My introduction to Hong Kong beyond just a name was thanks to James Clavell and Noble House. But that was more than a decade and a half back. As we were making the arrangements for the trip, I finished reading Flood of Fire, the final book in Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy. It makes references to many real life characters, one of whom is William Jardine, of Jardine Matheson & Co., most eminent among Hong Kong business conglomerates from the time of the First Opium War to this day. The final pages of the book deal with the auction of land lots in Hong Kong, and the origin of what is now one of the most important nerve centres of the system of the world. Reminded me of the Amitav Ghosh book connection during our Penang trip in 2014, and set up the trip very well.
We ditched Meru for Uber this time and it did turn out cheaper. Surprisingly Malaysian Airlines had worked out better than Air Asia in terms of time and cost, and given the chances of adventure with the former(!), we took the midnight flight to Kuala Lumpur, which was delayed. We just about made the second flight and finally reached Hong Kong almost an hour later than scheduled. The good news was that we weren’t lost in transit, the bad news was that one of our bags was – the one with the clothes for the first couple of days! The delay also meant that our special lunch plan was sabotaged. We made peace with that, and after getting the currency exchanged, proceeded to make the first and most important transaction – the Airport Express Octopus Card. The Octopus is a payment card with tentacles everywhere – restaurants, transport, shopping and so on. We chose this particular card because our plans included a lot of MTR (mass transit rail, not South Indian dishes!) but you could buy a card of lesser value and use buses, trams etc too.
The Airport Express, a free ride on the K2 bus to the Kowloon Hotel, and a 5 minute walk got us to Xi Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui within an hour. The room was small, though by Hong Kong standards, one would consider it spacious. Tastefully done, and functionally efficient, the best part of it was the Handy. This is fairly common in many HK hotels and is essentially a free mobile phone that can be used during your stay. Excellent for Google Maps and location specific offers and guides!
We left for Sky 100, our first destination at about 4.30. The East Tsim Sha Tsui MTR station was less than 5 min away. We took the train to Austin and then began our walk to find Sky 100, which we realised was a closely guarded tourist attraction secret! The road/train signs thus far had been very helpful, and we found the lack of any signboards for the tenth tallest building in the world to be very surprising. The address does say Elements and International Commerce Centre (ICC) but access to the 100th floor was elusive. We finally managed to find it in a cleverly concealed entrance to the ICC- where Google says it is. We already had tickets (about $130 HKD each) thanks to Klook (a must use resource when visiting HK, for saving costs) and went up the high speed elevator from floors 2 to 100 in 60 seconds to reach the observation deck and arguably the most spectacular 360 degree view of Hong Kong.
We went back the way we’d come. Dinner was at Eyebar, located in the iSQUARE mall. Getting a table even on a Tuesday night was difficult, it really is a popular place! We were told we could get a table inside for an hour, but we wanted to sit outside and got lucky with seats that faced the Harbour. A great view, which we enjoyed with cider, an okayish banana based cocktail, an excellent sangria, superb spicy chicken, a decent cod fish and pork dish and a very interesting duck tongue. The last is softer than usual meat and has a cartilage piece in the centre. Now is a good time to mention that the innocent looking peanuts on the table aren’t for free (just as the internet had warned us)! They cost us $25 of the total $750+ bill! Relax, it’s HKD!
iSQUARE is only 5 minutes away from Xi, and we passed the famous Chunking Mansions on the way. Day 1, despite our baggage and the beginning of my standard first day sinus attack, had actually turned out quite well indeed!
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