol: cognac and red wine |
We had a ball in these stores, but as Frank noted, these purchases are literally and irretrievably going to go up in smoke! Buying this paper crap is an endless money pit because, like our funeral business back home, you never run out of new customers. Not a bad business to be in!
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| Strange squid for sale in an HK shop |
A few other interesting facts about HK: we learned that burials are not permitted here in HK. Since land is at a premium, all the dead must be cremated. Property prices are very high, given the small land situation; an apartment can cost $10,000/month to rent. How does the average HK person afford this, we wondered? The answer is that many lower income residents receive subsidies from the government to help with expenses.
There are many tall and narrow buildings in HK city, and we wondered if any ever topple or come down due to natural disasters. Well, we learned there are no earthquakes or tsunamis (or other natural disasters) that cause buildings to fall. Hmmmmm sounds like a good (but outrageously expensive) place to live in a skyscraper as many people do.
More pics from Hong Kong:
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| Need a nice turtle shell to add to your soup? |
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| Dried sea horses are an expensive delicacy |
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| Some sinister-looking mushrooms |
Macau
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| In front of the Ruins of St. Paul's Church in Macau |
A highlight of our time in HK was our day trip to Macau, the former Portuguese colony that is now part of China (just like HK).
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| Turbo-jet hydrofoil that transported us to Macau |
In just under an hour, a Turbo-jet hydrofoil whisked us over to the island of Macau. Strangely enough, we had to go thru Immigration coming and going. Even though HK and Macau are part of China now, the Immigration officials apparently haven't gotten the memo and treat the two islands as if they were different countries.
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| The multi-faceted Grand Lisboa Casino on Macau |
Macau is a tiny spit of an island located about 40 miles off the HK shore, and it is known for two things: gambling and its Portuguese colonial heritage. One advantage of the popular casino business is that we were able to board a free casino bus that took us very near to the historic center.
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| Who are those two goofy tourists??? |
Macau feels kind of like a poor man's Las Vegas. While the newest casinos are quite lavish and impressive, the older ones are definitely showing their age.
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| The Lisboa Casion |
"The Lisboa" was one of the first casinos on Macau, and we loved it's tackiness, very 60's. Looming above The Lisboa is the more recently built "Grand Lisboa" Casino with a golden dome of faceted mirrors topped by a weird harp-shaped tower that seems to shoot up into the sky like a rocket ready to take off. Totally audacious right down to the sleek black Jaguar cars parked out in front waiting for guests in need of some ostentatious transportation.
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| In front of the Grand Lisboa Casino |
Both casinos are owned by the Macau gambling king, Stanley Ho. Stanley even sells his own wine, modestly called "Stanley." We passed on the wine, figuring Stanley really didn't need our money.
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| On the plaza Largo do Senado |
Since we are not big gamblers, we headed for Largo do Senado, the main square in the old historic center. Macau has retained the original colonial buildings from its Portuguese past, and we felt almost as if we'd been transported over to Lisbon, Portugal. Even the black and white pavements with the wavy designs are exactly like the ones found on the sidewalks in Lisbon. And they better be, since they were built by artisans from Lisbon who were shipped over here from the motherland to specifically build an authentic Portuguese square.
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| Loved these little girls posing for selfies |
The architecture of the old buildings is colorful and charming with lots of pastel colors like the famous St. Dominic's Church painted a bright yellow. This part of Macau is now a shopping mecca (if you like the typical high-end stuff), but we were looking for a good place to eat a locally-crafted lunch.
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| Excellent Japanese ramen noodle soup |
We ended up in a Japanese ramen noodle house, sitting on miniature wooden stools placed along a narrow counter. Lots of apparent locals, also seated here, indicated to us that we were in a good place for experiencing good local cuisine. The ramen soup was wonderful with a tasty broth, slices of pork, half a hard-boiled egg, and even a sizable chard of seaweed. We are really getting into our Asian soups!
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| Our first Pho of the trip |
Speaking of good soups, son Keath has put his old man on a quest of sorts to find a good Pho soup. We've had it here already, and it was excellent, but we know that Vietnam will be the best place to savor and evaluate authentic Pho since it is, after all, a Vietnamese dish.
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| The Ruins of St. Paul's Church |
We continued on to the symbol of Macau, the ruins of St. Paul's Church. The once massive church burned down leaving only a dramatic stone facade. In typical Portuguese fashion, a long flight of steps leads up to the facade giving the faithful a real work out to reach what was the church entrance.
