MOM! Here in Hong Kong

Again, apologies for an incredibly long post. But it covers 8 whole days! Feel free to read in timed increments, skim through, or just skip to the pictures.

Wednesday:

After an entire day delay, (Newark is a horrible airport) my mom finally arrived in Hong Kong!!! Andrew, Debbie, and I all made the trek to the airport to meet her. When she came around the corner Andrew started taking pictures and I ran to meet her. Everyone is silent in the airport for some reason so everyone was looking at us as we did our excited American screams and hugging. It was so great to see her!!! And I was super excited to start the journey in showing her where and how I live.

Momma!!!

We took the Airport Express back towards Kowloon, got off the MTR, and started walking toward a hotel on the harbor. I asked, not that I thought she would be, if she was tired from the flight and wanted to go to bed or if she wanted to enjoy a surprise! Surprise, obviously. We unpacked and repacked her bags outside of a really nice hotel so Debs and Andrew could take her suitcases back to the halls and we would just keep a small book bag for our trip to Beijing. We eventually made it up to the Intercontinental Hotel which is a very nice hotel right on the harbor an went in for a cocktail and snack. I got a very strong dirty martini, my mom a white wine, Andrew a red wine, and we all shared a delicious satay. This hotel restaurant is exquisite. There is maybe a 100-degree glass window overlooking the harbor, dim lighting, and a live band. We sat and chatted for quite a while before they started closing down. Then we made the journey to the sketchy hostel in Chungking Mansion. This is an interesting place. About 15 hostels are all in the same building, but on different floors. To get to the elevators you have to walk past these super sketchy/creepy Indian and African guys who are trying to sell you their hostel (or something). We stayed close together and safely made it upstairs to our tiny, but adequate little room.  We got a total of about 3 hours of sleep before waking up to go back to the airport, but I think drinks at the Intercontinental were definitely worth the little sleep.

Thursday:

My mother and I woke up WAY too early and headed back to the airport to fly to Beijing, China. The flight was not too bad although we were an hour late getting in the air. We arrived at the oasis of Peking Yard Hostel and put our stuff down and figured out our plans for the rest of the afternoon. We had a short trip to Beijing and wanted to try and do as much as possible. We headed straight to the Forbidden City to find out that it was already closed for the day. Luckily we were able to walk around the surrounding walls to get to the other side. You can still see over the walls in some places to see the ornate roofing and detailed paintings. We decided to go to the Jingshan Park, which is right across the street and looks over the huge Forbidden City.  Although this time I did not see a little child urinating on the sidewalk, it was still a nice trip up to the top of the hill to take a look.  We were up there very close to sunset so we got some really good pictures AND since it is cold in Beijing and not tourist season really, there was hardly anyone up there!

Forbidden City (Mom's pic)

It was too early to go back to the hostel so we figured we would try to head over to the Olympic Stadium. I had previously been in the daytime and by now it was dark so I was excited to see the buildings lit up. This was one of the things in Beijing my mom was really interested in seeing. We walked out of the subway into the horribly freezing wind and only stayed at the park for a short time because we were so cold. The Water Cube is lit up a pretty blue and the Bird’s Nest is a gorgeous orange color. We took a picture for a group of Chinese people and they ended up wanting a picture with me. My mom was fascinated by this phenomenon of the Chinese taking blatant pictures of us since we are western.

Olympic Bird's Nest

After turning into water cubes ourselves we decided to go back to the hostel to warm up and eat some dinner. We ordered normal food of vegetarian noodles, cheese and tomato salad, and pineapple/ham pizza. Thursday was movie night at Peking Yard so we watched about half of Pulp Fiction during dinner (I still need to finish it). We met two guys, one from Germany (I practiced my phrases on him) and one from Spain that were studying in Korea. After a while everyone started slowly going to bed so we did as well to be ready for a long day of hiking!!

