Hong Kong. October 17 - 24, 2018.

There are a couple of family items I need to take care of, and I also thought $600 roundtrip was too good a deal to pass up …

Wednesday 10/17.  So here I am, inside UA179, about 6 hours into the flight.  For future reference: the plane just flew beyond Greenland, and I lost the internet connection.

Anne never thinks cheap airfare is a reason to take a trip, so she is not coming along.  Instead she went to visit Hoboken and see how the grandkids are doing: Ellie being away on a yoga retreat.

The plane is quite full, but I do have an empty seat next to me.  I think I managed a couple of hours of fitful sleep. 

Thursday 10/18.  The plane was to get in a few minutes early, but we were put on hold for about 15 minutes, so we ended up being a few minutes late.  One would think they should give some sort of priority to these long-haul flights: I am sure everyone was impatient after being inside a plane for over 16 hours (including boarding and departure taxiing.)  I wonder how landing slots are prioritized as I am sure there are many regional flights at any given time.

Our holding pattern before we landed at HKG airport.

Alan, for whom I brought along the remaining 20 lbs or so of luggage, was waiting for me as I got out of customs.  We had a light meal before we went our own way.

 Alan and I at Tai Hing HKG.

I had the "Fish and Bean Curd" casserole.

Accommodation: Causeway Bay apartment (whole trip.)

Friday 10/19.  Saw and talked to Tim a bit this morning, then went off to (i) have breakfast, and (ii) walk around Victoria Park.

 I had never seen these two horse sculptures before in my many visits to Victoria Park, and I couldn't find any reference to them in my (cursory) search of the web.

Typhoon Mangkhut passed near Hong Kong on September 16 and fell 46,000 trees in Hong Kong per some reports.  There are still signs of damage in the Park, but the place is mostly cleaned up.  There are quite a few fallen trees that have been cut.

I bought a ticket to tonight’s Hong Kong Philharmonic concert, and really enjoyed the performance.

Jing Wang, Hong Kong Philharmonic's concertmaster, performed the Brahms violin concerto.  Here he was thanking his colleagues.  It was an enjoyable concert.

I had a snack at around 5 pm, so didn’t have dinner until after the concert (around 10:30 pm, at Mak’s Noodles in Causeway Bay.)

 I ate quite a few meals today, although I did avoid carbs, for the most part.  I only ate a third of the slice of bread from this breakfast at Cafe de Coral.

 I had a light lunch at Maxim's, so supplemented that with this Pepper Lunch dish.

 Couldn't resist French Toast, this one at Nam Loong.

At about 10:30 pm, after the concert, I went for this at Mak's Noodles.

 Without trying very hard, this is the level of activity I had today.

Anne mentioned that the entire Hong Kong Island is not 9.6 miles.

Saturday 10/20.  Breakfast and coffee with Alfred at Mongkok East to catch up.  Said goodbye at 12:30 pm so I could get to Tsuen Wan, about 45 minutes away on MTR.  Met up with Alan, Farina, and their daughter Yan-Yan for lunch.  They all seemed quite well-adjusted.  I had not visited Tsuen Wan for a long time, it is just like any of the other districts (such as Shatin), with lots of shopping around the MTR station.  Traffic seemed less chaotic, from what I could see.

Lunch with Lee's in Tsuen Wan.

Breakfast of chicken and eggs.

Wontons for late night dinner at Ngan Loong.

Sunday 10/21.  Attended the 10:45 am service at North Point Alliance Church, was hoping – but didn’t – catch Raymond, my classmate from high school.  Wandered around the area a bit after eating lunch.

Wandering around the North Point area, I came across this interesting street corner.

I ate TWO lunches.  This at JP Porridge in North Point.

Cafe de Coral.

Dinner was at this relatively new restaurant called “John Anthony” located on Sunning Road.  They have an interesting take – both presentation and recipe – on some standard Chinese dishes (claim is Cantonese, but in actuality wider than that.)  I found most of the dishes to be good, except a couple of them were a bit on the salty side.  Later that night I had some wontons at Mak’s, again.

