Hong Kong Day 18 -- Temple Night Market

Today we took the metro into Wan Chai and went to a different noodle place for breakfast.  I had the same type of thing, instant noodles with spam and egg.  It was about $4 US, and pretty much the right amount of food.  

At lunch we went to the post office to get stamps for and mail postcards, and then went over to a little cafe.  The stamps aren't stickers, we had to lick all of them before putting them on the postcards.  At lunch I got “chicken steak with BBQ sauce” that had rice and vegetables with it.  The “chicken steak” is pretty much just a boneless chicken thigh that was cooked on a little grill or pan or something.  This had two of them, it was tasty and filling.  It also came with a little bowl of soup and a choice of drinks.  I got hot lemon tea.

After work, we took the MTR back to our apartments.  I cut open and ate my dragon fruit.  The inside is white with a bunch of black seeds, kind of looks like a big kiwi in a way.  The texture is also similar to a kiwi.  I don’t know what the flavor would compare to, but it was really sweet and tasted good.  I ate the whole thing really quickly.  It is probably the size of a medium sized mango.  I just took a spoon and ate it right out of the skin, the skin is so bright, it looked really neat when I got through all the foot and got to the inside of the skin. 

Ciara, Evelyn and I went down to the Temple Night Market on Kowloon.  We took the MTR to Jordan and then walked a couple of blocks to the market.  There was a restaurant outside the market that advertised Spicy Crab, which is something that we’ve been wanting so we sat down.  We started to order and they told us the crab was $400 HKD, which is crazy, so we didn’t order that.  We had chicken wings, noodles, and crab & shrimp cakes instead.  Once we were inside the market we saw another restaurant that had the same spicy crab for $280.  We will find somewhere and have it before we leave.  

The temple market is neat, Ciara and I want to go back.  There is also a jade market nearby, I would like to get a necklace or pair of jade earrings or something, so I also want to stop there.  The temple market has a lot of bags, wallets and purses, clothes, and there are also a lot of souvenir type things.  I bought a couple of things, and there were some other things that I saw that I might buy, but I need to figure out what is needed.  It wasn’t too crowded, so that was nice.  It was a bit misty/rainy, so that might have kept the crowd down a bit.  The market is open until 11pm, we stayed until around 9 or 9:30 and then headed back to our apartments.  Will be nice to get out there one more time and see the other markets around this one.

 Pictures are a bit out of order today...

Spicy Crab restaurant

beginning of the market

somewhere in the middle of the market

Hong Kong Day 17 - Dragon Boat Festival

(No Internet at the apartment today. Posting this from my phone, will have the real post once we get Internet back. Did a lot and have lots of pictures today.)

Got back from work to find we have internet!! Here's my post about yesterday, with lots of pictures (and some video)...

Today is a holiday and we did not have work so we slept in a bit.  Felt a lot better after getting a bunch of sleep, not completely back to normal in the morning, but pretty close.  June 12 is the Tuen Ng Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival.  There are dragon boat races all around Hong Kong, some are parts of really big festivals, and some are just races.  

Ciara and I decided that we wanted to go see the dragon boats.  Evelyn and Yan went to a couple of museums and to a shopping mall.  We went to the Stanley Beach Dragon Boat races.  It is a HUGE festival, with 200 teams, both international teams and local teams.  We took the MTR to Admiralty and then took a bus from there to Stanley Beach  The Stanley International Dragon Boat Championships can have over 30,000 spectators.  There were a lot of people there, and it took a long time to get there by bus.  The bus was completely packed, and there was a lot of traffic so it was pretty slow getting over there.  Once we were there, we walked down to the beach to see what was going on.

The beach was really crowded, we just went up there for a few minutes and then decided to go around and see what else there was.  We walked over to an area with a bunch of canopies/tents that were set up.  They were giving away popsicles at one place, so we got one of those.  There were a few other displays, and some of the tents were also set up for teams to eat and rest.  After seeing that area, we walked over towards Stanley Market, to see what it had.  The Festival had a tent set up with a game where they set up 4 foam disks on a box and you use a mallet to try to knock off all but the top disk.  Ciara was able to do it, I almost had it but the disk landed on the mallet.  There was also a sand art activity of filling a little vial with colored sand.  We each made one, it was fun and they look pretty cool.  We also go “instant tattoo stickers.”  They are basically the temporary tattoos we have at home, but are a bit thicker.  Stayed on a lot more than I expected.

