Hong Kong Day 3
Pretty full day, actually bought somet things.
- Went up to the Iconic bar in our hotel to get coffee and plan out the day. Turns out they don’t actually serve just coffee, so I had an espresso. This was somehow black.
- Decided to go to the only eatery in Chai Wan that our guide book mentioned, Chaiwanese. We made the trek out along Chai Wan road and made our way up to the 13th floor of the buildoing it was in. They were closed for renovations, which is too bad because it looked like an awesome place. We took the stairs all the way down the 14 floors, which was kind of interesting.
- Walked back to the apartment to decide where to go for brunch. Picked a place called the Capital Cafe. Had breakfasty food. Again, no black coffee. I had some kind of Macaroni and Ham breakfast meal.
- On the way back to the MTR station we stopped into a little stationary/book shop. I didn’t see anything that quite struck me so I left. Claire bought some pencils.
- Went to the Wan Chai computer center again and bought two Ducky Shine 3 mechanical keyboards. They’re a little diffult to find stateside so I’m going to try to sell them,
- Took the MTR to Causeway Bay which we hadn’t yet explored with the goal of finding Vmeet Ltd and G.O.D.
- Wandered around for an hour or so. Got lost. Didn’t find either place, apparently they’re closed or non-existent or something.
- At this point we were sick of the mall crowd (Times Square is a huge mall and the crowds were thick) so we decided to go back to the hotel to rest for a bit.
- Stopped at 7-11 on the way back to get something, all of the things in the 7-11 are awesome. I bought what I thought was black coffee. It was not. Life is suffering.
- Theres a little Dim Sum place next to the 7-11 so we picked up some buns. Didn’t get them toasted which was a mistake, they were pretty good anyway though.
- Ate the buns at the top of our building, which was pretty cool. Very good view of the graves on the hill.
- Back in the apartment.
The plan now is to head back out to Sham Shui Po around 3:30, I want to see if I can find a Xiaomi Mi3 out there that isn’t fake or egregiously priced. I might pick one up. Claire also wants to stop at the little toy shops again and maybe pick up more trinkets.
Turns out there was a close-by tech store that claimed to have Xiaomi Mi3s in stock. I hiked out to the 15th floor of an industrial tower and knocked on the door. The guy talked me out of it by explaining (I think) that the mainland chinese version of the phone probably wouldn’t do what I want. I took the stairs down.
Spent the rest of the after noon in the hotel room, neither Claire nor myself really wanted to go anywhere. We just lazed around.
For dinner I ended up wandering around and found my way into another shopping mall, not the one that we usually pass through to get to our hostel. I ate at a McDonalds, because it seems to actually be legitimate here. The food surprisingly didn’t look terrible. Still tasted like McDonald’s and left me feeling pretty greasy.
I now have an enormous amount of respect for the expats that come to live here, and in other asian societies without knowing the language. Wandering around in a huge throng of people is very sombering. It makes you feel very alone and very insignificant.
Observations:
- You cannot get black coffee anywhere. It is automatically full of milk by default. I had luck at Starbucks after some bickering, but that was it.
- There are very few people with backpacks. Seems everyone pretty much lives out of their pockets and their phones, which makes sense seeing as everything is so close together.
- Watch shops. Watch shops everywhere. Rolex, Omega, alternate and repeat forever.
- The sheer amount of human capital that is employed to keep the streets clean is astonishing. They do a really good job, making the smog the only thing that dirties the streets.
