Asia has everything that’s great in the food world. Did you know the 7-11s here not only sell boba, curry fish balls, and various other snacks, but also condensed milk in squeeze bottle form? How handy is this, to not even have to go through the hassle of using a can opener; but instead, you can squeeze this on EVERYTHING? I seriously wonder why local Asians don’t get fat.
The day started out with the HKU folks meeting Chin in Jordan, where Chin said he knew of a Dimsum restaurant that he could take us to for lunch. Before heading there, we waited in the hot sun for the bus, all the while slowly melting away like ice cream. I normally don’t sweat that much, so if I start sweating, y’all know it’s freaking hot. There was no source of shade at the bus stop, so we tried to stand as far into the bush as we possibly could to keep ourselves cool. Alan came up with the great idea of taking a leaf to use as shade, which surprisingly worked a little, but the leaves ended up drying pretty quickly from death.
We were finally saved from the scorching heat when the bus came, and sat on the second level of the double decker bus, with a front row view of the skilled driving. I truly admire HK bus drivers not only for their ability to drive on narrow roads or on the other side of the road (I still can’t get used to the drivers sitting on the right side instead of the left), but for having amazing depth perception so that they can get close to other buses in front of them without crashing. Peter and I nearly had heart attacks as we watched our bus stop about what seemed like a couple of inches away from the bus in front of us.
We finally made it to Chin, who walked us to a vegetarian Dim Sum restaurant because his tunnel vision prevented him from seeing that it was called “Light Vegetarian Restaurant.” The only thing he saw were the pictures and the displays of food outside, so he thought it would be good, but we were all reluctant to go in because we wanted meat that was filling. His second choice was to take us back to the restaurant we went to the night before, which was decently priced and tasted pretty good, so good job Chin, you didn’t fail completely. I still respect you.
The MTR took us to Avenue of the Stars, which is like the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but Asian style. I didn’t know most of the actors on the floor except for Jackie Chan and Andy Lau, but it was a beautiful view of the harbour. This is the place that also has the light show every night, so we need to come back here for the view one night when it’s not raining.
I wanted to take a picture of Peter and Will, and somehow they knew how to make it look ultra bromantic. I love the small smile on Peter’s face. He refuses to put this on facebook as his profile pic because he thinks it looks ultra gay. Whatever, I think it looks so sweet.
We finally hit Bruce Lee’s statue, where I had to wait for a bunch of tourists to finish taking their pictures posing as Bruce Lee before I could gather the group to take our own shot. We are one word: CLASSY.
After roaming around a shopping mall called SOGO to check out stores, Alan and Will parted from us to go nap while Chin, Leanne, Peter and I went to Mong Kok to try some Hui Lau Shan and eat street food. Chin and I got the bacon wrapped sausages while Peter and Leanne got curry fishballs. This is probably the only time I’m okay with Hong Kong people trying to sell me hot dogs, if it’s wrapped and fried in bacon.
We went back to Langham Place, where we looked around for the movie theatre because we all wanted to see the scary movie Curse of the Deserted. I want to try the Hong Kong movie theatre experience at least once! While searching, we stumbled upon “Wonder Studio,” a Hong Kong version of Cues back home. Leanne and I just had to take the pics, because you are not a true fob unless you take sticky pics! It’s so cheap here, it was only HK$40, which came out to be about US$1 a person. Can we have that price back home, please?
We finally made it to the movie theatre, where we found out that our beloved scary movie wasn’t playing there. It was quite disappointing, so we asked around and found out that there was another theatre somewhere a couple of blocks down. It wasn’t playing there either. KU. So we just walked around Lady’s Market.
There’s a lot of random stuff on the streets of Mong Kok, like some advertisement for organ donors and a lady sleeping on the table. We weren’t sure whether or not she was alive or dead.
To end the day, we met up with some other HKU people at an All you can eat sushi bar that also serves unlimited sake, where I tried my first sake bombs. Obviously, I didn’t drink my moneys worth, so I tried to eat my food’s worth. We accidentally doubled our food orders and got way more food than we could handle, but it was so good. I want more unlimited salmon!
The manager of the restaurant was really friendly and open to our loudness, and he encouraged our drinking by sending out more and more beer for the folks at the table. Alan wanted to drink the “Berkeley” way, which ended up just being a race of finishing and getting HK$100 from him if anybody beat him. One of the guys then asked the manager if he could get a sushi chef to drink with us, and he came over right away to drink what he called the “submarine.”
The group decided to bang on the table and chant “Hong Kong!” until their shot glasses fell into their beer cups, and the chef drank his in about 5 seconds. As soon as he finished he put down the cup and made the most stoic expression. This guy is obviously VERY bad ass.
We were all so full of food after dinner that we had to ride down the elevator in two separate groups instead of one full group because we hit the overweight limit. The person who added the most weight was Will. Hah le porker!
Some of us decided to head home while the rest headed to Lan Kwai Fung, the area where international people like to go to club and party. These people are total beasts for being able to party all night long. I, on the other hand, cannot do that, so I went home and had a nice long shower before sleeping on my hard bed.
