Finally yesterday found the cat that was missing. I didn’t see her at all the morning I left, had to hunt through the house to make sure I hadn’t trapped her anywhere, and then couldn’t find her on the robotic catcam. So a full house search last night (my time – still light in the UK) finally succeeded in drawing her out of her hiding place downstairs, and I got to watch her finish the last of their food. Hopefully they’ve been fed again since or I’ll have very skinny cats on my return. The robot can’t go back upstairs so no more cat watching until it’s manually returned to its charger.
Today didn’t start so well. Barely any sleep, then when I went to trim the chin fluff found out that my fully charged beard trimmer has no power left. It must have switched itself on during the flight or something – lucky my luggage wasn’t held and investigated. At least it is actually a beard trimmer, no indefinite article required. No power supply for it with me and not a hope of buying one with the right volt/amp combo, so looks like I get a new beard trimmer. I’ll wait and buy one in Singapore (as you do).
After that disappointment I’ve had a quiet day. Popped out, watched fish jump in a large river, saw an eagle soar overhead, got accosted by a wild monkey, climbed 400 steps, admired ten thousand buddhas and returned to the hotel. I got back at about 10.30am and that was pretty much the day over. It’s not that I’ve finished Kowloon and Hong Kong, it’s that a very steep 6km walk has left me with blisters and I’d like to be able to move for the rest of the holiday. So I settled for giving the chafing some respite and letting my legs recover, it’s been a tough 40 hours for them. I’ve averaged just under a kilometre an hour in that period, on foot.
But those 10k buddhas? No, the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery is liable under the Trade Descriptions Act, if China has one. Nearer 13,000…
Mostly they were wooden statues, painted gold, but in the temples themselves a whole range, including some around ten feet tall and some that looked exceedingly expensive. While there’s no shortage of lifesized statues there are also a couple of temples focussed more on volume – each of those tiny lights sits below a buddha..
431 steps feels a low count. I started by the foot of the Government building and ended up looking down at its 15 storey high roof. Even before the first step I encounterd a wild macaque, sat in the middle of the path. There was a fork, and a lady with a dog were coming down the other way. The monkey bared its teeth and hissed at me and the labrador sized dog nearly pulled its owner over as it tried to flee. Two minutes of aggressive monkey unhappiness later I got bored and told it I was passing whether it liked it or not. The monkey got upset at this and had a swipe at me, its hand brushing my jeans but nothing more. I left it there, hissing at the lady who was now carrying her dog.
The New Territories are full of massive tower blocks, suggesting population density nearly as insane as Kowloon. The town I walked through lacked the street life, most of the shops in shopping centres and instead large open spaces, full of people doing tai chi or something of that ilk. I saw two men below the town hall doing slow deliberate movements with wooden swords, the blades carved in a curved scimitar shape. The people seemed much friendlier than Kowloon, willing to acknowledge and greet me. That may just be because there were fewer people around, or because I was a rare sight in those parts.
Dinner was a difficult choice. Paying too much yesterday meant that I had enough cash for dinner or a taxi to the cruise terminal but probably not both. At the same time I didn’t want to get more HK$ out of the bank as I’d never get to spend them. So much research took place and revealed that the bus options are horrific, the train options involve catching a train to a bus stop, the 13km walk includes elements that may not be accessible to pedestrians and the taxis only take cash. So I did the sensible thing and asked the concierge.
Online taxi fare guides had suggested anything from $80-150 for the trip so when the concierge (eventually appeared and) told me she could get me a taxi if I came to her tomorrow, I asked her how much it would be. She reckons $150, leaving me with $120 for dinner and no spare.
So I did the sensible thing and wandered around the residential areas. These aren’t hard to find, turn left at any junction and you’ll either enter or leave one. Today’s was not a wealthy part of town. I decided to skip Kung Fu Dim Sum, as much as anything because it was just too busy, ignored the cheap attractive looking Thai food on the grounds I’ll be in Thailand soon and ended up at a tiny noodle bar where the menu was the only thing in the building that had even heard of English.
Sign language got me a table, pointing at the menu got me ‘mushroom pork balls’ and noodles and a cup of coffee. That arrived first, my third instant coffee with milk, seemingly the only coffee option in Kowloon. That’s not quite true, all three meals I’ve had here led to confusion that I wanted my coffee hot, but to me that’s not an option.
The noodles arrived, with a spoon for the sauce/soup they were in. I asked if I could have a fork and got a confused expression. The gentleman sharing my trestle table on one side leaned back and watched with interest. The one on the other side pointed, said something to the waitress (who looked like the owner) and laughed. She looked at me and said something in Cantonese. We shared a moment of incomprehension, a man sat on the other side of the room said something to me in another language – not Cantonese, but not English – and I boggled at him. The waitress said something else, walked off, and a young woman sat with her boyfriend called out to me, “She asked if you wanted a fork.” Thanks were given, and my desire shared in Cantonese, and I got a fork.
Beneath the murky surface, hiding under the bobbing mushroom pork balls and cabbage leaf, were noodles. A lot of noodles. I lifted them on my fork, and they fell off. I shrugged, hooked it under them, bent down to the bowl and used the fork as the men either side were using their chopsticks: Lift a mass of noodles to the mouth, slurp them up out of the bowl, bite down when you needed breath.
They were good. Better yet, despite ordering the cheapest thing on the menu, I got a discount. I did get charged the full $32 for the mushroom pork balls (which were, btw, not good – imagine the world’s cheapest sausage meat, and boil it) but I appear to have picked up the daily special of dinner + drink for $40 instead of the full $14 for coffee. I put a fifty by the till and as she picked it up and fussed with the machine I walked out. 25% was too generous a tip but she’d have just handed me a $10 note anyway and I’d already spent all my coins on bus fare.
That wasn’t dinner. That was just the first course of dinner. Egg waffles are a big thing here and I’d spotted a nice shop selling them nearby. So another $20 bought me waffle heaven. These are like waffles but so so much better. You get the same fluffy melty goodness of a proper fresh hot waffle but it’s surrounded by crunchy awesomeness. They do various flavours, including a very tempting coffee but as it was my first time I settled for the simple ‘original’. There’s a five minute wait while they make them fresh for each customer, and no shortage of customers willing to wait.
So a cheap (and excellent) dinner means I still have a quarter of the 800 dollars I withdrew at the airport, enough for a taxi and even maybe a coffee while I wait to board. Given the entirely random and arbitrary choice of 800 dollars I’m feeling unduly chuffed about this. By far the most has gone on food, just under $400 on just three meals and another $50 on water. That feels too much but Hong Kong prices are at best no cheaper than the UK – and lets be honest, I’m planning to spend more than that on just one steak in California 😉 However sticking to the bus has proven a very cost effective choice, even if it has caused great amazement amongst the other passengers. The bus services here are extensive, every stop seems to have 7-8 different routes passing through it, and every one of them busy. The buses have free wifi and are clean and well kept. Well, mostly.
I spent more time seeking dinner than I’d wanted, so total distance walked today has crept up to 9km. Even with my lovely walking shoes my feet are feeling it now, and my knees and calves are a mess.
Last night in the same hotel – equal longest stay at any hotel on the trip, shared with a dodgy motel in a dodgy town in Florida. Hopefully the cruise ship will have a shower designed for normal people, so that I can actually stand up without keeping my hair dry and turn around without bruising my elbows. Also my first piece of handwashing: my camera bag strap left a brown diagonal swathe of filth across the front and back of what had started the day as a white shirt. That shirt is currently dripping on the carpet and the bag’s had an extensive wipe down with a no longer white hotel flannel.