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Hong Kong is a foodie’s paradise! With various cultures from across the world coming together, it is a true melting pot when it comes to food. While we’ve covered most of the food places in previous blogs, we will summarize all the iconic foods and places we ate them in this blog. This is for the Hong Kong foodie!
Breakfast at Australia Dairy Company
On our last day in Hong Kong, we said goodbye to our friend, Naveen and made our way down the escalators one last time. We headed straight to the Australia Dairy Company for breakfast. There was a long line outside the restaurant but it moved fast. We quickly got a table and ordered Hong Kong style milk tea, mixed coffee and tea with milk, milk pudding, french toast and sandwich with egg and ham. Everything was so fresh and tasty that we ordered another sandwich with eggs and cheese!
It was day 3 of our trip to Hong Kong. Our destination for the day was Macau – we had planned to do a day-trip covering most of the must-visit places in the city.
Starting the day with 3 breakfasts
As you make your way down the Central-Mid-levels escalator in the morning, the smell of freshly baked goodies would drag you into the bakery called Bakehouse. There was a line at 8 am itself! I have a weakness for bakeries and wanted to eat everything! Since that wasn’t possible, we went for the beef rendang pie, vanilla custard doughnut and egg tart. Everything was delicious! The egg tart felt like a warm hug with a crispy flaky outer cover.
Freshly baked goodies at Bakehouse
Next stop was a tiny place called Fineprint. It had a very unique vibe – dimly lit, a long table in the center and people sitting all around. Most of them were occupied with their own laptops or books. We ordered a half and half – avocado toast on one side and tomato with feta on the other. It was too good – I had never tasted avocado like this before – it was the perfect combination with the buttered crispy sourdough bread!
Discovering delicious food in the tiny lanes of HK
Our third breakfast was a small one – pineapple bun with BBQ pork and wife cake (one story goes that a baker loved his wife’s creation of wintermelon pastry so much that he named it “Wife cake”) at Hang Heung bakery. All these places were on our way to the Macau ferry terminal – so we could just keep eating without any deviations.
Pineapple buns and wife cakes
The ferry terminal at Sheung Wan
Google maps showed us that the ferry terminal was right across the road. But there was no way to cross it – and Maps told us to go half a kilometer down the road and then cross. We stood there for a minute eating our pineapple bun – the bun helped slow us down. That’s when we noticed the metro station entrance right there – and it had an exit on the other side!
Pro tip: don’t always be in a rush. Sometimes it helps to slow down – it opens up new options.
As soon as we entered the ferry terminal, we realised that we hadn’t carried our Hong Kong PAR form. But we felt safe as we had the entry slips which we got at immigration. They asked for neither as we exited immigration to board our ferry. They just looked at the passport and let us go. Huge sigh of relief!
We continue on our Hong Kong adventure in this blog. Last time we explored some of the green oases nestled within the skyscraper packed city. We continue down that path and visit some temples and monasteries and also explore Hong Kong’s culture – both traditional and modern.
Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin temple
We exited the metro at Wong Tai Sin station and walked over the temple next to it. There were some cultural programs happening next to it – with songs and dances being performed on a stage. The vibe outside was very similar to an Indian temple – many shops outside selling incense sticks and other offerings to the gods. The architecture was beautiful with arches at the entrance and bright colours everywhere – once again, we felt like we were in a movie.
Wong Tai Sin temple’s entrance to the main hall
This was a Taoist temple dedicated to the deity of healing – Wong Tai Sin. After the first set of steps, we arrived at a landing that had statues of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals. A quick Google search told us that my zodiac was the Horse and Nam’s was the Metal Goat. Parth’s animal was the Metal Ox. People kept rushing around them, some praying to them, others walking into the main hall.
Posing with the Chinese Zodiac
Inside the main temple, there were a lot of lanterns hung up. It was an open air area and the lanterns were rotating automatically, powered by solar cells. In the shrine, there were idols and statues, storks and other animals and scrolls. People were kneeling in front and shaking bamboo containers that had sticks with numbers on them. The entire scene reminded me of the Kung Fu Panda festival scene inside the palace courtyard.
In the previous blog, we explored Lantau island and got a glimpse of Hong Kong at night. Home to the most skyscrapers in the world and with mountain peaks offering amazing bird’s eye views, Hong Kong is indeed a vertical city. In this blog, we discover the green side of the city – nestled in between the tall towers. These gardens and parks create a perfect blend of nature and concrete jungle to make up Hong Kong’s urban oasis and make it a unique place to live in.
