One night in Hong Kong

Note to self, taking a flight right after ending a busy night shift is never a good idea. As I hopped off the BART to get into SFO, my brain was working at 10% capacity, and much of the journey was a blur. Cathay pacific food was okay. Watching Another Earth and Letters to Juliet was great. Wished I finished Blue Jasmine. 

Hong Kong Airport is fairly large. The showers were located in lounges, but we could not figure out how to get in. Existing Immigration was a breeze, and definitely HK immigration is the most efficient I have ever seen. From there, the next step is to find luggage storage as I did not want to wander around Kowloon with all my sleeping gear. It took a bit of effort to find the luggage storage, which cost 10 HKD/luggage/hour. They take HKD and visa/MasterCard only, though you pay when picking up. 

From there, we took the airport express train, which costed 160HKD roundtrip. I for some reason expected a faster train, but it was reasonably fast. Kowloon Ed the second stop, and I know I wanted to head to the Temple Street NightMarket, which actually is within walking distance. 

(For directions: follow the signs to Austin Station out of the Kowloon station and shopping plaza. Once on Jordon Road, follow it North and Temple street is about 3-4 blocks down.)

The Night Market was quite bustling with people. As my sights were on food, I don't remember much about the shopping, other than that stuff in HK is expensive! And I can't seem to ever figure out if I should speak Mandarin or English to the sellers. 

However, my first awesome finding came in the form of a fruit. Fresh jackfruit in a cup! 

The actual jackfruit is an odd fruit. I initially thought it was an oversized durian, but turns out it tastes quite different! It lacks that pungent flavor and instead has a refreshing sweet taste. 

We then decided to browse as many food restaurants as possible, which is a terrible idea because things look ridiculous and finding your way back is always more difficult. After an hour of wandering, we finally decided on a dim sum place. Now kids, never ever eat dim sum at night! Worst dim sum EVER! I shall not elaborate any further and forget it.  However, we came across the best grass jelly I ever had.

The store is called Hong Kong Local Snacks, which meant a bunch of fried fish ball, chicken and other varieties. However, their dessert, which is various fruit with homemade grass jelly or various fruit with mini tapioca was quite delicious. 

Behind my grass jelly with dragon fruit is my friend's mango with mini tapioca. Both were quite delicious. I heart coconut milk. 

After that, we stopped by a bakery called King's Bakery (or some variety of it) along Jordon Road. I had the cake roll and pineapple bread the next day (which I forgot to take a picture), but once again, AMAZING~ 

We got back to the airport around midnight as the airport express stops running after midnight. There were sleeping lounges around the airport (we slept at L6's West Side). Of note, the south security gate is closed around midnight, so use the north one. I think showers were located inside the airline lounge, which is on L7 that we could not figure out how to get to. 

The next morning involved breakfast on L8 in the middle of the airport. Choices were McDonald's, which I really wanted, but not for breakfast, Donburi shop and a traditional HK breakfast with Congee and other items. The congee with Kuri and clam is preferred. The turnip cake and noodles were also quite good. 

Atlas, after many extremely satisfying food ventures, we headed off to the unknowns of Vietnam. I truly, truly will miss you HK, especially in this upcoming month... T.T