First Impressions of Hong Kong Two Years Later

Nice to be back walking along the promenade again

Woke up at 4am this morning with jet lag and couldn't get back to sleep until around 6am for another two hours. It took me a while to get organised but I finally got out the door and on a whim took the tram going west from Sai Wan Ho.

The streets were much quieter because it was Good Friday, and many people have left for the long weekend. By the time the tram reached Causeway Bay it was 11.15am and I realised Din Tai Fung was there. Vancouver is set to have one towards the end of this year, so I decided to have my dumpling fix.

Xiaolongbao looks a bit smaller at Din Tai Fung

When I got there the shutter was still down, but staff were busy in the kitchen wrapping dumplings. The restaurant actually opened before 11.30am and there were only a handful of us waiting to get the first seats.

As I perused the menu I was shocked that the prices had gone up, and not only that when the food arrived, the dumplings and other dishes looked smaller. Shrinkflation, folks. The food was still good, but for one person it cost HK$230 for pork dumplings, vegetarian dumplings and an appetiser of seaweed and beansprouts with a generous drizzle of sesame oil.

Nearby was Sogo and even though it was lunchtime it was not packed with shoppers despite encouraging its members to collect five times the points on certain products. I managed to score 20 percent off on swimming caps because I bought two.

The next stop was to see Bakehouse, a popular bakery that had opened there after I left. It was completely packed with a queue of people waiting patiently to snap up sourdough egg tarts, pastries, cookies and coffee. Amazing.

Bakehouse doing a bustling business

I then headed to Sheung Wan to buy ferry tickets to Macau in a few days. There were massive lines at TurboJet (the red ferry), while the one for Cotai (blue) was not too bad. Service was brisk with three people servicing counters for tickets to Macau as well as China. 

There weren't as many mainlanders in the city, though today is Friday. My friend and I saw a group of young people wearing the same cap with a small Winnie the Pooh stuffie on it! How ironic.

She took me to a bookshop called Mount Zero in Tai Ping Shan that will be closing at the end of the month. It has been accused by the authorities for several minor violations, including illegally occupying a space outside the shop. It's a tiny place and there were lots of people standing in front or trying to get inside to take a look. 

After that we made our trek east, walking through Central, then Admiralty towards Tamar where there were a lot of people waiting to look at... glowing eggs. It's an exhibition put on by Team Lab from Japan. There are giant eggs that you can touch and apparently make sounds and these things go all the way down the grass at Tamar into the water too. We had to fight the crowds to get to the waterfront.

Mount Zero bookstore closing soon

Almost two hours later we made it to Fortress Hill and enjoyed a Japanese meal that included grilled fugu or puffer fish, and yakitori skewers of beef, chicken, mushrooms, scallops, shishito peppers, and sweet potato, and boiled edamame washed down with sake.

Hopefully that long walk will keep jet lag at bay!