Central Week

We decided to theme our second-to-last-week in Hong Kong as Central Week. Central is the “downtown” area of Hong Kong where a lot of banks and businesses are located and there is also amazing shopping, great dining, fun bars including the expat bar area we love – Lan Kwai Fong – and access from Central to some of the great attractions of the city. (Funny thing is, as I’m describing Central, it really doesn’t sound that different from any other part of Hong Kong…banks, crazy shopping, fine dining, city attractions….)

Monday after work we met for dinner in SoHo, the area of Central south of Hollywood Road where there are amazing restaurants of all regions and styles of cuisine, nestled among cute boutique shops, wine bars and lounges, and offering awesome views of the city. This is also the area that requires you to get around by escalator from street to street, since it is built up into the hills. This is the same escalator (mid-levels, world’s longest escalator) that I went to during my first week in Hong Kong to explore the SoHo area. It’s a really cool atmosphere and reminds me of some of the nicer parts of NYC and Boston. We ended up having dinner at Wildfire, because the pizza looked amazing, and it was less pricey than some of the other restaurants in SoHo which boast NYC/LA prices, a strong juxtaposition from the $1 USD daipaidongs just down the street. It was a really nice dinner but also felt a little strange to be eating in Hong Kong with a linen napkin on my lap. Oh, luxury. After dinner some of us went up Victoria Peak to see the city at night, and it was a stunning view. Hong Kong really is a breathtaking city.

Tuesday we headed to Lan Kwai Fong in Central for our weekly quiz night at Bulldogs Bar. You may recall that the Chinster’s (our team) won about 3 weeks ago; we’ve been doing rather poorly ever since. This was our last quiz night in Hong Kong, and we vowed to go out with a bang. We ate a quick dinner at Tsui Wah Restaurant in Central, a Hong Kong-style diner with an everything-you-could-dream-of menu, it’s always packed with locals and tourists at all hours and is especially popular at 3am when expats stumble over from Lan Kwai Fong for ramen soup or beef noodles. It made me a little bit nostalgic for Pizza House in Ann Arbor, although Tsui Wah has nothing that even comes close to resembling chipati bread. We got over to Bulldogs with plenty of time to take advantage of the two-for-one happy hour drink special, share some special moments with Alice (our weekly server who hates/love us), have several outbursts of song and dance parties, take too many pictures, laugh too loudly, and earn 7th place at the end of the night. (I’d like to quickly gloat that I got the correct answer to “What does the black color on the UAE flag symbolize?” The answer is oil. Thanks, Occidental Petroleum J)

Wednesday night we went back into the mid-levels, SoHo area for dinner at a place known for having the best stewed brisket, although David informed us that the shop across the street also claims to have the title of best stewed brisket. Ah, the age-old brisket-war, has your grandfather never told you about that one?

Tonight (Thursday) was the last night of Central Week since we’re leaving for Manila tomorrow. We met at the famous Star Ferry in Central, which we rode over to Tsim Sha Tsui on Kowloon. The Ferry is one of the first things that tourists flock to when they arrive in Hong Kong, and we’d yet to ride it. We got seats on the upper deck, and as we sailed from Hong Kong Island across Victoria Harbour to Kowloon (approximately a 10-minute boat ride) we took in the beautiful views of our city and remarked how even in such a short amount of time, Hong Kong has really become home for us. We will all be very sad to leave here so soon.

After landing in TST, we watched the Symphony of Lights show from the waterfront (see earlier blog post about SOL) and grabbed dinner nearby. Now we’re all finishing up packing and getting excited to leave for Manila after work tomorrow evening. We’ll be staying at Francesca’s house and she’s planned an entire weekend for us – everything from a private city tour to a roast pig banquet prepared by her mother and the chance to experience Manila as the locals do with Francesca’s family and friends. It should be a blast!!