Another Star Ferry crossing the harbor.
The spacious and open interior of the ferry.
One cool thing about the seats in the ferry was that you could flip the backs of them so that you could face the direction that the ferry was going.
This is the largest hole I have seen in a building yet. Gotta appease the dragons.
When we stepped off the ferry there were only a couple blocks that we walked through that were lined with the usual Armani, Gucci and other such stores that you see frequently on Hong Kong Island. After that, it was all Kowloon: a dingy, purse-clutching sin hole... and this was the mild district.
I only took a couple pictures of the "scenery" because, frankly, I was afraid someone would run by and grab my camera out of my hand if I gawked too long. But this is pretty much what all of the Tsim Sha Tsui district looked like.
Charlie and I entered Kowloon Park, which was pretty enough but never really wowed me into taking a picture. The park contained an aviary with geese, ducks and some not-so-pink flamingos. We also strolled through the very boring sculpture garden.
Exiting the park, we continued to just wander. The umpteenth man in a row approached us and asked whether we wanted to buy some designer copies of watches. We said no but he persisted. Finally, Charlie said to him, "We don't break laws" and the man promptly turned and nonchalantly walked away as if to pretend that he had never even been talking to us. We walked on and ducked down into a little alley to do some trinket shopping and basically found ourselves in a piracy mall, full of the kinds of people who had been accosting us on every corner with offers of suits and knock-off watches. We quickly left after I noticed we were being sized up by a group of ne'er-do-wells.
On our way to our only real planned destination, the Hong Kong Museum of History, we stopped on a bench to munch on sheets of Chinese pork jerky. I noticed people staring at us from bus windows. Moving on, we arrived at the museum to find that it is closed on Tuesdays. Who the hell is closed on Tuesdays?
Luckily, the Science Museum was just across the plaza so we went there instead. It was sort of a place designed for kids, where you learn about everything in a hands-on manner. We did just that, pushing all the buttons and having our minds blown like children would.
Here is Charlie, looking wizardly as we learn about electricity.
Then we went to the life sciences section where we did a sort of fitness obstacle course in which you measured everything from blood pressure, hearing, and eyesight, to how high you could jump. It was silly and fun. I couldn't help but laugh at this ripped man in a Speedo illustrating what exercises you should do for the different muscles in the body. The music is the best.
My favorite part of all was the mirror exhibit:
Jeez, people will eat anything in Hong Kong!
Charlie was able to fulfill his lifelong dreams of being a body builder AND a munchkin.
If you give two mature adults a venue to act childish, they will. We couldn't resist. ;)
Clone army.
A three-story marble maze! I loved these when I was a kid (and still do). Unfortunately, it was under construction so we couldn't see it in action.
And this was just creepy.
After the museum, we wandered back toward the ferry terminal looking for a place to eat. This is always a little scary because, even though there are pictures of the food, it doesn't mean that's exactly what you're going to get (especially with our level of Cantonese). Plus, the fact that it looks good in the picture is not necessarily an indication that it will actually be good.
We walked into a place that looked pseudo-classy Japanese with black and white decor and square plates. They brought us tea which was just molecules away from being hot water and we examined the menu for a few minutes. None of it looked great, but we managed to pick out a couple things that seemed palatable. They were apparently a "world" cuisine restaurant because they had things like grilled cheese sandwiches and omelettes on the menu. While waiting for the waiter we noticed that almost all of the people in the restaurant were bizarrely dressed teenagers. There was also one older European-looking woman who didn't seem to know any better than to be there. We waited several minutes for someone to come back and take our order but no one ever came. So we got up and left before subjecting ourselves to any more of what this place might have to offer.
We walked another block or so and way up high on a building saw a sign for a Chou Zhou restaurant. We weren't sure what that meant, but figured it was a type of region-specific Chinese cuisine. The restaurant was on the third floor and as we approached the entrance the hostess informed us that they were serving dim sum. We didn't really want dim sum so I asked her if we could order from the menu, to which she replied that they were serving dim sum. Language barrier.
