I'm going to not-limit myself to finessing entries into thematic buckets cuz that makes these take much longer. Much longer, i.e., I have slips of paper from not just my last trip but the one before that because...well, because crazy. Maybe I'll do something about those slips on this trip.
I am in Hong Kong for 5 days, (one down!). I am, for the first time, staying in a fancy hotel for that whole time. That is great, I've gotta say.
I'll try in these posts to tell you a little bit about the trip.
Correcting People Like a D1¢k (They Were Totally Right All Along)
This is a thing that is typical of me, in contexts in which (a) I'm tired or frazzled; in this case after 20 hours of transit, and (b) faced with the complexity of a new set of norms.
I overestimate the extent to which these new people, whoever they are, and this new context, whatever it is, are distant from my own norms and assumptions. And, at least in my own head, get impatient about it. It actually is usually in my own head -- most of these interactions are friendly (all of the ones listed here, for example, were cheerful on all parts).
First D1¢kness
I get into my cab at the airport and ask to go to the Mandarin Oriental. The driver does not speak English: no surprise, no problem. However, he seems confused by my destination: surprise, problem. So he starts driving and I say it a few times and we confirm generally that we're going to "Central" (me, tired, thinking: ????) and I say the name a bunch so that, y'know, I guess this driver who crazily has not heard of one of the oldest/fanciest hotels in a city where generally cab drivers know stuff like that (me, tired, thinking: ????) will maybe have his memory trigger and know where to go. At one point he's like "very old", in English, and I laugh and am like "yes! fancy hotel!" And it was friendly, but especially right there I was like, "What is going on? How has he not heard of this place?" So I keep saying the name of the road, etc., and at some point he's like "yup I got it!" (not in those words) so I stop, but then when he pulls up he's like, "Yes, right?" And again I'm bemused: yes, of course! This hotel, which says "Mandarin Oriental", which is a super-famous hotel in the city and whose name I've just said like...yes. Yes, obviously, this is right.
Second D1¢kness
So, remember how one paragraph up there was a clueless cab driver who was like "very old" as if he were establishing the identity of this very famous hotel in his city? Let's keep that in mind.
I get to the hotel and I'm way early to check-in but they have my room ready and that's awesome so I check-in and settle and then, even though I don't think it's what I'm up for, I am in fact in time for the 9am Vinyasa Flow class at the hotel's gym/spa, so I call the spa to find out what the deal is with that. And this woman who answers, at this fancy hotel with a high level of service, has like never heard of this class or (it seems) Vinyasa yoga, for that matter. And she's all let me check for you and no, but we have personal trainers and I am all (to myself) man, okay, what is going on? It was on the website! And I don't care that much but it's weird and then she asks if I saw it on the website and I'm like, "Yes, I did!" and she's like, "Oh because maybe it was the other one then," and I am like wut.
There are two Mandarin Oriental hotels in Hong Kong. And they are like a block apart (???). But there are, certainly, two.
Which makes it really reasonable for a cab driver to be confused when you just say the name, over and over, as if that's supposed to clearly establish which one you mean. He might even clarify by asking if you're staying at the one that is older (luckily, I am).
It might also be why someone who knows her spa really well might be confused when you start calling up asking about classes at some other spa that is not hers; but good thing for you, slim-bozo-buttons, she might be on top of her game enough to gently point out that, in fact and surprising no one (ex post; surprising you, in the moment, you dope), you're the bozo here -- not everyone else.
ThirD1¢kness
And yet, I still managed to do it again. I settle into my room I go out for a run; I come back and I want some coffee after a nap; I've noticed that my room has a setup for tea (kettle, teabags) but no coffee and I'm not annoyed but I'm like, eh, sure I get it, cosmopolitan town but a place where tea might be much more the norm.
So I march on up to the Concierge and I'm like, "hey, it's so great all the tea stuff, thank you, but I was wondering could you guys send some instant coffee up to my room?" And the thing I want to be clear about is that I don't want a room service cup of coffee because those cost--I mean it's crazy, what a cup of coffee from room service costs in this hotel. So I go through this slightly tortuously involved thing of "instant coffee, stir it into the water" -- I don't think I'm insulting the Concierge's like language skills, which I assume all along are fluent, but it turns out I'm still playing myself because he's nodding after a while and sort of repeats, like, "So you want, some instant coffee, that you can make, with the water?" And I'm like yes dude, yes, instant coffee c'mon I ran past 5 coffee shops coming back here yes, instant coffee and then he says something weird like, "So, you like this more?" And I'm like more than what?? And he's, "You don't like the espresso machine in the room?"
