Hongkong - Day 9

After the hard last night the Sunday was needed for recovery. It was grey and rainy at 28 degrees. Went only for a walk of two hours through Wan Chai, rather aimlessly. Here are some of the impressions..

Surprisingly I came across my school, it's inside the Emperor Group Center building.

Then again noodle soup for supper. Since the cocktails were quite expensive I decided to have a cheap meal today: instant noodle soup from the supermarket. Don't know what exactly the taste should have been and can't read it, but it was okay. Just enough to warm the stomach.

Hongkong - Day 8

As every day I tried something new from the Asian cuisine. This time it was egg tart, a Hong Kong specialty. I'm glad I tried it, it will be the last one, though. Tastes very 'eggy'..like raw egg. 

Then some shopping as usual and for dinner a pork tenderloin/spring onion noodle soup once more.

Later I met some friends and we went to the Ozone Bar on top of the ICC building. It's at the 118th floor at about 490 meters and used to be the highest bar in the world for a time. 

The view is awesome. Like from a helicopter, maybe even higher. 

The have an outside seating area - at almost 500 meters!! - , walled in by a glass wall, though. So the pictures are taken trough this glass.

I had a Champagne Mojito...

..and my friend had some strange spicy cocktail with Vodka, Lemon Grass, Mango and Chili foam.  Later we changed to red wine which was excellent, too.

After a while it started to rain suddenly and intense, so we had to move to the inside. No view but a surreal interior. An unforgettable night!

Hongkong - Day 7

Yeah, Friday finally! Went to Times Square, Hysan Place and Sogo today, three malls on one day. I am very disappointed: you can't buy any jeans or other pants longer than size 32. That's too short!!!!

And prices are higher than in Berlin. So much for shopping in HK. 

However, the shops are beautifully designed and the staff is very friendly. So besides an actual purchase it's rather fun to walk the malls. 

Also they have very good restaurants and even the fastfood is at a high quality, different from Europe or the U.S. 

Today I had lunch at the Hysan Place and picked a food court stall named Pepper Lunch. They sell the food on a sizzling hot pan. I went for a steak from Japanese meat. They put it raw on the pan and serve it that way to you. It's up to you to cook it. The steak quality was surprisingly good, I thought of Kobe beef :-)

It looked way better than in the picture but I was in a rush to take the picture in order not to overcook the steak...which I almost did :-) There is a rice bowl, too, which you put in the pan later.

Certainly some place to come back to.

Later I went for a run inVictoria Park, sorry no picture. Instead two pics taken from my bedroom window, first one shows the lightshow from the TST side...

..second one an office in the neighbour building, which is called Sino Plaza. Usually the glass front of that building is like a mirror, except when they turn on the lights, then I can see inside. I guess thats the same for my building and my apartment..

Hongkong - Day 6

Weather changed several times today, from bright morning sun in a perfect blue sky to heavy rain in the evening. Went to Tsim Sha Tsui, the part of Kowloon which I see from my bed. In West TST there is the cruise ship terminal right next to Harbour City, the endless mall. I went there after a lunch of tuna sandwich. Didn't buy anything, again. :-(

There was no way to take a good picture of this labyrinth of mall corridors..

..so I took a picture of a nice ad wall.

Then back to the Star Ferry terminal...

..and across the harbour to Wan Chai.

5 minutes later it was raining..

In the evening I discovered another good looking 12+ floor shopping mall next door. 3 floors of it are a huge bookstore and another 3 floors restaurants. This is the plan for tomorrow :-)

Hongkong - Day 5

Today after school I took the old tram, found a place on the upper deck and travelled at about walking speed through the noon traffic on Hennessy Rd. to Admiralty district. The idea was to relax in Hong Kong Park. 

On the way I came across some sculptures in front of the Conrad building. It is named "Hongkong People". Here are a couple of them:

I call this the business man, there is a lot of them here...

..here are the tourists, of course...

...and this one is the T'ai Chi practitioner...or something similar ;-)

Then to Hong Kong Park is a neatly kept green area between several skyscrapers and the hills. It was the place of the former British barracks and has a couple of old buildings like the Flagstaff House. The Flagstaff house is a tea museum now, which I wanted to visit today.

