Staying Indoors. Or not.

We yum cha (飲茶, lit. drinking tea) in the morning, which means we went to the local "serious" Cantonese restaurant for dim sum and tea:

Phoenix Talon and Sparerib Rice again.

Steamed BBQ Pork Buns (叉燒包).

Har Gao (蝦餃), steamed shrimp dumplings.

Lo Mai Gai (糯米雞) - wiki calls it "steamed sticky rice with chicken in lotus leaf wrap", and
Siu Mai (燒賣), pork and shrimp dumplings in the back.

Now if you've been reading this since the beginning, you already know all those dishes, but a review never hurt.  :P

So it turns out I was lucky enough in the first week or so of my trip here to have clear, smog-free skies.  This is a picture I took of the seascape backing Sham Tseng when I first got here:

And here's a slightly different angle of the same thing, today.

That land on the left is to assure you you're not staring into open, foggy waters.

As Hong Kong is directly south of Guangdong Province (廣東省), the manufacturing powerhouse of China - all your favourite Apple products are assembled just north of Hong Kong in Shenzhen - it is at the mercy of the prevailing wind when it comes to air pollution.

Today being so bad, we decided to stay indoors, for the most part:

North of Tsim Sha Tsui on Nathan Road, Mong Kok is another favourite shopping area for locals and tourists alike.

In the early days of modern Hong Kong, no building in Kowloon could be too tall, as the airport was always right there.  When Kai Tak closed in 1998, a boom of highrise development began, and has not stopped to this day.  One of the newer buildings in the district is Langham Place (朗豪坊), a mall cum hotel cum office tower.

In the basement, as is common in Hong Kong malls, is a supermarket:

I thought you only saw these in America...

The thing that this mall does to try to differentiate itself is this:

An giant escalator taking the place of a centrepiece.

A view from the top:

After having walked the mall, we decided there was nothing to eat there, so we trekked down two MTR stops to Jordan Road (佐敦道):

Where yet another wonton noodle joint was waiting.  Does that sign to the right look familiar?  It turns out Mak's from Central opened a branch here.  No wonder their wontons are terrible.  We weren't going to Mak's - but we were going to Mak Man Kee (麥文記, read right to left on the sign in the middle)

I wonder what all those people are lining up for...

The menu is extensive, all making use of the same noodles:

There's a reason why this place is consistently called the best wonton noodles in the city.  The noodles, when you first get them, have such a good bite to them that they're almost crunchy.  The broth has a nice light taste that has hints of the dried fish used in it, and the wontons are a good size, texture, and taste.

They also serve pork knuckle noodles (豬手麵):

Everyday, the noodles and veggies arrive fresh, and are stacked in the back:

And they make each bowl blazingly fast.

So as for that line, it was for this place:

The Australia Dairy company, which does not produce dairy nor is it from Australia.  It does, however, produce a milk custard (燉奶) for which it is apparently famous.


Here's the front of the line:

And the back, on the other side of the bamboo scaffolding.
...at 2 PM on a Saturday.  Hong Kongers really like lining up.

Here's the inside of the shop:

Spacious as always!

Their custard:

Silky smooth, but to me, it sorta tastes and feels like tofu.  Go figure.

This place's other claim to fame is that they make the best scrambled eggs ever:

Now I know what you're thinking.  A scrambled egg is a scrambled egg.  I didn't understand how these eggs could be better either.  ...but they were.  In a completely indescribable way, these scrambled eggs were indeed the best I've ever had.  It still doesn't make any sense to me.  

Continuing our idea of *not* going outside, we went to Kowloon Park (九龍公園)

Well there goes the plan of saving some alveoli.

Seperating the areas of Yau Ma Tei (油麻地) and Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon Park is one of the largest urban parks in Hong Kong.

It has its own indoor/outdoor swimming complex with 50m pool in the centre,

various Chinese gardens,

and colonies of little turtles in them:

and the old army barracks for British troops is meticulously preserved, as a museum of archeological finds in Hong Kong.

These main doors to the exhibition area are apparently the original doors to the original Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) building in Central.

They have Lego models of Tsim Sha Tsui, then and now:

and on the second floor, a room dedicated to Qing Dynasty porcelain has floors made of these artifacts, unearthed in all corners of the territory.

Going back home, we hopped on the West Rail line at Austin:

This line's trains, going a much farther distance than the urban lines, are equipped with televisions tuned to various news channels.