The China Visit - Part 4
Saturday morning the rain was pretty bad in Hong Kong, but we didn’t know exactly how bad it would get. We had big plans for Saturday, but most were not to be realized. We headed out to the island of Kowloon, specifically Mong Kok, to check out some of the shopping available on Natahan Road. We took the subway over, well, under the water to the island, came up to street level and were assaulted by a rainstorm. No problem, let’s barrel ahead. First piece of business was lunch, so we walked around a bit and ended up in a place called Fairwood, which is apparently a very popular Chinese fast food joint, although really unlike anything in the States. The menu, thankfully, had pictures, because only half the items had English as well. I ordered some beef soup thing with unknown additional meats and vegetables. It really wasn’t bad at all, just unusual compared to what I’m used to Chinese food wise. I also ordered what I thought was going to be some sort of Thai or Coffee Iced Tea with Boba in it, but it was something completely different with beans in it. Once again, not awful, but the drink definitely wasn’t to my liking. I forced myself to drink the whole thing, despite the rather crunch/sandy feeling. Sharon, Jimmy and I hung out there for a while and chatted as we dried off.
We left the Fairwood and headed back into the rain. We ended up at some mall type thing, walked around for about half an hour, but found nothing to buy. Most of the vendors had T-Shirts that were way too small for me (their XL is like medium in the States). It’s too bad, too, because I found a really unique Superman shirt ala Soviet style art, but there was no way the thing would fit. A good number of the shops carried tennis shoes, most of which had to be knock offs because I’ve never seen designs or styles like were featured on these Nikes and Addidas. Some very unusual stuff and I considered one or two, but it was still early in our trip and I wanted to pace myself shopping wise.
We decided to try hitting a market out in Tsim Sha Tsui, so we got back on the subway. One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that almost every Subway station is connected to either a small mall with maybe 10 or 20 stores, or a gigantic mall with hundreds and hundreds of stores. Always near by are small bakeries of some sort. Sharon and I decided to get some sort of crème puff thing, which cost about 30 cents American. Not bad at all, although rather rich. We hopped on the subway and went to TST. When we exited to street level the rain was worse than ever, now going at a bit of an angle which rendered the umbrella useless. While I’ve witnessed rain this bad before, I’ve never walked in it at length and it was quite miserable. Sharon, Jimmy & I were completely soaked. This is no exaggeration, there was very little of us that wasn’t just swimming in water. Our shoes and socks were completely soaked through. We exited the subway, or MTR as it’s called here, walked about a block, tried to figure out which direction to go to for the market, then decided enough was enough and got back on the subway and headed home.
Getting on the Subway was difficult at best. It was terribly crowded as we approached the Subway entrance and we had something of an umbrella war with the locals. Just umbrellas bouncing into and off one another constantly. It was nuts! So, we were rained out. We took the subway back to Times Square station to pick up a cab and waited in a 20-minute line, in the rain, to get a cab. Not terribly fun, but another experience none-the-less. Outside the Times Square station were two large tents that showcased all sorts of electronic product. It seemed most people were going into the tents just to get out of the rain. Finally we got a cab, went back to Parkview, dried off and rested until dinner that night.
That night we left for dinner in the Noho district, part of the Midlevels. We stopped by Jimmy’s favorite bar in Hong Kong, an Irish pub called the Dublin Jack’s (I bought a cool Rugby shirt from here), and watched some Soccer, err, Football while we waited for Carrie to join us from work. Once she got there, we went across the street to a sushi bar called Dozo, which means Please in Cantonese. It sported a super hip style design with all red walls and spot lighted type lighting. It was also a revolving sushi bar, where you paid based on the color of the plate. Rolls at this place were only two piece to a roll, but they were much larger than generally found in America. I’ve been to revolving Sushi bars before in the States and have usually been disappointed. I’m pretty much a sushi snob, so keep that in mind. Dozo was much better than your typical revolving sushi bar, so that made me happy.
Sharon and I were still pretty lagged, and Carrie was exhausted after being up super late the night before and having to work a full day, so we all went back to the apartment and chilled out, worked, etc. Sunday was going to be a big day – a visit to Hong Kong Disneyland a full month before it opens to the public.
