And so the road comes to an end
Trip Start
Jun 28, 2009
1
24
Trip End
Aug 25, 2009
Where I stayed
Hong Kong, China
Monday, August 24, 2009
From the sea of clothes we moved onto an airport hanger sized mall dedicated to cell phones and assorted other electronics which made the mall in Guangzhou look juvenile. It was all a little overwhelming and after you threw in the enthusiastic tide of shoppers ebbing in and out, it was all more then a mere mortal could take. We abandoned our shopping extravaganza for some street meat and then Luke & I parted with Steve to head to our final destination of Hong Kong.
For a city of such historical economic wealth and trend setting I couldn't but wonder why it took us 3 changes on the Metro to get to our hotel in downtown Hong Kong. Perhaps it was all established to discourage the ravenous bargain hunters from leaving Hong Kong for the greener pastures of Shenzhen. Our hotel was right downtown only a stone's throw away from the shops at Causeway Bay and our room was on the 23rd floor. Only in Hong Kong could your hotel room be so highly elevated and feel like you're still on the 2nd floor. We arrived late in the day and there really wasn't much time available for sight seeing. Fortunately we both had been here before and there wasn't any pressing need to absorb as much of the Hong Kong sights as we could.
Instead what we craved was food. You would have thought that this would have been an easy task but we ran up against a myriad of obstacles: people. The restaurants were either jammed packed and had waiting lines beyond our hunger threshold or we couldn't figure out how to by pass the crowds in the malls to get to the restaurants. As such we were destined to wander aimlessly (almost aimlessly) through the streets of Hong Kong in search of sustenance. It was truly a sad state of affairs when we spied a food court sign for the usual suspects of Western fast food: KFC, McDonald's', Burger King, Taco Bell. We seemed to be in the hunger space of accepting even this processed fare. Fortunately we discovered on the corner a Korean BBQ restaurant. Suddenly fond memories of cold winter nights in Toronto came flooding back. Korean BBQ seemed to be our place of choice for a meal after the gym back home and on those frigid February nights it became a place of comfort.
There were many similarities between the Korean BBQ we had found and the ones at home including the "cook it yourself" approach. This Korean BBQ was over the top. It was a buffet style approach with everything under the sun available: from sushi & sashimi to chicken & beef & cuttlefish. It was by far the best meal we had had in China and we both left feeling stuffed and ready to slip into a food coma.
Instead of slipping into a coma we decided to do something touristy and headed over to the Peak Tram for a ride up to the top of the Peak. The skyline of Hong Kong had changed little since my last visit but I had never seen it from this vantage point at night before. We enjoyed the refreshing night air and watched the lights twinkle below us; all the while trying to both ignore and embrace the fact that we would be back on planes tomorrow for the long flights to Toronto and San Francisco.
