Hong Kong
Just one corner of the Wan Chai market.
Everything tastes spectacular here! In such a competitive and high-paced city, if the food isn’t up to par, the restaurant or food stand quickly gets renovated into something newer and flashier. Since everything has been well tested by the food-obsessed and very discerning crowd of HK citizens, only the best survives. Even their Starbucks was better! Not that that’s saying much. At least they didn’t burn my coffee. Not that I had coffee, because I quit two days ago, forever this time…
The hand-made tofu, vegetarian meat, and bean curd stall!
Not only is the food in Hong Kong salivatingly good, it’s also so alarmingly cheap you feel like you must be ripping off everyone you buy food from. When you walk around, you see full meals priced around $24-32, which are not uncommon prices in America. Then you get to divide by 8!!! (the exchange rate) and so you can get a large non-fast food meal for about $3-4. This morning I bought 8 loaves of bread for little over $1, and pastries start at around 25 cents.
Mochi on a stick with azuki beans! My aunt took a bite before I could properly take a picture...
You’re tempted to gain weight but it’s such a fast city that it’s nearly impossible to do so. I discovered this morning, through falling on my ass in rush hour people traffic, that even the escalators in Hong Kong run faster than ones in America! And if you don’t ram your entire body onto the subway train, be prepared to be run over by hoards of extremely violent and deceptively fragile looking old women. So you need to constantly be eating just to maintain your weight. I think I spend a good 5-6 hours a day here either looking for food, eating food, or talking about it.
Sheep tea set...by a contemporary potter.
If you’re a vegan visiting Hong Kong for the first time, don’t be scared! It’s easy to be shocked at first at the strung up whole pig heads, not to mention the snakes in a cage. If you’re at a restaurant and don’t know what you can eat, remember this line: “Ngo hai so sik” (pronunciation guide: ng pronounced like the end of sing. If you can’t say that, say “au” like Auckland, hai like hi!,so like so what?, and sik like sick.) That will get people to understand that you are vegetarian. If you want to go further and say that you are vegan, I haven’t heard a word for vegan yet, but you can say that you don’t eat butter, eggs, or milk as well. (“mm sik gai dan, ngau yau, ngau lai”).
A turtle family! I think I may need to recover a bit from the CUTE OVERLOAD!!
Other Things I Like About Hong Kong
1. Today I got a back massage for 45 minutes for HK $68. That’s about $8.50 in US money. Jealous yet?
2. A woman talking to me reeeaaaaaalllyyy slowly in English because she thought I couldn’t understand her.
3. Free admission to a conservatory and a teapot museum!
4. Extremely fresh produce (although practically none of it is local). 
5. Most of the English translations are spot on, but look at this fun one!
Special disposal of CUM!
Loved the turtle family. Looks like your having fun, I will try not to be jealous.
I think I might fail though.
Don’t worry, I will bring a lot of souvenirs to you back! One look at them, you will forget you ever missed me!
Lucky you! Wish I was there.
I wish I was on vacation! The last time I went to HK was before my foodie phase started
May your foodie phase never end!
I think I was born a foodie. Although, now that I think about it too hard, that’s a scary image. Imagine a giant hipster foodie with a giant Nikon camera emerging from the womb…heeeeheee…ewww…sometimes I gross myself out with my own imagination.
You quit coffee?! o.O
I’m always quitting coffee! Which of course means that I am never successful…however, I always say that tea is the methadone to my coffee, and there is a butt ton of tea in HK, so maybe this time I’ll make it!
Tea is a much more respectable addiction than coffee, mhmm.
Plus you’re chinese, you’re not allowed to not drink a butt ton of tea in your lifetime.
When I drink tea, that cup and I make a great teame!
I have never heard these things about Hong Kong! I will definitely plan a visit there now. You should maybe get a job as a brochure writer for travel.
Next time, I can stuff you in my luggage! It’s only a 14 hr ride from Berkeley to here!
Random fun fact about Cantonese (the main language in Hong Kong): an idiom for cheating on your partner (romantically) translates to “one foot on two boats”!
Wanda, I’m always proud of you every time you quit coffee!
I wish I were there with you. I miss you & HK sounds like a party.
Pastries, massage, vicious old ladies… Amazing!
Speaking of pastries, when I come back to Berkeley I want to make a Paris Pastry Party…want to come?
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