My HK birthday

Day Four: My birthday! I am writing this with a sore head and slightly queasy disposition the morning after.

I meet Tony near M&S and we make our way to the Peak Tram station, and it is packed with tourists. The tram has a 100% safety record, it has never had an accident. The Peak is the highest point in Hong Kong and has (on a clear and not so clear day) an amazing view.

View from the Peak, smoggy!

This is the viewing platform.

Bubba Gump was the fictions shrimp venture in the Forrest Gump films, but at the Peak they've made it a reality and this is their mascot!

After the Peak we catch a taxi to Kennedy Town to drop of some stuff and then head to

Stanley for a late lunch. The weather was gorgeous and sunny and it felt very much like sitting in Bondi! I also introduced Tony to my mini-van obsession in HK, there are tonnes of them on the streets, you either see the distinctive red taxis or tricked out mini-vans everywhere.

Stanley harbour.

These ladies, I think, were doing Tai Chi...

This is our the yummy seafood lunch with a nice glass of Pinot Grigio.

Probably one of the best desserts I've had in a very long time it was absolutely delicious! A block of pavlova covered in cream with fresh strawberries, strawberry sorbet and some kind of strawberry spun sugar with pistachios and a praline cream sauce on the side.

Tony then took me to the Smugglers Bar, where every square inch of the walls and ceiling were covered in business cards, ID cards and money from all over the world with messages written on them. 

Look at the size of the tips jar...

This is TK stapling his card onto a post....

...and me pointing to mine - which he put at toddler eye-level!

We stayed at the Smugglers Bar for the rest of the night, at some point Tony and I started a kinda Pilates versus Yoga face off in the pub (it wasn't too busy inside) and I seem to recall a good 15 minute period where I tried to get my foot behind my head... plus a lot of touching the floor with the palms of my hands and doing the star (see below) on the wooden benches. Good to know I still have strength and flexibility even when not entirely sober...

It was hilarious and got us talking to a lovely Thai/Chinese lady called Lena who is a pilates devotee like me! We have swapped numbers and will be catching up after CNY. Some more wine was consumed and then some tequila (never a good idea on my part) and then possibly the longest taxi ride home of my life... 

Tony has this great camera on his iPhone that takes really old/polaroid style photos.

I made it back in one piece (just!) to find a letter from the hotel asking when they could deliver my birthday cake! Which they did this morning. I tried to explain the whole gluten-free thing, but alas, I think they thought I was allergic to 'flowers' not 'flour' :)

Misc: These are things that have caught my attention, just random snaps I've taken throughout the day.

A very HK street view in Kennedy Town.

A cute ad for a jeans store.

V cool giant Pez dispensers at the Peak.

I saw these whacky VW Beetle ads on a taxi at the airport but wasn't quick enough with the camera - this taxi kindly posed for me in Stanley, its a scaled 3D model of a Beetle  :)

Next: Nurse my sore head and treat myself to a 2.5 hours spa treatment at the hotel followed by another lie down!

A foodie abroad

Day Two: I met with my old Managing Editor on B&T/Travel Week and good friend Tony Kelly for lunch, I rode the MTR to Sheung Wan and walked to his office on Des Voeuxs Street West. We took the Mid-Levels escalators to SoHo (south of Hollywood Road) to eat our lunch at a nice Vietnamese place.

I also bought a HK sim card as the travel sim I bought in Oz proved to be rather crappy and unreliable. After lunch I wandered around Queens Road Central and went to Marks and Spencers, the first time in 3 years that I have entered its hallowed doors! I went straight to the food hall and feasted with my eyes - since I've been diagnosed as being gluten intolerant it has curbed my eating habits considerably, and M&S was no exception, but I did manage to come away with a yummy crayfish salad for my dinner. 

The MTR (Mass Transit Railway) here is cheap and amazingly efficient and there are stations everywhere.

This is an advert used in the MTR stations to encourage people to hold onto the handrails on the escalators... good to see that Monkey Magic is still getting some work!

I have a tiny kitchen in my hotel room (its in the middle of this photo where the white towel is near the corner of the bed) so decided to visit Sogo in Causeway Bay to stock up with some basics. 

Its a perfect mix of traditional Chinese food and western specialities like a cheese counter. By this time it was around 6pm and it was heaving with people - its Chinese New Year on February 14th and people were stocking up - its a massive holiday in HK and everything pretty much closes down for a few days.

I saw these pots of instant curry in 2 of the most bizarre flavours imaginable, hmmmm which to pick Kim-chi or Cheese Curry flavour...

Who wouldn't buy Pork that is 'health conscious'??

These are tiny crabs about the size of a 50c coin that are dried or deep fried (hard to tell!) and then covered in sesame seeds and chilli, I can't imagine what these would taste like or how high the crunch factor is on them.

Now these are some expensive strawberries HK$198 (AU$30 or GBP 16)!

Day Three: Today I was tired, still getting used to the strange hard bed and the traffic sounds, so no big plans. Breakfast and the restaurant are great!

This is the view: the pool and smoggy skyline.

This is my breakfast: goats cheese, pineapple, sausages, pork congee and some provolone-type meat. This is one of the times that I am glad that I don't eat gluten anymore or I would be the size of a house - no pancakes, waffles, toast or pastries for me (or even baked beans!) I am addicted to congee, the idea of a savoury rice porridge sounds yucky, but it tastes very much like chicken and sweetcorn soup you get at a chinese restaurant.

Lots of wandering (and getting lost) today. I found a very good supermarket just around the corner from the hotel, which claims to be a 'frozen meat specialist' on their shopping bags.

These are all different kinds of fish balls you add to soups - the pizza flavoured ones caught my eye.

Yum - chicken feet and tripe section.

This is the old-school butcher dept.

The first step...

The weeks and weeks of slowly packing my life of possessions in boxes has finally come to end. I have somehow managed to condense my life for the next 8 months into a suitcase that weighs 23kgs (OK, it was more like 27kgs by the time I got to the airport!) And I have shoved, er I mean packed my other belongings into a storage unit.... A few days by the pool with the lovely James and Andy at their new Liz Bay des res, a touch of sunburn and the time for me to get on a plane and start my year of travel (technically 8 months). 

Day One: I have fallen even more in love with my iPhone the pics it takes are awesome, in this pic I can for the first time see the strong family resemblance between me and my sis Issy, I like it. I think the following photos will be the beginning of a series - planes that I have flown in and pics out of their windows. 

The first two were taken over Australia somewhere and the last one was just before out descent into Hong K0ng Airport.

Day Two: I am staying on the 26th floor of the Harbour Grand Hong Kong with a 'harbour view'. It was dark when I checked in last night so I couldn't fully appreciate it. This morning I decided to try and take a photo of the view, if you squint at the pic below you can see it (the smog clears around noon according to the nice man in the gym). So its smoggy, very smoggy and all I managed to capture was me in my PJs :)

I stepped in the lift to go down for breakfast and met Victor and Ron, two American guys based in Laguna Beach, California and Kevin their HK Chinese friend. We chatted and queued to be seated, I went off to my table and started eating my Pork Congee (thats savoury rice porridge to you, yumo.) And, they kinda collected me/invited me over to their table - very friendly. Victor owns this company called Gidget which produces everything from bikes to board shorts - very diverse - so of course I gave him my business card!


Next: I'm meeting my old buddy Tony in Sheung Wan for lunch and then a wander around Marks and Spencers - can't wait! I'm going to be a tourist for the next few days and start work on Tuesday...