originally posted 30 November 2006, 11:29pm
I took the 10:00am ferry from Macau to Hong Kong. This time, I went via the Kowloon ferry pier, which dropped me off pretty near my hotel in HK. I checked in to the The Salsbery YMCA, which turned out to be quite nice. My room was upgraded to a partial harbor view room, so I could actually see a glimpse of the IFC as well as the harbor.
Soon as I’d gotten in, I dropped my bags off and headed out to Tsim Sha Tsui to do some shopping. I stopped in the Addidas store to pick up some basketball shorts that are impossible to find in Shanghai then went to HMV and went crazy buying music. I picked up Armin Van Buuren’s 10 Years, Charles Mingus’ Mingus Dynasty, Hed Kandi’s A Taste of Kandi Summer 2006, Thelonious Monk’s Monk’s Dream, and Mingus Big Band’s Live from Tokyo.
After emptying my wallet for the first half of the day, I stopped in Pacific Coffee on Nathan Road (just like last time!) and got a quick espresso and checked some email on their free internet kiosks. I got a call from some coworkers who were going to be in HK at the same time, and decided to meet them for lunch at Yong He (?). It’s apparently this really famous duck place. I took MTR over to HK Island and got a cab, just told him the name of the resturant and off we were.
I had some random dishes at the place and we all decided to go over to IFC to get some shopping done, and then went back up to Kolwoon via MTR to Mong Kok to look at electronics. The prices for equipment were quite good. I’m casually eying a Canon 400D, and they were selling a 400D+1gig CF+lens kit for like 5800 HKD. We then split ways with plans later to meet at SPOON at the Intercontinental for dinner.
Dinner was fantastic. Our seats were on the window with a view of the harbor and all of Central. The food itself was great. I think I set a new record for my most expensive meal yet (a white truffle linguine with 6 grams of truffles!). After a long dinner, we walked around the boardwalk area for a while then crossed over to the island via Star Ferry and met up some other folks over at Lan Kwai Fong.
The next morning, it was back off to Shanghai on the 9:35am flight. I ended up waking up at like 640 to take a taxi to the train to the airport, thus ending a fantastic seven days thru southern Asia. I really love Hong Kong and I want to spend more time there, like start a business in HK or something. Plus, even as a tourist, there’s still so much yet to see, like the Chung King Mansions or Repulse Bay. It’s such a densely packed city that’s diverse and vibrant. I can see why people go to work there and never leave.