So far everything has been really awesome. I'm really starting to settle in here, and I've done a lot of cool things and eaten a lot of delicious things!
I've eaten two of these bad boys. Nothing is better than a smarties McFlurry. I'm still angry at Canada.
We went to Kowloon last week and checked out the sneaker market and the goldfish market. The sneaker market was just a couple of streets that had tons of shoe stores, and we roamed around looking for a pair for our friend. He was way too picky, so he went off on his own to search and we checked out the goldfish. They're really cool and cheap here, apparently people have them for luck.
In a pet store in Kowloon, I found grumpy cat's brother:
Went back to the Limestone Arms for trivia night, which we were obliterated at. All of the questions were for middle-aged British ex-pats, and we didn't stand a chance. We had lemongrass chicken fingers and french fries with a curry dip. The place is owned by a Brit and his Thai wife, and they make delicious food.
We decided to try a durian, which is a fruit that STINKS but supposedly tastes good. It does not. Its kind of like a pungent tropical fruit with the texture of a stringy banana. It was awful, and the entire kitchen stunk. Apparently sometimes if you try to get in a cab with a durian, the cabbies won't let you.
This is what's for lunch on campus... yayyy... Its a pasta salad with thousand island dressing (?), fish roe and crab sticks (??) and apples (?????). Not awful but still really weird. Their take on western food isn't the greatest. But there is a great cafeteria on campus that has really cheap curry and BBQ pork and rice, so that's good. Plus starbucks has a red bean green tea muffin, and they heat them up here before they give them to you, so it tastes like warm cake. So awesome.
We went out on Wednesday night to a place called Lan Kwai Fong, which is a huge bar and club spot. Its about 3 or 4 streets, and its completely packed. There are places with super cheap drinks too. We always start our nights out with what we call the "7-11 Pub Crawl", where we drink cheap beer from 7-11 on the street (its legal here), and then go dance at a bar. We got these hilarious light up hats and devil horns that we wore around all night. It was pretty rainy, so it wasn't that busy. But we went back to LKF a couple of nights later and it was disgustingly packed. Way too many people, but it was an experience nonetheless.
Good start to one of my classes...
We read on Open Rice (an app that's like Chowhound for HK) that there was a place to go for really good dessert. In truth, we were looking for egg tarts, but we found this place instead. Its called Sugar Cake or something like that and they had these really interesting tiny tarts and cakes, and we split 2 of them between 4 of us. Then we went and got egg tarts, because we're gluttonous. These egg tarts were really interesting, because they were deeper than normal, so you eat them with a spoon! Delish. I highly recommend trying them in Chinatown in Toronto too, I bet they'd be just as good.
We went to a district called Wan Chai, which is a bar and restaurant area near Central. We found a Vietnamese place in a Lonely Planet book called Dalat, and we decided to try it out because it was cheap. Oh man, it was good. Probably the best meal I had in HK at that point, and it was soooo cheap too. Came out to about $9 CAD for pho with lemongrass grilled chicken and a shared appetizer of THE BEST SQUID EVER. This picture can't capture it. Every bite I had, I went "mmmm", it was that good. The restaurant also had a bunch of interesting French dishes, like that tomato-ey looking one.
Good Girl Gina, spotted in Wan Chai...
I had a full day conference to go to for one of my classes on the legal status of transgendered and transsexual individuals, which was really interesting. A huge debate was sparked about whether Gender Dysmorphia should be in the DSM-V, and some of the world's leading experts on the subject weighed in. Very cool. After the conference, we took the Star Ferry to Kowloon to watch the famous light show on the waterfront... I wouldn't recommend it. It was really cheesy. But we went to the avenue of the stars, and saw Bruce Lee's statue and a bunch of people's hand prints in the boardwalk. And the skyline was really cool, especially the cool boat in the water.
