{"id":383,"date":"2004-11-22T08:59:17","date_gmt":"2004-11-22T08:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.com\/?p=383"},"modified":"2004-11-22T08:59:17","modified_gmt":"2004-11-22T08:59:17","slug":"more_hong_kong_sights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/?p=383","title":{"rendered":"More Hong Kong Sights"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Snakes<\/a>
\nI got a fright when Joe pointed out these caged snakes along Temple Street. I think the shop sells some kind of snake tonic and\/or snakes’ gall bladder which is purported to have healing properties or some kind of nutritional value. I’ve no idea. Anyway, I’m scared of snakes and the sight of them just gives me the creeps! I scurried away like a mouse about to be eaten by one of them. Eeeks.
\n\"Chungking<\/a>
\nThe word “Chungking” was first known to me by Wong Kar Wai’s film Chungking Express<\/i>. I can’t remember much of the film except that it starred the hunkalicious Takeshi Kaneshiro. Anyways, this is the building in which Joe’s office is located. Joe took me upstairs to have a look.
\nI found the lift ride up very amusing. There’s even a designated queue for the lift! It’s only fair ‘cos only one lift is in operation and people have to wait for their turn. Anyway, we had to stand in a certain formation so as not to have the lift think it’s overweight and has won’t function.
\nJoe being the experienced lift-taker since he takes it every day, was directing the people (about 7 of us) where to stand. He was going, “Joan joan, you stand there. Yes yes, here. Keith you go here. And you, there….” Basically we were all standing against the four sides of the lift and no one could stand in the middle as that’s where the lift’s weighing scale is. To stand right on top of it would trick it to think it was overweight. So yes, a bit of a lift drama for me.
\nBecause of Joe, I also got to see a side of HK I would otherwise have never known of. Joe works with asylum seeks who come mostly from Africa and some are from Nepal. So the area around Chungking has many Africans and Nepalese. There are quite a lot of them in HK as there is a UNHCR<\/a> (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) office in HK.
\nOn Monday night, Joe brought Keith and I to an Indian restaurant on the fourth floor in Chungking House itself for dinner. It was an interesting experience for me as the restaurant is really a small apartment but now used as a small restaurant. The food was really good though. Loved the naan, butter chicken, masala chicken and the vegetable curry.
\n\"Mid<\/a>
\nThe Mid-levels Escalator is supposedly the longest stretch of escalators in the world. It stretches for 800metres (there are breaks in between) and it takes one through cafes, shops and cafes along Hollywood Road, and the Mid-levels residential restrict. Somewhere along the way, we stopped by the shop GOD (Goods of Desire) a HK-label which sells Chinese-inspired furniture, lifestyle products, and fashion. I love it! Loved it so much that I ended up buying a deep red mini tote bag which has phoenix prints on it. It’s very pretty. I will have to take a photo of it and show it off! ;p Yes, I have a thing for bags. It seems that everywhere I go I have to buy one.
\n\"Mosque@Mid<\/a>
\nAlong the way up the Mid-levels escalator, we chanced upon a mosque. It was something even the guys didn’t know about so we went in to have a look. The mosque was a nice spot of greenery as it had its own small garden. A very rare thing to have in HK! There were some Indian children playing in the premises while we were there.
\n\"At<\/a>
\nWhen we reached the end of the escalator, we took a taxi up to The Peak. Joe and Keith said I was lucky as it wasn’t very cloudy that day and so I had a great view of the city. The view was fantastic! Looking out to the south side of the island was better as there weren’t so many high-rise buildings around. HK’s geography is indeed lovely. If I had more time, I would have gone trekking along one of the trails. The views as you walk along the undulating hills are just gorgeous!
\n\"Stanley<\/a>
\nFrom The Peak, we took a bus to Stanley Beach. The bus ride was so scenic! It snaked down the hills and as it did so, I had a great view of the hills and the sea on the south side of HK island. The topography of HK reminded me of Sydney with all the hills. We managed to catch the sunset at Stanley Beach and going there was a nice respite from the maddening crowds in the city.
\nAfter Stanley Beach we took a bus to Causeway Bay to have dinner. Then we headed to Lan Kwai Fong, the popular strip of bars and pubs where many expatriates like to hang out. We drank, but we only drank coffee. Haha. Not THAT cool. Victor took a break from his work (mind you it was a Sunday!) and joined us for coffee. And while sipping coffee and having cake, I got two calls from Sydney wishing me Happy Birthday! One from my aunt and one from Adrian!
\nAnyways, that was pretty much the end of the day.
\nMy last full day in HK was more toned down. I went to the HK Museum of History which was pretty good. You get to see how HK was formed, right from the very beginning when the earth was starting to form to modern times. There were many interactive and multimedia exhibits which made the viewing experience very interesting. Worth a visit.
\nAfter spending about 3.5 hours at the museum, I walked around Tsim Sha Tsui on my own, exploring all the little alleys and shops. I was so tired by 5pm and went back to the apartment to rest before meeting the two guys for dinner. And that’s the night we went to the Indian restaurant in Chungking House.
\nSo that was my HK trip. I think I did pretty well for 3 full days in HK!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I got a fright when Joe pointed out these caged snakes along Temple Street. I think the shop sells some kind of snake tonic and\/or snakes’ gall bladder which is purported to have healing properties or some kind of nutritional … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}