Markets and Naming

Sunday
We started Sunday with brunch at The Brunch Club on Peel Street, a San Francisco-style breakfast joint with slightly more expensive prices than the food/service is worth. The ambiance, however, makes it all worthwhile. After miniature pancakes and smoothies, M went hiking and I returned to the apartment to read and update this blog. At lunchtime, I met up with A and taxied to Stanley Markets for lunch at the Pickled Pelican with M and J. I had a chicken sandwich with individually cut small pieces of succulent chicken. Really tasty, but pretty pricey because it's a big tourist area.

After lunch we hit the markets. Stanley Markets is a long winding pile of tents and structures full of interesting and fun places to shop. We wandered through the markets until dinner time; one of the more interesting items I picked up was a personalized "chop." A chop is the colloquial term for a seal/ink stamp carved into a block of stone. I chose the stone piece I wanted (I picked a turtle with a dragon's head) and we worked with the shop owner to choose a Chinese name for me. I ended up with "Jasmine Morning-Dew" with the surname "Bao." After negotiating the price, we left to continue shopping while the shop owner carved the Chinese characters for the name into the bottom of the chop. We returned and picked up the personalized chop, which comes packed in a special cloth box along with a porcelain box of ink.

Sunday dinner was with S at Light Vegetarian Restaurant, an all-vegetarian Chinese food place where we ordered all kinds of "meat" dishes made from tofu. After dinner we wandered around the Tsim Sha Tsui district (TST), checking out the fancy (and the not-so-fancy) stores. Around midnight we took the MTR back to Central and hopped a taxi back to the apartment.

Monday
Today was fancy food day.

En route to brunch, we did a little shopping in the Soho district. Brunch ended up being at Vivo, a fancy wine bistro in Soho. The lunch special menu was extremely cheap - for under $12 USD each, we had a spectacular 2-course meal. I started with parma ham with melon and a balsamic reduction, and then for the main course I had duck. Gorgeous. It was accompanied, of course, by a mango smoothie. We found a froyo place for dessert.

After food, we wandered through the wet market (raw/live fish and fruits & vegetables, etc), and lit incense in Man Mo Temple. It was so warm inside the temple, when we went back outside the air temperture felt actually borderline COOL! We hit the Ladder Street Market after the temple, followed by a long trek to the central Hong Kong post office to buy boxes. As we walked through HK, a rainstorm hit the area and helped to bring down temperatures a bit. We took a cab back to the apartment for a 3 hour nap, and then it was time for dinner and a light show.

Every day at 8pm, HK does a light show on some of its tallest buildings along the skyline, in sync to music. M made reservations at an incredibly classy restaurant located in the top of a skyscraper near the water's edge in Kow Loon, a quick Star Ferry ride away. We settled into the seats just when the light show was about to start, and watched the buildings light up with front lights and roof lasers. We ordered dumplings with fenel seed, spicey chicken, chili string beans, and a vegetable plate (mushrooms, garlic, asparagus, string beans and egg plant). I also got the Peach Delight (peach juice with frozen peach slush and canned peach chunks) and Jasmine tea to drink.

We took the ferry back over to the Hong Kong Island side, and the wind really picked up. Apparently there's a typhoon brewing, but all we were getting was intense wind. At one point it blew my shoe off! We stopped at the IFC's Exchange Square to look at a fountain featuring the same Nixon head statue as graces Princeton's campus. Very cool!

As of the end of today, I've finished my shopping. I've also acquired a Chinese name, and walked for hours. What a trip!