December 19th, 2010
I take back most of the stuff I complained about yesterday. I actually CAN see some of the water, and my view of the buildings at night IS quite spectacular (I think I couldn't tell last night because we got here so late that most of them had been turned off.). Upon coming out of my deep deep comatose, I was able to see that my room was well small, but clean, efficient, and well appointed, and frankly, that is what you should aim for when coming to a big bustling city. Don't go for a massive loft, cause, chances are, it will be a giant turd. In the case of large/dense cities, you SHOULD sacrifice size for quality.
Anyway, my dad and his fiance discovered that there was a delicious breakfast buffet downstairs, but unfortunately, I woke up to late to go eat there. Instead, I ordered a caesar salad off of the room service menu, and let me tell you, it was AMAZING, which is significant cause it's hard to make a salad not boring. Honestly, at first, I was suspicious, because the big leaves came intact, which looked like it might have been difficult to eat with a fork and knife. So, like the big American barbarian I am, I just picked it up and ate it like a taco. DAYUM! Not only was the lettuce fresh and the dressing awesome, but there were these tiny little cheese cruttons scattered within the leaves. Parmesan cheese was also sprinkled throughout the salad-taco, and the entire thing rested on a large piece of delicious tasty garlic cheese bread. Suffice it to say, that was one awesome taco salad thing.
After getting ready, which is a long process for me for inexplicable reasons, we were off like a herd of speeding turtles! It actually took us a while to figure out what exactly we wanted to do - I hadn't done nearly as much planning as I had for other trips - and we ended up not leaving the hotel until around 2. Surprisingly, we found the MTR (Hong Kong's metro) pretty quickly... or at least we thought so. When we came across the sign saying Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station, I was a little bit suspicious, because it didn't seem to match up with the station's location on the map. Still, though, there was a sign there, so it had to be it, right? Nope, at least, not exactly. If you go to Hong Kong, you will discover that there is a massive labyrinth of moving walkways, corridors, and shops underground - all connecting the MTR stations to other important sites. The boardwalk, for instance, though it is .5 - 1 mile away from the closest MTR station is connected to it by underground passageways. Though the weather is nice now, I'd imagine that these would be awesomely helpful if it were raining or during the summer when it's hot and humid out.
The trains themselves are nice, too; they're massive, new, and air-conditionered - Wow! A/C! London's Underground could really take a lesson from that. Not having your metro/subway serve as the city's metaphorical/ olfactory armpit? What a novel concept. - We left from Tsim Sha Tsui Station, changed at ???, and arrived at Lok Fu, or as my dad called it, Fuck Lo.
-Sigh- Americans.
Anyway, we wandered around the station trying to use our guide book to find directions to the Kowloon Walled Park, which is the largest Chinese walled park outside of mainland China. After failing for 15 minutes or so, we finally asked a person who told as that it was too far to walk and that we should take a cab. We took one. It was definitely too far to walk. Thanks a lot, Frommer's, you useless assholes.
The taxi got us there just fine, but initially, I was sort of unstoked. It just looked like a park and rocks. Joy. After walking around, though, I was impressed with its size, snaking covered pathways, and diversity of flora - I'd imagine that if you were to go during blooming season it would be quite spectacular! - and cute little pond. It was here that I discovered that my dad's fiancee is a camera nazi. She REALLY likes to take pictures (even more than I do... and that's saying a lot). My dad, of course, with his 6'4"ness was like gone by the time we put out cameras down. It was definitely a bit of a fail.
At one point, we accidentally walked out of the walled park itself and entered a more modern park that had kind of been built around the older one. It was surprisingly nice. There was a ridiculous long bike track with a zillion little kids peddling around it at high speeds. A jogging path ran parallel to it, too. I have to say that I was surprised how big the entire area was. I mean, if you look at a photo of Hong Kong or something, it's a very dense city, so seeing that there are massive green areas where people can enjoy the outdoors was a pleasant surprise.
