Over the Top

November 6-10, 2018

We tried something different in getting to Asia this time. We took a Cathay Pacific non-stop flight that left Newark for Hong Kong at one a.m.

We had made that flight non-stop once before, It was the second leg of our trip back from Bangkok last fall. Taking it left us a 16-hour layover at Lantau airport and the discovery of Gwei Lo ale.

This would be the first time we had left an airport at such an odd hour, though.

I don’t know if we’ll do it again.

We got to the airport early. The original plan was to have dinner there while we waited for the plane.

Good thing we got too hungry for dinner at 10. We went to Egan’s around our usual dinner hour. That was the last real food—or beer—we saw for the next 18 hours.

The only food available at the terminal was a selection of soggy white-bread sandwiches in plastic, potato chips, and chocolate. I settled for chocolate.

Food on the plane isn’t much better.

The last bar that served food near the gate closed around 10 p.m.

Maybe I’m getting senile. None of this should have surprised me. This is Newark, one of the worst airports I know.

I managed to nap for short stretches while we waited. Joanna says I was snoring at times.

We left on time for a flight of more than 15 hours, which sounds more grueling than it was. Leaving at such a late hour, we managed to get more sleep than usual on a plane. 

We had equipped ourselves with compression socks, on the recommendation of my doctor, who said she uses them for long flights. She said she also used them when she was a resident, because she sometimes worked shifts that kept her on her feet for as long as 36 hours.

Thirty six hours? God, that’s way more than I could have done on my best day and a half.

Before we took off, the pilot told us that the flight path would take us over the North Pole. I had expected we would be flying over the Pacific. 

No. They take the Great Circle. Duh.

The plane got into Lantau ahead of schedule. We were due at 5:40, but by that time we had passed through passport control and were collecting our bags at the carousel.

It may have been around seven in the morning on Nov. 8 when we arrived at the hotel, a Best Western on Austin Avenue. Too early to check in, of course, so we left the bags and went to find some cheok.

We found Fu Doo Restaurant around the corner on Austin Road. Joanna had her cheok—the rice porridge sometimes called congee—with seafood.

I had mine with pai dan, or preserved egg, and pork. The egg has a musky flavor that offsets the saltiness of the rice porridge.

I tried Hong Kong style tea, but took it without milk. The tea was the strongest I’ve ever tasted, steeped so deeply that it was as opaque as coffee. 

But this wasn’t coffee. It was tea that could have stood up without the cup.

It tasted like dissolved iron.

We had about six hours to kill before check-in time at two, so we went shopping for a cell phone. The cab driver from the airport had given Joanna some tips about where to go. 

One of the places we found on a map outside a metro station. It was a block away. We couldn’t find it. I’m not sure it is still there.

We were hoping to get a burner, like the ones we bought in Bangkok—$20 American for a phone with a prepaid SIM card.

We went into a couple of stores, and the cheapest thing we could find was going to run almost $60 American, plus more to the card. 

We decided to rely on the hotel phone. The charge is about 5 HK dollars, or 65 American cents, for a local call.

We also stopped at the Tin Hau Temple at the north end of Temple Street.

You walk inside into a cloud of fragrant smoke. The temple is fairly large and fronts onto a small park.

It’s a very popular place. You can smell the incense a block away.

According to the sign outside, the area was at one time waterfront, site of a fishing village. It has since been filled in, built up, and supercharged.

The original temple, which has been expanded, modernized, and then restored, is now considered an example of traditional Chinese temple architecture.

Tin Hau, the patron, is the goddess of sea people.

Attached to it is a separate chapel devoted to my favorite, Kuan Yin (pronounced “Gun Yum” in Cantonese), the goddess of mercy. As usual, I said a little prayer there.

By the time it was pushing noon, I was dying. I was still wearing the clothes I put on to go to the airport in New Jersey. That included a tie and a vest that I hadn’t had a chance to shed.

My shirt was soaked. My feet were killing me. We still had two hours to go. It seemed safe to feel sorry for myself. Joanna, of course, was doing fine, but I was too uncomfortable to feel ashamed of myself.

Anyhow we went back to the hotel. If nothing else, we could nap in the lobby till two.

The lady was more accommodating than the guy on duty earlier. She checked to see if a room was ready and found one.

We slept until dinner time.

We ate at a place called Kai Kee, almost directly across the street from the Kimberley Hotel, where we stayed the last time we were in this neighborhood.

