Mmmmm... glutinous rice balls
Entry 2: 2/9/06
Day two in Hong Kong was a free day. Some of us decided to check out a market while others wanted to hit a beach, so we combined forces and headed out to Stanley Market and Repulse Bay, taking the most amazing bus trip to get there. It was a double decker bus that brought us through windy hillside streets to the south side of Hong Kong Island. We took the front seats of the top floor and ran into just about every tree along the way and narrowly escaped hitting just about every vehicle in front of us, or at least it looked that way. But the views of the city, the tropically forested hills, the harbors, the swanky hotels, the smaller towns all along the way were well worth it. We passed the beach, which was beautiful, on our way to the market. Once at the Stanley we took escalators down to the sea level and hit up a restaurant for lunch before commencing the shopping and bargaining. Everything was pretty cheap to begin with but you could haggle with them and get better deals. I got a skirt, shoes, a camera bag, and some much needed sunglasses. They never let us try things on, but it seemed the shop keepers were amazing at sizing you up. After we were done at the market we headed over to the beach and hung out there for what seemed like a few hours. We then went to dinner somewhere and they made up some dish especially for me for like $3.50.
We then checked out the Ladies’ Market on Temple Street and the electronics market. The electronics one was mostly closed so we went back on a later day, but we did check out the other market, which was better than Stanley for its cheapness and incredible bargaining action. All I bought was a funny T-shirt about to-fu for like $3. Then we went to an ice cream shop type place where I became deathly afraid of anything with glutinous in its name and gained a fondness for mango ‘ice cream’. I love mangoes and I love HK more for also loving mangoes. Then we went home to the hotel where I discovered I had access to the internet and stayed up until 1:00 am to wake up again at a record breaking 6:30 am!