After that, we walked down to Stanley Plaza and walked around the Murray House.  It is a big old house that has been refurbished and has restaurants inside it.  We also walked out onto the pier, and then watched a band playing at the plaza for a bit.  We stopped at a little restaurant and got some food.  There weren’t really a lot of food choices, mostly western-style restaurants, and a lot of them were pretty fancy and expensive.  I wasn’t that hungry, but I decided that a salad sounded okay.  It wasn’t quite what I was thinking of when I decided on salad.  It was just lettuce and a few tomatoes and they gave us oil and vinegar for dressing and also a bottle of something that looked and tasted like Mayo, but it might have been something else similar.  The vinegar was also the chinese red vinegar, so it isn’t exactly the best vinegar to use for salad.  

After eating, we went back to the beach to try to watch the races for a bit longer.  We were able to find a spot up on a building, I think it was part of a restaurant.  It was a pretty good view of the area that they were doing the races, so we watched a few from there.  It is pretty cool, each boat has a person at the front beating a drum to keep all of the rowers in time.  There are a lot of people on each boat and they move very smoothly.  I was able to record a couple of the races.  After we watched a couple of races we went back up to the street and over to the bus stop.  There were a ton of people lining up to leave, the line for our bus wrapped around a few times near the stop, and it also went up around the corner and onto the street above the stop.  Luckily they had a lot of busses so the line moved pretty quickly and we got on a bus within a few minutes.

The bus ride back went faster than the ride there, and we were sitting on the 2^nd level and on the side away from the mountain so we had views.  We drove past a couple of pretty bays and we could also see Ocean Park (kind of a six-flags Marine World) type of thing.  It looks huge, we are hoping to go over there next weekend.

Once we got back to Wan Chai, we decided to go down to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, and the Golden Bauhinia Square.  This is where the handover of Hong Kong occurred in 1997, and they have a statue of the “Golden Bauhinia” there, which symbolizes the handover.  The statue is really pretty, and there were a lot of people taking pictures with and of it.  We each took pictures of it and a picture in front of it. We walked around the promenade between the convention centre and the harbor, and we were able to see the building where we work.  We took a picture with the building in the background.  As we were leaving, they were lowering the Chinese and Hong Kong  flags that fly near the statue.  We stayed to watch that, and then headed to the MTR station to go back to our apartment. 

Dinner was back at the Hysan Place food court, today I got a ramen and dumpling set meal.  It was ramen, dumplings/gyoza, and green tea for $80 HKD, a tiny bit over $10 US.  It was really good, and definitely hit the spot.  I was feeling better and better all day, but getting some real food helped a lot.

Video of the Dragon Boat race

Stanley Beach Signs

Walking to the beach

Beach and Dragon Boats

Beach.  Lots of people

Dragon Boats and other boats

Hong Kong Day 16 - Long day, not feeling so well

Left for work a bit later today.  Stopped at a bakery on the way instead of going to DeliFrance (the cafe on the ground floor of the office building).  I got a pineapple & butter bun, and a corned beef bun for breakfast.  I also got a danish to have as a snack.  They were around 5 HKD each, and tasted pretty good.  A little while after we got into the office the sky got REALLY dark and it started to rain hard.  You could hardly see the buildings across the street at a few times.  It was pretty impressive to see, but we were glad we were inside and didn't have to walk in it.

We worked all day, met with our sponsor and some other people to get information that we needed, and kept working on our project.  We were invited to go out for happy hour with some other Crown employees after work.  I was really tired, had a headache, and wasn't feeling that great, so I decided not to go out, and instead came back to the apartment to get some sleep.  Everyone else went out for a few hours to hang out with the other employees.

 The goal of project that Ciara and I are working on is to determine if there is a better way for Crown to allocate their IT resources.  We are looking to see if the expenses are recorded properly, and if it is the most efficient and accurate method.  We are also going to see if the allocations match the actual expenses and costs.

Pineapple bun (left), corned beef bun (right)

Danish

Rain. This wasn't even the darkest/cloudiest

More of the rain

Postcards!

Hong Kong Day 15 -- The start of the 3rd week

Today started with what has become a normal routine.  MTR to Wan Chai, breakfast at delifrance.  We will try to find something new one of these days.  I had the ham, mushroom and cheese omelet again today with a baguette.  We worked until lunch, meeting with Chris, our sponsor, right before lunch to discuss what we have been doing and what we have coming up.  We met a little bit late, so everyone else started their lunch while we were talking to him.  Ciara and I went and found a little shop to eat lunch at.  They had noodles and rice along with some other things.  I got pan fried flat noodles with beef, and Ciara got fried rice (had shrimp and chicken and other things in it).  We ate and then headed back to the office.  There is a (free) tea appreciation class that Ciara and I were interested in trying, but it is only offered M/W/F afternoons from 4-5.  Since we have work until 5:45 that normally doesn't work, but we have this Wednesday off because of the Dragon Boat festival, so we have that time free.  We called the tea shop today and reserved a spot for this Wednesday.  We will go see the Dragon Boats for a while in the morning and early afternoon and then go to the tea class after.