So yeah. There's a very nice high-end espresso machine in the room with the little pods and all that. Which I've encountered before! And in my defense was (a) not with the tea, where it might logically be, and (b) actually in a slightly weird place (the closet by the door, with the safety deposit box and all that). But STILL: my approach to this was clearly fashioned on some idiot cultural script about coffee being "less of a thing" in a big eastern city than it would be in a western city; a thing which I myself have experienced ample evidence of not being the case. But I was there, with my dumb script, until the nice Concierge was like, "yeah man, we got you."
I am in Hong Kong for 5 days, (one down!). I am, for the first time, staying in a fancy hotel for that whole time. That is great, I've gotta say.
I'll try in these posts to tell you a little bit about the trip.
Correcting People Like a D1¢k (They Were Totally Right All Along)
This is a thing that is typical of me, in contexts in which (a) I'm tired or frazzled; in this case after 20 hours of transit, and (b) faced with the complexity of a new set of norms.
I overestimate the extent to which these new people, whoever they are, and this new context, whatever it is, are distant from my own norms and assumptions. And, at least in my own head, get impatient about it. It actually is usually in my own head -- most of these interactions are friendly (all of the ones listed here, for example, were cheerful on all parts).
First D1¢kness
I get into my cab at the airport and ask to go to the Mandarin Oriental. The driver does not speak English: no surprise, no problem. However, he seems confused by my destination: surprise, problem. So he starts driving and I say it a few times and we confirm generally that we're going to "Central" (me, tired, thinking: ????) and I say the name a bunch so that, y'know, I guess this driver who crazily has not heard of one of the oldest/fanciest hotels in a city where generally cab drivers know stuff like that (me, tired, thinking: ????) will maybe have his memory trigger and know where to go. At one point he's like "very old", in English, and I laugh and am like "yes! fancy hotel!" And it was friendly, but especially right there I was like, "What is going on? How has he not heard of this place?" So I keep saying the name of the road, etc., and at some point he's like "yup I got it!" (not in those words) so I stop, but then when he pulls up he's like, "Yes, right?" And again I'm bemused: yes, of course! This hotel, which says "Mandarin Oriental", which is a super-famous hotel in the city and whose name I've just said like...yes. Yes, obviously, this is right.
Second D1¢kness
So, remember how one paragraph up there was a clueless cab driver who was like "very old" as if he were establishing the identity of this very famous hotel in his city? Let's keep that in mind.
I get to the hotel and I'm way early to check-in but they have my room ready and that's awesome so I check-in and settle and then, even though I don't think it's what I'm up for, I am in fact in time for the 9am Vinyasa Flow class at the hotel's gym/spa, so I call the spa to find out what the deal is with that. And this woman who answers, at this fancy hotel with a high level of service, has like never heard of this class or (it seems) Vinyasa yoga, for that matter. And she's all let me check for you and no, but we have personal trainers and I am all (to myself) man, okay, what is going on? It was on the website! And I don't care that much but it's weird and then she asks if I saw it on the website and I'm like, "Yes, I did!" and she's like, "Oh because maybe it was the other one then," and I am like wut.
There are two Mandarin Oriental hotels in Hong Kong. And they are like a block apart (???). But there are, certainly, two.
Which makes it really reasonable for a cab driver to be confused when you just say the name, over and over, as if that's supposed to clearly establish which one you mean. He might even clarify by asking if you're staying at the one that is older (luckily, I am).
It might also be why someone who knows her spa really well might be confused when you start calling up asking about classes at some other spa that is not hers; but good thing for you, slim-bozo-buttons, she might be on top of her game enough to gently point out that, in fact and surprising no one (ex post; surprising you, in the moment, you dope), you're the bozo here -- not everyone else.
