May 2-4 '12; Hong Kong

And now, finally continuing with my posts about my trip in Asia...

Surprisingly not hit by the JetLag bug, I ventured off into the wonderful Asian city! Staying at my aunt's place is probably the best part of this trip. No hotel fees! Although you may not know this, the ability to allow people to stay over at your home is quite hard in Hong Kong since houses are much much smaller than that of Canada. Luckily, my aunt loves me (and now my friend who travelled with me) and gave us her spare bedroom to share. So, with us perfectly rested (that means an average of 5 hours of sleep in Hong Kong) we started our adventure!

First, how could anyone say they've been to Hong Kong without eating at a food stall?! Though some are fancier than others, they’re all good. Mostly. And to be honest, I have a feeling that the dirtier they are, the better they taste. Disgusting right? I know, but I can’t help it! We got grilled squid and curry fish balls – the epitome of Hong Kong street food culture. For 10 HKD (hong kong dollars) each, I’m ridiculously satisfied. For those of you who don’t know, 1 CDN dollar is roughly equal to 7.8 HKD. So the two bowls of snacks cost me a little over 2 dollars. WHAT A DEAL!!!

Hong Kong Street Food (Top: Curry Fish Balls; Bottom: Grilled Squid)

Lounge Area at the Cinema

We also decided to watch The Avengers since we knew that if we didn’t watch it now, we never would have the chance to since the movie would’ve been out of theatres by the time we came back to Canada. In Hong Kong, all movies are sold as IMAX sales in the way that you always get to pick your seat for your show. I personally prefer this method since you don’t have to get to the theatres an hour early just to get a good seat. Also, Hong Kong sells sweet popcorn as opposed to salty butter popcorn. Crazy right!? Though I still much prefer butter popcorn, I got some sweet popcorn, just because, it’s me and I’m a sucker for anything popcorn. The cinemas itself are much nicer than ones in Canada, especially since we were at the IFC mall in Central, a slightly more ritzy mall in the city. The seats were like leather lounge chairs. Quite nice. As for the actual movie? Awesome! The Avengers was much better than any of the individual movies, except Iron Man. That night was also the night that we learned that the MTR (subway system in Hong Kong) did not run past a certain hour. Since we watched the last show of the day (a midnight showing), we missed our subway and had to take a taxi home. Good thing my aunt lived close by! Though, really taking a cab in Hong Kong is probably at times cheaper than paying for TTC. How sad.

Luxurious leather seating in the cinema

Me and B.Duck

Next, we ventured off to Sogo in Causeway Bay. SOGO is an Asian department store, much like Macy’s in the States. This is where I fell in love with a brand called B. Duck. It’s an absolutely cute duck and their products range from aprons to bathroom utilities. Of course, this meant that I had to have a shopping spree here! But that will be mentioned later, as I didn’t actually do my shopping at SOGO.

Strawberry Cream Puff @CocoFrans

Venturing in the MTR system, unlike the TTC system, is a breeze and sometimes quite pleasurable (as long as you don’t go during rush hour). They tend to have many snack places and bakeries for you to buy some more food! We bought a Strawberry cream puff at CocoFrans. It was really pretty, but too bad it didn’t taste as good. Mind you, it wasn’t bad, just not as good as I expected it to be. Oh Well.

Yoshinoya Beef Bowl with a HotSpring Egg

We also had afternoon tea at my favourite fast food restaurant: Yoshinoya. This is a Japanese fast food chain. They mainly serve beef bowls but they have expanded to also offer chicken teriyaki bowls as well as Hot Pot meal sets. We went there for their teatime special (between 2pm-5pm if I remember correctly), which was $26HKD for the meal set. It has definitely stayed as my favourite fast food restaurant in Hong Kong; the taste was exactly as I remembered it.

For dinner, we went to a sushi restaurant in Mong Kok. It was really good. We had a seared sea urchin sushi, blue fin tuna with sea urchin sushi, and a whole palette of sea urchin. Can you tell that we really love Uni? The price was quite reasonable. Along with other dishes that we had, the total came up to approximately $20CAD a person. Pretty good for some fresh sushi!

A Collection of Uni items (Top Left: Seared Uni Sushi; Top Right: Blue Fin Tuna w/Uni, Bottom: Uni Sashimi Palette)

Lychee Panna Cotta

Another place that I really enjoyed was a dessert house in Sai Wan. Their Lychee Panna Cotta was to die for! A Perfect late night dessert before bed. For the three days we had in Hong Kong before heading off elsewhere, we tried to cram in as many restaurants as possible… I think I’ve succeeded.

What are you favourite restaurants during your travels? What specialty foods have you come across when traveling? Any comments on good or bad transit systems in other countries?