After work we walked back to the MTR and took it into Causeway Bay.  I have been wanting some fresh fruit (all the fruit we've really had is juiced), and Ciara did too, so we walked over to the wet market near our apartments to get some.  The market had a lot of stalls of food.  A lot of fresh fish for sale, and quite a few stalls with fruits and vegetables.  There were 3 or 4 stalls with fruit, so we looked at all of them to see what had the best selection and prices.  We picked up dragon fruit, pears, and bananas for around $7US.  It is quite a bit and should last for a while, depends how good it tastes, might not last too long.  On the way back from the market we stopped at KFC and picked up egg tarts.  They tasted really good, and it was nice to get a little snack before dinner.

Tonight for dinner we went to a little shop around the corner, the classic shop with the chickens and ducks hanging in the window.  I ordered the Roasted Duck, BBQ'd pork, and chicken.  It was really good, all of the meat was really tender and flavorful.  It also came with a soup and rice.  It was a lot of food, I ate most of it and took the rest back with me and I will have it for lunch tomorrow and buy something small to go with it.

After we ate, we headed back to the apartments and Ciara Kathy and I went to Victoria Peak again to meet up with a few of their friends who are also visiting Hong Kong right now.  This time we took the tram up, and then went up to the sky terrace, an area that you can pay to go up and stand on the big building and get a clear view all the way around.  It was such a nice view, we were way above all of the buildings, higher than we were last time.  Since it's on top of the building instead of on the side of the hill there weren't any branches or anything in the way.  There was also a really nice breeze up there.  We took a bunch of pictures and then headed back down.  We took the tram back down to the bottom and then took the MTR back from Central to Causeway Bay.

Lunch -- Pan fried noodles with beef (picture is kind of a different color)

Wet Market in Causeway Bay

Wet Market in Causeway Bay

Bananas from the Market

Dragon Fruit from the Market

Hong Kong Day 14 - 40K Bike Ride!

Today we went on a bike ride in New Territories with Ana and Mark (Crown Employees).  It was a lot of fun, and it was nice to get some exercise.  It was a 40 kilometer round trip bike ride, 20 kilometers each way.  

We woke up and took the MTR to Wan Chai at 11:30 to meet Ana and Mark, and from there we took a bus across the harbor to Hung Hom on Kowloon.  While on the bus we saw a McDonalds motorcycle delivery guy, picture below.   Then we took the MTR to Tai Wai, and then transferred to another line and took that to Tai Shui Hang.  When we arrived in Tai Shui Hang we walked to a little shop that was renting bikes.  We rented bikes for $40HK (a little under $6US) for the entire day.  After we got our bikes set up we started our ride, at around 12:45.

There is a really nice bike path/trail set up that goes from around where we rented the bike out around the lake to the dam.  We rode along the water, stopping a few times to take pictures.  At one spot near the beginning we could see across the water to where the end of the path is.  We took pictures of the view from there and we also took a few pictures of us with the view behind.

At one point we were riding along and it started raining a little bit.  We stopped near a shelter for a minute deciding if we should stop there and wait.  It wasn’t raining very hard and seemed to be letting up so we decided to just keep going.  About 5 minutes later we were riding along and it started POURING (VIDEO BELOW!!).  This wasn’t the same light rain a few minutes before, this was really hard, heavy rain.  Evelyn, Yan and I were riding ahead of Mark, Ana, Kathy and Ciara, and we stopped under a tree, hoping that it would help.  Mark came up from behind and told us that we should go back to a shelter we passed a little ways back (not the original one, another one that was closer).  

We quickly turned around and raced back to the shelter.  It only took us a  minute or two to get to the shelter, but by that time we were completely drenched.  Every part of us was wet, water was dripping off us, and our clothes were soaked.  We stayed in the shelter until the rain lightened up.   It took about 10 minutes for the rain to slow down.  We started riding before it had completely stopped, but it was pretty light at that point.  It was also really warm out so the rain felt pretty good.  Cooled us down while it was raining, but it also made us feel a bit sticky.  We continued our ride to a little town near the end of the path where we got lunch.

