Hong Kong Hooray

We visited Hong Kong last month and I didn't get around to posting about it until now. It was right after Christmas break, and we had about 5 days in between returning from LA and heading off again to Hong Kong. It was kind of frantic, but we had a lot of fun and saw (and ate!) some amazing things.

The night before departure we picked up the Lonely Planet Encounter Guide, which was really handy and helped us get the most out of our visit:



We ate like kings while we were there. We started with some barbecue pork from a fast-food place at the airport, and we ordered wild mushroom soup and fried rice from room service before crashing on the first night. The next day we went to a Northern Chinese restaurant where we were served roasted eggplant in a spicy red sauce and an entire fish that had been lightly deep-fried and arranged into a kind of free-standing tabletop sculpture, head and all, on a platter with sticky, sweet brown sauce.




Later in the week we squeezed in a drink at the Peninsula Hotel and tried the Indian buffet at Gaylord, a place recommended by the book. They had a really enjoyable live trio playing traditional music. And we ended the trip with spicy samosa appetizers, creamy pumpkin soup, and soft-shell crab fried rice at Cafe Deco on the Peak.



I was impressed by the beautiful landscape all around the city, although the air quality is a real problem. I would love to go back someday and check out the hiking trails in the mountainous parks surrounding the city.