Food

One of my favourite things in the world is food. If all food was good for you and had no calories, I'd be eating all day. But alas.... In any case, Hong Kong is an amazing place for food. From €2 fish balls to €200 three star-meals, you will find everything in this foody city.

And we're lucky: we live close to Temple Street Night Market, with its egg waffles, duck skewers, fish balls and spicy crab. Imagine low plastic stools, plastic tables and plastic cups. It's touristy, but locals seem to go there as well and it's fun. We often go for a walk there after dinner (and have an egg waffle for desert while we're there).

Next up from the street markets are the simple local restaurants. Again, we live in the perfect spot. Anthony Bourdain's favourite noodle place, Mak's Noodle Shop is around the corner (and it's amazing!) and we have tried some fantastic cheap Vietnamese, Indian, Thai and Nepalese food as well.

For western food, we usually go to the island, although there is a Jamie's Italian nearby in case we crave pasta and can't be bothered cooking or travelling. On HK Island, there are loads of nice Italian and other places. A few streets are full of slightly fancier restaurants that seem to cater mostly for gweilos. It's easy to go bankrupt if you go here too often, especially if you like your wines. €10 for a simple glass of wine is considered reasonable. But they're fun places to meet friends in the weekend.

Have not been to any of the super fancy 2-3 star places so can't comment on those. Luckily, there are heaps of 1 star restaurants where you can eat cheaply so I have tried a few of those.

One thing I really had to get used to: (very) good restaurants here are often in shopping malls, and you will also find many restaurants on higher floors of buildings. These buildings can look pretty grey and miserable but once inside, the lift takes you to restaurants that can be very nice.

And finally: Sunday brunch! It's a real Hong Kong thing, and if you do it properly, you have the free flow wine or bubbles with it. We've done three of those now (without the free flow), and they're fun.  My favourite of the three was Blue Butcher. A funky restaurant in Sheung Wan, with a fantastic salad buffet, oysters and prawns, a good selection of mains and yum desserts. With live music. A really lovely way to spend a few hours on a Sunday.

It's a miracle I managed to lose some weight here. Thank god for the clubhouse with gym!

Sevens weekend

The social event of the year. Sold out months in advance (although loads of tix going on Facebook in the last few days), and when a colleague offered us her tickets, I was super super excited. The Hong Kong Sevens. For years friends and I have talked about going and once they started having kids, we just never got round to it. It's basically three days of Koningsdag, plus networking. Loads of corporate boxes in the stadium and for weeks people (read: partners) at work had been talking about who would have how many allocations to invite clients.

We went on the Friday, which I guess can be described as quiet. The big countries don't start playing till 6pm and when we got there around 3pm, the South Stand (Party Central) was still pretty empty. As I really wanted to see the matches (read: Sonny Bill Williams, nr. 12 in pix below), we found seats a bit closer to the action but with a good view of the South Stand.

And despite being a bit quieter (or more sober at least) than the weekend days, it was really, really good fun. Some good rugby, a great atmosphere in the stadium, and easy to get booze and food. The opening ceremony included a dragon dance with a dotting of the eye ceremony, and to my excitement Brian O'Driscoll was one of the 'dotters'! David Hasselhoff was the other, but hey....I saw BOD!

Definitely something to do again next year, will mark the 2017 dates as soon as they're announced! And I'll make sure I won't end up like this fella :-)  (photo taken by a friend this arvo)

Our second home

On Thursday we moved from Mid Levels, expat playground, to Fortress Hill, a much more Chinese part of town. When I say 'we', I actually mean Wilko, as he moved our stuff while I was at work. And got me flowers. I knew I married a good egg.  

Our new shoebox has a comfy couch and a great bed so we're happy. Shame I can no longer walk to work though, that was nice while it lasted. Seeing the tai chi in the park was a very calming start of the day. 

Our new (temporary) apartment building is right opposite the tube station and in the middle of a gazillion restaurants. We had dim sum yesterday and some famous noodles for lunch today, followed by a local delicacy: egg waffle. We just followed our nose and according to several locals it was the best place in the area to have these. They were absolutely delicious.

Our apartment hunting is going so so. The view in the previous post won't be ours, as our offer was overbid by a massive HK$4000 a month, (about €480). We also made offers for two of the lower floors but those landlords don't want to get back to us until after Chinese New Year.  Patience is required.... The whole process is pretty interesting here. You offer a package of rent, rent-free period (1-2 weeks is not uncommon), start date and anything you'd like thrown in (like curtains) and then the agent negotiates with the landlord, often through another agent representing said landlord. Hopefully we're just a few negotiations away from signing a contract. And we have some time as our container is only somewhere between Egypt and Singapore.

Other than eating, we spent a fair bit of time getting organised: opening a bank account (a bureaucratic affair and the only reason I now have one is that I have a UK driver's license that has an address on it, albeit one I haven't lived at for 4.5 years), getting a phone contract, and applying for my Hong Kong ID (needed to apply for W's dependant visa, get my phone deposit back and many other things). In a country where everybloodyone is constantly staring at their mobile phones it's pretty shocking how undeveloped things are when it comes to organising things online. To give an example: my payroll account comes with a sort of savings account and online banking. However, the first time I want to transfer money to my savings account, I have to go into their offices. I also noticed many ATMs offer the option to do money transfers.  There's an app for that people!