We ate lunch at Pataya, a Thai restaurant right next to the bike path.  The food was really good, we ordered a bunch of different dishes to share.  There was a sweet and sour type of chicken in a pineapple; pad thai; lemongrass, kaffir lime, and pork lettuce wraps (which were REALLY good, probably my favorite); a beef dish; a soup; fried shrimp; a vegetable dish, and a few more things.  It started to sprinkle right as we got to the restaurant, and by the time we put our bikes in the side/back of the restaurant lot and sat down it was pouring just as hard as it had been earlier.  The rain was pounding on the roof, and it was really loud.  That batch of rain passed within 10 or 15 minutes. 

After lunch we continued our ride out to the dam and the end of the bike path.  There was a bit of an uphill climb, and then it was just a flat path along the dam to a turn around.  We rode to the end and then went back about halfway on the dam and sat for a bit looking at the view.  We then started our ride back.  There is a big white buddha that we saw on our ride out, so we stopped at one point on the way back to take a few pictures of it.  The bike path is not all that close to the buddha, but close enough that you can get a pretty good picture at various points along the ride. 

There wasn’t very much rain on the way back, it started to sprinkle once so we stopped at a shelter but that rain didn’t amount to much.  A couple minutes later we were hit by bigger rain drops so we decided to stop at a shelter.  This time it was a good thing because it started to rain pretty hard while we were in there.  After the rain stopped we continued the ride, stopping at one point where people were selling ice cream.  I got a frozen pineapple ring that was really good and totally hit the spot.  We finished our ride and got back to the rental place around 6:15.  From there we walked to the MTR station, took the MTR back to Tai Wai, transferred to another train and took that to Hung Hom, and then took a bus from there back to Causeway Bay.

Ciara and I went back to our apartments to shower and Evelyn, Yan, and Kathy went to get milk tea.  After taking our showers, Ciara and I walked out to a little street food shop around the corner from our apartments.  We got lobster balls and some little dough balls that had pieces of squid inside and a really good sauce on them.  The lobster balls were really good, I got them with a spicy curry sauce, which smelled amazing when they handed it to me.  Ciara also got some, but without the spicy sauce.  Each came with 4 on a stick for 12 HKD (less than $2US).  We split an order of the dough balls (which we saw being made and thought they looked good, so we ordered some even though we didn’t know what they had), and then went back to our apartments to eat.  We ate in my room, just sat on the bed and ate our food.  It definitely hit the spot.  The dough balls were $20HK for 6, so we got all of our food for only $22 each.  

After we ate we looked at some of the things we would like to see for the rest of the trip, and tried to figure out how much time we have to see everything.  There are a lot of things that we would like to try to see, so hopefully we will be able to fit it all in.  We have 4 more weeks of weekday evenings, and also have 3 weekends.  Most of our weekends are planned, but not completely yet, so we have time.  Next weekend is kind of booked, but the other two are still a bit open.

I will add captions to all these pictures tomorrow (Monday, Hong Kong time).  They took a long time to get uploaded, so if the captions aren't there, check again because they will be.

MTR Station

The bike rental place that we used

Before our ride

Before the ride 

Buddha across the lake

Hong Kong Day 13 -- Swimming and Ladies Market

Today was an early morning.  Evelyn and I woke up early to get to the Wan Chai station by 7am to meet with Ana and go to the swimming pool.  We took the MTR to the Kowloon Park Sports Centre in Jordan on Kowloon.  There were many groups of people doing various exercises, it seemed like they were forms of Tai Chi type exercises  They have many different places to participate in activities in the area.  We went into the Kowloon Park Swimming Pool (check it out if you're interested, http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/parks/kp/en/swimming_pool.php), which cost about 19 HKD (a little under 3 USD) a person.  This swimming pool complex is huge.  First we went into the locker rooms, and then went out to the pool.  They have 4 indoor swimming pools and 3 outdoor pools as well as an area for sun bathing.  They also have a small, shallow "paddling pool."  We left all of our stuff in lockers, so I don't have pictures of any of the pools.  There are a couple of pictures in the link above, and there are also quite a few on Google Images.  The whole complex is pretty cool and it is huge.  Ana and I went to the outside pools while Evelyn went to one of the indoor pools to try to slim some laps.  The outdoor pool is pretty big, so I swam a couple of laps back and forth and then just relaxed for a while.  Ana also just hung out in the pool, we talked for a bit until Evelyn came out, and then we all stayed in there for a bit before leaving. 

