Falling in Love with Hong Kong pt 1

Hong Kong. Where have you been all our lives. The politeness of Britain combined with the food of Asia…Lee says that Hong Kong is like the UK had a night of firey passion with China…enough said really.
We only had a short time in this fantastic city but we fitted in as much as we could. After only ten minutes I knew I wanted to return again and again.
I mentioned in my last post that part of my Asia bucket list was to see rice paddies , well another thing on the list was definitely to get some photos of excessive NEON. Hong Kong did not disappoint.
We started off by heading to Mongkok on the Kowloon side of the city and wandering the market streets. We passed through the jade market and lots of clothes markets but the highlights for me were the goldfish, flower, and bird markets. I asked my friend Jacky (more on this great fellow below) about the goldfish market . He told me that In every Chinese household people should have 9 fish. If one of the fish dies it is a early warning sign that your luck is about to change…think of it like a canarie in a mine. I love discovering little tid bits like this about countries. The bird market did make me quite sad since I just wanted to buy them all and free them but the markets are still beautiful. We smelt the flower market before we saw it and the smell seemed to follow us throughout the day. mmm nothing beats a flower market…well maybe a food market.
We were lucky enough to spend some time with my good friend from home. I  met my friend Jacky just before university in Wales when we were bright eyed youngsters about to study animaition. I didn’t live with Jacky during university but he became our adopted housemate and was forced to stay and cook for us all far too often.  He has been a firm friend ever since. While we were growing up he  told me a lot about his home town of Hong Kong but it was just a pipe dream of college students that we would ever both be in the city at the same time. Fate must have been on our side because our trips overlapped without any planning (nailed it!).
Jacky showed us the bright lights of the Hong Kong skyline and the …um ‘interesting’ light show that happens every night. To be  honest the Hong Kong skyline is enough without the light show so it doesn’t really matter that it’s a crappy light show. Jacky is a actual photographer, unlike me who just points, clicks and hopes for the best. Lee thought that I actually knew what I was doing with the camera. This idea was shattered after he witnessed a ten minute lesson that Jacky gave me.  The boy knows how to use a camera and he showed me a few great tricks.
He also introduced us to the magic that is Hong Kong French Toast. You’d assume that this would taste like the  French Toast the rest of the world eats but you’d be wrong . Imagine you got two pieces of bread, spread a layer of peanut butter and condensed milk on them and then deep friend them. Then they are finished off with a TON of butter .  I have never found a food I couldn’t eat but this was so sugary and salty that my jaw ached. I LOVED IT! Lee fell silent with the happiness and has spoken about the toast every day since. I think he’ll return just to taste it. We finished the meal off with some delicious Hong Kong sweet milky ice tea and lots of giggles. This has been the only time I was glad that I didn’t live in Hong Kong since I know Lee and I would eat dumplings and heart attack bread/ french toast every day. We’d last about a week before a coronary.
I can’t think of a better way to see a city than with our own personal guide.
and that was just the first day …..