OK, going from San Francisco to Hangzhou in 2011 isn’t quite like the road that Marco Polo took in the late 1200’s from Italy to Hangzhou, a prominent silk center of China. And obviously the ‘travel’ part is much shorter today, which may actually reduce what a traveler can experience. Nonetheless, a move from US to China today is still a quite a change that’s for a person. While I am not sure if I will end up spending as much time in China as Marco Polo did during the Yuan dynasty, believed to be 20+ years, I will try to see if I can pack as much adventure as I can while I am here.
Anyways, my venture west started with a weekend stay in Hong Kong with my wife. (Yes, for those on US West Coast, traveling west is the shorter route to China, although my plane route actually went up (north) past the Bering Sea and then down over land across Russia and China to get to Hong Kong.) One was to take care of a few personal things; the other is to just take a break from all the ‘moving activities’ from the past month, which will start once again I reach Hangzhou.
Hong Kong is great stopover for me because it has an eclectic mix of food offerings, more than simply east or west fares. It’s the blend style that may be more interesting, from Hong Kong’s own unique local tastes (macaroni with lunch meat in a hot soup broth for breakfast) to more innovative fusion blend by today’s top chefs in Michelin star restaurants. And Hong Kong also offers light street food fares that one can get at small shops around the corner of the street. Fried curry fish ball is one of my favorites and egg tarts & cocktail buns are also good snacks to grab on the go at the one of the local bakery shops.
Today, Hong Kong is also the place that many mainland Chinese comes to buy things. And not just because the cost of some items is lower. Quite a number is coming to buy items for their quality assurance. At the airport, a lady asked us if we could help her to buy some baby formulas because there is a limit which any one person can buy in the shop. People in mainland are still apprehensive on the quality of a number of food items in China.
We stayed at the Excelsior Hotel in Causeway Bay. This is a sister hotel to Hong Kong’s Mandarin Oriental. I haven’t stayed here since about 2007. But some recent renovations of the rooms made it look better than before. The Gym also had a made over. And Café on the 1st offers a nice bright harbor view for the breakfast eaters. But the main reason for picking Excelsior is really its location. It is close to the heart of the activities on the island with scores of shops and restaurants within walking distance. And it is close to the subway station. (Granted that in Hong Kong everything could be within walking distances, but certain locations still offer much better convenience.)
On our first night, we went over to Lei Garden in Times Square for dinner. Two of Lei Garden received Michelin stars (the IFC and TST outlets). This one isn’t on the list, but for me I can’t tell the difference very much. (Translation: I think I will never qualify to be a food critic for Michelin.) The restaurant offers Cantonese style cuisine that still represents what I think is mainstream local food in Hong Kong.
Before reaching the restaurant, we did stop by the corner shop just outside of Times Square for my appetizer of curry fried fish balls. It has almost become a ritual for me to come here each time I am in Hong Kong. After dinner, we headed down to CitiSuper in basement of Times Square, a more upscale grocery chain, to get some fruits and snacks. A grocery store in an enclosed shopping mall is something that is not too common in the US but quite prevalent in Asia. These markets offered prepared packaged of smaller size meals and/or meal ingredients for shoppers like a lot of supermarkets in the US is doing these days.
After we returned back to the hotel, we turned to watch some movies on the TV… but as typical during the first night of travel, I felt asleep in short order. I woke up around midnight, half awake, but Jessica was still asleep. I was at that stage where I could go either way, but decided just to brush my teeth and formally turn in for the night.
I woke up around 6AM the next morning. After reading a few things on the iPad in bed, I got up around 8AM and head down to the Gym for a workout. After I took a shower after returning, I wanted to get something to eat. I got permission from my sleeping wife to go down to the hotel café for a bite alone. The breakfast buffet has a typical balance of Chinese and western style items. While nothing was especially unique, I ended up trying a bit of everything, from fruit and cheese to eggs and beans and to noodles and congees. When I returned back to my room around 10:30AM, I knew I was in trouble… I probably was not in any shape to eat lunch that my wife would want to have shortly.
Anyways, Jessica wanted to go to Crystal Jade for lunch, and we went to the one at the World Trade Center right across from Excelsior. Crystal Jade is a good mid-price chain that offers traditional light Chinese fare. (Crystal Jade is actually a Singapore chain. A number of new Singapore eateries actually have popped up recently. There is now a Toast Box in Times Square.) I have a few bites as Jessica ate her full lunch… but even that measured pace would end up impacting my dinner.
After lunch, we decided to take care of some shopping list items around Causeway Bay Plus it was good to take a walk as well. We went to Sogo to look for a few kitchen items, and some items for friends (and some apparel browsing for my wife). Then we hit Sasa for beauty products. And then we went to a local store that specializes on bird nest and other delicacies near Time Square. Finally, we hit the local supermarket for candies and snacks to take back home.
