The Ham Nomads

29 May 2019. <HK> Hong Kong —

Today was another Big Bus jaunt, but in another direction, on Kowloon Peninsula. But first we wandered down near the Star Ferry Terminal and, in Maccas, had a very passable angus beef burger for breakfast. A lot cheaper than the hotel yesterday!!

We then walked along the Avenue of Stars, reopened only in January this year. It honours more than a hundred prominent contributors to the Hong Kong film industry, not the least being Bruce Lee. The weather was against us, so we didn't make it all the way round to the Bruce Lee statue, but at least we found his handprints in bronze set into the boardwalk railing.

We then walked around to the Peninsula Hotel to pick up the Big Bus, on the way passing the Silver Spitfire, a silver statue of an iconic Spitfire brought to Hong Hong this year by the watchmaker IWC Schaffhausen to publicise a new watch line, a series of Spitfire Pilots' watches — and to go with a round the world flight this year by a restored Spitfire. Some publicity stunt!

The nearby building is the old Hong Hong Fire Station, which has been turned into a fire brigade museum. Outside is a lovely old fire engine, called Dennis.

Anyway, we caught the Big Bus and let it take us up Nathan Road, where we caught glimpses of how the Hong Kong workers live, in tall apartment blocks, many in serious need of some tender loving care! It took us up to Langham Place, a busy shopping precinct (as is much of Nathan Road!), where we and a couple of ladies from Melbourne got off to try to find the Ladies' Market, a primarily clothing street market in Tung Choi St. Unfortunately, still in the early stages of setting up for the day, and we decided it not worth the waiting for.

Onto the Big Bus again and round to the International Commerce Centre and Sky 100, unfortunately with its head in the clouds. Total white-out, but we caught a few glimpses down through the clouds. The lift is incredible — 100 floors in 60 seconds! We had a cuppa up there, and a light meal of sliced Japanese beef with rice, meeting up again with the two very cheerful Melbournites.

Came down from the clouds, re-caught the Big Bus, returned to the Peninsula Hotel, got off and walked down to the Star Ferry Terminal. Crossed the harbour again and took the Big Bus round to Stop 5, Wan Chai Station on Hennessy Road, on the famous Hong Kong tram line that runs east-west across the island. The quaint double-decker trams are a tourist icon, and we really wanted to ride one — which we did, from that point to Hennesy Road at Pottinger Street, at the foot of the escalators.

We went up the escalators as far as Hollywood Road, and then walked down to the Man Mo Temple again so Warren could finally get some pictures.

On the way, we made a point of capturing the street art on the walls of the side streets. We caught the bus again outside the Temple, and let it take us back to the Ferry terminal, for another harbour crossing back to Tsim Tsa Tsui. We looked back towards Sky100, and were not surprised to see its head still in the clouds!

We called in to the Cafe de Coral, heavily frequented by the locals, for another meal of local fare before walking back up to our hotel for the night.