ThirD1¢kness
And yet, I still managed to do it again. I settle into my room I go out for a run; I come back and I want some coffee after a nap; I've noticed that my room has a setup for tea (kettle, teabags) but no coffee and I'm not annoyed but I'm like, eh, sure I get it, cosmopolitan town but a place where tea might be much more the norm.
So I march on up to the Concierge and I'm like, "hey, it's so great all the tea stuff, thank you, but I was wondering could you guys send some instant coffee up to my room?" And the thing I want to be clear about is that I don't want a room service cup of coffee because those cost--I mean it's crazy, what a cup of coffee from room service costs in this hotel. So I go through this slightly tortuously involved thing of "instant coffee, stir it into the water" -- I don't think I'm insulting the Concierge's like language skills, which I assume all along are fluent, but it turns out I'm still playing myself because he's nodding after a while and sort of repeats, like, "So you want, some instant coffee, that you can make, with the water?" And I'm like yes dude, yes, instant coffee c'mon I ran past 5 coffee shops coming back here yes, instant coffee and then he says something weird like, "So, you like this more?" And I'm like more than what?? And he's, "You don't like the espresso machine in the room?"
So yeah. There's a very nice high-end espresso machine in the room with the little pods and all that. Which I've encountered before! And in my defense was (a) not with the tea, where it might logically be, and (b) actually in a slightly weird place (the closet by the door, with the safety deposit box and all that). But STILL: my approach to this was clearly fashioned on some idiot cultural script about coffee being "less of a thing" in a big eastern city than it would be in a western city; a thing which I myself have experienced ample evidence of not being the case. But I was there, with my dumb script, until the nice Concierge was like, "yeah man, we got you."
How the Heck Was That So Expensive?
I will below lay out a list of restaurants I've in mind to try out on this trip. So, an obvious downside of staying in Central rather than Kennedy Town is that my favorite kind of food thing--tramping out and finding a place with no English--is much harder in Central. I mean, I have tried that approach here, in Central, on previous trips. And I have basically found no places with no English; "off the beaten path" has to take on a different meaning when every path in an area is beaten solidly flat; and, especially: beaten solidly flat by exactly the kind of moneyed ex-pat customer base that drives the establishment of restaurants that I'm not that interested in. But -- an upside is that I am much closer to a number "you've gotta try this place!"-type places. While I find that genre of thing kind of uniformly disappointing, it's also interesting sometimes to see what the thing is that people are writing about. So I may wind up doing that more.
In fact, on my first day I did it twice! #result. The first place I tried, for lunch on my own, was Yung Kee restaurant. My read is that Yung Kee is meant to be an archetypal (i.e., tourist-friendly, although it did seem like also Hong Kongers were there) "Hong Kong eatery": low-key classic Cantonese dishes; "comfort food". It is, in this, a lot like the kind of places that I've enjoyed wandering into on previous trips. It is a little bit gilded/fancy inside for me, but I was seated right at a communal table and, after a brief tussle with the waiter (who was very friendly) where he tried to look out for me by telling me to order what was kind of clearly the dish for Americans instead of the dish that I wanted, and I briefly acceded out of some sense of politeness, then I got up and changed back and thank goodness I did, got my food and it was great. Here is a picture of that food, because Internet:
So: food, really delicious; slightly overfussy setting but not like fancy; delicious food. Sounds like a totally slimbutton's HK dining experience!
Except the bill. I expected this, prices were clearly posted, I'm casting no shade. Except to note that this meal--and I've had very similar meals, often with a soup course or something before, several times in Hong Kong--cost $242 HKD. That is, according to the Internet right now $31.07 USD. So, wow. Again I am not casting shade on Yun Kee -- if its age and location and clientele can support those prices, charge those prices I guess. But it's such a striking difference, paying over 3x what you're used to for the same kind of food.
I won't let it deter me from exploration on this trip, though. That would be a real shame: to let what will ultimately be a marginal difference of like a hundred-bucks (between "would've paid" and "did pay", over the few meals I'll be able to get on my own) stifle this chance to get out and explore this great city. Just: different areas, different markets. Cities, economies!
Anyway that's my review of Yun Kee: it is a nice Hong Kong eatery-type place that costs ~3x what such a place needs to, in my view, but I get it.
