The Hong Kong Errand (Part 2): Museums, More Museums, and Miscellaneous Munchies

- July 5-6, 2015, Sunday-Monday.

- Continuing from Part 1 (click here), I was still desperately trying to look for more new things to do in Hong Kong. Thankfully, I had some old travel guides with me, and of course the internet, so I was able to gradually add to my short list of new places to see, do, and experience in Hong Kong.

- Strangely, I woke up earlier than my usual wake-up time on Sunday morning, just like I did the morning before. I lazed around in my bed again while taking advantage of the air conditioning in my tiny-but-comfortable-enough one-person hostel room in Apple Hostel. The weather in Hong Kong was still blazing and windless, unlike the Philippines which was windy and rainy (the Philippines still is, as I am writing this entry.)

- I later had breakfast in Cafe de Coral as always, and wanted to visit a certain teddy bear museum along Salisbury Road. I later found out that the building where the museum was was demolished, and a new building is being built. Desperate to find things to do, I continued walking until I noticed many people crowded along the Avenue of Stars by the harbor. To my joy, I was able to catch the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Carnival, joined by participants from many parts of Asia, including the Philippines. I took photos of the dragon boats while thinking of the nearest toilet since I badly wanted to pee. (OK, maybe that was too much information, but hey, it happens to everyone.)

Lopsided dragon-boat balloon. 

The name says it all.

Plenty of dragon boats.

They're not yet racing.

I think it's like a practice round?

Marching band from a Hong-Kong high school.

Scottish-inspired if you ask me.

- When it was close to noon, I headed towards the Austin/Jordan area of Tsim Sha Tsui to meet Oi Hing again, and her twin sister and also my good friend Oi Kwan. They were already in line quite early since the restaurant does not accept reservations as of now.

This is still a short line.

Little Ed Sheeran??

Our waiting stub. Oi Kwan told me to take a photo of this.

Tada!!

- We had planned to eat in the newly-opened Hello Kitty Chinese Restaurant, that serves Hello-Kitty-motif Chinese food in a Hello-Kitty-motif restaurant. Oi Hing suggested this place since she's one of the biggest fans of Hello Kitty I know. I also wanted to try this restaurant since I always fancy the novelty of theme restaurants.

Hello, Kitty!! :D:D:D:D 

The Hello-Kitty fan is busy taking photos, while the Snoopy-fan is excited to see which Hello Kitty item to eat.

Aromatic jasmine tea in a Hello-Kitty teapot, short and stout.

Yes, even the lanterns.

Twins are busy posting their excitement on Facebook.

- We had Hello Kitty hakaws, custard buns, malaykos, roasted-pork (asado) puffs, a platter of beef hofan with an egg Hello-Kitty bow, and a platter of Hello-Kitty-shaped rice with sweet-sauce pork. I think all the dishes were nicely cooked, and were reasonably priced (Hong-Kong standards that is; each dish is around 30+ HKD.) The complimentary jasmine tea served in the restaurant was also the perfect complement to the dishes. Of course, the three of us had as much fun taking photos of the food and the restaurants as we did eating everything on our (Hello-Kitty) table.

FOOD. Noodles at the back, and pork with rice at the back too, then we had yellow malayko, white custard buns, and translucent hakaw in front.

Mandatory selfie.

Even the bathroom signs!!

NOM NOM HELLO KITTY HAKAW YUMMY NOM NOM.

Oi Hing was cringing while I was taking this shot. It's a miracle we're still friends after eating all the Hello Kitty heads.

- After eating little Hello Kitties, we headed to Chai Wan, at the far-eastern side of Hong Kong Island. The twins accompanied me to visit Law Uk Folk Museum, which is a preserved Hakka house from the 1700s (Qing Dynasty.) This is one of Hong Kong's "declared monuments." The twins told me that Chai Wan was so far away that they wouldn't have gone there if I did not told them that I was visiting the house-turned-museum.

A humble home in the middle of nowhere in Chai Wan.