One of our friends has a friend here who is a food critic. So she told us to go to this place in Kowloon for Korean BBQ. Holy crap it was good. That thing on the grill was the most incredible piece of meat I've ever eaten, and it wasn't even marinated in anything. I don't know what they did to it. Magic? Probably. The lettuce is for you to make a lettuce wrap with kimchee, meat, and a spicy peanut sauce. Definitely our most expensive meal so far, but it was only about $27 each for all of this, and we were stuffed!!
My favorite sign:
I had another conference day to go to, and after a discussion on the Christian view of trans* people (supposedly God made man in his image, God doesn't have a gender, therefore what gender was Adam? The way this question is answered can have interesting implications for trans* Christians), I left so that we could go to see the Big Buddha. Its on an island near Disney Land, and we were supposed to take a gondala up to the top, but it wasn't running for whatever reason. So we took a long bus ride to the top. The first thing we said was "wow, that really is a BIG Buddha". There were also wild cows and bison roaming around on the island which was pretty cool.
Last night, we went back to LKF. We went to a bar in the back of an alley that was super cool, and had really expensive drinks but maaaan were they good. I had one with watermelon juice, gin, honey, and Tabasco, and it was insanely good. Then we hung out in the street, and got jello shots at another bar. We found another bar for dancing, and we danced until 3 A.M. The main reason why we stayed out so late is...
LATE NIGHT DIM SUM! Yes, there is a place in Kennedy Town called San Hing that opens at 3 A.M. Its full of shift workers and students, and we got there right at 3:05. We actually saw them making the dim sum, which was so cool. Their signature dish is called lau sa bao, or runny custard bun, and it was this hot, fresh, delicious custard inside of a sweet fluffy bun. It was so good, that I felt incredibly depressed that my friends and family back home will never get to try it! I mean even if you do visit HK, its all the way in Kennedy Town. I've been craving it all day today. 2 hours from now and I can get one if I really want!
And I found this while grocery shopping today... pre-packaged "candy".
I think that's enough for one night. I'll try to be better with my blogging, but I've barely had any time alone this past week, we've been so busy!
I've eaten two of these bad boys. Nothing is better than a smarties McFlurry. I'm still angry at Canada.
We went to Kowloon last week and checked out the sneaker market and the goldfish market. The sneaker market was just a couple of streets that had tons of shoe stores, and we roamed around looking for a pair for our friend. He was way too picky, so he went off on his own to search and we checked out the goldfish. They're really cool and cheap here, apparently people have them for luck.
In a pet store in Kowloon, I found grumpy cat's brother:
Went back to the Limestone Arms for trivia night, which we were obliterated at. All of the questions were for middle-aged British ex-pats, and we didn't stand a chance. We had lemongrass chicken fingers and french fries with a curry dip. The place is owned by a Brit and his Thai wife, and they make delicious food.
We decided to try a durian, which is a fruit that STINKS but supposedly tastes good. It does not. Its kind of like a pungent tropical fruit with the texture of a stringy banana. It was awful, and the entire kitchen stunk. Apparently sometimes if you try to get in a cab with a durian, the cabbies won't let you.
This is what's for lunch on campus... yayyy... Its a pasta salad with thousand island dressing (?), fish roe and crab sticks (??) and apples (?????). Not awful but still really weird. Their take on western food isn't the greatest. But there is a great cafeteria on campus that has really cheap curry and BBQ pork and rice, so that's good. Plus starbucks has a red bean green tea muffin, and they heat them up here before they give them to you, so it tastes like warm cake. So awesome.
We went out on Wednesday night to a place called Lan Kwai Fong, which is a huge bar and club spot. Its about 3 or 4 streets, and its completely packed. There are places with super cheap drinks too. We always start our nights out with what we call the "7-11 Pub Crawl", where we drink cheap beer from 7-11 on the street (its legal here), and then go dance at a bar. We got these hilarious light up hats and devil horns that we wore around all night. It was pretty rainy, so it wasn't that busy. But we went back to LKF a couple of nights later and it was disgustingly packed. Way too many people, but it was an experience nonetheless.
