Starting 2014 in Hong Kong

So I guess we are almost back up to date and I can talk about more recent goings on!  We travelled back to Hong Kong on the 4th of January from Manchester via Heathrow.  We were travelling on the new BA A380, with the best discovery being a storage cabin next to the window seats - small things keep us happy!

First stop once we returned was for Dim Sum, which I think Hannah had missed.  One of the best in Hong Kong is Din Tai Fung, which is in fact Taiwanese Dim Sum.  Sunday evening was therefore spent trying to stay awake by eating lots of food!

credit hannah for the instagram!

We then struggled through a whole 5 days at work, with jet lag to battle and Hannah remembering what it's like after nearly 2 months away.  I won't bore you with any other details - sadly work is work the world over.

Once we made it to the weekend, on Saturday we went for some more Dim Sum (I told you Hannah really missed it!).  This time it was to Tim Ho Wan.  This is the cheapest Michelin Star restaurant in the world I believe, and it's certainly very good and a regular stop on our Hong Kong visitor tours.

we ate it too quick for me to get a picture!

In the evening we headed to Beer Bay, one of the cheapest bars in Hong Kong and with a great view to watch the world go by near the ferry piers.  Hannah is also a big fan due to their provision of Strongbow.

watching the world go by

In the evening we headed to Chungking mansions.  This can only be described as a crazy place - and one I did not know much about until I read this BBC article.  It's one building that looks like all the floors could be full of apartments or office blocks, but it turns out to be pretty much full of India restaurants and small hostels.  The ground floor is packed with people selling you mobile phones, Indian snacks and sweets and groceries and then you queue for the elevators to various floors to enter the rabbit warren of restaurants. Thankfully we had a guide who had been before and their selection was very good, so we enjoyed a tasty curry sat in our own little private room.  One of the other strange things is that to comply with a law (don't ask me which one) these are registered as "members only" clubs so we had to collect a special card from the ground floor that gave us "VIP membership" just to be let in!  

Tasty curry in our private room

After the curry we could not walk past all the sweet shops on the ground floor without trying some.  The colours in the photo are not changed with the joys of instagram - they really are that bright.  However, if you want to eat lots of different flavours of sugar and deep fried goodness then you can't go far wrong.

luminous sugary deserts

 We'll no doubt be adding Chungking Mansions to our tour options for any visitors we have - it's another thing you would never expect to find in Hong Kong!