I have been very shoddy in keeping this blog updated I know, mental last 4 weeks in Hong Kong with work, fab time in Beijing battling with bad flu and an annoying chesty cough then getting stranded in Tenerife for an extra 6 days without my laptop because of the volcanic ash cloud! So, this will be a slightly jumbo edition to get me up-to-date in the UK.
Divine Dim Sum and general touristyness in Hong Kong.
Day 29: As many people have noticed I am a big fan of food and markets. I'd read about a one Michelin star restaurant in Mong Kok (supposedly one of the cheapest Michelin starred restaurants in the world), and also delicious. The restaurant was Tim Ho Wan, there was a 2 hour+ wait mainly because of the hordes of people waiting and the fact that it only seated 22 people.
Its in the weirdest spot (its the one with the green sign) between two scooter shops and opposite all these gun shops. The one below is one of my favourite shop names!
OK, so there's a 2 hour wait, my book Tai Pan only got me so far, so I spent most of my wait wandering around the markets in Mong Kok trying out my lush new digital SLR camera
Note the four BBQ'd pigs on the right hand side.
Back to Tim Ho Wan...
The steamy kitchens where all the magic happens.
Inside its not like the Tardis, it looks this small from the outside too. But it was well worth the wait the food was dee-lish.
House speciality of baked pork buns, with a thick, crunchy, sugary crust on the top - you ordered them and waited 25 mins for them to bake them fresh. At least 10 people ordered extras of these as take out because they were sooooo yummy. (I did too and took them to my very grateful work mates).
Day 33: From one Dim Sum (or Yum Cha as we call it in Oz) experience to another. Next stop Lin Heung - if you want an authentic HK Dim Sum experience this is the place to go, a cross between the authentic/traditional recipes and a free -for-all rugby scrum! Leigh, a friend of my sister Fran was transiting through HK so this was her first ever experience of Dim Sum!
These were traditional, very light steamed cakes with sweet red bean paste inside. No one spoke English so it was a case of picking something that you thought looked OK and finding out if it was sweet or savoury once you started eating. (I thought these were pork buns of some description when I picked them). Oddly enough we ended up sharing a table with a Chinese man who used to live in Sydney!
Day 40: Rainy day in Macau with Kingsley - its a 30 minute ferry journey to Macau, and you'll need your passport (this is the 3rd time I've tried to get there over several visits to Hong Kong, I forgot my passport the first time). Macau has a Canto-Portugese feel as a former Portuguese enclave. I loved the architecture, some of it was very colourful and very European. The two specialities seemed to be large sheets of jerky and pretty much anything on a stick - steamboat style.
Lovely church we popped into...
Old lady on the steps outside.
Cooking up some jerky...
Something on a stick.
Kingsley.
Macau is famous for its casino's and we had to visit one, I nearly lost my pants there. I won big and lost big too!
Day 59: Brown Sauce night on the town in Lang Kwai Fong to celebrate finishing our contract. These pics need now words! So long Honkers, hello (nee how) Beijing!
Next: The lovely Miss J and the delights of Beijing!