Friday:

Today was THE day. The main reason we went to Beijing was to be able to climb The Great Wall of China while my mom was so close! We signed up through the hostel and went to meet the rest of the people on the mini tour bus. The bus was entirely packed, with all of the makeshift, foldout seats full as well. As soon as we got on the bus I saw a few fellow PolyUers and ended up sitting with them and hiking with them. We drove for about 2 hours to get to the more secluded part of the wall. Again, it was cold and not tourist season so it really was only our tour group on the wall! We hiked the wall for about 2 hours (6km) or so and it was gorgeous. The cold weather definitely made it nicer, even though we were shedding layers from the beginning. The wall was very authentic with parts that had rubble instead of steps and places where the sidewalls had been knocked or fallen down so you were walking without much protection from falling. 

The area was gorgeous with trees and mountains and a LONG stretch of the wall that you could see really far. We had an excellent trip to the wall with a short snack break (consisting of mainly oreos). We had to walk down stairs for about 30 minutes to get back to the bus and met a guy from California that was studying Chinese herbal medicine and came over to China to shadow some people. My mom also made friends with two French guys on the way up to the wall; so overall the group was pretty neat! We made the drive back, seeming much shorter this time, and went back to the hostel to change and get ready for dinner.

I had organized dinner at Peking Duck restaurant with some of my friends from PolyU before we left so we all met at the restaurant at 8pm. The place did not have enough space to fit all 12 of us in the main dining area so they put us in our own special room with 2 or 3 members of the wait staff only for us. It was so neat!! We all squeezed around one table and Margaux and I ordered an assortment of food for everyone to share. It was cool for my mom to be able to meet some of my friends and see everyone’s personalities, although they were slightly tame since we were at dinner. The food was delicious and the manager was so kind and wanted to make sure everything was perfect!

Crew at Peking Duck

On the way out we all got little sugar sculptures and sugar covered oranges and checked out the huge fish tanks they have in the front to pick out your dinner.  We also passed the outdoor room where they keep the ducks they cook, just walking around looking cute. The gang went out to the bar, but it was already kind of late so my mom and I headed back to the hostel!

Saturday:

Saturday was our last day in Beijing and we did not have too much time so we figured we would just wander around the 798 Art District… if we could ever get there. We took our time at the hostel and eventually left, got to the bus station and did not have the right coins, had to get coins, missed the bus, had to wait, etc. I was not an extremely happy campus, but eventually we made it and still had a little while to wander. I knew my mom would love this place, and of course I was right. We went in a pottery place where I found some tea cups and just wandered through the little shops and art galleries until it was time to catch a taxi back to the airport.

Making dumplings

When we got back to HK, I didn’t tell my mom where we were going, but tried to hurry us along because we needed to be somewhere before 10pm. We dropped our bags back off at the sketchy hostel and went to the secret place. Andrew and I were talking to her as we walked up so she didn’t even notice until we were inside that it was Ned Kelly’s Jazz Bar! She recognized it right away and as I was saying hi to the French people, she said, is Michael playing? And he was sitting right in front of her! My mom got to meet Michael and JB who came and sat and chatted for most of the night (wonderful – both of them). My mom LOVED the show and thought Michael was absolutely fabulous (check video from last post). We had an excellent time with a glass of white wine and just enjoyed the setting and the music!

Sunday:

Our first real day in Hong Kong started by walking to the closest bakery and getting a famous Hong Kongnese Pineapple Bun. Most do not actually taste like pineapple, but they are freshly baked buns with some kind of crumbled type topping and mine had a coconut filling. We walked down the street a bit father to the closest Starbucks and got an iced black tea. This started the trend of pineapple buns and Starbucks every morning for breakfast. Today was market day and we started off in Tsim Sha Tsui on Nathan Road buying candy, little knick-knacks, etc. We then went the extreme opposite from little side shops to the grand Harbor City Mall with every designer label known to man. Our first more realistic stop was H&M to prove how much better their store is than ours in Raleigh, NC. My mom actually found a few things and we continued on to partake window-shopping throughout the rest of the mall. A company we recently visited had three of their stores in this mall so we went in to browse. Pretty much the only two stores I could ever buy anything in are H&M and Zara. For lunch we went to a restaurant that the Cotton Incorporated ladies had taken us at Harbor City called The Jade Garden. We ordered the greatest chicken soup, eggplant with crab sauce, thin, long spring rolls, braised pork ribs, and bean curd for dessert. This was the first true Chinese meal my mom had tasted (excluding Peking duck in another country) and it was fabulous! Now stuffed, we decided to wander a bit more in TST to one of our favorite shops, Shanghai Tang.  Mr. Tang who also owns Agave Mexican Restaurant throughout Hong Kong owns this store. Andrew researched him and said he is the coolest guy and insanely smart. The store is great with traditional Chinese type dresses and shirts with a modern twist, including nice fabrics and the mandarin collar. We each feel we have to buy something from here before we leave because we have been in so many times!

