No real set plan today of destinations to visit. There are suppose to be a couple of shopping centres which are pretty good gadget-wise, so hopefully we'll get to stop by them and have a look.
We were granted the mercy of a sleep-in today. That means we weren't roused until 8:15am today. Luxury.
The weather in HK so far has been relatively mild. If anything, it has tended more towards cool. Although the temperature does tend to drop a bit at night. There hasn't been any rain so far (although now that I've mentioned it...). One of the funnier sights so far has been the presence of multiple fountains. I seem to remember having them at home at one stage....
Had breakfast this morning at the Charlie Brown Café. Not surprisingly, this is a café themed after the Peanuts characters. The food was rather ordinary - but it was cheap. The best big - the ginormous coffee cup I purchased - it seems about twice the size of a regular cup - caffeine goodness for me.
While I've mentioned before just how much I enjoy haggling - a surprisingly useful tool I've found is my PDA. I have a currency converter installed in it, and it seems that the minute I pull it out to start working out just how much something'll cost in $A, the price invariably gets another bump down. I'm thinking that one of the traders greatest weapons is that people are just lousy at doing the conversion back to their native currency.
It appears that, just like the Aliens of the self-titled movies, Indian tailors are spawning & multiplying all over the shop. It seemed today that I couldn't walk five metres without being offered a tailor-made shirt or suit. It almost made me want to scream. I'm guessing they just zero in on the white face in the crowd.
And speaking of crowds, while I can understand how frustrating it can be to have 'exactly' the same hair colour as millions of other people, what Asia people seem to do to their hair is just insane.
We spent a large part of of the day wandering through Harbour City. In some places, it almost felt as if they should have done a credit check just to admit you to the place. Every designer name you could think of - they have a store there.
That afternoon we ended up at a Aussie-themed pub called the 'Kangaroo Bar' Ended up paying $A7 for a VB. They had a deal going where you bought one beer, got one free - so we ended up paying $3.50 per beer - not so bad. The place also has free wi-fi for patrons - so, worse comes to worse, it ends up as a default place for me to communicate with the world for the price of a beer. Looking at the somewhat amusing menu and I found that the steak options were rather amusing. They ranged from blue all the way to 'ruined'. I take it that means cooked?
For dinner we decided to go to a northern Chinese restaurant. And I think that it was by far the best meal we've had so far. We ordered three beers to drink. We didn't know that we'd be served NT stubbies. So those three beers served us for the whole meal. And what a meal. I don't know if it's something peculiar about the Chinese - but the term 'speed eating' comes to mind. The various courses were served quicker than you can blink. If that's the approach to how they serve a meal . almost eery course piled up at once - then no wonder they're the most populous nations on earth (this post is currently written under the effects of multiple beers - so it hasn't exactly been checked for PC language). The highlight of the meal was the Peking Duck. Never mind that the meat arrived at the table with the duck's head still attached. I wasn't about to argue with the dude with the very sharp blade who proceeded to carve it for us. The dish was extremely succulent and tasty. You didn
't notice if the service was lousy purely due to the fact that they were over and done with so damn quickly.
Heading off tomorrow to Chen Tzen - supposedly the best knock-off place on the Chinese mainland. I'm heading into the heart of the communist dream. I hope I survive...
Strange cultural aside of the day - ashtrays in toilets. wtf?
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