tsim tsa tsui Archives - As Suanie Sees It

HKG day 3.3 – this girl needs a beer

1930 – Again without a map (actually I had one, just didn’t feel like taking it out) I found myself facing a Clock Tower. The Clock Tower actually, it was just beside the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. I spotted a Watsons nearby and decided to buy something, anything to freshen my mouth as it felt moldy; most likely due to the weather. The Listerine film pack cost HKG$13 – how much is it here?

I had no idea where I was going and very wisely decided to go towards the sign that said ‘To Nathan Road’. It was ok, there were many people walking also (duh). Here there here there and I passed by the YMCA Salisbury. Walked a bit more and I saw a mall with shops selling international branded stuff. Only it wasn’t a real mall, but The Peninsula Hong Kong. As I walked past the hotel I was totally blown away by its grandness, fountain, marble and all its poshness. One day, just one day!!

Made a turn at the Peninsula and hey! I was at Nathan Road again! Basically just a heck lot of shops, shops and more shops on both sides of the roads but one thing was for sure – everywhere you go there is bound to be a 7-11, Watsons, Sasa and Mannings (our Guardian). Well for more scenes of Nathan Road, feel free to rent or buy Wong Kar Wai’s 1994 cult classic, Chungking Express.

Something big and red caught my eye and I had to check it out. Half an hour later I emerged with HKG$217 worth of Esprit goods. Heh.

I turned into Peking Road, though I did not know it was Peking Road at that time. Went past a few shops then turned into Lock Road, just walking aimlessly looking at people and shops. I walked past a shop with the sign ‘Internet Cafe’, did a double-take and went inside. The small shop was really a cafe with tables and it was quite full with people having their dinner. The Internet part was around 4 or 5 flat screen iMacs. The Indian shopkeeper was friendly. Of course, charging your customers HKG$15 for 15 mins of Internet usage; there is no room to be unfriendly. I decided to write an e-mail to Ronny telling him the exorbitant charges for the Internet. Come to think of it, using their Internet service to complain about their Internet service – I must have been really bored.

Ten minutes later I paid and left the Internet cafe and walked around some more. I’d read about a couple of Irish pubs along Peking Road but I passed by only one. There was a pub along Lock Road called Red Lion or something, but there were two women standing outside the pub and their clothes decidedly needed more material, so I decided to head back to Peking Road.

Tired, alone, aimless, lonely, I walked into Delaney’s.

I sat at the bar and ordered a pint of Kilkenny for HKG$42. My bartender was a tall Caucasian with a ponytail. I asked him, “Are you a real Irishman working in an Irish pub?”

He grinned, “No, I’m Scottish.”

Minutes later I asked for the menu and proceeded to order something to eat. Fifteen minutes later a HKG$90 lamb’s shanks with mashed potato and vege arrived; I ate all the vege, some of the mashed potato and two bites of the lamb. As the Scot took my plate away I had a sudden yearning for Jaime’s mom’s BBQ lamb.

A Caucasian male had taken his seat at the bar beside me. From his conversations with the bartender I gathered that he had been in Hong Kong many times before. So I asked him if he had been to the Temple Street Night Market and if it was worth a visit. He said he had not been there but he had been to a few street markets in Mongkok, and that was all the street markets he needed to see.

His name was Alan and we began to talk for a bit. He was from Seattle, married with two kids and he works for Microsoft. Apparently Microsoft has factories in China making keyboards and such and Alan is the QC for the designs that material into real stuff. It was really interesting because he had seen and met many people; we talked about the weather, Seattle, Malaysia’s cultures, races, politics and food, America’s recent elections and ‘conspiracies’, the Middle East war and Iran. Really mind-opening because he had friends from Iran and he related to me the status of females in Iran; still really Stone age.

Four Guinness (him) and two whisky coke (me) later, he insisted on paying for my later drinks and then we said goodbye.

I left Delaney’s around 2330 and decided to walk back to my hotel. So I went to the Tsim Tsa Tsui MTR station to return my Octopus card to get back my deposit and any remaining value. At the customer service area there was a man in a suit, from his accent he was obviously from China and boy, he was having a rough time communicating with the younger fella behind the counter.

