Asia

Buying fabric in Hong Kong turned out to be a bit of a different experience than anywhere else we’ve been so far.  We looked up where we might be able to buy some fabric and found a whole lot of shops all in one area of town.  Hong Kong has a great subway system, so we took a ride over there and this is what we found:

Hong Kong's typical fabric shop

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Since we had a full week in Hong Kong, we made sure to find the local swing scene and go to the dances.  There are two regular dances per week in Hong Kong, run by Hong Kong Swings, and we went to both.  The first was a Sunday dance at a BBQ restaurant and bar called “Blue Smoke” – interestingly, there is another version of Blue Smoke in NYC which I’ve eaten at while seeing a Maria Schneider concert.  This venue was quite small and only a handful of dancers showed up, but we managed to have a great time nevertheless.

Wednesday night was a much bigger venue, set at a bar called Grappa’s Cellar, which had a great vibe and a lot more space.  They essentially cleared the main dining portion of the restaurant to make room for the dance, and there were tables set aside for stuff and for people to sit at.  We really worked up a sweat at this venue.

Since we wanted to meet the HK Swings people off the dance floor as well, we went afterwards to an ice bar near Grappa’s.  There we had a number of hijinks including meeting American soldiers who worked at the US Embassy, having drinks with them, nearly getting into a fight with them as they got drunker.  Also interesting was the bartender’s ability to make 7-layer shots and play a game where 4 random bottles from the bar are selected and then the bartender makes a drink from them.

We had a lot of fun, and made it home safely despite being rather off our heads!

While we were in Hong Kong, I had a mission – eat as much delicious food as possible.  While in California I had developed a taste for Dim Sum and since this area is where it all started we mainly ate dim sum.

So the day after we arrived we decided to go to a Michelin Starred Dim Sum Restaurant: Tim Ho Wan.  While it all sounds very fancy, it is just a cheap dim sum shack in the middle of Hong Kong’s Mong Kok district.  The trick is, you have to go 2-3 hours early and get a number!  It is all very bizarre.  Anyway, we got there, got our number and were told that we had at least 2 hours so we left and decided to walk around for a while.

The Map

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We had arranged our flight so that we arrived in Hong Kong during the day – unfortunately the only such flight was a red-eye, arriving at 7:45 in the morning.  Since we knew we’d have to wait before the hotel that we’d booked would let us check in, we hung out at the airport for a while.  It turns out that HK airport is really useful!  There is fast internet there (we uploaded hundreds of photos), a post office (for sending our souvenirs and gifts home), food and air conditioning.  We ended up spending a few hours that morning just getting organized and relaxing.

View On The Bus

Afterwards, we took a city bus to downtown where we found our hotel with only a little trouble (imagine a small sign underneath construction scaffolding in an area with hundreds of small signs) and laid our bags down.  The hotel was just what we wanted – a room with air-con in a great location and relatively cheap.  What we hadn’t expected was the size!

Trying to fit in the bed

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“What is your favorite country of the trip so far?”

• Justin’s response: “South America”
• Hazel’s response: “Istanbul”