10th of February — 2nd day of the 1st month in the Chinese lunisolar calendar arrived marking the halfway mark of the first three most importants days of Chinese New Year, though the whole festivities actually lasts 15 days from the 1st day right through to the 15th day!
- The cunning trick which I had used to beat jet-lag were more or less nullified with a couple of really late nights and little sleep, so didn’t manage to get ready and be out and about till some time near 13:30 HKT
- Took the Number 7 bus from the hotel to the Star Ferry pier then caught the ever trusty & cheap Star Ferry to Hong Kong Island and managed to snap a few photos of a rather misty afternoon
- Once in Central; née Victoria, it was time to wait for a tram to go eastwards towards Causeway Bay as I wanted to visit Sogos to have a gander and perhaps grab some lunch in the basement floor which had many Japanese restaurants and food stalls serving tasty things
- Should you ever ride the tram on Hong Kong Island from end-to-end one day and wonder why on earth it snakes and zig-zags the wayit does, the reason is simple if you know a bit of history. Basically, when the tram-line was built in the 1900’s, that was the coast of Hong Kong Island! Successive years of land reclaimation has put the line some 400ish meters in-land now!
- Arrived at Sogos, though the arrangements of building seem wrong from what I recall 15 years ago. Admittedly, it could well be a different Sogos to the one that existed when I was last in Hong Kong!
- The basement floor has mostly been completely taken over by a Japanese supermarket which by virtue of being nicely packaged and presented in the usually arty Japanese fashion meant the price hike was pretty high
- Stomach needed satisfying so just ended up randomly chosing one of the two restaurants left within Sogos now and ordered a nice large bowl of roast pork & ramen in soup plus some pan-fried dumpling. Was a pretty tasty lunch, though for HK$60, you could have gone in a less posh Chinese noodle shop and had soup noodles with a meat for about HK$20!
- Time was now mid-afternoon and wanting to get back quickly so as to get ready for this evening, I opted for the MTR where Causeway Bay station has an entrance from within Sogos itself. The station platform itself has the characteristic name of said station in huge Chinese calligraphy
- Got a call from my uncle around 18:30 HKT to be waiting by the bus stop outside the hotel to get to aunt’s for 19:00 HKT. More or less as I got down there, the taxi they were in arrived and off we went to aunt’s for another family dinner
- Once there (the flat took some finding!) we were all treated to another huge dinner which included some stir fried scallops, one of my favourites! :D
- No joy for fireworks as we weren’t in the ideal location plus it was still rather misty, obscuring the view. Made the best of it by watching it on TV and managed to take a couple group photos of mostly my aunt’s daughters’ families
- Time was now gone 23:00 HKT so my cousin 卓兒 (Cheuk Yi) and I headed out for a movie her friends, which she had earlier today booked tickets for. Film of choice? Meet the Fockers no less!
- Film wasn’t to start till 00:15 HKT so we all wondered around Mong Kok going by the mass of stalls selling clothes of all sorts, electronic gadgets, food like spicy roast squid or satays of all varieties and a Hong Kong speciality… stinky to-fu! A lot of these activites are usually banned during the year for health and safety reason, though for the first three days of Chinese New Year, the authorties turn a blind eye and it’s a case of almost anything goes! Also had a quick stop at an indoor desert stall and got a cold drink or iced desert. I opted for some sago pudding with coconut milk which I have to say was very nice indeed!
Time was now gone 00:00 HKT so it was another day and time to go watch a movie… till next time! ;)