Eventually, we got back in to the Walled Park itself - this time at the main entrance. It was here that the historical stuff was. In fact, there was actually a mini museum where I learned quite a bit. Apparently, the area that the park now encompasses used to be the Kowloon Walled City, which is something I had never even heard of. The KWC was a massive group of buildings that where built directly next to each other, so close, that unless you were looking out one of the exterior side's windows or you were on the roof, you couldn't see the light of day. Also, the buildings themselves had no foundations, they were haphazardly built so that they were resting against each other; if one were to go down, they'd all fall over. It was a massive structural hazard, which was why it was destroyed in the 1990's (Scary, though, isn't it, that this thing could exist that recently?). In one of the smaller original buildings that was preserved, they built these rooms that had giant photos on all the walls, pipes on the ceiling, etc... to mimic what it was like to be in a room or alley in the Kowloon Walled City, and let me tell you, it was dirty, clausterphobic, and fragile looking. I can't believe that people actually lived there; it's truly astounding.
We took a cab (After an argument, which I won. Mwahaha.) down to the boardwalk in an attempt to have dinner at this highly recommended restaurant called Seranade. Serenade is at the Hong Kong Cultural Center, so we were surprised that a museum cafe would have some of the best dim sum in the city. Ahhh, but that is where it is misleading. Serenade is actually a very nice restaurant that apparently requires reservations to eat there. Wow! Thanks again, Frommer's! So, instead, we walked back to our hotel, which was fairly close by. The walk, though, was quite cool, because it was along the harbor front promenade, and by this time, it was dark.
Dark in Hong Kong = Epic Lights.
Yeah... so Hong Kong basically has the most incredible skyline of any city I have ever been to, and at Christmas time, it's even better, because even the largest buildings decorate their sides for Christmas. It was absolutely AMAZING. Not only that, but promenade itself is home to the Walk of Stars, which is similar to Hollywood's Street of Stars? ???? ### And it had all the famous actors of Chinese cinema. The big ones I saw were Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh, Bruce Lee, Chow Yun-Fat. It was pretty cool. The Jackie Chan one, was actually so popular that his name was starting to be rubbed off.
We ended up going back to the hotel to eat (I know. How original!). This actually turned out to be a great idea, because the Panorama has a great restaurant called Santa Lucia on the 38th floor with an amazing view of the harbour skyline, which provided an awesome spot to sit and watch the light show at 8 PM. This is one of the cool things about Hong Kong, actually. Every night at 8 PM, the buildings put on a light show. The skyline is already, like I said, pretty amazing, so seeing more lights come on/ some of the lights switch on and off/ shine more brightly is pretty cool. The kicker, though, is the fact, that a couple of the largest buildings have massive lasers on their roofs that they move around... and that if you go outside to see this (We were inside)... it's all set to music. It's pretty damn awesome, so you should make a point to be on the promenade or a harbor cruise around that time.
I got all distracted with my memories of cool lights and failed to mention the fact that the food at Santa Lucia was actually really good. Between the three of us, we had a delicious mushroom soup, an interesting scallop dish, some mushroom ravioli, and a mean (read: epically amazing) steak. It was all really good... at hotel prices. No, honestly, it wasn't super expensive considering the quality, not to mention the fact that we had like 4 waiters to our single table. This was actually the first sign of how people in Hong Kong (maybe greater China, too?) make serving in to a real team efforts. It's interesting how in the United States, you have your one waiter who is out for themselves to get tips. This is not the case, here, though, where if someone's water glass if empty and you're walking by, you fill it, even if you haven't even dealt with that table all night. It's nice, because things actually get done faster.
As a result of going up to the 38th floor to Santa Lucia, we also decided to venture up to the 40th floor to see what The Sky Garden was. Apparently, it's just that! It's a nice area with seats and plants that is outdoors, and because it's on the 40th floor, it has an epic view of the city. Elevator ride well spent? I think so.
We came super close to simply going back to our rooms after dinner and going to sleep, but I persevered, and we were off to the Temple Street Night Market!! The Market itself was great, with lots of cheap souvenir crap (carvings, jewelry, paintings, etc...), knock off designer bags, inexpensive watches (I got a nice watch for $3 US.), pashmina scarves of every color imaginable, and... suitcases to put all the stuff you buy in. This was all made even more awesome by the fact that it was all open at 10 PM on a weekday. In fact, that was one of the most amazing things about Hong Kong shopping (and the city in general) is that it is a 24/7 city. Even on the first night we were there (after the long series of flights) I noticed that shops were open a midnight. This isn't just for the shopping freaks; EVERYONE is still out and about then. I don't know when people sleep here!
After the shopping we walked back to the hotel and I went in to a second comatose.
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