Wheels of Addis

After the madness of Macau, I was craving a little peace. And where better to go than Lamma Island?

It was just a very quick ferry ride from Central pier before I got to this…

Lunch was a leisurely affair. I sat at a table overlooking the harbour, basking in the sun and supping on sushi, ramen and tempura. Nothing better.

Having eaten my fill, I started on a long hike South across the spine of the island, stopping only occasionally to rest at beautiful sandy beaches. The further south I got, the fewer people I saw. It was a day all to myself and my thoughts.

I walked all the way to the most southerly pier on the island and sat at a lonely cafe drinking a quiet coffee by the water. Blissful.

I caught a ferry back to Aberdeen just as the sun was setting.

There’s something kind of yummy about Kowloon street food. I don’t know if it’s the atmosphere or the slightly we-shouldn’t-really-be-here vibe, but it’s good. Real good.

We ended up on some back alley late at night hunting out some serious dining. Diners lined the pavement, seated at greasy tables, puffing away at cigarettes and sucking on beer. Cars lined the street. When a cop came by, the restaurant staff were sure to warn everyone. It seemed friendly enough.

The kitchen was installed between cars on the road. Sweat pouring off the chefs; flames jumping out from under their woks.

We were seated indoors and offered a plastic bowl and a jug of tea with which to rinse our dishes. 

It didn’t take us long to order from the menu. Note the bin liner for a table cloth: this isn’t a sit-and-linger restaurant so much as a getting-down-to-the-business-of-eating establishment.

First up some crispy fried squid along with sweet and sour pork. Fatty, fast and dirty.

Then the real treat: salt and pepper mantis prawns. 

Huge and meaty: these are serious crustaceans. Check out the claws! 

Jean-Pierre spotted a cornflower blue guitar on the side of the road on our way home. But we were too full and our fingers were too greasy to pick it up.

We climbed The Peak on Boxing Day. On our way home, we decided to stop in Aberdeen, which is on the other side of Hong Kong island.

We took a break in a little park where men gathered with their pet budgies. It was either them taking their birds for a walk or the other way around. I’m not sure.

Right beside the park, we found this delicious vegan shop full to brimming with kaleidoscopic sweets. Each lotus paste bun more tempting than the next.

But there was another reason for coming to Aberdeen - sweet though the men with birds may have been. The reason was the fish market. Vast and bustling, this enormous indoor market was virtually dancing with bright lights and vivid colours.

Prices were marked on styrofoam so they could sit in the water in with the seafood.

These women were buying enormous whelks:

I really liked the simplicity of the scales used to weigh the fish:

So what did we have for dinner? Well, fish of course! Stir fried prawns and Tom Yum Goong. Fresher than fresh from the market.

If there’s one thing that’s exciting about Hong Kong (not counting the nightly light show), it’s the food. And while dining is pretty thrilling in and of itself, the best way to truly appreciate the food is to visit the markets.

We spent a heady afternoon in Wan Chai Market, where the stalls are virtually buckling under the weight of all the produce. 

In the fish section, shrimp kept jumping out of their baskets and straight onto the street. Fish and eels slithered on the pavements at our feet:

This corner meat stall proudly displayed every single part of an animal on offer. The heart, the lungs, the horns…

This lady sold beancurd in every guise, including noodles:

We were out shopping for Thai ingredients. Tuti was going to teach me how to make some classic Thai dishes, like satai and green curry. Here she is with a basket full of lemongrass and limes.

There is no room for being squeamish in Hong Kong. As I quickly discovered, certain parts of this city are not for the faint-hearted.

I woke up early on 18th December, having arrived at my brother Jean-Pierre’s flat in Kennedy Town at 2am and not gone to sleep until after 3am.

Rolling over in bed, here’s the wonderful view I woke up to:

On arrival, despite all the careful instructions, map printing and translating, neither the taxi driver nor the building attendant knew where Jean-Pierre’s flat could be. It took the taxi driver a phone call to his English speaking colleague and the night guard 2 walks around the block (with a helpful passerby in tow) in order to locate my destination.

Once on course, it all seemed so simple and the flat was, it turned out, right where we had started in the first place. Right where the night guard actually worked! 

In the morning, navigating the neighbourhood in the light of day, the whole ordeal felt laughable. Hong Kong isn’t difficult to get your head around. Everything is well sign-posted and the city isn’t sprawling like London - although it is densely populated vertically speaking. The city teeters over the harbour like a bather dipping her toes in the water, her back turned to the hills behind her.

But Hong Kong is not for the squeamish. My breakfast was in a local cafe - triangular ham and triangular bread with slimey fried egg, beef soup with spaghetti (yes, spaghetti!) and instant coffee. Not too bad but you didn’t want to think too hard about what you were eating or where it came from… or for that matter under what conditions it had been cooked.

The night before in Shanghai airport, I ate the most delicious ‘8 treasure soup’. I identified some of the treasures - egg, beef, mushrooms, tofu… - but I couldn’t identify the rest and decided it was probably best not to.

Exploring the areas to the East of Kennedy Town, I found myself passing through the traditional medicine / dried seafood districts. Shop after shop of gruesome sights: dried snakes and seahorses, pig faces deboned but eyes intact, caterpillar fungus, deer foetuses. One shop seemed to sell nothing but shark fins. Another specialised in funghi: a big ginger cat perched on a toadstool greeting customers at its entrance.

I walked all morning down long avenues lined with interesting food shops, street markets selling antiques and trinkets, finally ending in Central where shopping malls and familiar brands took over. 

After lunch in another ‘don’t-think-just-eat’ cafe, my legs were ready for a rest back at the flat where I watched The World of Suzie Wong and soaked in the scenes of Hong Kong past.

Here’s my don’t-think-just-eat aubergine with fish flake lunch:

My brother Jean-Pierre and his wife Tuti arrived around 10pm and it was soon to bed as we had to get up early for our flight to Beijing in the morning.