Good start to one of my classes...
We read on Open Rice (an app that's like Chowhound for HK) that there was a place to go for really good dessert. In truth, we were looking for egg tarts, but we found this place instead. Its called Sugar Cake or something like that and they had these really interesting tiny tarts and cakes, and we split 2 of them between 4 of us. Then we went and got egg tarts, because we're gluttonous. These egg tarts were really interesting, because they were deeper than normal, so you eat them with a spoon! Delish. I highly recommend trying them in Chinatown in Toronto too, I bet they'd be just as good.
We went to a district called Wan Chai, which is a bar and restaurant area near Central. We found a Vietnamese place in a Lonely Planet book called Dalat, and we decided to try it out because it was cheap. Oh man, it was good. Probably the best meal I had in HK at that point, and it was soooo cheap too. Came out to about $9 CAD for pho with lemongrass grilled chicken and a shared appetizer of THE BEST SQUID EVER. This picture can't capture it. Every bite I had, I went "mmmm", it was that good. The restaurant also had a bunch of interesting French dishes, like that tomato-ey looking one.
Good Girl Gina, spotted in Wan Chai...
I had a full day conference to go to for one of my classes on the legal status of transgendered and transsexual individuals, which was really interesting. A huge debate was sparked about whether Gender Dysmorphia should be in the DSM-V, and some of the world's leading experts on the subject weighed in. Very cool. After the conference, we took the Star Ferry to Kowloon to watch the famous light show on the waterfront... I wouldn't recommend it. It was really cheesy. But we went to the avenue of the stars, and saw Bruce Lee's statue and a bunch of people's hand prints in the boardwalk. And the skyline was really cool, especially the cool boat in the water.
One of our friends has a friend here who is a food critic. So she told us to go to this place in Kowloon for Korean BBQ. Holy crap it was good. That thing on the grill was the most incredible piece of meat I've ever eaten, and it wasn't even marinated in anything. I don't know what they did to it. Magic? Probably. The lettuce is for you to make a lettuce wrap with kimchee, meat, and a spicy peanut sauce. Definitely our most expensive meal so far, but it was only about $27 each for all of this, and we were stuffed!!
My favorite sign:
I had another conference day to go to, and after a discussion on the Christian view of trans* people (supposedly God made man in his image, God doesn't have a gender, therefore what gender was Adam? The way this question is answered can have interesting implications for trans* Christians), I left so that we could go to see the Big Buddha. Its on an island near Disney Land, and we were supposed to take a gondala up to the top, but it wasn't running for whatever reason. So we took a long bus ride to the top. The first thing we said was "wow, that really is a BIG Buddha". There were also wild cows and bison roaming around on the island which was pretty cool.
Last night, we went back to LKF. We went to a bar in the back of an alley that was super cool, and had really expensive drinks but maaaan were they good. I had one with watermelon juice, gin, honey, and Tabasco, and it was insanely good. Then we hung out in the street, and got jello shots at another bar. We found another bar for dancing, and we danced until 3 A.M. The main reason why we stayed out so late is...
LATE NIGHT DIM SUM! Yes, there is a place in Kennedy Town called San Hing that opens at 3 A.M. Its full of shift workers and students, and we got there right at 3:05. We actually saw them making the dim sum, which was so cool. Their signature dish is called lau sa bao, or runny custard bun, and it was this hot, fresh, delicious custard inside of a sweet fluffy bun. It was so good, that I felt incredibly depressed that my friends and family back home will never get to try it! I mean even if you do visit HK, its all the way in Kennedy Town. I've been craving it all day today. 2 hours from now and I can get one if I really want!
And I found this while grocery shopping today... pre-packaged "candy".
I think that's enough for one night. I'll try to be better with my blogging, but I've barely had any time alone this past week, we've been so busy!
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