Locomotoring

Top deck of star ferry

Yet another must do on a visit to Hong Kong is a star ferry ride across the channel from Central to Kowloon  –  pronounced the native way, Kowloon has a nice rounded sound – like “cow-loong”. They say that on a clear day, from a vantage point, one can see as far away as the mainland china. However, on a winter day, it is impossible to see Kowloon skyline from Central or vice versa. So why do this ride at all? Apart from the fact that for many of us a ferry ride is unusual and therefore exciting, it is the cheapest thing one can do in Hong Kong – at $2 HKG per ride, it is cheaper than price of a dimsum plate at a street vendor.

Thankfully, years of college education in hydrodynamics has not taken away my fascination with big peices of machinery that float – either on the sea or in air. And star ferry is special – it is an old piece of junk (how old?). While my head screams when I see this old junk spewing out black fumes, by body is pleasantly cradled into a comfort zone – like a child going off to sleep listening to lullabies in a swing. The ride is short – at the end of which you are in a mall land. I see hundreds of people queued up to step into Gucci and hundred more in front of Louis Vuitton. The air smelled of charcoal smoke from the ferries and artificial pine from the x-mas decorations. It was festive and crowded. Young girls in mini skirts and their boyfriends were taking photos everywhere – smiling, laughing, jumping and generally being cute.

Shopping frenzy

We had walked into the mall for Muji – a design lover’s store – one of each but each is perfection.And who can forgo the chance to observe a perfect spoon or a pack of portable band aid.  But the sea air and mall walking makes one hungry – so we decided to eat at Crystal Jade – although a chain, they are popular for their hand pulled noodles and judging by the half hour wait time at 3:00 p.m., I guess they are very popular indeed.

Upscale mall food

Earlier in the afternoon we had wanted to eat at Hakka Ye-Ye – fried noodles is what we were craving after the early morning congee. Buy Hakka Ye- Ye was taking a break on the X-mas day. So, we ordered three fried items at Crystal Jade – fried noodles with pork, fried noodles with seafood and fried eel. The big fat noodles in the pork dish looked like earthworms but they were springy and light textured. The dishes had a mall food blandness about them – like Panda Express. The pig fat in the noodles would have dripped down our elbows had we been eating with our hands. After I had started eating, I observed a couple at the next table wipe down their plates and spoons with a disinfecting towellete before starting their meals – that made my stomach churn for a moment or two. I reminded myself that the loos in Hong Kong are reasonably clean and decided to focus on the noodle  slurping instead.

The ride back on the star ferry – the lower deck this time with a wonderours view of the boiler room – didn’t help one bit keeping the greasy noodles down.