rawlinson – us

Hong Kong High Rollin’

So, today I walked all along the antique street in Hong Kong – Hollywood Road – but most of the shops were closed. At the end of the road I encountered a temple, the Man Mo Temple that is dedicated to two different Gods and is responsible for raising charity money for hospitals – it’s like the Chinese version of the Shriners! The temple was cool though the air was thick with incense that worshipers had burned in offering. After I left there I wandered around a bit more and witnessed some other ritual on a street that involved incense and a dead pig. I’m not entirely sure what was going on but I believe it has something to do with the fact that this month is the Ghost Month. There are all sorts of little offering places setup along the buildings on the sidewalk.

After wandering around the area of Hong Kong known as Sheung Wan I took the HTR down to Causeway Bay and discovered yet more high end shopping. As it turns out I needed a couple of things so I searched for collar stays and undershirts – real fancy eh? Well, on the flight over I read all about collar stays and it turns out there are more than just your garden variety of plastic collar stays. You can get all sorts of different kinds – most of the time I would think, “Why” but fortunately the aforementioned article anticipated my question and answered – If you forget a plastic one in your collar it can melt when you iron your shirt. A metal stay is a better choice – they won’t bend or melt! So, I bought some fancy gold collar stays. Gold you say? Yes – Gold. A bit frivolous for sure but they were only about $60US and now I should never have to worry about ruining a $60 shirt by melting a collar stay in one. Seems like a decent investment when I look at it that way. Of course, my co-workers will give me shit over it but oh well.

I actually had a really hard time finding t-shirts that were white and my size. There were plenty of black ones – but I really didn’t want a black undershirt. Finally I found a place called Marks and Spencer that had plain old normal white crew neck undershirts so I bought a pair. They were far more reasonable at just under $20 for the pair. Then I headed back to the central area to have dinner.

I took a different set of trains on the MTR than I normally would because I accidentally got off at the Admiralty stop (one before Central) and it actually worked out well because I was able to go straight up to the Central building instead of IFC mall which is actually out of my way. However, once I got there it was a bit too early for dinner really so I walked around and then stopped in Lan Kwai Fang at a British pub called Bulldogs where I watched Liverpool play some soccer and I had a 2-1 Guinness draft. Afterwards I was debating on where to go to dinner – a Scandinavian place called F.I.N.D.S. or an Australian joint called Wagyu which is actually named after the type of steak it specializes in [[Wagyu]]. Wagyu is basically Australian Kobe Beef. Now, I have never had Kobe beef so Wagyu won out even though it was expensive – $480HKD for an 8 oz filet (the exchange rate is about 7.75HKD-1USD). It turns out it was worth every penny. Not only was the steak ridiculously tender and flavorful – it basically just melted under the knife as I cut it – but it was just the right size. After I ate dinner I decided to further indulge myself and have dessert via “Death By Chocolate” which, while it didn’t kill me did let me visit heaven just briefly. This was, by far, the best chocolate dessert I have ever had. “Death By Chocolate” is composed of a layer of thick and rich chocolate mousse on top of which rested the absolute best Chocolate Ice Cream I have ever had, and then heavy rich chocolate brownie chunks and strawberries. It was really exceptional; however it was so rich I couldn’t finish it all – so I ended up leaving just a touch of the Mousse behind. All in all, after tip, I had finished the most expensive dinner I have ever had (just around $100). It was fabulous. This whole pretending to be rich thing was fun!

Because I had over indulged at dinner I walked back up the stairs (instead of using the escalator) to get back to my hotel. The dinner was so good I had a smile on my face the entire walk up the hill, a hill which probably involved 300 stairs to ascend.

As this is the first day of week 2 I am starting a new web album for photos. I’m starting with 16 from what I saw today ranging from the temple, to the pig ritual thing, to some interesting parts of a market. Enjoy!