Easy Sunday mornings & International drinks
Trip Start
Jul 18, 2010
1
66
82
Trip End
Mar 04, 2011
Tsuen Wan, China
Sunday, October 31, 2010
The weather’s stunning at the moment, it’s comparable in sunshine and temperature to peak summer in Britain. Everyone keeps asking where my coat is. Coat! Seriously?! I’m not sure how I’d cope with the peak summer here though, September was awful, especially in the city.
I meet Benjamin for 6p.m. and we head out to the MTR. He tells me on the way he has planned to show me ‘The best view in HK’… En route, we discuss what we have done for the last 24hours, I tell him about Tsim Sha Tsui, and he gasps telling me that is where we’re going now! He says that he likes going there as there are many Europeans there to mingle with too. When we get to ‘The best view in HK’ - I realise that it’s the harbour walk Elaine and I took last night! Never mind, it is actually a stunning walk. Along this walk is also the ‘Walkway of the stars’ - like in Hollywood, but all the national heroes of HK. Alongside is a cast iron statue of Bruce Lee, surrounded by camera-flashing tourists… wow. What a tourist-trap this really is! So naturally, being demi-tourists, we have our photo too! Benjamin points out one of the buildings in the skyline, it’s the one that was used for ‘Wayne towers’ in ‘Batman Begins’ - wow! We walk back along to harbour, taking in some local music festival on the way. HK is very busy tonight, strangely so for a Sunday night.
The plan now is to head off to the island for dinner. A friend of Benjamin’s from the South of France is over in HK this weekend, so she will meet us with her boyfriend shortly. Benjamin suggests taking the ferry rather than the MTR to the island, his ‘weekend trip’! Ha ha. I have never taken the ferry before, and it really is lovely, $8, and so much more exciting to reach HK island by water, whilst surrounded by the prettiest lights of the harbour. So stunning.
On the crossing, Benjamin tells me we are going to Lan Kwai Fong, where I went with Divya last time I was in HK… whoops, ruined plan number two! Seems all my tour guides want to show me the same things! I don’t mind though. Tonight has a different feel. It’s Halloween and the entire street of Lan Kwai Fong is packed with revellers. The best-dressed are being stopped in the street and papped to pieces by locals. There are TV crews here too, and police, lots of police. Ushering the crowds through the street like cattle to keep the flow moving.
We decided on Zinc bar, it’s happy hour, so a very good choice! We chat whilst we wait for Benjamin’s friends to arrive. She is French, he is Polish, they live in Singapore and are travelling around S.E Asia at the moment. Now that’s international. They’re great to speak to, and give me some good insights into tourist-HK. They’ve been to the giant Buddha today - something I will inevitably do at some point during my time in HK, I’m not sure when though!
We order some bar snacks and drinks and sit chatting for what seemed like not that long. But before we knew it, It was fast approaching midnight and we have to make a dash for the MTR. It’s good that I’m out with Benjamin though, as I have an escort right back to the apartment! No getting lost in the dark or taxis tonight.
I go to Benjamin’s apartment to meet his colleague and housemate, Leon, a fellow French. After chatting about where our businesses are based in Mainland, it seems that maybe we are quite close so arrange to meet again over the border. And so, I bid ‘Bon nuit’ to Leon and Benjamin, making dinner plans for tomorrow with Benjamin, his last night in HK before he heads back over the border for work.