The whole thing was about the man in the suit asking if one Octopus card could be used for 3 people. The young customer service guy was a bit impatient and after some miscommunication he angered the man. It was interesting to see; the man suddenly stood up very straight and in sing-song Mandarin told the guy, “I want you to explain to me how to get 3 people on the MTR.” The young fella wrote down the price on a piece of paper and the man said stiffly, “I can’t read.”

They stared at each other for a while and then the man asked his questions again. The customer service fella answered and then finally the China man said, “Na bu jiu shing le ma, wei shen me gan chai bu neng jiang qing chu” (isn’t that all it takes? Why couldn’t you explain it clearly earlier?)

The man left and the young fella grumbled unhappily under his breath, when it was my turn another guy took over his place.

After returning the Octopus card, I walked along Nathan Road back to Yau Ma Tei. It was around ]0000 and most of the shops were closing but there were a lot of people walking around. I passed by Park Lane Shoppers’ Boulevard, it was a really pretty sight with little lights all around.

Park Lane Shoppers’ Boulevard along Tsim Sha Tsui

I was at Jordan waiting to cross a street when I decided to take a photo of buildings with neon signboards. Quite a common scene everywhere, actually.

Random photo of random street

It was a nice walk actually. I didn’t feel unsafe because there were people around me everywhere. A little bit before reaching the Tin Hau Temple I turned off into one of the little streets behind Nathan Road. I wanted to see if the Temple Street Night Market was still operating; it wasn’t. There were a lot of eateries still open for business and there were tables and chairs in the open air; apparently the mamak culture in Malaysia takes on a yellow form in Hong Kong.

I wandered into a VCD/DVD shop and just perused the many many many titles in front of me. Hong Kong movies, Hollywood movies, France, Italy, Paris – you get it all in this little shop, some legal and most not-so-legal, especially the whole rack dedicated to x-rated movies. I was looking and looking and suddenly realised that they might want to close for the day, seeing that they were the only shop around the area still open and not selling food. So I asked the shop owner what time he would close the shop. He replied in Cantonese, “Oh 3 a.m., man man tai lah” (feel free to browse). I bought ‘The Truth About Cats and Dogs’ and ‘Love Actually’ then walked back to my hotel.

The walk from Tsim Tsa Tsui to my hotel in Yau Ma Tei took less than half an hour, not including the detour to the VCD/DVD shop.

Back in my hotel room I took a shower and packed my stuff since I had a 0615 coach to the airport. Fell asleep around 0330 and had two hours of sleep on my last night in Hong Kong.

Day 1 : To Hong Kong
Day 2.1 : In Search of Tin Hau
Day 2.2 : The Octopus Strikes Back
Day 2.3 : Flower Crazy
Day 2.4 : Central; A Different World
Day 2.5 : Night Time, Light Time
Day 3.1 : The Buddha Beckons
Day 3.2 : To The Peak and Back
Day 3.3 : This Girl Needs a Beer
Day 4 : Leaving Hong Kong
Some thoughts on Hong Kong

HKG day 2.5 – night time light time

Said goodbye to G at the Central station and took a train to Tsim Tsa Tsui. I saw a really hot chick and instantly thought of the friends back home. So I asked her and her friend if I could take a photo of them. I told them the reason too; my male-hormone driven friends back in Malaysia would appreciate some cun chicks’ photos. They laughingly agreed. I don’t think the photo captures what I felt was beautiful about her though. Her almond-shaped eyes really sparkled (natural sparkle, not the contact lenses crap you get these days) and just a general feeling of cheerfulness and innocence.

We chatted for a while and I found out that the other girl was her sister. Same eyes definitely. They were both Hongkies studying in Perth and were on their way to Mongkok for some shopping. We talked about her Malaysian housemates and how they would occasionally do a pot luck and she would get to taste some Malaysian food. And how she loved roti telur which she would buy frozen from the supermarket to be pan-fried. I was like, adoi… but never mind, she would definitely go to Malaysia one day. She also told me that a can of Coca-Cola in Hong Kong costs HKG$6. That, my friends is roughly RM3. Malaysian Coke lovers, be glad.