This is a duck dish at John Anthony's.  Little duck, a lot of caramel (which you are not supposed to eat.)

Wagyu Char-Siu.  The ultimate compliment would be it tastes just like char-siu.  At 5x to 10x the price.

I enjoyed this smoked chicken dish.

Instead of baked rack of lamb, these were deep fried and smothered in cumin.  I liked it.

Sweet and sour pork where the pineapple slices are fried, and fried dough also used as an ingredient.

"Four Seasons" string bean dish is quite traditional.  A bit too salty for many people.

 This cod dish was quite good, but by the time it was served I didn't bother to find out what was special about it.

This is Mickey Mouse's 90th birthday.  Display in the atrium of Times Square.

Late night snack at Mak's Noodles.

Monday 10/22.  I had dim sum lunch with E & L at the Jockey Club.  At 5 pm I met up with four DBS old boys who were members of the DBS Scouts chat group.  They are all younger than me (from 2 to 9 years) but there was a surprising amount of commonality.

I was a Scout during my high school years, and belong to a chat group of scouts from my high school with most members graduating in the 70s.  We met for coffee at Le Pain Quotidian at Pacific Place, from left: Daniel, Jimmy, William, and Jerry. 

I went to this concert by the British vocal ensemble Stile Antico.  They sang mostly polyphonic songs from the 16^th Century Renaissance era.

 Stile Antico sang a program of mostly 16th Century polyphonal music at City Hall Concert Hall.

I ended up eating many late night dinners/snacks.  Here is a bowl of fish balls at Ngan Loong.

Tuesday 10/23.  Lunch was with Joe T of Hope International at Lee Lo Mei on Lyndhurst Street, a restaurant with new takes on nostalgic dishes from old Hong Kong.  We both picked the steak.  It was on a hot grill, and not seasoned as heavily as I remembered it.  Quite good.  Dessert was red bean soup, with some granulated confectionery sugar sprinkled on top (not sure how to describe it.)

Lunch with Joe T was at a nostalgic restaurant.  The steak was quite good.

Through Facebook I found out Elaine and Dominic were in town, so we met up for coffee in Causeway Bay.  Elaine left after about an hour, but Dominic and I talked for another hour.  All for the price of one drink – good it was slow time of the day for the café.  While Anne and I would run into Elaine every few years, this was the first time I saw Dominic since the 1980s: we had a couple of years overlap at a church in New Brunswick.  It was nice to catch up.

Over tea the Kungs and I talked for quite a bit at this cafe (called "Glee Cafe" on google maps).

Joe T was free that evening, so we met for dinner in the HK University area, where he lives.  And another dessert place.  I had the almond and sesame paste with sesame-filled sweet dumplings (only the Cantonese would think of concocting this as dessert.)  Joe T had something similar.  I finished mine, he didn’t particularly care for his.  It was around 9 pm that I headed back to CWB.

 I forget why I was grimacing, but these were the dishes Joe T and I had for dinner.  The Malacca Restaurant is located in Hotel Jen, a Shangri-La property.  We first encountered this hotel in Brisbane.  You know the trip isn't eventful when most of the photos are of food.

Not part of the trip.  But a purple BMW 4 series!

Wednesday 10/24.  Woke up at around 6:30 am, left the apartment about an hour later.  The Uber driver had trouble finding the place: with so many tall buildings and one-way streets it was easy to overshoot turns.  Still I got to the airport at around 8:30 am, my slightly larger than usual roller suitcase didn’t cause any problems with security.  That gave me time to hit both the Premium Plaza and United Club lounges, and have two breakfasts; neither worth writing home about, though.

 Breakfast at Premium Plaza Lounge at HKG.  They also have a noodle station.

 What I got at the United Club.  The eggs looked better, and they had bacon.  However, the food was cold.  Slight edge to the Premium Plaza this time.

And they were both better than what was served on UA180.  

Plane left on time, and there is an empty middle set, so I am fine.  I bought internet access again as I had to work on some issues.  As the routing is over the Pacific, service has not been interrupted much.  But very slow.

Plane landed on time, Anne came by to pick me up.