Hong Kong has a lot of green spaces in the city
Morning hike to Victoria Peak
We started the day 1.5 hours later than planned. But no regrets – we managed to get a good night of sleep and were well refreshed for the day!
Naveen suggested that we hike all the way up to the Peak from his home on Robinson Road. It was not too steep but quite long and took us 1.5 hours to get there. This is when I truly got a chance to appreciate the city from the ground.
The streets are very well planned with enough space between buildings. There were canals made to allow water to flow downhill without damaging buildings and roads – especially during torrential rains and typhoons.
After 10 mins of walking away from the main road, it felt like we were in a dense forest. There was no clue that a megacity was right below us except the low roaring sound of the city – an amalgamation of cars, buses, planes, chimneys, construction and other sounds. One more thing that amazed me was that there was construction happening all the time but there was no dust anywhere.
We begin our Hong Kong and Macau adventure in this blog. We’ve already covered all the travel essentials in the itinerary blog before this. That contains info about Hong Kong’s history, best time to visit, visa, currency, etc. So let’s get started!
Unique immigration experience
Our trip began in Kochi from where we took Thai Airways via Bangkok Suvarnabhumi airport to Hong Kong. We landed in HK at 11:30am and stood in the longest immigration line we’d ever seen. There was only one line leading up to all the counters – like the coiled up queue that you typically see in temples. They had plenty of counters and the line kept moving continuously – there was no bottleneck created at the counters where the official was slow. So, no one complained and everyone kept walking – a brilliant strategy!
Landing at Hong Kong International Airport
We both had made sure our pre-arrival forms matched our passports exactly and it was printed on an A4 sheet – so we had a smooth entry.
Getting the basic supplies
As per our usual process, we converted a minimum amount at the airport to HKD (Hong Kong Dollars), bought an Octopus card – this would give us access to all public transport by topping up the stored value. We looked for SIM cards but couldn’t find any economical options. Our friend had recommended SoSim but we couldn’t find a shop anywhere. So we decided to move ahead to our first stop and look there.
As with all my itinerary blogs, I’ll start this one with the origin story – why did we even make a Hong Kong itinerary?
Nam is a huge fan of Imagine Dragons and she was tracking their latest world tour to see if they would pass by somewhere near India. The closest options were Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Singapore and Bangkok (Thailand). All of these places had one thing in common – we could imagine them as being part of a larger trip. Then we saw Hong Kong – a place I’ve always wanted to visit!
It was small enough to cover in 3-4 days and was far enough away from everywhere else that we wouldn’t club it with anything else. Also, a close friend of mine lived in Hong Kong and I hadn’t met him in some time. Enough reasons to pick that as the destination! We bought tickets on Viagogo and got started with trip planning!
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. In 1997, it was handed over by the UK to China after their 99-year lease expired. Given its strategic location in the Asia-Pacific region, it evolved from a fishing village to one of the financial capitals of the world (like New York and London). It is also blessed with one the deepest natural maritime ports in the world – it ranks among the top ports in the world in terms of activity.
The word Hong Kong means “fragrant harbour” referring to the incense that used to be traded here.
Temples and skyscrapers co-exist in Hong Kong
Hong Kong has the highest number of skyscrapers in the world with the number standing at above 550. The definition of a skyscraper is that the building should be taller than 150 m. The region is also the 4th most densely populated in the world. Enter the contradiction – over 75% of land is not used for development and is covered by dense green cover. This can also be found in the heart of the city – we’ll explore these places in later blogs.
On the north of Hong Kong is the Silicon Valley of China, Shenzhen (the third most populous in China) and Macau which lies to its west in the South China Sea.
Macau is a former Portuguese colony and feels like a bit of Europe planted in China. It is a unique experience as well and something that we were also looking forward to.
Hong Kong and Macau in the South China Sea
I was particularly excited about this trip because of the food and culture. I had never been to China before and Hong Kong would be a perfect fusion of China and a typical global city. This is also the trip where both Nam and I realised that we were both “city-people” – people who are more excited about travelling to cities.
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When we planned our trip to France, we were looking for places beyond Paris and Nice. If you read the previous blog on the Azores, you know what I’m talking about. One place that quickly caught our attention was Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy. From a commute and proximity point-of-view, it did not make sense, especially given our 2 week constraint. The next one was in the south of France – an interesting little city called Nimes (pronounced Neem). That’s the one we picked!
We waited for our bus at a junction in Cannes. The city of Cannes is most popular for being home to the international film festival as well as other festivals. We had spent half a day exploring the town, the Walk of Fame and cute cafes. There wasn’t a lot to do here and we had planned to take a bus in the afternoon to our next destination – Nimes.
