Lost and found

Since we decided to lay a little low today, we only planned on a short outing back to Graham Street Market (see the Nov. 15th entry).  I was thinking we were going to bus, which is easy enough since we found that we could get there while getting lost yesterday.  However, Charlie suggested we walk.  So I pulled up a Google map for directions and it turned out that, at least in this case, you could get directions for walking instead of driving.  When I clicked on that option a warning appeared: "Walking directions are in beta.  Use caution – This route may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths."

We should have known something was up when Google directed us down this path.


The warning came to life almost immediately when we got to the bottom of the stairwell and were faced with staring long and hard at these apparent no pedestrian/no bicycle signs on the road we were supposed to follow next.


So we decided to take a different route around the zoo, which we knew was directly between us and the market.  After a loop-de-loop during which we stopped and asked a German man for directions who, amused, let us look at his map, we ended up taking a longer way that we actually knew.  It took us a little more time to reach our destination than we had expected, but oh well, it's not like we're on a schedule here.

We arrived at the market and began our quest for lunch.  On the way we happened upon a sign that I noticed and chuckled about last night while we were on our way to the Middle-eastern restaurant.


If you look the direction the sign is pointing you see this nice dark alley (the store is under the oval pink sign about halfway down on the left).  I wonder how many people actually want lingerie and toys so bad that they brave it.


We wandered on until we found the alley with all the dai pai dongs, the open-air food stalls I mentioned before.  It was lunch time so we found them to be packed.  Only two had open tables so, after standing awkwardly on the sidelines for a few minutes, contemplating chickening out on the experience, we picked the one with more people and a bilingual menu. 


Our table was wedged between a big truck parked in the alley and an old woman singing about her wares.  It was an interesting and pleasant place to be wedged.


A waiter approached our table and addressed us matter-of-factly in Cantonese, as if we would understand.  My theory is that maybe he thought that the only non-Asian people who would dare dine this way are ones who live in Hong Kong and are familiar with the ins and outs of it all.  We pointed to a few things on the menu that we wanted to try but several of them weren't available, although we have no idea why.  He managed to signal to us which ones we could NOT have and after a few moments we managed to place some kind of order.  The man wandered off to give it to the cook.  We had no idea what was coming.

We got lucky.  We're not exactly sure what it all was, but it was all pretty tasty.  Our guess was that the top left one is "vegetable with bean curd paste" (although it looked like Thousand Island dressing and tasted like tahini), the top right one is won ton soup, and I'm pretty sure the bottom one is "lemon grass pork chop with vermicelli" because he pointed to it on the menu and I gave him a thumbs up.  We also got an unexpected sweet iced tea.


After we ate I asked the man "Gei dou cheen-a?" (How much is it?) but didn't understand his answer.  I think he said he was figuring it out because he added it up and then showed us the paper.  It was $62 HKD which is $8 USD.  Not bad.

We got up from the table and continued to wander through the market, half looking for Charlie's Cuban cigar store and half just wandering and looking at all the cool stuff.  One such thing was this building.


A typical meat stall:


We walked by this conveyor belt sushi restaurant and since we love conveyor belt sushi and had only had a very light (and cheap) lunch, we decided to go in.  As soon as we walked in we realized it was a little too expensive for us and was a place for yuppies anyway, so we just grabbed a few of the lower priced plates, which were damn good, and left after quickly hitting our $30 maximum.


I also decided to buy some weird produce along the way.  From left to right: Star fruit, dragon fruit, wax apple and mangosteen (this last one was pointed out by the vendor who I think realized we were looking for out-of-the-ordinary stuff after we asked for the first three.)




Here are the insides of them:


Finally we happened across the cigar store that Charlie was looking for and went in so he could buy a few things while the saleswoman acted annoyed by our presence.  While in the store, I noticed this amusing tobacco warning:


So what did we do as soon as we got home?  We went to the roof to age.




As you can see over my shoulder and in the photo that follows, the smog was such today that visibility would have been too poor for any Batman-type shenanigans involving the International Finance Centre.


When Elena got home we went to Oliver's, a food import store, and scored some salt and pepper Kettle chips which I'm sure we'll enjoy later on tonight.  We just finished a lovely meal of Tony's 7 mushroom soup, roast chicken, bread and salad with fresh figs.  Things are winding down and I'm contemplating what excursion we should take tomorrow.  The weather is supposed to be getting colder, which means the wind is coming in from the north and bringing the Beijing's brown air with it (damn you, Beijing!).  Well, we can't just sit around and wait for China to adhere to the Kyoto Protocol.  On with the adventure!