The Failures of Tour Guide Mo

Hi all,

Apologies again for being such an absentee. Between my cousins, Ryan and Alecia, visiting and then heading straight to Bali for vacation, the last few weeks have been really busy! The next few posts will be a brief overview of what Ryan, Alecia, and I got up to from July 7-10. 

They arrived on Sunday night around 7pm. Knowing the importance of staying up late that first night, we all went out to dinner at Din Tai Fung, a very popular dim sum restaurant here in causeway bay.  Ryan and Alecia did great with their first Asian meal, handling chopsticks like pros and willing to try anything we ordered. 

Later that night, we want to the Wan Chai red light district. It's not as bad as it sounds. It's basically a whole street of cool bar, then velvet curtain strip club, then cool bar, then strip club etc. We were going to the bars to watch the championship Wimbledon match, and it was a lot of fun. Found some Scottish people who were very pumped about Andrew Murray. 

On Monday, we started off having breakfast at the infamous Australian Dairy Company. Drew and I have been there before, and it's always delicious. Weirdly, I ordered us three breakfast sets, but somehow only one showed up. Why would three people come to a restaurant and order only one meal between them? Needless to say, eventually we reordered and everyone got fed. 

Next, we want to a tailor in Kowloon called Nita Fashions that was recommended to Ryan by a friend. Both Ryan and Alecia got a few things, including suits, jackets, dress shirts, etc. It's a cool experience knowing that the piece is being made just for you. It was funny though. In the shop, the salesmen were actually Indian, probably because they had better English and negotiating skills. The tailors themselves were Chinese, and they worked somewhere else outside of the store. 

Next, we want to all of the markets in Mongkok. We started at the ladies market where Ryan and Alecia both picked up the negotiating game really quickly, and they got some really good deals to show for it. 

The goldfish market followed, which was less a in-the-street market and more a road filled with pet and aquarium shops. So many beautiful fish, turtles, puppies, etc. 

The last market was the flower market. This was more for sightseeing and less for shopping. So many orchids! Mom would have been in heaven!

After the markets, we went back to Kowloon for lunch. My original idea was to go to a Korean place. As Drew and I just came back from Korean, I was already craving the food, and figured Id be able to recognize a lot of the menu items. I used open rice, an app similar to yelp in the US, to find a place. Unfortunately, it was a dinner only place. Boo. Strike one against tour guide Mo. Because we were starving, and it was 3pm, we decided to try a Chinese place near the closed Korean one. It was still busy, which at the time in the afternoon is a good sign. However, things went quickly downhill from there. For starters, they didn't have an English menu, so we ordered based on pictures. It is very rare for a restaurant in Hong Kong not to have an English menu. I also didn't realize that this was a Sichuan Chinese place. Anyone who has had Sichuan food, especially you Yulong, is laughing at me right now. Needless to say, everything we ordered was holy crap, I need a glass of milk and a tissue for my runny nose  hot. Ha! Sichuan food is delicious, but if you don't know what you're getting yourself into, you could leave without any functioning taste buds. Strike two against tour guide Mo. Thanks Ryan and Alecia for being such good sports. 

After lunch, we walked along the Avenue of Stars. This is like a boardwalk with plaques and statues of the famous Hong Kong movie stars. We recognized Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Jet Li, that was about all. But, the view of the harbor from there was gorgeous, and made it well worth battling the mainland Chinese tourists. The old fashioned boat is called the Aqualuna, and it sails around the harbor every night. You can charter it for private events, but I think it's pretty pricey. 

As far as tour guiding goes, I'd say I did pretty well during the day showing them around, minus the super spicy lunch. However, my skills were not up to par for the evening festivities. We took a taxi to the Peak, which is a must see destination for people visiting the city. There is a loop walk that takes you out to a wonderful view of the city. One side of the loop is like a 10 min walk to the view. The other side of the loop is like a 40 min walk. Guess which side I took us on. Oops. Of course, Ryan and Alecia are super jet lagged at this point, so this was not helping our cause. Strike 3 tour guide Mo. Again, thanks Ryan and Alecia for being good sports.

The rest of my failures resulted in me not having a plan B. As a tour guide, you must always have a plan B. After the walk, I was planning on us jumping in another cab and going down to Soho, an area in the city with lots of good restaurants. However, when we get to the taxi stand, the line is literally an hour long wait. What! How did that happen? It's a Monday night! Screw it, we are eating in the Peak Mall. We walk into the mall and wander around for 15 min, until we realize that everything is closed. Everything. Turns out the mall closes at 9, which explains the massive queue for the taxi. Grr.... Everything in Hong Kong stays open til the crack of dawn except for the Peak Mall. We finally found the only open restaurant in the whole place just outside of the mall. We sit down and order. Ryan, unfortunately orders a Chinese dish that is drenched in fish sauce. Fish sauce is a foul smelling substance that is used in almost every Asian dish. If its cooked down well, it is delicious. But, Ryan's seemed to have been dumped on at the last minute, resulting in a very stinky, fishy dish. I think Ryan had had enough of fish sauce after that. Strike 4 tour guide Mo. So ends Day 1 of the cousin trip.