Ah well. I could do with some patience, and this is a good place to work on that. For now, I'll enjoy my five day sunny weekend.  Kung Hei Fat Choy!

Honkers!

So. Hong Kong. The big move.  Been wanting to (some time) move here for years and now that it finally happened I spent my first day thinking 'Aaaargh... Someone please remind me why I wanted this?!'  But luckily that was mainly my lack of sleep talking. We're now on day five and I am truly happy the man and I decided to come here.

First of all: it's cold. We had to ask reception for a heater. Apparently Sunday was the coldest day in 59 years. And we're kinda lucky: in other parts of Asia things were much worse. Tomorrow should be better and I am looking forward to not having to shiver in my summer coat.

Second: food. So many options here. We had fantastic fried rice at a very random restaurant in Kowloon, stumbled upon a roast goose resto that happened to have a Michelin star (sharing tables, food served within five minutes and main under a tenner, not your average 1* restaurant) and had some fantastic sushi. The choices are endless and I can't wait to further explore all HK has to offer food wise.

Then of course we need a roof over our head. We're currently staying at 2 MacDonnell Road, a serviced apartment in the Mid Levels. Thanks to an upgrade we have 60sqm which is pretty big for local standards. In a week we have to pay for accommodation ourselves and we'll move to a serviced apartment in Fortress Hill, an area a bit east of the center. We'll swap the big rooms for a 40sqm apartment and the amazing view of the island's sky scrapers for a wee bit of harbour but we'l be in a much livelier neighbourhood and the apartment itself is very nice. Plus it has a rooftop terrace that all the residents can use. Nice!

Most of our days so far were spent apartment hunting. The sister in law of a friend of mine is a HK estate agent and she's awesome. She showed us loads of different places in different areas and also suggested we'd try Kowloon when we had asked her to find us something on the island. And though we will still view two more apartments on the island, we really liked the southern bit of Kowloon, TST (or Tsim Sha Tsui). More Chinese, cheaper and some great condos. We might just end up with a very decent sized apartment with a gym and infinity pool on the premises and view of the harbour. Not too shabby!

And finally: I've never seen so many people look at their phones when walking. Pretty annoying as they really really really slow down and Chinese aren't the fastest walkers to begin with. So when I was looking at google maps while walking, I made sure to keep my pace. Which I did. Just straight into a pole. Ouch. My arm is still blue. The locals might have a point....

Next stop: Hong Kong

View from The Peak, a photo by Gypsy Saskia on Flickr.

I barely recovered from my US jetlag (which felt like a three day hangover but without the booze), or I am packing for Honkers. A short work trip, with the added benefit of meeting a friend from Sing for dinner tomorrow, as she will also be at the meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. And if my action list is not too urgent, I may be able to wing a few free hours on Wednesday to take in the smells and sights of this cool city. No shopping allowed under any circumstances...

Last day in Hong Kong

A week has gone by! I have checked in for my flight, and will be out of here in 12 hours. In the past few days, I saw Venus Williams whip Jelena Jankovic' ass in Victoria Park, I admired the world's biggest outdoor bronze buddha, took a cable car on Lantau Island (where the buddha was) and ate at the vegetarian restaurant of the nearby monastry. Lost count of the amount of photos I took, but there are many, many, on my three memory cards. I am now sitting in a western cafe where I have been getting my morning lattes the past days. Two internet terminals here allow me to update my blog, read my mail, and all that. In a few hours, I will check in my luggage at Central Station, so I won't have to do that at the airport anymore. How convenient. Then it's a last long lunch in Soho. Short nite tonite, before flying to Krabi tomorrow morning. From 16 degrees to 30 degrees!!