I had sum fun, pan-fried needle-thin noodles with yellow chives and other stuff in abalone sauce. I had that with a half liter of Tsingtao, which I picked up at a 7-Eleven across the street. It was all fantastic, even the lager beer.

And the dinner knocked me out.

I managed to get back to the hotel and slept till sometime next morning.

Jet lag is a great leveler.

We strolled down Nathan Road toward the waterfront on Thursday. We stopped at one of the many Yeung Kee restaurant franchises to kill two birds with one dish. We had a plate with a leg of chicken and a leg of goose. 

The whole thing was good but the hit of the meal for me was the goose skin. It was brown and chewy and saturated with soy sauce, which gave it a savory goodness that made my brain happy.

Joanna also ordered soup that had a section of yellow corn on the cob, carrots, and papaya.

From there we wandered to the Peninsula Hotel, where they were serving high tea. This seems to be as popular as Tin Hau Temple, only with a different crowd. 

This is a colonial throwback, not unlike the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec, but fast-forwarded a few decades later—say, early to mid 20th century. I expected to see David Niven in a uniform.

Joanna asked about making a reservation for later in the week, but was told only hotel guests can do that. There may have been two dozen or more people waiting in line for tables.

All Gwei Lo, of course. The Chinese are at places like Yeung Kee and the Tin Hau.

Friday was a special occasion. Joanna had gotten in touch with a friend, Carol, whom she hadn’t seen since she left Hong Kong in the 1960s. Carol live in Australia and was in Hong Kong with her husband, Jonathon, stopping on their way to Japan.

We had dinner with them and several members of their extended family at a restaurant in the New Territories. We took the local metro for a dozen stops to the end of the line.

Night came on while we were traveling underground. We came out of the station into a neighborhood of lights, looking more like an amusement park than a commercial district. 

Joanna says the area was all farmland when she lived in Hong Kong. Now it is filled with soaring apartment towers, many of them built by the government for middle and lower income families.

Fourteen of us sat at a round table. We started with a corn soup. It also had egg and pork, but the dominant flavor of the broth was sweet corn.

Then dishes were set on a large lazy Susan, and you took a bit from a dish as it came around. Sweet-and-sour pork, lemon chicken, a couple of vermicelli dishes with various meats, fried rice. I can’t remember what all.

Saturday was suit day. We walked down Nathan Road to Sam’s, a tailor shop we knew. Joanna wanted a two-piece black suit with a jacket like one she already owns and a pair of high-waisted trousers.

She brought the jacket as a model for the tailor. She picked out the fabric and was measured around one in the afternoon. We came back at four for her first fitting.

We went back to the waterfront, this time going into the park across from the foot of Nathan Road. It’s basically a concrete swath, and most of it is under construction. 

It used to be charming, but now it’s the Reds’ brutalist idea of a tourist attraction, like the nonsense they built on Victoria Peak.

On the way we passed a landmark to notoriety called Chungking Mansions. It’s a multi-story urban mall that also includes cheap hotels. 

You supposedly take your life into your hands if you step inside. People are supposed to disappear in there.

Joanna didn’t want to go in, but I did. So she followed me as we toured the ground floor. People were lined up at the various elevators to go to upper floors, but we didn’t do that.

Much of what I saw consisted of foreign exchange services. There also were curry stands and people selling merchandise ranging from cheap luggage to toys.

I dunno. Where does the gangster reputation come from?

The crowd didn’t look much different from the pedestrian jam on the sidewalk all up and down Nathan Road. Not much different, in fact, from the people I see at Target or Willowbrook Mall back in New Jersey.

The aisles are claustrophobically narrow. That may account for some of it.

But the place is generally cleaner and better lighted than the big market by the river in Chiang Mai.

Kate’s significant other, Brian, has a fascination about the place. So the picture of the day is for Brian. 

Where’s Joanna? 

She’s waving to Brian from the steps of the Mansions.

After the second fitting at Sam’s we stopped for dinner at a restaurant called Grand Hill, which specializes in Taiwanese cooking. We were there a couple of times during our stay in Kowloon four years ago. 

We had a huge fish, breaded and fried whole. Whole is the best way to eat fish. Like chicken: in the skin and on the bone. I think the head and the tail add something too.

We managed to finish the fish and a plate of greens that neither of us had tried before.

I had a Pilsener called Blue Girl, which tasted a lot like Budweiser, and a Tsingtao.

Good night, gang.

Things should get more interesting once we shake this jet lag.

Harry