The two sides of Victoria Harbour

Again, I decided to make another short tour - this time it would be to the two sides of Victoria Harbour. Specifically, my itinerary begins with some attractions on the Hong Kong Island side (i.e. south side) of Victoria Harbour and then continues on the Kowloon side (i.e. north side). Here is the list of attractions:

(Take the MTR from Hang Hau Station to Wan Chai Station)
1. Browse around at the Hong Kong Book Fair (香港書展) at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (香港會議展覽中心)
2. Eat some gai-daan-jai (雞蛋仔) street food at a snack shop
3. Eat lunch at a Teochew Congee-Noodle-Rice Restaurant (潮州粥粉麵飯餐廳)
(Take the MTR from Wan Chai Station to Central Station)
4,5. Take the Star Ferry (天星渡輪) from Central Pier 7 (中環七號碼頭) to Tsim Sha Tsui Pier (尖沙咀碼頭)
6. Shop at Harbour City Mall (海港城)
7. Visit the Tsim Sha Tsui Clock Tower (尖沙咀鐘樓)
8. Visit the Hong Kong Museum of Art (香港藝術館)
9. Eat dinner at a Japanese izakaya (居酒屋)
(Take the MTR from Tsim Sha Tsui Station back to Hang Hau Station)

Here is a map to help you visualize my journey (each red marker represents each of the nine attractions):

Now let's start the tour:

The first stop was the Hong Kong Book Fair, an annual event hosting representatives (and authors) from the enormous Chinese-language publishing world. Stalls at the fair represented groups from the Hong Kong publishers, Mainland Chinese publishers, Taiwanese publishers, and religious publishers (i.e. Christian and Buddhist).

Here is the view of Victoria Harbour (obscured by some buildings) on the walk from Wan Chai Station to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center (the building on the far left):

Sadly, admission isn't free, but the ticket is still very cheap (nothing like the pricey conventions back in Canada) at only $10 HKD ($1.40 CAD) if you arrive before 12:00pm or if you are a tourist to Hong Kong (I could have presented my Canadian passport to get the discount even if I came after 12:00pm). Otherwise, the adult fare is still just $20 HKD ($2.90 CAD)!

The line-up itself to the Fair was huge. In fact, the line-up began even before the half-way point on the walk from Wan Chai Station. Security guards set up metal barricades to control the twisting line of people as it wound around the Convention Center and into neighbouring streets and buildings. There must have been thousands of visitors on that day alone!

Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures of the Book Fair itself - I was too busy trying to pick out some books that I wanted to buy. But here is one near the Christian Section of the fair grounds:

And a shot of the concourse in the Exhibition Center:

After I bought a few books (most of them religious books and one novel by the famous Taiwanese author Giddens Ko (九把刀), I made my way to the Star Ferry Pier. Here is a street view of Wan Chai District:

Because of the way that cars and other motor vehicles reign supreme on these streets of Hong Kong, most pedestrians walk on these overpasses, which lend excellent views of the street scenes below:

Originally, I had planned to grab lunch at Central, but it was already around 1 or 2 pm so I decided to try some street food. I decided to try some gai-daan-jai from a snacks shop that I spotted from the overpass - Ada Snacks.

 
To this day, I have fond memories of the first time I ate gai-daan-jai on my first trip to Hong Kong with my family. Gai-daan-jai is made of batter mixed with egg (similar to pancake or waffle mix - in fact, the same shop also sells waffles) which are heated in a metal press (similar to a waffle press) until they form warm, crispy, sweet, and chewy dough balls.

Hmmm...the gai-daan-jai were just as good as I remembered!

Having decided that I would need to eat lunch soon, I rounded the street corner and found a Teochew-style restaurant (潮州餐館) - Chiu-Chow Congee and Noodle Kitchen (潮城粥麵小廚):

I eventually ordered a Shantou Fish Dumpling Hor-fun (汕頭魚餃湯河粉) with a cold lemon tea (it was a hot day):

The hor-fun noodles were just as good as the ones I had at the cha-chaan-teng I went to at Wong Tai Sin (I couldn't tell any difference). But the Shantou fish dumplings (something I had never heard of) were very unlike any dumplings I had ever eaten before. The fish filling was firm and salty, tasting almost like pork while the dumpling skin was rough and firm.

Like almost all restaurants in Hong Kong (at least not the high-class ones), the meal was ready in the span of around five minutes. Here is the chef at the kitchen located at the storefront, chopping vegetables and making noodles so fast that his hands are a blur!

Here, I passed by Jardine House, the headquarters of the Hong Kong conglomerate Jardine Matheson Holdings (officially 怡和集團 or transliterated as 渣甸洋行 "Jah-deen Maritime Company"):

As I walked the overpass passage to the Central Piers, I snapped these amazing shots of the Hong Kong Island shoreline:

Here is the old Central Pier building, with its architecture still reminiscent of the quickly disappearing Colonial British style:

There was a farmer's market inside the Pier building. I would have bought some vegetables but as I can't cook in my student residence, I had to let the opportunity go.

I boarded the Star Ferry (which used to be the only way across Victoria Harbour in the bygone days before tunnels were bored under Victoria Harbour for cars and subway lines lain under the harbour for passengers). The design was reminiscent of the old British style of the colonial days...