That took most of the afternoon, and we head back to hotel for a bit of sorting through our bounty and some rest before dinner, which would be at ToTT, the hotel restaurant located on the roof top. ToTT offers a mix of contemporary dishes that has an international East/West fusion favor, in the style of Jean-Georges Vongericten. There is a tasting menu available. But given that my stomach was still digesting my breakfast and lunch, we went with a lighter course. Along with an order of Halibut with risotto and Burgand Duck, we spit an order of the foie gras, cream of pumpkins soup with prawns and a decadent chocolate tart with ice cream and truffles parfit for dessert. In some ways, we created our own (smaller) tasting menu. Everything was very good, but that dessert may have been the best of the lot. Good enough that Jessica was suggesting we should return the following night just for the dessert. In addition to the good food, the restaurant location also provides the diners a great view of the city and harbor; in another word, a great ambience.
After returning to the hotel room, it was pretty much a replay of the previous night. I fell asleep watching TV. Woke up around 1AM and once again decide to get myself ready to go back to bed ‘formally’. And as typical for me on an intercontinental trip, woke up earlier the next day than my first night. Trying not to disturb my wife, I spent an hour and a half in the bathroom reading magazine and the day’s newspaper. Finally around 7AM, I decided to take a walk around the area.
Early Sunday morning is an interest time of day to walk around in a city. In early June, it was warm enough for me to wear shorts to walk around, but cool enough with some overcast to make the stroll not too stifling. There was just a scattering of people running about at that hour. There were the street cleaning crews taking away the garbage from the previous day. There are some construction workers preparing for some events in the area. Even the outside/farmer market was just getting ready for the day. Then you start thinking about some of the others people walking around, wondering whether they are just ready to go home after staying up all night or just getting ready for the day. Most interestingly are the young people I saw at Burger King and Mickey D’s for breakfast. I end up grabbing an egg tart during my walk.
I returned back to the hotel around 8AM. After taking a shower, I decided to lie down on the bed, since my wife was still sleeping. I ended up dozing off and woke up around 10AM with my wife. We headed out around 11AM ready for food. We wanted to try something different, so we went somewhere we haven’t went before. We headed to Lee Garden Tower Complex (not to be confused with the Lei Garden restaurant… the towers are not too far from Times Square.) There were a few restaurants in the complex. We ended up picking one that we had seen an ad on, Wang Jia Sha. (Advertising can pay in some cases.) It offers traditional Cantonese dim sums but is helmed by Shanghai chefs so that it also offer a number of Shanghai favorites like Xiao Long Bao. Jessica liked the double broil soup that is available there.
After lunch, we head back to the hotel. Along the way, we say a new shop in the area was having a Grand Opening with a local celebrity on hand to come shortly. We decided to wait to catch a glimpse (Jessica’s idea). Anyways, when the celebrity showed up, I became like a paparazzi with the throng of people outside snapping pictures. Something new experienced.
For the afternoon, we decided to head to Lamma Island, a small island off the southern coast of Hong Kong island that is accessible by ferries from Central Piers. The ferry takes about 30 minutes and there is one departing about every half hour.
The ferry we took puts us at Sok Kwo Wan, one of the two main ‘towns’ on the island. The town consists of a main street with shops and restaurants, primarily seafood but I see a few more cafes these days. The island is one of places Hong Kong people come for seafood. The island is said to have a large percentage of expats living there, and also a place that artists and musicians would favor. Maybe that is why with typical tourist offerings, there are a number of local arts shops and organic stores around as well.
One interesting thing about the island is that aside from some of the public service vehicles (like a small fire truck); there are no other cars on the island. With the island’s narrow “streets”, one can understand why. There are numerous hiking trails on the island. We passed on the trails on this day, even the short one to the beach (Lo Sing Beach) on the island. (Partly is we did get lost for a bit looking for outlets from the town.) We end up just looking around the shops in Sok Kwo Wan and took a break in a café.
The main reason we had come was for the seafood. We decided to have an early dinner at one of the restaurants around 5PM or so. The attractive point of Lamma Island is getting fresh seafood at good prices. We had steamed Grouper, broiled shrimps and fried Octopus as our main dishes, along with fried rice and vegetables. The dishes were good and fresh if not spectacular (but then again, I may not be the best food judge… I could easily choose hot dogs over caviar.)
We head back to Hong Kong after dinner. It was about 8PM by the time we got back. After sorting and packing our stuff to get ready for our departures the next day for Hangzhou, we settled in on the TV before turning in for the night.
The Airport Express in Hong Kong is one of the best ways to go to get to the airport, especially the ability to check-in at the station before heading to the airport. And if two or more are travelling together, it is cheaper to buy a special priced package of two one-way tickets than two round-trip tickets. Individual round trip tickets are HKD 180 each. For two people, that would be HKD 360. Packaged two one-way tickets are HKD 160, so that a round trip for two people would cost just HKD 320. Special packaged tickets may not be available on the vending machines, so you would have to get it at the ticket counters at the airport or the Airport Express station.
More to come as my adventure in China unfolds….