Since our last post we've enjoyed a great mix of getting settled in and exploring new sights and sounds in the city. I'll start local and work our way outwards with the descriptions.
As I mentioned before, our neighborhood is called Kennedy Town. Though a lot of ex-pat foreigners have moved into the area in the last couple years, the 'hood is primarily local which makes for a great variety of weird shops and cool restaurants. Nicole and I went for a walk around the block yesterday and found three real Chinese restaurants without a word of English on the menu, as well as a French/Italian Gastropub, two proper British pubs, and an oyster bar. However, our favourite place is a little lunch/juicery called Jus right across the street from our place. Even though it's no bigger than a school desk, they have a huge menu of great lunches, smoothies and health drinks. We'll be regulars as of tomorrow.
Oh yes, before I forget, I was privy to another rare sight on a walk through the 'hood. With the cost of rent extremely high for most store-fronts, it's very common for families to live in the stores they own. Now, many of these stores sell an array of random objects: plumbing implements, random boxes, odds and ends, etc. I was walking by one such store, and I glanced in to see an ancient Chinese man apparently changing, but certainly stark naked in the corner of the room. How good a view did I get? Let's just say the full meal combo: spring rolls, chicken balls, and a side of fried rice. If I saw this on Yonge street, I may have been taken aback, but in the new locale I took it as par for the course and kept walking.
While I was out perving on Gramps, Nicole was back here actually taking care of business. When I came home from my walk, she had set up a wireless router in our apartment, cracked our Iphones, and got our new SIM cards up and running. This girl is a whiz kid! Being totally networked it great and now we can make plans much easier AND we can both be on the internet at the same time...she's probably creeping one of you right now!
Outside Kennedy Town, we went exploring in Causeway Bay, which is a massive shopping hub further East on the island. There are massive malls (16+ stories) as well as very cool street markets everywhere. We wandered around, but all we bought on this trip was a tripod for the camera.
Last night was our first proper night on the town, and it turned into a great one. We met up with my local friend Mike and some of his pals and started drinking on a patio high above Central. This patio was great not only for it's amazing nighttime view of Kowloon, but also because you could BYOB! We picked up beers for little more than a dollar at the grocery store, and hung out at a great bar with amazing music (viz. Daft Punk). After some of the exchange crew joined us for a few more, we moved the party up the hill into Soho, where Mike and our friend Doug took us to a Nepalese restaurant for dinner. Amazing food!
After dinner and a few more drinks, we headed to a house-party with their local friends around the corner at a totally swank apartment in the heart of Soho. The local hospitality was incredible and the bubbly was flowing like wine. We met a very interested crew of ex-pats who have all found their way to this little island and who never intend to leave...hmmmm.
Now you're caught up. We're going hiking and dining today on Lamma Island, so we'll get some pictures up of that trip shortly. Stay tuned for a look at our apartment. I'll contrast the video with tales of horror and embarrassment from our friends staying in the university residences.
With love, Nic and Jesse
As requested, these are a couple views of the bamboo scaffolding we mentioned in the first post. Blows my mind... all that is holding these pieces together are zip ties and some electrical tape!
Some views of our trip to Causeway Bay, and a shot from the patio bar looking out towards Kowloon. We wish we had found this Chinese restaurant before settling for Korean...expensive and largely unappetizing Korean!
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