So we sat down and looked through the regular menu and what I think was the only extant English copy of the dim sum options list. While trying to place our order we asked questions that the waitress couldn't understand so she flagged down a second waitress who knew some English. This waitress seemed to know the same amount of English as the first, just with a different vocabulary, so she flagged down a third "English-speaking" waitress. We realized that pointing to what we wanted on the menu would be easiest when we asked for "lotus leaf" and she repeated "spring roll" back to us. Finally, we just fingered a couple of decent-looking items on the menus and enjoyed a more molecularly rich tea while we waited for whatever it was we ordered to arrive. During the wait, they came back twice to tell us certain things weren't available, so we just pointed to some others and waited some more.
At this point I was really wishing that I had studied more Cantonese.
Fortunately, it was a fairly decent restaurant and the food we got was just fine, although it was very shrimp-heavy. And, um, we sort of devoured half of it before I remembered to take pictures. But here goes:
Rice noodle-wrapped shrimp something-or-other with what might be fish eggs on top.
Half-eaten rice noodles with beef, broccoli, and some kind of mild peanut/curry-ish flavored sauce.
Mostly-eaten shrimp wrapped in something fried.
Shrimp (sigh) wrapped in a steamed rice noodle sheet that fell off when we picked it up with our chopsticks. I'm pretty sure that's not supposed to happen.
Broccoli with dried fish (I'm talking jerky) with a garnish of carrot slices cut into flower shapes... but for some reason the garnish was hidden about halfway down in bowl.
At some point today we had planned to visit a neighborhood of Kowloon called Mong Kok. Besides having a fun name, it is supposed to be the sort of red-light district and is laden with Triads (Chinese gangsters). Charlie was more interested in this activity than I was and lucky for me, it was getting late and there was a possibility that we had dinner plans back on Hong Kong Island. Frankly, I was already worried enough about being robbed and had seen my fair share of titty bars and "massage" parlors in this somewhat tame part of Kowloon. So we headed back to the ferry pier, making one more stop into a chintz store to finish up our souvenir shopping.
The ride back to Hong Kong was only a little bit rocky but still managed to be relaxingly slow. When we came out of the ferry terminal my eyes lit up at the sight of a rickshaw sale! Charlie threw me a look and simply said, "No."
Rickshaws are no longer used here, so I assume these would just be collectors' items. The sign said that all you had to do was contact the fortunately named Mr. Hung at the number printed on the sign.
We grabbed a taxi from the ferry terminal and hung out at home until Tony got off work. Then we went back to the Szechuan restaurant that is a block away from the apartment. It was an extremely successful meal in terms of both taste and variety.
Entrance to the restaurant.
Appetizers! Zucchini with garlic and smoked fish.
This is not just a decorative candle designed to bring ambiance to your table.
It is an ingenious way of keeping your tea warm!
Green beans with crumbled pork.
Yu Zhou, a cold noodle dish with a sesame tahini flavor. This was one of my favorites.
Ma Po Tofu, a kind of tofu stew that employs a large quantity of numbing Szechuan peppercorns.
The BEST eggplant I have ever eaten. It also has green onions in it.
Hot and sour soup. They serve it not-so-sour and give you a side of vinegar so that you can make it to your liking.
Cashew chicken with red chilis and green onions.
The four of us ate every last bit of this meal, including the entire plate of fresh fruit that they served us for dessert. I told Charlie that I wished I could have this food every day.
Bloated, we hobbled up the hill back to the apartment where Tony showed me one of his treasures that I had heard about but never seen:
This human skull belonged to a West African man that died from being struck by lightning. It was given to Tony as a sign of trust by a voodoo priest in Benin where the Hutchinson family was once posted with the foreign service. In this picture it is surrounded by various other voodoo implements. This was the first time I had ever handled a human skull and found it fascinating.
Then it was bed time. Tomorrow is our last day here and we don't have anything planned. At some point we need to figure out whether all of our souvenirs are going to fit in our luggage. Ug.
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