Hello from Macau

Though my intention was to go to Macau yesterday, showing up at a border without a passport somehow doesn't fly, so managed to bring it along today and board a ferry this morning. An hour and several passport stamps later, I was in Macau.　Ｗｈａｔ　ａｎ　ａｍａｚｉｎｇ　ｍｉｘ　ｏｆ　Ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ　ａｎｄ　Ｐｏｒｔｕｇｕｅｓｅ．　Ｉ　ｋｅｅｐ　ｇｅｔｔｉｎｇ　ｃｏｎｆｕｓｅｄ　ａｂｏｕｔ　ｗｈｅｒｅ　Ｉ　ａｍ．　Ａｎｄ　ｔｈｉｓ　ＰＣ　ｋｅｅｐｓ　ｇｅｔｔｉｎｇ　ｃｏｎｆｕｓｅｄ　ａｂｏｕｔ　ｆｏｎｔ　ｓｉｚｅｓ．．．　Ｓｏｒｒｙ　ｆｏｒ　ｔｈａｔ　（ａｎｄ　ｆｏｒ　ｔｈｅ　ｔｙｐｏｓ，　Ｉ　ｃａｎ　ｂａｒｅｌｙ　ｒｅａｄ　ｔｈｅ　ｓｃｒｅｅｎ）．　Ｆｅｌｌ　ｉｎ　ｌｏｖｅ　ｗｉｔｈ　ａ　ｒｏｏｍ　ｄｉｖｉｄｅｒ，　ｔｈａｎ　ｗｏｕｌｄ　ｌｏｏｋ　ｆａｂ　ｉｎ　ｍｙ　Ａｍｓｔｅｒｄａｍ　ｐａｄ．　Ｔｈｅ　ｓａｌｅｓ　ｌａｄｙ　ｓａｉｄ　ｉｔ　ｍｉｇｈｔ　ｂｅ　ｇｏｎｅ　ｂｙ　ｔｈｅ　ｔｉｍｅ　Ｉ　ｈａｖｅ　ｒｅｔｕｒｎｅｄ　ｔｈｅｒｅ．　Ｄ’ｏｈ．　Ｈａｖｅｎ’ｔ　ｔｈｅ　ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ　ｉｎｖｅｎｔｅｄ　ｃｏｐｙｉｎｇ？　Ｓｏ　ｗｉｔｈ　ａ　ｐｉｃ　ａｎｄ　ａ　ｂｕｓｉｎｅｓｓ　ｃａｒｄ　Ｉ　ｌｅｆｔ　ｔｈｅ　ｓｈｏｐ，　ｔｈｉｎｋｉｎｇ　Ｉ　ｍｉｇｈｔ　ａｓｋ　ｔｈｅｍ　ｔｏ　ｒｅｍａｋｅ　ｔｈｅ　ｔｈｉｎｇ　ａｔ　ｓｏｍｅ　ｐｏｉｎｔ．　Ｍｏｓｔ　ｒｅｍａｒｋａｂｌｅ　ｓｔｒｅｅｔ　ｓｏ　ｆａｒ：　ａ　ｌｉｔｔｌｅ　ｏｎｅ　ｏｆｆ　ｔｈｅ　ｍａｉｎ　Ｃａｔｈｅｄｒａｌ　ｗｈｅｒｅ　ｅｖｅｒｙ　ｓｈｏｐ　ｓｅｌｌｓ　ａｌｍｏｎｄ　ｃｏｏｋｉｅｓ　（ｙｕｍ）　ａｎｄ　ｄｒｉｅｄ　ｍｅｅｔ　ｌｅａｆｌｅｔｓ　ｏｆ　ａｌｌ　ｓｏｒｔｓ　ｏｆ　ａｎｉｍａｌｓ　（ｙｕｋ）．　　Ｗｈａｔ　ａ　ｓｔｒａｎｇｅ　ｃｏｍｂｉｎａｔｉｏｎ．　Ｏｆｆ　ｆｏｒ　ｓｏｍｅ　ｐｏｒｔｕｇｕｅｓｅ　ｓｅａｆｏｏｄ　ｓｏｕｐ　ｎｏｗ．　Ｃｉａｏ！

Hong Kong

Day three. What a crazy city. So much to see and do. Went to the Peak on Saturday, from where you have an amazing view of the city, and there is a nice walk around. Loads of expats walking their dogs and loads of joggers. My brekkies so far have been in Soho, a bit like its namesake in London. Once my library internet slot is gone (seriously, I haven't seen a single internet cafe in this place, surely they must exist, but well hidden), will head there again for some nice bread rolls at the Real Bread Cafe.

My hotel is in the west of Hong Kong Island, I am pretty much the only white person around there. Great for seeing proper Hong Kong life, not so great for food. If you're not a bit meat eater like myself, there is very little choice. They just don't do vegetarian and after some very dodgy fatty chicken dishes I have resorted to the golden arches or two minute noodles from the 7-11.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day and I headed off to one of the nearby islands: Lamma. The Schiermonikoog of Hong Kong (as in: no cars and many weekenders). Loads of photograping, 1.5 hour of walking and some well deserved chocolate ice cream at the pier waiting for the next ferry to HK Island.

My nights are spent reading and watching BBC World. Hong Kong doesn't seem to have a great backpacker / solo traveller scene, but I quite enjoy the tranquility of my hotel room at night. And with a view of the harbour from the 12th floor, that is not such a bad place to be.

I am amazed at how expensive Hong Kong is. Camera equipment, clothes, food, it is all so incredibly expensive! Had the pound not taken a nosedive in the last few months it may have been ok, but now....shocking. Only public transport is cheap. Ah well, for eight days it's all right. Just no shopping! That wide angle lense I had my eyes on will have to wait till I am back in London.

Change of plans

My hols were planned in July: couple of days in good old Bangkok, then off to Laos for two weeks. Then I found out good friends Scott and Anso from Melbourne were arriving in Bangkok on the 31st of December. How could I pass the change to spend NYE with them? So I decided to stay in BKK a bit longer, which leaves less time for Laos. And Laos deserves proper time. Fairly randomly I decided to give Hong Kong a go instead. When I mentioned that in my Facebook status so many people recommended it, that I have now booked. Will be in Hong Kong for 8 nights in January. Flight with Emirates, hotel with roof top pool on Hong Kong Island and loads of tips from friends and ex-locals on what to do. Less than three months away now, woohoo!