Hong Kong 2014
Yesterday I took a Dragon Air flight from Chiang Mai to Hong Kong. The efficient 20 minute high speed train from the airport passes through Kowloon and ends in Hong Kong…at the building, incidentally, where Josh works in the penthouse location of the American Club restaurants. Heading to the turnstiles I see his smiling face on the other side. Oh joy!
We take a taxi to Josh’s tiny apartment in a Hong Kong high-rise with every wall space and corner full of artifacts picked up from Polly’s business travel all over SE Asia and from their trips to Istanbul and India. I add to all this sh** with a great but expensive handwoven Zapotec rug I brought from Oaxaca which now adorns Josh’s “office” floor. Josh and I explain to Polly that “Sh** can be used in a good or bad way. Stuff is just sh**t. She laughs. Next thing I know, Polly has taken a photo of all my stuff and posted it on Facebook with the caption “My shit from Oaxaca!” Ha! My apartment in Oaxaca is 5 times the size of his for $325 a month. He pays nearly $3000. Such is the price for living in a cosmopolitan city with the highest population density in the world.
Polly joins us later at a well-known traditional sushi restaurant. Polly is on a roll this night…so funny and so cute with her Cantonese accent. She is one smart witty woman. Well, she didn’t get her masters being a dummy. Of course Josh gives it as good.
It is a complement for a chef to be visited another chef. But this night the sushi bar was full so we were seated at a table outside the view of the chef. Josh decides to leave for another place but just as we were entering the elevator here comes running the sushi chef! “No no, don’t leave! I have room at the bar now!” The supreme complement for Josh!
Josh and the head sushi chef explain the nuances of each sashimi. I learn you never mix the wasabi with the soy sauce. Some is eaten with a special sauce of it’s own. And some is eaten without either…but with a tiny bit of grated salt from Nepal. Only two things I won’t eat, we told the chef. Raw egg and fermented bean. (Natto) Otherwise we eat what the chef decides what we will like. The fish is rich and finally I’ve really had enough. I told Josh I would really hate to see the bill. He accommodates. 🙂
After dinner we do a bit of shopping in a hip shop:
Polly says she would translate this as “what the hell… Mother fxxxker!” Delay No More!” I decide to wear it like the young Thai girls who wear t-shirts with totally inappropriate sayings in English. If they knew what they meant I can’t believe they would wear them! So now I will wear a t-shirt that only Cantonese-speaking people will understand…and watch their sly smiles! 😉
This trip is for only five days. Waiting for a taxi home, I tell Josh I’ve got Bangkok down. Next trip I think I will get a place of my own in Hong Kong for a couple weeks and explore this city…where East and West have come together in an interesting way ever since the British occupation.
I’m used to going to bed at 8:30-9 and getting up about 5:30 or 6. I collapse at midnight on the wonderfully comfortable couch under a great comforter and on a generous down pillow. What a relief from the rock-hard beds I’ve been sleeping on in cheap guesthouses for the last month!
In the morning Josh and Polly go to the gym. I am on the tiny veranda with a view of more highrises and the harbor. And my computer. They will take me to a traditional Dim Sum restaurant soon.
I am in my glory!
Tags: Food, Hong Kong, Joshua, Progeny
Zoe
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