After swimming, we took the MTR back to Causeway Bay for breakfast.  We ate at the Flying Pan, a 24-hour breakfast restaurant.  I got two eggs with pork sausage, apple juice, fresh fruit, and spiced apples.  It was good, and definitely hit the spot after getting up so early and being in the pool for a while.  We headed back to our apartments and showered and rested a bit before lunch.  We went to the Hong Kong Style Cafe again for lunch today.  I had spicy fried noodles.  It had shrimp and some other vegetables.  After eating we stopped by a little shop that has postcards, magnets, and other souvenirs.  We bought some things from there today.

We dropped off our stuff and then headed down to Mong Kok (on Kowloon) and the "ladies market."  It is a long street with stalls full of things to buy.  There are clothes, wallets, purses, souvenirs, electronics, and a bunch of other things at the stalls.  Everything in the market can be bargained, so as you walk you see a lot of people haggling with the vendors and if they don't get the price they want they will start to walk away and a vendor will start running after them offering a different price.  It is pretty fun to watch the whole process unfold.  The market has over 100 stalls and tons of people walking through.  We spent a couple hours at the market and then took the MTR back to Causeway Bay.

We rested and hung out in our apartments for a little while, and then went to the Japanese restaurant again for dinner.  Today I ordered Corn Salad Gunkan, Softshell crab hand roll, a grilled pork hand roll, grilled pork w/balsamic glaze nigiri, and roasted fatty salmon nigiri.  It was all really good, and was just the right amount of food.  There was also a container of ginger on the table. I ate quite a few pieces of that.  It hit the spot.  My whole meal was $57HKD.  When we finished eating we went over to Hysan Place for dessert.  I chose Thai Black Glutinous Rice with Mango in Vanilla Sauce cold desert and added sweet balls to it.  The rice was good, and it had a really big piece of mango.  The sweet balls were good, they were a bit sticky outside, and had peanuts and sesame or something inside. After we ate we headed back to our apartments.

Tomorrow we are going to go biking on Kowloon with Ana (and maybe some other Crown people).  I'm trying to find a way to watch a bit of the French Open finals (S Williams and Sharapova) for a bit before I go to sleep.  As I'm writing this, it is 4-4 in the 1st set. 

*** By the time I actually posted this (waiting for pictures to upload, doing other things to get ready, etc), Serena had won, and the NBC Sports LiveExtra stream never worked. It had technical difficulties the whole time...

Jordan, Kowloon

Jordan, Kowloon

Kowloon Park Spors Centre

Sign entering the sports centre

Hong Kong Day 12 -- Frozen Yogurt and a trip to a bar

FRIDAY!!! TIME FOR THE WEEKEND!!  Today we ate at the same cafe, Delifrance, but ordered different things.  I got roasted chicken and fried egg penne in mushroom soup.  It comes with tea or coffee and I ordered lemon tea.  We went to work, and then for lunch we walked to the post office and then to a noodle shop to get soup for lunch.  We ate in the AOT building again today.  They have their own little office, so we are able to close the door and eat in there instead of out in the open.  People take their lunch breaks at various times, so some are still trying to work at the time that we are eating.

After work we went to get frozen yogurt with Ana and Jan, another Crown employee.  We walked from the offices towards the yogurt shop, stopping at Jan's apartment on the way there.  She has a really nice, big apartment.  It was really pretty, and it looked down on the complex's pool, which was really nice looking and had a few people swimming when we were there.  The yogurt place had 3 flavors to choose from.  Two regular flavors, Original, Green Tea, and they also have one special flavor that changes every few weeks.

We hung out at the yogurt shop and talked for a while, and then headed for dinner.  Ana and Jan ate at a restaurant near the yogurt place, and we headed back to Causeway Bay.  We ate dinner at the Hysan Place food court again today.  I got Korean food, it was BBQ beef with vermicelli noodles, rice, kimchi and some other things.  It was good, I was hoping it would be a bit more spicy, but everything in it tasted good and the meat was really tender.

After we ate we headed back to our apartments to change into more comfortable clothes and then went back out to Wan Chai (where the office is) and went to a bar.  Wan Chai has a lot of bars and seems to be a popular ex-pat place. All of the bars were pretty crowded.  We hung out there for a couple of hours before coming back to our apartments.  Nice to be at the weekend, it is supposed to be a bit rainy this weekend so we might go to some museums if it does end up raining.

Walking to the Admiralty MTR Station

Lunch.  Spicy noodles with beef and mushrooms

Dinner.  BBQ Beef with vermicelli in rice pot