-  This free-entrance museum has a few small rooms as "galleries." Visitors are able to see the bedroom, the storage/utility room, the kitchen, and the living room. The rooms reflect the simple and agricultural lifestyle of the Hakka people.

Living room.

Bedroom.

Storage/utility room, with a wooden rice mill.

Kitchen with chimney.

- Since the Law Uk Folk Museum was small, we finished looking at the rooms for a good half an hour. (For those not too interested in history and culture, they might finish it around 10-15 minutes.) We still had some more time to kill before dinner, so we headed towards the mid-level escalators near Central to visit the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Museum.

- The Sun Yat Sen Museum is located inside the Kom Tong Hall, a 4-story mansion owned by Ho Kom Tong in the early 1900s. It as later converted to a church, in 1960, and when the church did not need the location anymore, it was later turned into the museum it is today. Sun Yat Sen was acquaintances with Ho Kom Tong and his brother Sir Robert Ho Tung.

We're here, and I'm sweaty!!

Kom Tong Hall.

Young Sun Yat Sen.

- The museum has a good collection of Sun-Yat-Sen memorabilia, mostly contributed by Sun Yat Sen's family. This museum, interestingly, presents mostly Sun Yat Sen's early life in Hong Kong, and his beginnings in the reform movements. To my surprise, his partnership with Chiang Kai Shek was not mentioned anywhere. More about this part of Sun Yat Sen's life, however, can be found in the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan (click here to see my visit to Taipei.) By the way, no photography is allowed in the galleries, but it is allowed for the common areas.

Inside the old function hall.

Playing around with the twins.

Slightly older Sun Yat Sen.

Catching some air at the balcony. Oh look it's young Sun Yat Sen again.

Just like the twins in the horror move, "The Shining." Haha.

It's so hot in my house. Oh wait, it's just me.

We love the staircase.

A last look before leaving.

- We finished our visit an hour later, and walked all the way to Central, as the mid-level escalators only go up after 10am; the escalators only go down from 6am-10am. In Central, we went to the iconic International Finance Centre (IFC) Mall to have dinner in the famous dimsum place called Tim Ho Wan. Fortunately, we arrived early so we did not have to wait in line a long time; busier times of the day would make it impossible to get inside the small restaurant. When Tim Ho Wan arrived in the Philippines in 2014, everyone went crazy over it as well, enduring long hours and long waiting lines; everyone wanted to taste Tim Ho Wan's famous pork buns (click here for my Tim Ho Wan experience in Manila.) However, friends who have tasted the original Hong-Kong pork buns claim that the Hong-Kong ones were far better. For me, there wasn't a big difference, aside from the Hong-Kong ones having better buns; I still am not a pork-bun fan (regardless of restaurant/store) so I can't really say much. One thing I noticed though, is that the menu in Hong Kong's Tim Ho Wan was far shorter than the one here in Manila.

Tim Ho Wan!! Early dinner to avoid the long(er) waiting line.

The famous pork buns.

Honestly, I didn't find them special. They tasted great, but not special.

- After our light and early dinner, we rolled over to the Lai Yuen Amusement Park. The Lai Yuen Amusement Park is an incarnation of the Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park in the Central Harbourfront Event Space, near the Central Ferry Piers. The Lai Yuen Amusement Park opened in June 26, 2015, and will finish operations on September 2, 2015. The original Lai Chi Kok Amusement Park, however, operated from 1949 to 1997. Old photos and memorabilia from the original amusement park were displayed in one area, arousing nostalgia among the older Hong-Kong residents. For the visitors of Lai Yuen Amusement Park, there is no entrance fee, but tokens have to be purchased to play the typical carnival games and rides. We had fun people watching, but we did not feel too interested in playing any of the fun games there.

Hong Kong bay-side carnival sunset.

Lai Yuen.

Robot elephant that squirts water if you get to throw a banana directly into its mouth.

Lai Chi Kok/ Lai Yuen mascot.

