Dreamy Day in Hong Kong

I'm feeling more myself again after nearly 10 hours of sleep in our incredibly comfortable white down bed of the Royal Garden Hotel, Kowloon. Yesterday we walked for hours, and though I sometimes felt like I was watching the proceedings from a great distance through a curtain of gauze, I won't soon forget the experiences we had. First off, we discovered where all the people are! We ended up in areas with lots of locals, and even the tourists we saw seemed to be from the mainland. After a bustling lunch in a French cafe, we headed for the waterfront promenade of Tsim Sha Tsui (pronounced "Jim Saw Joy") and were rewarded with a sweeping panorama of Hong Kong Island and the harbor as we strolled past Hong Kong's version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame (stars and handprints for Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan) and a few amusing English signs like "Beware of Lamppost" and "Care the Lovely Flowers." Our favorite was "Please Wrap Spittle" on the side of a trash bin. There was a celebratory mood; it is still Chinese New Year time, and there are red lanterns and decorations everywhere. Mary and I ducked into a shop selling refrigerated bird's nest in a jar--something to do with longevity. Eventually we made our way to the Star Ferries, a fleet of green and white boats that chug between Kowloon and the Island in about seven minutes of delightful views from the wooden benches which line the top deck. When we reached the other side and landed in the Central District, we were briefly engulfed in the urban crush of the workday, and roaring boulevards that we eventually learned are usually crossed with pedestrian bridges or underground subways. Towering banks and stately war monuments gave way, with a little walking and persistence, to fascinating narrow streets, many seeming to stretch uphill at a 45 degree angle, and hundreds of shops with names in both Chinese and English. Their signs gave us the first glimpse into our fantasies of Hong Kong, as they reach across the roads at varying heights, creating a geometric mobile of color (and later, light) to delight the eye. Pressing uphill, the neighborhoods revealed fewer and fewer tourist indications (like 7-11s and Starbucks) and more lovely bakeries, cafes, bars and shops selling incense or birds or dried squid in jars. I can't really explain the enchanting aspect to this walk, but all four of us were feeling it. We even tip-toed through an iron gate that led to a peeling whitewashed mosque, the steps of which were covered with children's shoes whose owners could be heard chanting and singing inside. At one point we reached the neighborhood called "Soho" (south of Hollywood St.) and discovered the fabulous "Midlands Escalators," 29 separate moving staircases that continue towards the top of Victoria Peak, offering tantalizing glimpses of the various shops and restaurants on each level as you slowly ascend (you can exit anywhere you like.) The escalator was designed for commuters, so it heads down from 6-10 a.m. each day, and then goes up until midnight. On the way back down, we wended our way slowly on steep, curving streets and landed in the Western part of Central, where the smell of fresh, flopping fish and bloody hanging cuts of meat and the stands bursting with fruits and flowers crowd the steep, narrow alleys and hundreds of people shop for the freshest of dinner ingredients. It's funny that this whole adventure serendipitously unfolded because I had been searching for a 1930s-style Chinese department store called Shanghai Tang, because when we did find it on our way back to the ferry it was slick in a way unlike anything we had had the privilege to experience in our rambling walk.

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