Lunch at Jade Garden

Next district was Mong Kok that is north of TST. Here are the authentic Asian markets including Ladies Market, Goldfish Market, Flower Market, and Bird Market. For those who have been to Florence, Ladies Market is similar to the San Lorenzo Market and those types of shops. We knew we needed to buy some gifts so we were in the right mind set for bargaining and got pretty many things here! A lot of the shops are the same so you have to walk up and down to see who will give you the best price. We took a pit stop by the waffle stand and how a golf ball type waffle that was fresh off the iron and delicious. We ate it on the way to the Goldfish Market that is literally a row of tons of pet shops. We walked through here to get to the beautiful Flower Market that is full of potted orchids and arranged flowers. There was also a huge Christmas store here with lights, ornaments, and Christmas trees. The Bird Market was closing down by the time we got there, but we still got to see caged birds and boxes of creepy “food” like centipedes, etc.

Busy street in HK

We were planning on meeting Debbie and her mom and aunt for dinner at Angry Sushi, aka technically Genki Sushi, so headed back towards campus after all of our market shopping. We relaxed at the fountain for a few minutes before going to stand in line. Genki Sushi is the type of restaurant that has the rotating sushi plates you can just pick off as it comes around. Unfortunately since we had a large group, we sat at a table and so my mom didn’t get to play with that or the personal hot water dispenser for green tea. Dinner was excellent and it was nice to be able to talk more with Miss Yvonne and Miss Luanne. We had only met them briefly before so it was good to chat and see the neat gifts they had bought during the day! After dinner we pretty much called it a day!

Monday:

On the Star Ferry

On Monday we went and got our normal breakfast and headed to the pier to take the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong Island which takes about 15 minutes. We checked out the IFC building which is the tallest building in HK and went through the mall inside, out to the roof terrace where we go sometimes at night. Central (where all of the corporate buildings are) has a lot of nice stores so we walked around, saw Lan Kwai Fong Street which is the bar street, and walked up Pottinger Street which is an uneven, steep cobblestone road. We also walked down Hollywood Street that is full of antique shops and little boutiques. We walked up to SoHo where all of the ex-pats live and eat and decided to stop for lunch at a rooftop Mediterranean restaurant. We enjoyed glasses of wine, hummus and pita, risotto, skewers, and fried mozzarella. SoHo is a neat little area with every type of restaurant you can imagine.

Pottinger Street

After lunch we headed from Central to Causeway Bay which is another district on the island. Here is one of the neatest markets we have found in Hong Kong. There are tons of open-air market shops where the housewives come to shop everyday. They have a meat barbeque stand, a butcher, several fresh fish places, and produce stands. Everyone seemed to be very friendly and you could literally find any type of fresh meat or produce you wanted. We stayed around here for quite a while before walking over to Times Square where they had an interesting exhibit featuring large blow up spray paint cans. Once it started to get a bit dark we went to the Peak Tram to go up to the top of Victoria Peak that overlooks the entire city.

Market

Ma and I at Victoria Peak

The view at night is amazing and all of the buildings are lit up. You can see both the Kowloon side and the HK Island side. We stayed here for a while, just taking in the view until we decided to stand in the long line for the tram down, freezing. For dinner (when we finally got back to Kowloon) we went to a local restaurant right down the street from the residence halls. We call it “The Corner Restaurant”, very creative I know. Known of the employees speak English and we usually have to enlist the help of the people sitting behind us for help. Normally it is full of local PolyU students with probably one other table of western students because we all love it so much! The best things here are the lemon chicken (which we had) and the sweet and sour pork. The meal also comes with soup and tea. Excellent little dive and it is always packed so you know it is good!