Saw a kid sit on this duck. It didn't occur to me that the kid was 10x smaller than me. My butt wouldn't fit in the space between the head and the tail.

This is the best I can do.

- We parted ways around 7pm, since I still wanted to visit the night market and I also had to pack my things since I would be leaving Hong Kong the following day. As for the twins, they had work the next day, so they will have enough time to rest in the evening. I thanked both of them for accompanying me the whole afternoon, and rode the ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui from the Central Ferry Piers.

- I changed into fresh and dry clothes for my evening stroll, since my shirt for the day was too damp from sweat as usual. It's not easy when your body is biologically programmed to sweat out all seven seas with every movement (and yes I do sweat, albeit less, even during the snow-covered winters and chilly-windy springs when visiting other countries.)

- In Temple Street, I browsed through some things again, and had a second dinner in Bombay Indian Restaurant, also located along Temple Street. Since I was half-full, I only ordered some kofta naan, buttered naan, daal (lentil soup,) and Kashmiri sweet naan for dessert. I wasn't able to finish all my sweet naan, so I just took home my leftovers and had them for breakfast the following morning.

Sweet naan at the top left, sweet lassi at the top rights, daal at the bottom left, and butter naan + kofta naan at the bottom right.

- I woke up the next morning realizing that I had a jam-packed day before flying back to Manila. I felt strange because I still had the impression that I was running out of new things to do in tiny Hong Kong. I ate my leftover sweet naan from the night before, and prepared to go Admiralty MTR Station.

- Close to the station lies the Hong Kong Park, where the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware and the adjacent K. S. Lo Gallery are located. The European-style Flagstaff House used to be the home of commanders during the British period, and later occupied by the Japanese during the Second World War, and later on, it was converted to a museum. Most of the tea ware in the museum are donated by Dr. K. S. Lo, creator of Vitasoy. The museum also serves as a branch museum of the Hong Kong Museum of Art, located near the Tsim Sha Tsui harbor.

- The museum has collections of teaware from the Tang-Song Dynasties, up to the present. Different styles of tea-making are also explained in a step-by-step process on some of the gallery walls. The museum had some interesting pieces too, which gave me a new interest in tea ware. (I drink tea a lot too, so it's quite relevant to me.)

Look how red I am.

18th-century turquoise-and-gold tea pot.

Tibetan-style teapot.

18th- and 19th-century teapots made to look like bamboo.

19th-century teapot with a frog on the lid.

19th-century box-shaped teapot.

Miniature teapots.

Flagstaff House.

- The K. S. Lo Gallery, located beside the Museum of Tea Ware, houses exhibits on ceramics and ancient seals, most of which were also donated by Dr. K. S. Lo. In that museum, I beheld giant heavy stone seals that I never knew existed. A lot of normal-sized ones from the Ming-Qing Dynasties to contemporary times were also exhibited. At the ground floor, a Chinese-tea restaurant with expensive-but-high-quality tea.

Hand for scale.

19th-century giant seal.

Regular-sized seals.

Twin-lion seals.

- Soon after, I went to the Central Ferry Piers to visit the Hong Kong Maritime Museum. This seemingly small museum, in reality, is a large but compact museum that exhibits China and Hong Kong's relationship with the sea throughout the centuries. The first gallery exhibits models of old boats and some items used by ancient sailors. The exhibits gradually move towards maritime trade during the British colonial era and the Japanese Occupation, until the development and use of present day harbors, piers, ships, and other maritime equipment in Hong Kong.

Burial boats.

Models of old Chinese boats/ships.

Dutch ships.

Ancient Chinese sailor's vest.

This ivory fan. Must. Have.

European hat, goblet, and sword.

Hong-Kong fisherman's boat, complete with the eyes, to help the fisherman with his sea navigation.

Different kinds of sea pirates through time.

British-era uniform and tea set.

With Ma-tsu at the bow of the ship (or what's left of the ship.)

Tada.

