We had originally planned to take a tram up to the top of Victoria Peak but the air quality was too poor today for it to be worth it. Instead, we decided to bus out to Stanley Market near the club where we attended the Marine Corp Ball.
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We caught a bus at the stop directly in front of our apartment building. This is the inside of a regular city bus, in case you were wondering.
We both misremembered where Elena told us to get off and ended up getting off at the wrong stop and wandering around for half an hour trying to figure out why we couldn't find our connecting stop. Hong Kong is interesting in that it can all look so familiar, yet so unfamiliar, at the same time. We finally figured out that we needed to go the bus terminal (which was told to us in Cantonese so it took us a while) and hopped on a double decker bus. Charlie was visibly excited about it.
People boarding the bus below.
I didn't get very many good photos along the way because I kept getting my camera out a second too late, at which point we would either be moving too fast to get a good photo, or there would be sometime blocking my view (usually trees).
The double decker bus was fun but a little scary. We sat right in the front and the bus driver would get within inches of the vehicles in front of it so it always felt like we were going to hit them or run over the top of them. Also, when we would turn, especially on narrow streets, the top of the bus felt like it was tilting enough that we might smash into the side of the building or a paved slope. We did smack into the branches of several trees hanging over the road. I had to keep telling myself that these people do this every day and that it is probably much less dangerous than I think. It wasn't nearly as scary as our taxi ride along the same route the other night.
From the road running along Repulse Bay you can see the Repulse Bay Building which has a big hole in it for Feng Shui reasons. I read on another website that "According to local gossip, architects left the hole there because the Chinese believe that a dragon lives in every mountain and that dragon needs an unrestricted view of the sea. So, to keep the dragon happy, the apartment building has a big hole in it."
I tried to take our picture using the mirror posted at the front of the bus. We appear to be having fun. And we are.
Here are some views of Repulse Bay. As I said, the air quality was crappy so, believe it or not, it doesn't look as beautiful as it actually is.
I got so caught up in buying treasures at the market that I completely spaced on taking pictures of it. Here's one of the entrance to the market area, which I took because I like that the yield sign says "Give Way". Yesterday I also saw an exit sign (distinguishable by two characters that look like a person next to a square) that said "Run Out".
The market itself looked similar to the produce market I took pictures of a couple days ago, except that it was filled with trinkets instead of produce. It was basically a maze of rows shops with 6-foot wide walking paths separating them. In one particular shop I could tell that the woman only spoke sales English because she would randomly repeat phrases like "Have a look" and "beautiful colors", perhaps having no idea what she was actually saying. Of course the only shopping Cantonese that I speak is "How much is it?" and some numbers.
When we first arrived at the market we were hungry so we postponed shopping and went to a Thai-leaning Asian fusion restaurant. We sat on the outdoor patio:
And ate the following:
Appetizer: Pomelo shrimp salad.
It contained some really hot red peppers. We asked the server what they were but he didn't know the word in English so he just brought us one. We suspect they are Thai chilis.
We also had Singapore noodles with pork and shrimp,
...and shrimp coconut curry with lychee (pronounced LEE-chee - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lychee)
Then we walked a long the waterfront into the market. Here's a covered pier jutting out into the bay.
Some boats out on the harbor.
We got lost in the shopping maze for a couple hours and came out of it on this little beach with rows of tiny houses facing it. There was also a small shop run by a rascally Chinese fellow that was selling everything from little trinkets to large garden statues.
Before we headed back to the bus we had to stop for a potty break and I had my first experience with a squatting toilet.
We managed to make it home (even though we missed our stop again, but this time it was because we were on the wrong bus line to even be able to make that stop) without too many delays and I promptly took a two-hour nap.
When I woke up, Charlie, Elena and I met Tony in the Central district (where we were lost before) for dinner. Charlie and I weren't feeling too adventurous this evening so we went to a Middle Eastern restaurant called Habibi Cafe. It was excellent and we will definitely go back.
Then we came home and I went right back to bed. Tomorrow we'll be taking it easy so that we don't run ourselves into the ground. Stay tuned.
But before I go, here is some bonus footage of Charlie demonstrating how to eat a longan (pronounced LÔNG gən - a cousin to the lychee):
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