But first I had to have some lunch and there was a very nice restaurant with a shadowy open air terrace. So I went in and ordered a Japanese lunch set including Miso soup and Sashimi of several fishes like Tuna, Salmon, Squi and some other things. It was the perfect meal for such a summer day.

In the park I saw some strange table for a board game unknown to me.

Also there are some lakes housing carps...

..and turtles.

There is a vantage tower, so I climbed the 105 steps in terrible heat just to take one picture :-)

Then to the museum where I learned much about tea and tea ware. 

Afterwards there was even an opportunity to attend a teat tasting lesson in the restaurant. A teacher explained the six major teas and we had several tasting cups, carefully prepared by the teacher. After so much tea culture it's going to be hard to ever touch a teabag again :-) 

Hongkong - Day 4

School started today, I learned my first Chinese words!! It was quite fun and somehow I get the idea that with a giant effort it is possible to learn the Chinese language. Well, probably not within one lifetime..

After school I went to Times Square for some more shopping. I am still in need for something to dress when it's about 35+ degrees outside. Picture shows a view from the 12th floor onto the place in front of the building. 

Times Square mall actually has some real fine dining options in the upper floors. I slipped into one of the rather casual places and had tea. The tea was good although it was English Breakfast :-( Next time I have to ask for Chinese tea. The choice of desserts was very good, though. I decided on a huge warm brownie with vanilla ice and chocolate sauce, simply delicious.

Then back home early, I had to go to the coin laundry. Some impressions from the way home passing through Lockhart and Percival Roads.

The lady with the orange sign advertises some promotion from Fortress, a famous electronics store chain here. I looks very interesting but I've no idea what's this about. Maybe in a couple of weeks I can read it and report the details :-)

It rained several times today, but each time no longer than 15 minutes. 

This time I actually bought something, yeah :-)

To celebrate the shopping success I again went to Ajisen Ramen around the corner. 

This time I tried Shio Koji Ramen with fried pork belly, great. My favorite so far. I also had some very good Japanese dumplings as an appetizer, also simpy perfect. So far the Japanese cuisine has beaten the Chinese one on my top list.

Also I like the stylish Japanese interior style much more, at least judging from what I saw on my first 4 days.

Last activity today was to buy breakfast bananas from the Wellcome supermarket. 

Hongkong - Day 3

Day 3 started with a rich breakfast. In the very best tradition of the New York trip I assembled a peanut butter-strawberry jelly-banana sandwich. One is perfectly enough to provide energy for a whole day of city walking. I had a Chinese puffy Pineapple Bun left over from yesterday which was also very yummy with this New Zealand butter I bought. So I was well prepared for the day.

The typhoon was already gone outside, there wasn't even any rain or wind. I haven't seen any damage besides some loose twigs and leaves on the sidewalks and just one tree which seemingly was broken down last night. Warning level was down to 3 and the public life was exactly like before.

Only the humidity was really extreme. It was like hot fog from a sauna. Like entering a laundry shop. Or like looking into a huge pot of boiling water.  

I took the ferry to TST and entered Harbour City. It's the largest mall of Hongkong with more than 800 shops and restaurant. And I bought: nothing. They actually already sell the winter collection here, one can buy plenty of thick jackets, boots and sweaters. Exactly what I don't need with 30+ degrees and a humidity of about 100%.

However, the mall is worth a visit anyway...and I might have even missed the right shops, it's several kilometers long and sort of confusing. Lots of good restaurants here as well.

Then back to Wan Chai by ferry, onto the next mall: Times Square. This is my neighborhood, as crowded as every day.  

I came across the second apple store, right in my Percival Street. It looked exactly as the other, though. 

Then there was the Times Square mall. Somewhere I read that they celebrate New Year here the same as in New York, with the drop of a ball.

However, the mall was impressive again, 230+ shops on many floors this time. Bought nothing, though. I found out that my sizes are not the regular Asian stock size, so even the things I liked weren't available in jeans length >32 or shoe size >EUR46. 

To recover from shopping exhaustion I went for a run in Victoria Park. Was quite nice, like putting a treadmill into a sauna, I lost about 10 liters of liquid :-) I guess I'm out of shape, but the first step is made.