Hong Kong Day 43 -- Walking around Hong Kong

And now it is all posted.

Partial post.  Finishing it on the plane and will post when I get to Japan!!

Today was my last day in Hong Kong.  Samantha had her first day of research/work, so she had to get up early for that.  I got up at the same time and we took a bus over to Hong Kong island.  I got off in Wan Chai and walked around there for a bit.  Picked up a few little buns and stuff for breakfast and stopped at another little shop and then headed over to Causeway Bay to look for some note cards.  There is a bookstore at Hysan Place that I thought might have some, but they didn’t really have what I was looking for.  I got a smoothie and a piece of prawn toast (thick piece of bread with a butterflied and fried piece of shrimp), which was really good.  I also sent by the Hong Kong Jockey Club to try to go to the racing museum, but it is closed on Mondays.

After eating, I headed down to Wan Chai to go to lunch with some people from the office.  I went to the 10^th floor to say goodbye to the people that we had been around for 6 weeks, and then went up to the 20^th floor to meet up with Ana.  Kathy is also here for a few more days, so we both went down there to go to lunch and see people one more time.  Lunch was with Ana, Mark, Vivek, and Nicholas.  We went to the Indian buffet that we went to near the beginning of the trip.  It was nice to see them all one more time, the food was really good and really filling.   We finished lunch and then went back to the office to get one more picture and then headed down to Admiralty to go to Hong Kong park.

We got to the Admiralty MTR station and went out to go to Hong Kong Park, for a tea lesson.  The lesson is at a tea shop next to the tea museum, it wasn’t until four and we finished with lunch around two.  I was there a few weeks ago, and it was really neat, but it was really rainy so I wanted to go walk around it again in better weather, so we decided to go.  We entered the park at the Admiralty end, took escalators from the station and the Pacific Place mall which is next to the station.  

There is a fountain near the entrance that has water flowing down all the way around.  There are a couple of spaces where they have the water stopped so that you can walk into it and stand inside the fountain.  We took a few pictures here.  It is really loud once you are inside, you can hardly hear anything that is going on outside.  After the fountain, we walked down along the pond to the Olympic Square.  It was dedicated in 2005, and has a connection to the 2008 Beijing games.  There are steps around the side, we walked to the top of that and took a few pictures.  After we finished looking at it, we walked over towards the aviary.  On the way to the aviary we stopped at a SARS memorial and tai chi garden.  The SARS memorial had statues of people who had been involved with the 2003 SARS epidemic.  

Past the memorial, there was a vantage point, a 30-meter tower with 105 steps spiraling up.  We climbed up, and it was really hot out, so we were tired, hot, and sweaty when we got to the top.  There was a nice breeze up there, so it cooled us down pretty quickly, it felt really good.  The view from the top of the tower was really pretty, we could see a lot of the park and also other parts of Hong Kong.  There were a few spots that we could also see the harbor through the buildings.  We could see the top of the aviary, which was right next to the tower.  We climbed down and then walked over to the aviary.

It was much nicer to walk through the aviary this time, since the roof is mesh, it was really wet and drippy last time.  This time it was dry so we weren’t having to hold umbrellas or anything, and it was a lot easier to look at the birds.  There were the same kind of birds as last time, a few others were flying around.  We saw a couple of parrots on perches eating ears of corn.  Near the end, there was a little pool of water in one of the branches of a tree, and there were 3 birds all playing in it.  A couple flew away, leaving just one, and then a different bird came flying and chased the first ones off.  

We finished walking through the aviary and then walked over to the conservatory to spend a few minutes looking at some flowers.  There was only about 20 minutes from when we got done with the aviary to when the tea lesson started, so we didn’t have a lot of time in the conservatory.  Because of this, we decided to just look at a little bit of it before starting to walk back to the tea shop.  We went into a room that had a bunch of different orchids.  They were really pretty, nice and bright.  I love orchids, so it was neat to see so many all in one place.  As we walked out of the conservatory there was a nice waterfall that the path goes behind.  We walked down to the main path and then headed over to the tea shop for the lesson.

Vana and Samantha joined Kathy and I for the tea lesson.  The tea shop is really neat, they have a little cafe or restaurant where you can have afternoon tea, a meal, or dim sum.  They have a wall of different types of tea and also have different tea ware for sale.  They had a table set up near the entrance for the lesson, and had it all ready for the lesson, with some tea out and also the tea pots and cups.  We sat down and then the lesson started.  She gave a little bit of history about tea, and then started making tea.  

The first tea that we had was their green tea.  This tea was brewed with cool water (room temperature), which keeps it from getting too bitter.  She passed around a bowl of the dry tea leaves for us to smell and look at, and brewed the tea in a glass.  To brew the green tea, she put the leaves in the glass and then added some water and stirred it some in order to get it to brew faster since it was a class and time was limited.  She poured out the tea into a small pitcher and then passed around the wet tea leaves for us to smell.  It was a very different smell from the dry tea leaves, the wet leaves almost smelled like chicken or some other kind of meat or even a meat soup/broth.  She added some boiling water to the cool tea and then poured it into cups for us to taste.  This tea was really good, there was barely any bitter taste, a lot of times green tea can be pretty bitter.

