Photo of the Week - Din Sum!

One evening we went to the restaurant Din Tai Fung which luckily was near to our hotel around Times Square in Causeway Bay. The recommendation was from Mariette who had eaten there and said it was good. As Arlene and myself had no clue we decided to go there and it was a good choice, we got there around 6.30pm and got seated. Then we looked at the menu for a while and decided to go for dim sum with chicken and with shrimp. For dessert we tried dim sum with red bean paste and black sesame seeds, I liked the red bean paste that was delicious.

Dim sum are small sized portions brought in a steam basket, you make a hole to let the water out otherwise you burn your mouth, then dip it into the soy sauce. I did manage to eat with chopsticks, we also ordered rice and noodles. As we left you can see all the chefs busy are work making the different parts to the dim sums, such as rolling out the pastry, filling it and cooking it, it was really interesting to see. The queues to get into this restaurant were huge so we made a good decision to come here early.

Temples in Hong Kong

Man Mo Temple

Tin Hau Temple

Wong Tai Sin Temple

Hung Shing Temple

There are many, many things to do in Hong Kong and one of them is to visit the different temples. They are dotted around all of Hong Kong and there are many to see and explore, we only visited 4 of them.

Man Mo Temple on HK Island, it was quite busy so I did not go in to look around. As with all the temples everyone was waving incense around and the smell was quite powerful at times. This temple is dedicated to Man, the god of literature and civil servants and Mo, the god of war.

Tin Hau Temple in Kowloon, is in the district of Yau Ma Tei,  but was closed when we finally got to the temple. This temple is dedicated to 3 different deities,Tin Hau the sea goddnes, Shing Wong the city god and To Tei the earth god.

Wong Tai Sin Temple situated in Eastern Kowloon is one of the largest and busiest temples, and the amount of people who were there to worship was immense. It is mainly dedicated to the god Wong Tai Sin, but it also has Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian deities.

Finally Hung Shing Temple in Wan Chi, I came across it quite by accident, just walking along the street and there it was in between the shops. I did not go in as it looked quite small, but it was just as nice to peer inside.

It was certainly interesting to see all these temples, the architecture, statues and the people worshipping their gods.

Afternoon Tea in Hong Kong

I have only once before had afternoon tea and that was last year in Dublin, it was delicious! So I just had to have afternoon tea again while I was in Hong Kong, lots of the big hotels offer it so it was a matter of picking the right hotel.

In the end we decided on the Grand Hyatt in Wan Chai, we sat in the lounge listening to piano music. The food arrived and it looked amazing, then we were also told that there was a dessert buffet. It consisted of ice cream and ice cream cakes, to be honest I was full after finishing the sandwiches and pastries, but went and got some yummy ice cream.

The afternoon tea at the Grand Hyatt cost just over 500HK which is around 65ch for the both of us. Afterwards a long walked was needed after consuming all those calories, and no more eating for the whole evening.

I am a big fan of afternoon tea now and hopefully will go with my sister when we are in Edinburgh in April for the weekend.

W is for Water

The next letter is W and water seemed like a good word to choose, I have lots of photos with water in them, from lakes, rivers, waterfalls, streams to seas.

The first photo is from Zurich, then we are off to the Isle of Skye, then it is the famous water jet in Geneva, then Lake Brienz and finally Lake Lugano.

Photo of the Week - Andy Warhol

On my last day in Hong Kong I went to the Andy Warhol 15 Minutes Eternal exhibition at the Hong Kong Museum of Art, which is right on the waterfront on Kowloon.

It was wonderful to see his paintings and drawings, it was busy with lots of children as well as of course adults. I guess he catered to all ages and tastes!

It showed the Marilyn Monroe paintings,  campbell soup, Elizabeth Taylor and lots of self portraits too. I learnt a lot about him that I did not know and found it really interesting, I would have liked to bought the poster but sadly it was not available to buy, which I found unusual.

In and around Hong Kong

Traveling around Hong Kong is very easy and simple, the best way is to buy an Octopus card which costs 50HK as a deposit. It is very similar to the Oyster card used in London, I found it a great way to travel around. You can use it on most types of transport even on, The Peak tram which takes you up to the highest point in Hong Kong, Victoria Peak.

The double decker trams looked very cool, we never actually used then, the metro system is good and easy to understand. The Star Ferry which goes back and forth between HK island and Kowloon is one of the best ways to go as you have the best views of Victoria harbour, and of course the night views are amazing.

The main thing is that all the transport is quite cheap, especially if you come from Switzerland! Even the taxis were good value and using the card saves you with fumbling around trying to get small change.

Hong Kong Signs

One of the things I liked about walking around Hong Kong was seeing lots of different shop, restaurant, bars and goodness knows what else signs. Also seeing them at night to my mind, made a big different they just looked more exciting than during the day.

It was also a shock at first when we walked up and down streets seeing people, traffic, noise, markets and bright lights everywhere, but we got used to it a little bit.

Happy Weekend folks!