My two week adventure to Hong Kong and then Australia started an early Thursday evening two weeks ago. An 11pm flight out of Heathrow meant that I had to leave Poole early in the afternoon. Two and a half hours I’m in London, another hour on the tube, and another three hours and I was finally out of the country! I don’t have too many troubles flying in general (there is nothing that I can do to influence any of it after all), so time passed by relatively quickly and I soon arrived in Hong Kong.

I had read up so much on Hong Kong and I didn’t really have that many expectations. I heard that it used to be a shopping mecca, but was no longer cheap, especially compared to many neighbouring Asian countries. Food is heavily Chinese and although Western food is available, the streets stalls have a huge number of Chinese restaurants, making it relatively pointless eating the same foods you have access to back home.

By the time I got to my hotel and checked it, it was well past dinner time at around 9:30pm. I was staying around Happy Valley (the home of the only horse racing track in Hong Kong), I already had a number of places plotted to go and visit in the area. My first visit was to the Carianna Chiu Chow Restaurant for dinner.

Carianna is located on the second floor of a non-descript building, and the food they serve is Chiu Chow style. This means heavy use of vinegar, garlic, oil and pickles and you can apparently tell a restaurant serves this style if they have crabs hanging from the window. After reading this place from The Economist, I thought it best to try the sliced goose and the E-Fu noodles. The E-Fu noodles were extremely tasty on their own, though fairly greasy, but thankfully I had the six little cups of Bitter Iron Buddha tea that pack quite a punch. The goose was tasty, though I didn’t eat any skin as it was far too fatty to enjoy. It was made even tastier dipped in vinegar and a bit more of edge with a touch of the chilli oil that the restaurant provided. Carianna is a big restaurant and getting away with English was easy enough with the English menu and pointing technique.

After diner it was still too early to go to bed so I wandered along to the Peak Tram and got to see some of the cityscape on the journey up. The top was far too misty to be able to see anything but there were far more interesting things to see at Central, lying at the bottom of the tram ride. I ended up in Lan Kwai Fong (with what seemed like every ex-pat in town), an area packed with bars and pubs that is worth walking around in, if not for stopping in for just a little bit.