Hong Kong: Day 3.. and a bit

Mushroom roots

Food food food

One of Ten

Hong Kong from the Peaks

Artsy trees

The next morning our friends whom we were staying with had arrived home, so we caught up over a civilized coffee and a bowl of muesli and fruit – the comfort food that I could not live without. We established that the next order of business was to explore ‘the Peaks’, the highest point of Hong Kong that lies above the mist line. We drove up windy roads and began our walk, along the peak of a mountain with rainforest on either side of us, and colonial style houses scattered along the route. The route consisted of a circle, but due to my mother and I’s flawed sense of direction, we somehow veered off this path ending at a dead end – before turning back we enjoyed a 30 minute meditation in one of the royal gardens along the way; out of the corner of my eye I could see Chinese gardeners peering closely at the strange ‘guilo’ chanting away and staring at the tip of their fingers (Kundalini yoga involves some rather odd actions). The peak cafe provided a delicious post-walk meal of steak sandwiches with chunky chips and ceasar salad with tandoori chicken. The ratio of food to exercise was about 3:1 but the excuse that we were on holiday was enough to justify it in our minds.

Crispy eggplant

The peaks

A much needed break was taken at home, facebook being of utmost priority within that hour, the pages of the book i’d been promising to read were still left unturned. I’d glance at it briefly as my emails loaded and pushed it slightly further out of view: out of site out of mind? The hour whizzed by and we were whisked off to have a 10 course meal with the relatives at a fantastic vegetarian resteraunt my Aunty worked at. We were at first unaware of the fact that the meal consisted of 10 courses and indulged in the fabulous foods: spinach dumplings, crispy aubergine, stuffed mushrooms and crisp peanuts. The realization that there was far more to come causes the speed at which our chopsticks were moving to decrease significantly. It amazed me that half of what I ate tasted like meat – the Chinese have an incredible way of manipulating foods such as the soya bean to create meat or seafood without actually using animal products. The texture and flavour was so similar yet the unfavourable denseness that a lot of meat posseses didn’t exist. The meal continued slowly, allowing us time to digest the food, the hot brown rice tea cleansing our stomachs of the oil. I loved that food was such an important method of bringing this family together, something we all understood and could enjoy together. My sweet uncle duk-yun sat smiling on the side, the language-barrier being of no importance when a simple facial expression or sound could express our sentiments over the delicious food that lay infront of us. Dessert was finally served, a soya custard with fresh mango and a homemade apple pie, the pastry was so light and buttery it melted in your mouth as you crunched down on it.
 We’d arrived at the restaurant with our handbags and left with bags full of odd food supplies... ‘extra’s mints, Chinese crackers and red lava seaweed’ that our relatives had all given to us. The love was felt but the weight limit on our luggage was cause for concern.

Fresh mango pudding

Fresh apple pies
dusted in icing sugar

We stumbled out of the resteraunts, bags in tow and my crazy aunty Kwan-Chi (think of Crunchy) leading the way. As we said goodbye to half of the new gang, Kwan-Chi decided we were off to the night market – our polite rejection was not accepted so we compromised on a quick ‘half an hour’ and then bed. As we arrived we were bustled into the technology shop in which Dart-dart my second cousin was working. Sim cards were swapped between numerous phone’s and before we knew it we’d been led into, want to guess? Another local dessert franchise hidden around the corner between steaming dumplings and Che-Guevara T-shirts. I leaned over to my uncle muttering ‘are you hungry?’ His lightening reply of ‘no’ served to confuse me as he picked up a spoon, i soon realized when Kwan-Chi wants something to happen, there’s no arguing. We forced down a few delicious spoons of fresh mango ice cream and Chinese dumplings before reeling back in our chairs holding our food babies in what bordered on agony.

An art exhibition

Food? Check, Family? Check, Spliff? Check, Attempt at exercise? Check, Shopping? Check. 

One of the beautiful buddha's

'Let us pray'

Serenity?

Golden Buddha's along the path

The next day we decided we should try and experience a tad more of the cultural side of Hong Kong, and on recommendation, ventured up to ‘the temple of 10000 buddha’s’. I held my ground refusing to take a taxi, much against Kwan-Chi’s will, and we walked up and up the shallow stairs with the light reflecting off the thousands of golden buddha’s on either side of us. Each one had a different facial expression, some were old while others were young, some looked more gargoylian and others looked like Buddha. There was a point at which my eyes had to close as the gold hues intensified. A short pit-stop at a vegetarian restaurant along the way, with thousands more buddha’s of all different sizes, the biggest reached the roof and the smallest was comparable to a beetle. We continued to the top where a small waterfall lay, we sat on a rock as it cleansed the mind and allowed us to absorb the many more golden structures that lay around us. Our descent was timed perfectly as the rain began to fall increasingly harder. Only two fit under the umbrella so I took refuge under a police station roof, and stood with the police as nearby local rioters shouted their opinions about the new bridge that was being built in the area. Kwan-Chi and mum appeared huddled under their black umbrella, and we continued towards the station with a firm goal of returning home. Kwan-Chi got her way again however and we ended up sitting at a lovely restaurant eating yum-cha, known as dim-sum universally, it was delicious, fresh steamed charsil and prawn dumplings, fresh green vegetables, noodles and rice and a fried pigeon with its head still intact that made my mother rather squeamish. The meal was appreciated, one can not go to Hong Kong without experiencing yum-cha. It’s a must.

Pigeon in yum cha

Steamed Ha-Gow (prawn dumplings..
 excuse the spelling)

Mum and I

That evening we were taken to dinner by ‘a friend of a friend’, having heard lovely reviews we were anticipating only the best. And to our pleasant surprise that’s what we got; what I most appreciated was his genuine interest in the thoughts and opinions of an 18 year old without brushing off what I had to say, a trait appreciated in any such individual – patience and effort. Following a delicious Szechuan meal (Chinese food from the Szechuan province that typically involves a lot of chilli!) we were taken by our host friends to the FCC for a civilized glass of prosecco and a plate of apple crumble with vanilla ice cream. Being the youngest in their i already felt slightly out of place and accidentally smashing my first glass of prosecco across the bar didn’t help my situation. I was pleasantly surprised by the shoe polisher in the bathroom that included polishing for either black or brown shoes and a creamer. I felt like i’d been transported back into the 20’s – journalists stood around discussing political issues and old newspaper articles scattered the walls, if this was a taste of this world I was rather interested.


Recipe of the day: Pan-fried eggplant (serve with steamed jasmine rice, sweet chilli sauce and soya sauce)
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1950,148172-233197,00.html