Hong Kong - Day 1-2

Note: I am posting on Hong Kong time. Page down if you think you're missing stuff (and don't want to.)

Oyce and I are in Hong Kong now, in a hotel with such good service and amenities that we checked twice to make sure it was really as inexpensive as we thought. (They were having a special.) The hotel is sandwiched between a Muslim cemetery (unfortunately we don't have a cemetary-adjacent view, or any view at all: our windows are frosted and locked - hey - maybe that's why it's so cheap), a Sikh gurdwara (temple), and, in a break from the religious theme, a racetrack. You can easily walk to Times Square and cool little neighborhoods.

Hong Kong is great, full of all the little shops and restaurants and cafes that I love. Enormous glass skyscrapers are jammed in beside dingy apartment buildings with laundry drying outside windows thirty stories above street level. Like parts of Manhattan, in parts of Hong Kong the buildings tower so high and close that the sky is cut up into little geometric pieces. The forest is even more present than it is in Taipei, with trees crammed in everywhere that buildings and roads and sidewalks aren't. I wish LA was like that. Most people seem to speak a little English, so it's easy to get around even if you don't speak any Cantonese. Today we wandered around, ate in a sort of cafe/diner, and I bought a bunch of VCDs (video DVDs) on sale, mostly starring Andy Lau, which hopefully will play in my laptop.

Last night Oyce and I had dinner with an aunt and uncle of hers, who were extremely nice. We had roast goose with a ponzu-like dipping sauce, some of the best char sui (barbecued pork) I've ever had, jellyfish (I like the slightly rubbery/crunchy texture), very long and thin spring rolls served upright in a vase with carrot sticks and leeks, sauteed greens with garlic, shrimp and broccoli, crab and bamboo soup, and sweet and sour pork. The last was less sweet and better than you usually get in the US; to my amusement, Oyce's aunt thought it was inferior and too sweet.

As if that feeding frenzy wasn't enough, J and I hit a 7-11 and bought mango coolers, okonomiyaki (Japanese savory pancake) flavored potato chips, black truffle flavored potato chips, assorted candy, and individual servings of Haagen-Dasz, to eat and drink while we watched Jet Li's kung fu comedy The New Legend of Shaolin on my laptop. I was a little confused as the movie began, as it was historical but I had recalled it as contemporary. Then the villain, who had transformed himself into a hideous "poison man" in a lizard skin suit to make himself invincible, as villains are wont to do, drove up in a totally out of period - any period - car shaped like a giant armored trilobite. I then recalled that in another historical movie Jet Li fights a giant robot chicken, so maybe I should have been more prepared. I recommend the movie if you like kung fu, kung fu fighting kids being adorable, a pair of mother and daughter thieves being hilarious, and Jet Li being badass and stoic.

On the subject of 7-11s, they are much better in Asia. You can actually get good food, not to mention potato chips flavored like lobster, California rolls, and salmon sushi. Maybe we'll try those tonight.

Hong Kong - Day 1-2

Note: I am posting on Hong Kong time. Page down if you think you're missing stuff (and don't want to.)

Oyce and I are in Hong Kong now, in a hotel with such good service and amenities that we checked twice to make sure it was really as inexpensive as we thought. (They were having a special.) The hotel is sandwiched between a Muslim cemetery (unfortunately we don't have a cemetary-adjacent view, or any view at all: our windows are frosted and locked - hey - maybe that's why it's so cheap), a Sikh gurdwara (temple), and, in a break from the religious theme, a racetrack. You can easily walk to Times Square and cool little neighborhoods.

Hong Kong is great, full of all the little shops and restaurants and cafes that I love. Enormous glass skyscrapers are jammed in beside dingy apartment buildings with laundry drying outside windows thirty stories above street level. Like parts of Manhattan, in parts of Hong Kong the buildings tower so high and close that the sky is cut up into little geometric pieces. The forest is even more present than it is in Taipei, with trees crammed in everywhere that buildings and roads and sidewalks aren't. I wish LA was like that. Most people seem to speak a little English, so it's easy to get around even if you don't speak any Cantonese. Today we wandered around, ate in a sort of cafe/diner, and I bought a bunch of VCDs (video DVDs) on sale, mostly starring Andy Lau, which hopefully will play in my laptop.

Last night Oyce and I had dinner with an aunt and uncle of hers, who were extremely nice. We had roast goose with a ponzu-like dipping sauce, some of the best char sui (barbecued pork) I've ever had, jellyfish (I like the slightly rubbery/crunchy texture), very long and thin spring rolls served upright in a vase with carrot sticks and leeks, sauteed greens with garlic, shrimp and broccoli, crab and bamboo soup, and sweet and sour pork. The last was less sweet and better than you usually get in the US; to my amusement, Oyce's aunt thought it was inferior and too sweet.

As if that feeding frenzy wasn't enough, J and I hit a 7-11 and bought mango coolers, okonomiyaki (Japanese savory pancake) flavored potato chips, black truffle flavored potato chips, assorted candy, and individual servings of Haagen-Dasz, to eat and drink while we watched Jet Li's kung fu comedy The New Legend of Shaolin on my laptop. I was a little confused as the movie began, as it was historical but I had recalled it as contemporary. Then the villain, who had transformed himself into a hideous "poison man" in a lizard skin suit to make himself invincible, as villains are wont to do, drove up in a totally out of period - any period - car shaped like a giant armored trilobite. I then recalled that in another historical movie Jet Li fights a giant robot chicken, so maybe I should have been more prepared. I recommend the movie if you like kung fu, kung fu fighting kids being adorable, a pair of mother and daughter thieves being hilarious, and Jet Li being badass and stoic.

On the subject of 7-11s, they are much better in Asia. You can actually get good food, not to mention potato chips flavored like lobster, California rolls, and salmon sushi. Maybe we'll try those tonight.