While Hong Kong has amazing views, I found it often the case that the tall buildings near the shoreline block out the view for pedestrians. Now in the ferry at the middle of the harbour, I had a clear view of the Kowloon shoreline:

Here is an interesting poster I found on the ferry boat: it is a recruitment advertisement for ferry ship captains on the Star Ferry. The title reads "Now welcoming local applicants for ship captain interns" and describes the necessary qualifications, work conditions, and so on that pertain to the offered position:

As I suspected, the old design of the Star Ferry (which is no longer such a vital transportation method with the Cross-Harbour Tunnel and the MTR) was not just faked for the sake of tourists. The boiler of the ship shows that the ship itself dates back to 1958, even before my parents were born! In fact, they might have even ridden on this same ferry back when they were children...

After a short trip, I arrived at Tsim Sha Tsui Pier on the Kowloon side of the harbour. Again, the pier maintains its old colonial architecture from before the handover:

Here is Harbour City (海港城) with Snoopy statues at the front to advertise the Snoopy exhibition under way inside the mall.

The view of the Hong Kong Island shoreline is amazing from the Kowloon side - you can spot the Bank of China Tower by the Chinese-Belgian architect I.M. Pei at the left (the triangular glass and metal building), the HSBC building several buildings to the right, the white Jardine House building several buildings to the right of the HSBC building, and the 2 International Finance Centre building in the middle (the tallest building in the picture and the second-tallest building in Hong Kong).

After buying some hiking boots at Harbour City (which I neglected to bring to Hong Kong from Canada), I tried to find the Hong Kong Museum of Art (which I knew was very close by but strangely there were no signs):

If you thought that the pro-Falun Gong (法輪功) activists had the upper-hand in publicity within Hong Kong, you could be wrong. I encountered this somewhat large demonstration by anti-Falun Gong activists by the Tsim Sha Tsui Clock Tower (the red-and-white-brick building on the left). The left banner says "The Taiwanese (Note: Falun Gong has a strong presence in Taiwan) evil cult Falun Gong, immediately get out of Hong Kong!" while the one on the right says "Evil cult Falun Gong says that when sick, one need only practise qi and not see a doctor or take medicine - ridiculous!"

Some more banners (unfortunately, obscured by some curious passerby) accuse Falun Gong (which is notable for its heavy opposition of the Communist Party of China) of, not only being an "evil cult" but also "dividing the nation" and "terrorising the populace (?)":


Political bickering aside, the Tsim Sha Tsui Clock Tower is very pretty, with its Edwardian Neo-Classical architecture framed with Royal Palm trees (which I can now accurately identify thanks to the tree signs at HKUST). The tower sort of reminds me of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei (中華民國總統府)

And here is a picture of the Presidential Office Building (taken from Wikipedia):

By the Clock Tower are more beautiful views of the Hong Kong seafront:

Finally, I found the Hong Kong Museum of Art:

I bought the $10 HKD ticket (instead of the regular $5 HKD ticket) so that I could also attend the special exhibition on "Paris: Chinese Painting" which showcases works by early 20th century Chinese artists who lived and worked in Paris.

Confusingly, the art gallery signs say that you are not allowed flash nor phones in the galleries. Interpreting this to mean that I could use my phone as a camera to take a picture (i.e. not as a telephone), I was stopped by the museum staff. Here is my only photo of an exhibit in the museum - a scroll painting (立軸) by some of the most famous late-Ming (後明朝) to early-Qing (初清朝) Chinese paintings. Unfortunately, as I am not familiar with Chinese brush paintings (one of the Four Arts (四藝) of the Chinese scholar, by the way), I could not truly appreciate the paintings for what they were. Nonetheless, they were very beautiful to look at.

The exhibit especially stresses the historical background of the paintings - the last ethnically Han Chinese (漢族) Ming Dynasty (明朝) was in its death throes and overtaken by the Manchu (滿族) Qing Dynasty (清朝). For the second time in history (the first time being the Yuan Dynasty (元朝) when the Mongols (蒙古族) under Kublai Khan conquered China), China was under "barbarian" (i.e. non-Chinese) rule. Formerly, government service had been considered the noblest pursuit for educated men in China. But now, service under a foreign conqueror was despised among Chinese gentlemen. Many of them eventually became professional painters in order to earn a living.

One of the more interesting paintings for me was one whose artist's signature had a dual meaning - the artist's name and a message of political dissent. Too bad I couldn't take pictures!

The museum itself also has some beautiful views of the Harbour:

It was getting late, so I went to search for some food:

I found a Japanese izakaya-style restaurant (a restaurant specializing in late-night food for Japanese workers) called 別天辛.

Inside, the layout of the restaurant is like a bar - I seated myself at the bar in front of the kitchen. The stacked glasses on the counter-top are not for alcohol (although I suppose they could be as well) but for the genmaicha (玄米茶) Japanese barley green tea that you can pour yourself from the black jug in the middle of the picture:

I ordered a Pork Bone Soup Ramen for $70 HKD. The pork bone soup (according to the menu, is made of real pork bone and doesn't include MSG) was fantastic while the noodles were very chewy and tasted fresh. I wondered if they were made on-site at the restaurant...

Anyways, that's the end of this day's post (I didn't have much time this week so that's why I'm posting four days late). Next weekend, I am planning to go hiking in one of Hong Kong's beautiful natural parks (Hong Kong is mostly covered with vegetation after all). See you next time!