The Cannes Walk of Fame
Why did we pick Nimes?
If you check the map of the South of France, there are a bunch of cities lining the French Riviera- Provence-Occitanie region – Saint-Tropez, Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Arles, Avignon and Nimes. Many of these places are famous for lavender fields. Some are resort towns. All of them are nice stops if you’re doing a slow road trip along the coast from Italy to France to Spain.
Map of the south of France
We were looking for something unique however. Nimes had a bunch of Roman monuments – in fact, it was often referred to as the most Roman city outside Italy. The Nimes arena is considered the best preserved Roman amphitheater in the world. It is still used for concerts. The Maison Carree, an ancient Roman temple, is also considered to be one the best preserved in the world. The best part however was a sight just outside the city and was one of the main things which prompted us to visit here.
I opened Google Maps to check where we had reached. We were supposed to take a cable car to the Tatev monastery. I could neither spot the cable car nor the monastery. I scanned all the surrounding hills but they only had trees. Why did we enter this parking lot 15km away from Tatev in this village called Halidzor?
Where is the cable car?
It was day 4 of our Armenia trip and we were at a remote village in the south of the country. Zaven took us towards the ticket counter and showed us the platform that stood above it. This was the starting point of the cable car. That’s when I realized that the cable car was going downhill – that’s why I couldn’t see the monastery anywhere.
The cable car is called the Wings of Tatev (Such a cool name!!!). It is the longest reversible aerial tramway in the world. At the ticket counter, we were told that we had a set time for boarding and returning on our ticket. The cable car would arrive every 15 minutes and the last one was at 6:45 pm.
Some stats about the Wings of Tatev
Where is the monastery?
Once it arrived and we boarded, I started looking for the monastery. It was still nowhere to be seen. Soon, what I noticed was that the cable car line was shaped like a “U”. We were first going down, then up to the top of the next hill. And after the pillar on that hill, there was another “U” to the next hill and that is the one which had the monastery! We were actually crossing two hills to get there!
We could see cars snaking their way along the hairpin bends on the roads below. I was glad we didn’t spend an extra hour navigating those!
At the edge of the cliff
The monastery is a short walk away from the cable car. It is literally standing on the edge of a cliff. There were many hidden rooms and halls and it was a lot of fun to explore the entire place! Our cable car back was at 6 pm – so we got to spend a good hour here.
Exploring the hidden rooms of Tatev monasteryThe monastery stands on the edge of a cliff
When we got back, we asked Zaven to take us to our hotel in Goris – the town where we were spending the night. Tatev and Halidzor only had basic homestays and would have been difficult with the kids. It turned out to be a good decision.
A remote Soviet town
We stayed at a place called Khoreayi Dzor. It was a castle-like building on a hill overlooking the town. The view from the room was really nice! We could see the mosaic Soviet-era buildings strewn across the town. This would be the most remote part we visited on this trip.
The town of Goris as seen from our hotel
For dinner, we had dolma – lamb and rice wrapped in grape leaves. It was amazing!
Yummy dolma!
Next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel and started on our way back. We said goodbye to Goris! First stop was Shaki waterfalls. We hoped it wouldn’t be as difficult to reach as the Gveleti waterfalls in Georgia!
Waterfall time!
The hike was not very steep to begin with and thankfully, we got to the end quite fast.
A relatively easy hike to Shaki waterfall
We turned around the corner to see the waterfall gushing down with its spray rising almost as high as the waterfall itself. It was a beautiful sight. We took off our shoes and went into the water – it was ice-cold and the kids quickly had enough of it. Parth was quick to ask for his cap to cover his ears from the spray and sound.
Super refreshing experience
We spent a lot of time here, enjoying nature. It was the most underrated experience so far. And there was no one there except us!
Our next stop was for an early lunch at the same food court. The kids were fast asleep after playing in the water, so we packed lunch for them and left for Noravank monastery.
Another unique monastery
This monastery is unique in its shape – it’s a two-storey structure unlike the others we had seen so far. It was also surrounded by brick red cliffs inside a gorge which gave it a very different look as compared to all the monasteries we had visited. I guess the others were tired of monasteries by now but I couldn’t get enough of them as each was different.
Posing in front of the Noravank monasteryThe two-storied red monastery of Noravank
That’s how the trip was planned so that we wouldn’t be repeating stuff. We got back to Yerevan by evening, explored the Cascade area, had dinner at Rehan restaurant and slept. Our flight back to India was the next day. We had finally completed the trip that originated with the Air Arabia vouchers left over from our Uzbekistan adventure!
