Leg One...Hong Kong

Day One. And wow has it felt like a long one. We cleared Hong Kong customs by 5.30am and went straight on the road to our hotel. Mum had organised for us to be picked up at the airport, not by a simple sedan (there is no way us AND our luggage would have fit) but by a 20-seater bus (think ‘Asian’ trinket style with toys dangling from the roof). Just for us 5. Dad joked we could have had the entire Roosters team with us on tour…

The weather has been crazily monsoonal. It has pelted rain the entire time we have been here. I tried to take some photos once we left the airport but couldn’t see a thing because the camera lens had completely fogged up. Mum and Dad have been walking around half blind because of their glasses being full of steam.

Prepared for a full day of shopping at the IFC Mall in ‘Central’ and surrounding designer stores, we promptly left the hotel armed with huge umbrellas, ready for the 11am opening of shops. Within minutes we were wet and lost (dad would deny this second part). We pretty efficiently found the train station we were after however, and in the eerie environment of the brightly, almost glowingly, lit underground world, figured out how to buy tickets. The atmosphere was really exciting running around in the hot weather and rain with sopping wet feet, with the stark visual differences between western and Asian culture adding a sense of adventure to our navigation.

I have struggled with the constant change in temperature from inside places to outside. Usually I am a huge lover of air-conditioning and don’t really feel the cold, but I am actually turning into my grandmother and needing to move seats in restaurants because “the air conditioning is blowing on me”. Not good. Mum, Hen and I all have a bit of a cold…which isn’t helped by the fact that it feels like we are travelling in the European winter indoors!

We had a really fabulous dinner tonight at a restaurant called ‘Peking Garden’ in Alexandra House, Central as advised by mum’s friend… which was beautifully decorated, with classic Chinese red and gold textured wall-papering. The deep fried chilli prawns were the absolute highlight. As was the banana/apple fritter dessert. This is where they drop deep fried apple and banana covered in hot toffee into a cold bowl of lemonade and ice to harden them. Wow. The low light however, was when Henry pulled out a worryingly worm/beetle shaped ‘piece of spinach’ from our steamed vegetable dish. I promptly gagged once I was sure I spotted pincers coming out of its head. Mum didn’t want to know if it was/was not meant to be there so it didn’t ruin the meal…but Zac had other ideas. After about 10 minutes of Henry trying to convince himself more than anyone that it was a ‘re-hydrated shrimp’ (!!!), Zac asked the waiter “uh, what is this?”. What was so funny about what happened next was the fact that I think we were all expecting him to just be like “oh THAT, it’s just part of the dish”. But his face was one of utter confusion and disgust. He quickly convened with about 4 other waiters in a group huddle to show them the ‘thing’. A very funny sight. It turns out it was probably (note the word probably, they didn’t actually know) a caterpillar. Cooked. Dad asked the waiter “Are we going to die?” to which he replied (smiling) “Yeah, yeah. Sure”. Obviously, we got the dish ‘free of charge’.

B