- I later met my good friend Kenn in the IFC Mall, which is connected to the Central Ferry Piers by a long walkway. We had lunch in The Glasshouse, located at the topmost floor of the IFC Mall. The restaurant serves fusion dishes, mostly a Western execution with an Asian inspiration.

With Kenn and great food.

- Lunch seemed to whiz by after talking mouthfuls and eating more mouthfuls with Kenn. Later on, Kenn had to go back to work, while I rode the ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui, to visit my last museum for my Hong Kong visit - The Hong Kong Museum of History. Last year, I wasn't able to visit the Museum of History since I visited on a Tuesday, the only day the museum was (and most other museums in Hong Kong are) closed. The Museum of History was conveniently located beside the Hong Kong Science Museum in the East Tsim Sha Tsui area, which was a little bit off way; the Science Museum had a different schedule, so it was the only one I had visited (click here for my visit to the Science Museum.) Had I visited on another day last year, I wouldn't have needed to go out of my way to visit the Museum of History this year.

A nice view of the pier from my ferry to TST.

A very typical Hong-Kong-themed photo.

After walking several blocks, I'm here!!

- The Museum of History had a similar feel to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum (click here for my visit to the HK Heritage Museum,) only that it was bigger, and had more visuals than the Heritage Museum. The museum, of course, tackles the evolution of Hong Kong's environment and society since the prehistoric eras until the reunification of Hong Kong with mainland China. My favorite part of the museum, as expected, was the gallery on the different ethno-linguistic groups of Hong Kong. Since Hong Kong is small, people normally think that the local inhabitants make up a homogenous Cantonese-speaking group. However, Since my visit last year to Hong Kong's heritage trails (click here, I have come to realize that this was not the case, and that early migrations of southern-Chinese ethno-linguistic groups to Hong Kong have taken place. The four main Chinese groups to migrate and stay in Hong Kong are the Punti, the boat-dwellers (Tanka,) and the more prominent Hakka and Hoklo groups.

Take time to read. 

Costumes, mostly from the Hakka and Hoklo.

Hoklo vest and headdress.

Old Chinese junk.

Bridal dress.

Enormous Chinese figures used in festivals.

Cantonese opera. (Look at the looooooooooong feathers.)

Mannequin.

Lion dances.

- My other favorite part of the museum was the gallery on the British Era and the Japanese Occupation, since that area had mock streets that made visitors feel like they have travelled back through time. Replicas of old stores, offices, and other establishments were built in order to give visitors a feel of how Hong Kong's streets (might have) looked like in the colonial eras.

Fake street.

With eager students on their field trip.

Well, I don't need to explain this.

- Finally, I was able to attend a special exhibit in the Museum of History entitled "The Rise of the Celestial Empire" to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the Han-Dynasty Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb (click here for my visit to the Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb.) The special gallery exhibited special Han-Dynasty cultural and religious items from that were gathered from different institutions in mainland China.

Special exhibit.

Old robe.

Emperor's jade burial suit.

- The museum shop of the Museum of History had a lot of interesting things to buy as well, and despite not wanting to buy anything, I saw this and didn't think twice of buying it. It was the only/last stock for this model.

It fits on my palm, so it doesn't take up much space. Now I have this world-wonder in my room to stare at all day long.

- Finally, I had one last trip to Mongkok's Ladies' Market to do some last-minute browsing, before going back to my hostel to rest, dry my sweat-damp clothes, and pick up my luggage. I arrived in the airport early in the evening, and had a roasted-goose dinner before flying home, since Kenn made me crave for roasted goose while talking about it during lunch.

Roasted goose in the airport. Now I want more.

- I am still dumbfounded at the number of new things I did in Hong Kong, when I initially thought that I had experienced all that ever was to experience in Hong Kong. Hong Kong's vibrance, diversity, and color continue to surprise me, which makes me wonder what other new experiences I will have in Hong Kong the next time I get to visit this tiny special region. As for this trip, what started out as a "simple" errand turned out to be, unexpectedly, one of my most relaxed but culturally-loaded vacations.