We’ve now got to Saturday, the last day of our visit to Hong Kong and Richard’s first day off work here, so we had an action packed day in store. We rode the tram into Causeway Bay and from behind the Sogo department building caught a green light bus to take us through the Aberdeen Tunnel to the south side of the island, where we were due to meet Julian and Pauline for lunch at the ABC, the Aberdeen Boat Club. The theory behind the light green buses is that they follow a particular route, but don’t have bus stops per se, you just call out when you want to get off. That’s all very well when you know where you need to alight, or indeed where you are, but we ran into a few difficulties because although the driver had agreed to tell us when we needed to get off he thought we meant at the ferry to outlying islands from Aberdeen, and it turned out that he didn’t know where the boat club was. That didn’t stop him helping us though, to the extent that he later stopped the bus, got out and took my map into some shop. A couple of km later he told us to get off, take a passageway through a building, which included going through its garage and we would be well on our way to the boat club, which we were. Thank goodness for mobile phone maps – I’m not sure how my parents managed 30 years ago – but the green light buses are for travelling as the local Chinese do and are all the more richer for that.
Anyway we had left ourselves plenty of time to get to Aberdeen, as I knew it could all be a bit hit and miss, so we went for a wander down by the harbour. All kinds of boats moor up behind the typhoon shelter in this bay. Gin palaces, wooden fishing boats, sampans, launches, dragon boats and Chinese junks. You could imagine a James Bond movie shoot right here…..
Jumbo Floating Restaurant
they’ve already been, The Man with The Golden Gun was filmed on the Jumbo Floating Restaurant, apparently. Anyway it was interesting meandering along the dockside in amongst all the marine engineering firms towards the entrance to Ocean Park, which I had visited around 30 years ago.
Some interesting fauna caught our eye, a banana tree in flower, and a tree with berries growing on the trunk, upon which the local birds were feasting. Can anyone tell me what it is?
Banana tree in flower
Unknown tree with berries on trunk
Lunch at the Aberdeen Boat Club
We met Julian and Pauline and their daughter Lizzy at the ABC for a fine Indian meal on the terrace overlooking the boats in the harbour. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and are very grateful for their hospitality. After eating they very kindly gave us a lift into Causeway Bay where we went into the Mandarin Oriental Hotel to the Captain’s Bar for a cup of tea for me and for a beer in a silver tankard for Richard, as he wanted to understand what effect a silver vessel
Richard and his Silver Tankard at the Captain’s Bar at the Mandarin Oriental
would have on the taste of the beer. Well that was his excuse, the sun certainly wasn’t below the yardarm.
Next we moved on to Central. Richard wanted me to see the Landmark Mall and take me into the Starbucks there which is apparently the top one in Hong Kong. It is rather controversial, I gather, as it is selling hot food, unlike any other Starbucks. So we dived into the very upmarket Landmark Mall with its upmarket shops of Paul Smith, Stella McCartney etc. and into Starbucks.
Starbucks Reserve Coffee List
I’m not normally a fan of Starbucks as I said in my last post. But this place is special. We had one of their four special reserve coffees on offer, the sun-dried Ethiopian Konga which had a complexity of flavour reminiscent of a fine wine. I also had a strawberry panna cotta which was delicious, and Richard a blueberry cheesecake.
Strawberry Panna Cotta and Blueberry Cheesecake
Pork under ice
Squid balls on individual spoons
We still hadn’t finished eating and drinking for the day. We had arranged to take some of our daughter’s school friends for dinner, so we made our way to Wan Chai Metro station and from there went onto the Lee Gardens Restaurant. The girls chose our menu which included a marinaded pork served under ice, a sizzling prawn dish and some delicious squid balls served individually on spoons and after we’d got the waiter to take a group photo we sent it to our daughter who is studying for her finals at London University. We got the expected rather indignant response about us going out with her friends in Hong Kong whilst she was sitting in the library trying to write her dissertation on some aspect of Chinese culture. “In which universe is that fair?”
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