After we tried the cool-brewed green tea, she brewed some with hot water so that we could compare the taste.  She poured hot water over tea leaves and then poured this into a pitcher very quickly.  The tea probably only brewed for a minute or less before being poured out.  She brewed enough for everyone to try and then we got to taste it.  This was much more bitter, it was a very different taste being brewed with hot water than it was when it was brewed with cool.  Everyone at the class enjoyed the cool-brewed version better.  

The next tea that we had was a red tea.  She put some tea leaves into a cup and used hot water to brew this tea, rinsing it once before brewing.  We were able to smell and look at this tea when it was dry, and did the same for all of the other tea that we tried.  Rinsing the tea isn’t really to clean it, it is to wake up the leaves and moisten them some.  She poured water on top of the tea leaves and put a little cover on to brew the tea.  Like when she brewed the green with hot water, this tea didn’t brew for very long.  Just a minute or so and then she poured it into the pitcher.  She had to make a few batches so that everyone could try some, and mixed the batches together so that everyone had the same taste.  The tea changes a little bit every time it is brewed, whole tea leaves can get 3-5 batches, possibly a few more.  The first batch will be the least strong, and then it gets a bit more strong with each batch before getting less flavorful again.  The red tea was also really good, it was a little bit fruity in a way.

After the red tea, we got to try Oolong tea.  First she made red oolong  This tea was my favorite I think, this time she brewed it in a little tea pot.  Everyone at the table commented about how small it was, but she said that it was actually large for tea.  It was about the 4 inches in diameter and only a couple of inches tall.  There were two different tea pots, one was short and fatter around and the other was a bit taller.  The pot that you use depends on what kind of tea is being brewed.  It depends on which direction the tea will expand.  This time, she made and served it “kung fu style.”  Everything moving in circles, and placed the cups together so that they fit the right style.  There were four cups placed together (sort of in a square), and then the teapot next to them.  She placed the lid on the middle of the cups.  She talked about how everything needs to be done in circular motions.

Then she started to make the tea.  First she poured hot water in to prep the pot, and she poured this water out into the cups.  She filled the pot almost all the way up with the tea and then poured water in to rinse the tea, and poured this over and into the teacups.  Then she poured the hot water in to brew the tea.  She let it brew for just a minute or so and poured it into the cups, going around in circles over all of the cups to make them have them all as even as possible with the flavor.

Next we had green Oolong.  It was pretty similar to the regular green tea, but had a few other flavors.  She brewed this in a cup like she did with the red tea (regular not oolong), and then poured it into pitchers so that everyone could try it.  This was good, but not quite as good as the red oolong, and not as simple as the regular green tea.  This was the last tea that we had with the official class, she also made some white tea but some people had left by then.  The white tea did not have very much flavor.  It was very mild.  I bought some tea from the shop they have it all available to taste so that you can see what each one tastes like before you buy it.  

After we were done, we walked back to the Admiralty MTR station and took MTR over onto Kowloon to go to the Goldfish market and the Temple market.  We got off in Mong Kok and walked over to the Goldfish market.  It is pretty impressive, it is a whole block with pet shops and fish shops all along it.  There are terrariums with turtles and different bugs outside some of the shops.  All along the street there were a bunch of shops with cats and dogs too.  So many puppies and kittens in cages playing.  These shops were very popular, lots of people were in there looking at them and they even had some out where people could pet them.  The shops with fish were very impressive.  They had bags of fish tied up on racks in the front, and then had tanks inside.  There were beta fish, gold fish, and other types of fish.  One shop had a full wall of tanks that you could look at from outside, there was a little alley next to it that had the tanks. 

At the end of it, there was a stall with street food, and around the corner there was a little shop selling juice.  They had coconut juice and sugarcane juice.  Vana, Kathy and I got coconut, and Samantha got sugarcane.  They had a juicer for the sugarcane, and he took a long stock and ran it through to get the juice.  The coconut juice had coconut water, coconut meat, and a little bit of evaporated milk.  He put the juice and some meat in a blender and turned it on and let it run for a while.  Then he added ice and a little bit of evaporated milk.  The blender was completely full.  He poured this into a pitcher and then poured that into cups for us.  The milk was very rich, it had all of the pulp and texture from the meat.  The combination of coconut meat and evaporated milk made it very creamy too.

After the goldfish market, we walked from there to Jordan where the Temple market is.  It was a couple of kilometer long walk, and didn’t take too long but it felt like a really long time because it was so warm. We walked around the market for a while and then headed home.  Vana took the MTR back, Kathy got on a bus to go to her hotel, and Samantha and I got on a bus to go back to her grandma’s house.  We got home and I finished packing up to get ready to go.

Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Crown Relocations Truck near The Pawn

Wan Chai Fire Station

From the Tram

Hong Kong Jockey Club

Hong Kong Jockey Club

HKJC

HKJC

HKJC

HKJC

Partners for the 2008 Olympics

Crown Records Management Truck (leaving HKJC)

a few of my 25+ bug bites

Trams

HKJC

Egg Tart

Me, Kathy, and Ana

Inside the fountain at Hong Kong Park

Olympic Square

Olympic Square

Tower in Hong Kong Park

View from the tower

Aviary from the tower

in the conservatory

before the tea lesson

Tea from the lesson

Goldfish Market