F&G: Hong Kong 3 and 4

Hong Kong 3

We started off our third day in Hong Kong by taking the train up to Mong Kok. This felt like more of a real neighborhood, where actual people lived and worked, as opposed to the glitter of Causeway Bay and Central Hong Kong. We roughly followed a walking tour from one of the pamphlets we picked up from the HK Tourism Board at the airport. We passed by a flower market blooming with orchids and through a depressing bird garden with hundreds of small cages of birds. Many birds barely had enough room to open their wings. We continued through Ladies’ Market, which was just setting up, stopped by a small bakery, and wandered through a four story prepared foods market packed with retired locals reading the newspaper and eating dumplings.
We continued down Nathan Road, the main north-south thoroughfare on Kowloon Island. Our destination was the HK Museum of History, but we arrived after one too many school trips and didn’t feel like waiting in the queue for an afternoon ticket. By this point we were back down in Tsim Tsa Tsui, the neighborhood we explored our first afternoon. We poked around a recommended bookstore and finally stopped in the first floor of Chungking Mansions to share a garbanzo dish and a flatbread stuffed with cilantro and parsley from a Turkish stall—very tasty.
As had been our routine on Tuesday and Wednesday, we took a midday nap back in our guest house before exploring the other food stops recommended by our foodie tour in Sheun Wan. We sampled chicken congee, a savory porridge, at our first stop, a few dim sum dishes at the second, and mango soup with mango cake at the final stop. The bakery recommended for mango soup was located in the first floor of Western Market, a three story market dedicated to food, fabric, and private parties. We picked through some beautiful fabric and bought a few strips of Chinese silk for some future souvenir project. We had passed by a French market as we entered Western Market and we picked up a few more treats (most deliciously the two inch thick wooden milk bread –think high quality French toast) to enjoy over on the promenade as the sun was setting. We watched the boat traffic on the harbor for an hour or so and headed back to our Causeway Bay home.

Hong Kong 4

Our last day was greeted with heavy rains. We had planned to check out Victoria Park but got too soaked too soon into our walk and quickly found a little diner to get out of the rain. Eventually the weather cleared and we walked past HK’s impressive public library.
We checked out of the guest house around noon and hopped on the MTR to explore the neighborhood of Shau Kei Wan, east of Causeway Bay. After our tasty Turkish lunch the day before, we were drawn into a modern Indian restaurant with lots of positive press posted in the windows. We think it might be the most delicious meal we’ve had since leaving the United States: Tandoori tenderloin, chickpeas-veggie mix, and naan stuffed with lamb. Satiated, we headed over to the shore to see the views from the HK Museum of Coastal Defense.
We made it back to the airport and arrived back to our apartment in Manila a little before midnight last night. We’ve been repacking today and leave for Singapore tomorrow morning.