Hot Hong Kong

Last time I was in Hong Kong was 15 years ago and I clearly forgot what time of the year I made that visit. It definitely wasn’t in June. It was sooo hot and sticky out but we made the best of it! Sticky weather can’t stop this vibrant city from moving along.

My good friend, Mike, from Cal has lived there since (and before) graduating, so he knows this place well. It was wonderful getting to spend time with his family and see his world a bit. It’s a world with really nice cars. 🙂

We hit the ground running and took advantage of the cooler evenings out and drove up to Victoria’s Peak. It was so nice out there late when all the tourist buses are gone and you can just take in the epic views. Some of the buildings had turned off their lights but it was still lovely out. The density of the high rises here is astounding! The terrain is super hilly so where they can put a building, they’ll squeeze it in!

Had a lovely typical HK breakfast of scrambled egg sandwiches and soft soft pineapple buns. I loved the HK tea-coffee mix (called ying yang… get it?). It’s a lot more tea-forward than the Southeast Asian kind that I’m used to in Malaysia. It’s different but I think I like the sweet kind too.

I kept getting distracted seeing “Bay Area” signs and didn’t realize that the HK area is referred to as the Greater Bay Area. Neat! Let’s see how much I can explore!

I picked this weekend so we could have more time with the kiddos as it was a school holiday (for a big Dragon Boat race). We all got to head out together to see the Big Buddha on Lantau Island. It was a gorgeous windy drive up the mountains to see the Tian Tan Buddha pop out.

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It was a nice clear day out so you could see the neighboring islands clearly. It’d been raining a lot the week prior so the skies were clear, which was great. The Buddha’s a good 34m tall and overlooks the Po Lin monastery.

We also went to see a typical fishing village, Tai O. Janis’s family actually is from there, so it was neat checking it out. It was well known for seafood like shrimp paste. We saw sheets of it laying out drying, and also salted egg yolks! I thought they were dried apricots at first… such deep yellows! Yum. I wish salted egg was more popular outside of Asia. It’s even in chip flavors at 7-11!

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Food here was stellar. Love the snack game here. Food on sticks is something I’ve always been partial to, so the fried shu mai on a stick was lovely. Classic egglettes (hollow light waffles), fancy pork buns (the bird necks are edible, made of pasta!). Had mantis shrimp for the first time (each is the size of my forearm!). Breakfast noodles with fried eggs and spam. It reminded me of saimin in Hawaii. Nothing wrong with that. Claypot rice is a classic HK meal too, so we had to have it.

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I won’t forget the lovely fruit desserts. I had the mango with tau fu fa (silken tofu). So good, especially in this hot weather! Also had a few cheese teas while I was here. It’s a Taiwanese trend that’s big here now. McCafe even has a cheese tea line! It’s a foamed cream cheese layer that’s poured on top of the normal milk or fruit tea. It’s a nice, slight savory taste to the tea. They even had a nice swivel top to the cup, ala parmesan cheese, so you can temper how much cheese you’d like per sip. It’s really quite nice!

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What I’d not seen before, that I noticed during dim sum, was double sets of chopsticks. I guess the inner one is for eating your meal and the outer one is for serving. They started to do the double sets when SARS hit Asia, so it’s a hygiene thing. Makes sense.

I loved exploring the neighborhoods and seeing how they were different. Went thru Wan Chai, Central, Causeway Bay, Mong Kok and TST. The hilly terrain makes is just so unique. The nature is growing all over the place, despite the modern edifices and fancy cars driving by. I love that. These tree roots are everywhere and the place is just so actively.. alive. Found a few Space Invader pieces around town too!

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I liked how the subway system kept the AC in, with walled train corridors. Kind of wish the escalator row had that too. It covers 2,600 ft (800m) in distance! I got there so early it was fun watching them shift it. It’s in the downward direction until 10am, then in the upward direction from 10a-6p. Takes 15 minutes to do the shift and they have people standing in front of each section at the shift to ensure people aren’t on it at the time. Kind of interesting to see.

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In a totally crazy thing, I bumped into someone I knew outside a congee spot! She was only in HK for 20 hours and we managed to see each other! I love when that happens. The world is so small!

I joined Mike for his regular weekend driving groups and it was just like old times in college, except he’s stepped up his car game (I’m still stuck on Honda Civic mode). His mates have some of the fanciest cars I’ve ever seen. We hit some high speeds and we can get the empty roads by leaving the house at 6am on the weekends. They all know exactly where the speed cameras are too (they do label quite a few of them too… with hilariously antiquated clip art).

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I happened to be in town over the first protest day, Sunday June 9th. Folks were encouraging me to go as I didn’t realize how safe HK was. It was the largest protest at 1M people (that’s 1 of 7 HK residents!) since the British handoff. It was all against the Chinese extradition law, expected to pass the coming Wednesday. It was immense to see all those people, babies in prams and grandparents–all out walking in their dissent. It did get a bit violent at 1am that night, sadly. I accidentally joined in as I was meeting my high school friend for dinner on the protest route! We were 30 floors above it (insane to see the scale from up there). It was awesome catching up after 20 years and I’ll see him again next month at the high school reunion!

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The protest managed to get the law delayed and their sister protest last Sunday was double the size! 2M folks out and marching. Nuts.

I decided to to the hit up the Museum of History to learn more about HK. It was a great museum (and free)! So many awesome exhibits and got to see and learn so much about how this unique spot came to exist. I love when they have proper life size pieces to explore (e.g. a junk boat and a double decker tram).

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Wrapped up my trip with a visit to Hong Kong Disneyland! Now only Shanghai left to complete my Disney Global theme park bingo card! HK is the smallest park in the world (68 acres/6.5 million visitors annually). In comparison, Tokyo Disneyland is 115 acres/18 million, and Anaheim Disneyland is 84 acres/18 million. I was glad to have visited here after Shanghai has opened to ease up the traffic at the park.

It’s super cute! It’s trippy how similar it is to Anaheim, as the main street feels *almost* identical. It’s Sleeping Beauty’s castle, just like in Cali, but it was under renovations so it wasn’t super majestic at the time. Found out they changed the layout of the park to stick to proper feng shui rules too.

The park has some fun, unique rides. Guess they don’t love scary rides, so Mystic Manor is their version of Tower of Terror. It’s not scary at all and is about a world explorer and his pet monkey (I swear is reuse of Abu in Aladdin) finding a magic musical box that makes inanimate objects animate. Love the laser work in that ride!

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Big Grizzly Mountain was super fun as a roller coaster too! Toy Story Land is superb too! Great details and the scale was so perfect. The rides there are a lot more kid-friendly, too. Not like Paris with their 360 loop roller coasters.

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They had a Marvel bit too! Iron Man Experience is essentially a re-skinned Star Tours with a smidge of Soarin’ in there, as you fly across the HK skyline from the park. The new Ant-Man & Wasp ride was a more modern Buzz’s Astroblasters. Hyperspace Mountain is Space Mountain but now Star Wars branded. It was fun!

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I love the little park details too. They sold more Asian wares (bowls/spoons and character nail clippers!).

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It was so nice to get to visit HK again and see my buddy Mike as a great father to his two little ones. I won’t wait as long next time to visit, promise!