I stayed in Hong Kong for 5 days the other day. There are mainly two big emusements in Hong Kong. The biggest is, of course, food, and the second biggest is relaxation by appreciating my favorite ocean view from?Intercontinental Hotel.
I went out to the downtown to get some yam-cha on the next day of arrival, but it was unfortunately Sunday. Casual restaurants were all lined long. I mean “long.” It was surprising that 30 or 50 people were all sitting in a long line waiting for more than an hour.
Eating is Hong Kong. This is true in a sense. A main amusement for the people of Hong Kong is having dinner with all the many family members. The powerful energy, generated from the loud chatting of the big family that is more than 8 people from the grandparents to the grandkids, reminds me of the
fact that we are in Hong Kong. I wanted to have real Cantonese yam-cya, but I ended up in eating “Beijing” duck in Hong Kong, as the long line didn’t seem to let us reach the restaurant within an hour at least.
However, it is already well known that Beijing duck in Hong Kong is better than those in Beijing, as the chefs are first-class in Hong Kong. The duck skin is roasted crispy and aromatic. The smelly extra fat is totally dropped off while roasting, so the skin with the thin?meat is not greasy at all.
The duck skin is served with sweet miso (soybean paste) called “tian mian jiang ” to dip in, Welsh onion, cucumber, and thin rice cake to wrap with. Beijing duck is considered as a very expensive Chinese cuisine in Japan, but we can have a whole duck for only around 5000 yen in Hong Kong. I conquered almost a whole duck with my daughter and a friend of hers.
Compared to this, the Beijing duck I had in Beijing was much more smelly that I didn’t have much appetite for the fried rice served after with its meat. So I was very happy with this Hong-Kong-Beijing duck.
The other big?amusement in Hong Kong is spending time at the lounge of the hotel. The lounge of Intercontinental Hotel is open and crowded enough until midnight. The prices are reasonable. We drank beer and wine listening to the music, but the charge was only 2000 yen for the three of us. The band was a trio of cello, drums and piano, who played elegant tunes to make the night of Hong Kong very special and romantic.
Although the illumination of the skyscrapers looked a little quieter than before 1997, the return of Hong Kong, the illumination and the sea seen from the lounge of the Intercontinental can heal your daily stress 150%.
