Hong Kong Holiday: Day Five

Today Richard worked again (it is Monday, and for HK natives, the day before Chinese New Year), so again I had the day to myself. I therefore had a reasonably relaxed morning (sensing a theme? We’ve been staying out late and it’s taking its toll...) and left around 11 to head out to something I was a bit nervous about. My plan for the day included going to the jade market, however after reading some reviews it didn’t sound particularly pleasant for me (lots of stories of being corralled to stalls, you have to haggle, they put things on you to try and coerce you into buying things), so I decided to only go if I could go with Richard on another day. We shall see...

So I headed on the train from Central to Sham Shui Po, an area that is known for it’s fabric shops, haberdashery and craft stores. However, I did pick a not very good day to go, as I couldn’t seem to find the fabric stores. That was because none of the ones I found were open (I had a map made by a crafty person that was supposed to be reasonably up to date, but of course that didn’t take this into account which is fair). I did find a street with about 5 open stores, most of which were craft stores. I picked up some gorgeous appliques (a floral motif in turquoise and 9 butterflies) in one of them. There was also the loveliest ribbon shop which had every kind of ribbon you could imagine and more! Plus about 100 different styles of tiny bows (like for ladies underwear). I actually went in there first and picked up some plain black ribbon and some black velvet ribbon to hand-sew onto a dress I need to finish soon, then I returned because I couldn’t get the amazing range out of my head! On my return trip I picked up some navy ribbon for trims, some black and gold elastic for an elastic waist skirt, and some silver piping to use for trimming a future project. All for very reasonable prices!

After that I headed back to Central, intending to go straight to my next destination - however, I remembered that I hadn’t eaten, it was 2:30pm and I got suddenly hungry! So I went to Tim Ho Wan, a train station branch of a Michelin starred restaurant serving dim sum. They do incredible shrimp dumplings, and the most phenomenal baked bbq pork buns. I got nearly the last order of them for the day (they closed at 3:30 for CNY) and they were so delicious!!!

Then I headed back out to Causeway Bay to go to a book shop. I have decided that I am going to try and buy a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone in the language of the countries I visit. I have Icelandic and Spanish from last year, and picked it up in Traditional Chinese today. It was just a little complicated finding a bookshop that had Chinese books in Central, as they all had mostly in English.

After that I felt like I needed a rest, so I headed back to the hotel to rest up until Richard finished work. He came up to the hotel when he finished and we discussed going to Wan Chai for the last night of the CNY night markets, but we were too tired to go out on the train, so we walked down towards Central until we found a good dinner place. We had roast again, and it was actually a little more expensive than we intended, but it was very tasty and I tried goose for the first tine which was yummy! Then back to the hotel to type up these blogs (written two tonight after our big night last night), and to bed before midnight for a change.