So we had finally made it to Hong Kong and got some sleep. We were so tired that we actually slept through the night. After we woke up Drew and Mo took us to a brunch at a hotel. We took a cab there which was really very cheap. It's $7.75 in Hong Kong dollars to $1 in the US. Cab fare starts at $22 HKD and then goes up by $1.6. I think our first cab was around $50 HKD, which is a little over $6 in USD, and you don't tip. All in all a pretty good deal.
Brunch lasted from 11:30am to 3pm and included champagne, mimosas, and Bellini's. It was more of a Western style brunch so it had salads, raw seafood, grilled food like lamb and calamari, and lots of desserts. We ate and chatted for hours. The calamari was my favorite, followed by the lamb with a mint jelly sauce. They also had these Moreton Bay Bugs - they looked like little lobsters and tasted pretty similar.
After brunch we came back to their apartment and watched Avatar on Drew and Mo's 3D TV. We were so full from brunch we didn't eat for the rest of the day. After a few rounds of euchre we called it a day and went to sleep.
Grandma and Kelli's Hong Kong Adventure: Day 2-Kowloon and Din Tai Fung
After another good nights sleep we woke up around 9am. Mo and I went and exercised in their gym and then took Trig for a walk. We saw the neighborhood down towards the city on our walk. Hong Kong is way more mountainous than I realized when I came here. The sides of the hills are covered in cement to keep from eroding, but they leave spaces for the trees to grow.
We stopped at a local temple so I could peak inside. It's a Daoist temple (or Taoist, apparently). Inside people could pray and ask questions. After that we went back and met up with grandma to cross the water to the other part of the city in Kowloon. The easiest way to get to the other side is by the famous Star Ferry.
Its been running since 1880 as a cheap way to get across the island ($2.50 in HKD, so about $.35 in USD). They're constantly running and are able to move both ways so the ferry captain doesn't even have to turn around on each side. Over on the boardwalk they have a walk of stars similar to our Hollywood one. We recognized Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, and Jet Li.
For dinner we walked to one of the many malls around here to go to a place called Din Tai Fung. Their specialty is dumplings with a very delicate casing that has a filling of your choice and soup broth. To eat it though you have to pick them up with your chop sticks and puncture the outside to let the soup drain out. If you try to just bite it then be prepared for some burns.
Dessert was more dumplings filled with a black sesame paste, which is way better than it sounds. Afterwards we made our way back near the boardwalk to watch the nightly light show at 9pm. It was actually very cool. Many of the big buildings back on the island take part in the show that is set to music.
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