Hiking and Exploring around Hong Kong

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Just like I said, there will be multiple postings of blogs coming over the next few weeks. I apoligize if you received the last one twice.

Over this past weekend we had an opportunity to do some exploring around HK Island. When we first arrived here the weather was really bad and cold and then as soon as the weather turned good, we traveled out of town.

One of the things we did on Saturday was go for a hike in the Tai Tam Country Park. It was really enjoyable with awesome views of the South China Sea. It was great until we came to the bottom of a hill. As we looked at the trail carved into the hill before us, we though “Piece of cake, we’re from Colorado, this is easy! We’ve done harder hikes then this!” It ended up being very steep steps up the hill, 1235 to be exact. Oh, and then there was the humidity! That was our first taste of exercising in humidity. We absolutely poured sweat! We think we got rid of all the toxins we still had from our drinking days in college! Once we got to the top, we had to go down 1000 steps to the street below. Both of our legs were shaking when we were done. Shelly is not the most graceful hiker so she was afraid that at any minute she was going to trip on her own feet and go tumbling down the mountain. That would have been bad because she would have tumbled a long way!

Saturday night we went to Kowloon for dinner and to go to the Temple Street Night Market. (Kowloon is across the harbor from HK Island). There was so much junk for sell at the market. Toys, clothes, electronics, jade, jewelry even dancing vibrators! Yes, dancing vibrators!


There were also fortune tellers. Troy thought we should get our fortune told, but Shelly didn’t want to. She was afraid the fortune teller would see something she didn’t like.

There was also the worst karaoke on earth. Normally when you think of karaoke, you think of music piped through speakers, singers dancing and the music being some sort of top 40 or other recognizable song. Not this one. It had a 5 piece band and the band members were ancient and played badly! The guy singing was even worse then the band. He was singing some sort of Chinese song that was hardly top 40. It was a very pathetic thing to witness!

Sunday we went to the southwest side of the island to the Aberdeen fish market. A huge variety of fish and shellfish from the China Sea was represented here. It was sad for us to see since we are divers and enjoy diving with the marine life. It was hard seeing parrotfish, red snapper, squid and octopuses in containers getting ready to be shipped to nearby restaurants.

We then had lunch at this huge floating restaurant. It is called the Jumbo and is known as the most luxurious floating restaurant in the world. It was nice but the food was not the best. When we sat down at our table, Troy proceeded to eat the table decorations. As he uses his chopsticks to pick up these little pieces of green glass he tells Shelly “It’s candy! You’re supposed to eat it!” He quickly found out it wasn’t candy and spit it right out! I think he was trying to find something that he actually tasted good.
We’re having ok food, but some meals are just not very good! I know Hong Kong is known for the fabulous food, but we guess we are not finding those world famous restaurants - maybe we don't want to becuase we are eating cheap too. Saturday night in Kowloon, we ordered a “set” for dinner. Normally it is a three course meal. Drink, main meal with rice and dessert. At this place we were at Saturday night, we had a 7 course meal. The first several dishes came out quickly, then they stopped coming. We thought we were done so Troy asked for the check. Our waitress told us we still had more coming! Even though it was 7 courses, we both left hungry because we didn’t really enjoy what we had! We both agreed that what is sad is that we just can’t go across the street to a Taco Bell or Qdoba to get food we enjoy! We just keep telling ourselves “It’s all a part of the experience!”