We said goodbye at the Tsim Tsa Tsui station. I wanted to go to Mody Road at Tsim Tsa Tsui East and ended up getting lost for 30 minutes. There were quite a few construction works being carried out from Tsim Tsa Tsui to Tsim Tsa Tsui East, road signs telling you to follow this path and ended up leading to another path, stuff like that.

Sounds like KL eh? Only on a smaller scale.

Also when I changed my clothes earlier I forgot to take out my map. But it was not that bad; the redeeming part was when I accidentally located Tsim Tsa Tsui promenade, something like Singapore’s Esplanade but bigger (duh). It was late afternoon, around 1700 and there were joggers, families and such taking an evening stroll.

Then lo and behold, I found Mody Road! I also found John! Actually he found me. Was very surprised but in a good way. So we went to his hotel; Grand Stanford Intercontinental which was just beside Mody Road on Salisbury Road and had coffee at the lounge.

John, wahey!

We talked a lot, then met up with two Filipino friends working in Hong Kong. We had dinner at the hotel, thanks to John who decided to belanja. We took some photos but I realised that no one really knows how to operate my Sony digital cam, except for a selected few. The waitress who took a group photo certainly didn’t even after 3 tries. So most of the photos came out blurry. Sien x100.

We chatted some more then the girls had to leave. John and I decided to take a walk at the Tsim Tsa Tsui promenade. At the hotel entrance we saw this baby…

Would you like a Lamborghini with that?

Apparently it costs a cool US$5 million. I can’t help but wonder, how could they bear to spend so much money on a car and where can I meet these people?!?

John and I walked across an overhead bridge to get to the promenade – there were lights all around us! It seemed that every building was partaking in the Christmas spirit. A light feast and a most beautiful one at that.

The Tsim Tsa Tsui Promenade

It was around 2220 and a bit windy. The view of Hong Kong Island just right across was so grand and glorious and entrancing. So to our left was the sea view and to our right was again the gigantic displays of Santa and his reindeer.

We walked a bit more then decided to sit down on the pavement and just chill. Of course there were quite a few looks our way but my philosophy has always been: I am a tourist, I don’ fuck care. We talked quite a bit there, then walked back to his hotel and had coffee at the lounge again, chatted some more again. He gave me some chocolates… hehe I am a very happy camper.

View from the Tsim Tsa Tsui Promenade

Left at around 0115, decided to take a taxi since the MTR was closed and I didn’t feel like walking back. My young taxi driver could hardly speak English and I could hardly speak Cantonese, so it was quite fun (and funny) telling him that I wanted to go to 7-11 before returning to my hotel. Finally he understood, ‘chat sap yat‘. He was quite surprised that I was traveling alone. I told him that my friends said Hong Kong is pretty much a safe place, and like everywhere you just have to be careful. He agreed and said that it was pretty daring of me to go to a foreign place all by myself.

Stopped at a 7-11 in Yau Ma Tei – by the way the entire Hong Kong is littered with 7-11 – and bought two 1.5 litres of mineral water for HKG$23.20. Definitely much cheaper than the HKG$35 for 500ml I saw at the Flower Market. A couple of turns later we reached the Yau Ma Tei public park where I had to cross the road to get to the hotel. Would be pretty silly if he made another huge round to end up at the hotel door, seeing that there were still quite a few people walking around, mostly tourists I would guess. My taxi fare came up to HKG$30 (it was after midnight). The taxi driver told me to take care of myself and be careful since I was alone. He refused to accept a tip.

Where are all the rude taxi drivers I have heard and read so much about?

Not really complaining, but it is a well-known fact that Hong Kong people are not the friendliest lot around. But according to Jaime much later, SARS (the disease not the return to China) hit them quite bad and everyone’s income was so affected, they decided to be nicer to other people.

The hotel locks its main glass doors after 12 midnight as a safety measure, which I was quite happy about. I had to produce my key to show them that I was staying there. Showered then tidied up my stuff a bit, wrote my entry for the day and now watching the Oprah Winfrey show with the cast of Bridget Jones 2.

It is now 0315. Time to sleep.