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| Frank always draws a crowd of kids |
The streets around St. Paul's were replete with shops selling famous Macau almond cookies (plus many other varieties of cookies) and an interesting style of "meat jerky." The jerky came in pork, beef, veal, and even boar, but it was different from our American-style beef jerky. This stuff came in soft lunchmeat-thick slices that were cut to order. The jerky was impregnated with a sweet maple sugar -- kind of tasty but definitely not a health food item. Imagine a sugar-saturated piece of mincemeat about 5 inches x 5 inches square, and about 1/8 inch thick; a very flavorful snack-food, but a diabetic's nightmare!
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| Portuguese egg tart -- yum! |
Every shop had a team of sales people working the crowd offering free jerky slivers and cookie samples, so we got to taste a lot of free local goodies. The one treat we did buy was the Portuguese egg tart, a little egg custard that we ate in Lisbon years ago.
HK Foodie Walking Tour
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Our tour guide Lillian introduces us
to her favorite HK foods |
In the interest of full disclosure, we were lucky enough to be on assignment for the Viator Travel Blog, covering their "HK Foodie Walking Tour." You will be able to read our detailed article later on, but we'll give you the basics now. This was one of the most organized tours we have ever taken. Our tall and svelte young Chinese guide, Lillian, provided us with a pamphlet that listed every food place we would be visiting, the type of food we would eat, and a detailed map showing our route. Very helpful!
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| The best wonton soup ever! |
Lillian led us from one outstanding food stop to another. We slurped wonton soup with prawn-filled wontons floating in the most amazing broth (a secret recipe using dried fish for flavor) and devoured some of the most tender pork barbecue we have ever tasted. The best part was that all of these businesses are long-time, family-owned HK establishments, and each one offered a unique food-tasting experience.
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| Chowing down on HK's best foods |
The walking tour also gave us a new appreciation for the incredibly steep streets of HK and for how valuable land is here. With such a small land mass, HK has to build up rather than out with tall but narrow skyscrapers everywhere.
We also visited a wonderful "wet market" (a wet market is one that has fresh foods as opposed to a supermarket where you find mostly packaged goods). These wet markets are on the wane, and this famous one will be gone in a year or two, replaced by a sanitized government-run market. Change is inevitable, but it's sad to see the old ways disappearing.
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| The most tender barbecued pork! |
Other foodie stops that we visited offered dim sum, sugar cane juice, dried fruit snacks, and egg tarts that were even better than the ones on Macau. The crust tasted like the richest butter cookie imaginable!
Nan Lian Garden and the HK History Museum
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| Tranquil beauty of Nan Lian Garden |
On our last day in HK, we decided to do some exploring on our own. We visited the Nan Lian Garden and the adjoining Chi Lin Nunnery. What a little bit of bliss with welcome greenery and soft Chinese music playing in the background creating a sense of pure tranquility (both so rare in bustling noisy HK). The peaceful, Zen-like gardens were perfectly manicured and the appropriately named Buddhist Pine trees were meticulously trained to look like over-sized Bonsai trees. For Anne, this place exemplified everything she loves about Asian culture.
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Nan Lian Garden, an oasis of peace
right in the center of the city |
The Chi Lin Nunnery was also lovely with pools of water lilies in the courtyard and impressive golden statues of Buddha inside the temple. The garden and nunnery are right in the center of the city, and skyscrapers loom on all sides offering a striking contrast between the physical and spiritual worlds.
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This is how a bride was transported
to her wedding in ancient times |
Our second stop for the day was the HK Museum of History to learn more about this fascinating city. The main exhibit area consisted of eight galleries telling the "Story of Hong Kong" from prehistoric times to the reunification with China. We got a whirlwind history lesson covering topics like the Opium Wars which resulted in HK being appropriated by Great Britain. This is quite a story: the Brits love their tea, and they were buying a great volume of it from the Chinese. The Chinese had no interest in British goods so this resulted in a major trade imbalance. The Brits solved the problem by shipping opium from British India to China. Unfortunately, China ended up with millions of opium addicts. When China refused to allow any more opium into their country, the Brits declared war (and won). The Brits promptly scarfed-up HK as spoils of that war. Another resounding victory for the British Empire!
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| School kids touring the HK Museum of History |
We also learned that Hong Kong was occupied by the Japanese for over three and a half years during WWII. Living conditions were horrible during the occupation, and all HK children had to learn Japanese in an effort to turn them into model Japanese citizens. Speaking of children, we saw lots of actual school kids in the museum. We figure this must be a favorite place for school trips, and we can understand why! Lots to learn about HK's past history.
HK is a city we wouldn't mind visiting again. We had lots of fun and it was a perfect stopover place to begin an Asian adventure.