This Gathering of Peddlers What Was It?
At the corner of Connaught Place and Pedder Street, underneath these pedestrian overpasses with traffic rushing by in this kind of thick, congested chunk of city, I saw this.
I had no idea what it was. What I saw, since I know this is not a great photo, is two big clusters (this cluster continued behind me, and there was another cluster on the other side of the street) of people of mixed ethnicities (meaning, different people of different ethnicities: Chinese, Filipino, perhaps Vietnamese as well) kind of strapping up those characteristic big multicolored plastic satchels you see here. Really strapping 'em up: circling them with duct tape and all of that. The pedestrians moved through them as though this were an ordinary thing. Ten seconds of Internet research hasn't helped me understand what was happening here; my preliminary thoughts were that these folks were either hawkers gathering up their unsold wares for the day, either from a market that had been here or elsewhere, or that they were the consumers of such goods, having bought what looked to me like a big bunch of tchotchkes per person (I only got a glance at the goods, which looked like street vendor tchotchkes to me; certainly there were a lot of them per person), that they were now packing up to maybe take on the ferry? (This is across the street from a big ferry terminal). But: I have no idea! Anyway, it was thick and fun.
Restaurants So Far
Zooooooooom. Audible! This section was going to be "my list of places I want to go on this trip", but honestly...who knows if I'll even keep to this vague 'list', right? Lemme just tell you about the places I've been so far.
Yun Kee -- dun. See Above.
Mott32 -- bit of a cheat here. This is not the kind of place I'd dismiss out of hand on its merits; a chic upscale take on Cantonese cuisine that's largely well reviewed sounds nice to me. But it's very expensive, the "chic" part doesn't actually interest me, etc. So I'd usually not put this on the list; but I had dinner with my senior colleague last night and he suggested it and we went there so I'm adding it to my list since I did it -- and certainly, it wasn't overrated or anything. It was really tasty Cantonese food that was very expensive but also very good, so y'know: that thing.
Y'know what THAT'S IT. Sorry, I know this post doesn't have much of a thrust or conceit or point, but I love HK and I like sharing it with the like 11.2 people I imagine reading this blog (hi, mom). As more interesting stuff happens, I will report back; or if I do any really awesome navel-gazing that I feel impelled to share.
Hoooong Kooooooooong here we go herewego
I will below lay out a list of restaurants I've in mind to try out on this trip. So, an obvious downside of staying in Central rather than Kennedy Town is that my favorite kind of food thing--tramping out and finding a place with no English--is much harder in Central. I mean, I have tried that approach here, in Central, on previous trips. And I have basically found no places with no English; "off the beaten path" has to take on a different meaning when every path in an area is beaten solidly flat; and, especially: beaten solidly flat by exactly the kind of moneyed ex-pat customer base that drives the establishment of restaurants that I'm not that interested in. But -- an upside is that I am much closer to a number "you've gotta try this place!"-type places. While I find that genre of thing kind of uniformly disappointing, it's also interesting sometimes to see what the thing is that people are writing about. So I may wind up doing that more.
In fact, on my first day I did it twice! #result. The first place I tried, for lunch on my own, was Yung Kee restaurant. My read is that Yung Kee is meant to be an archetypal (i.e., tourist-friendly, although it did seem like also Hong Kongers were there) "Hong Kong eatery": low-key classic Cantonese dishes; "comfort food". It is, in this, a lot like the kind of places that I've enjoyed wandering into on previous trips. It is a little bit gilded/fancy inside for me, but I was seated right at a communal table and, after a brief tussle with the waiter (who was very friendly) where he tried to look out for me by telling me to order what was kind of clearly the dish for Americans instead of the dish that I wanted, and I briefly acceded out of some sense of politeness, then I got up and changed back and thank goodness I did, got my food and it was great. Here is a picture of that food, because Internet:
 |
| Braised Frog Legs with Bitter Gourd |
Except the bill. I expected this, prices were clearly posted, I'm casting no shade. Except to note that this meal--and I've had very similar meals, often with a soup course or something before, several times in Hong Kong--cost $242 HKD. That is, according to the Internet right now $31.07 USD. So, wow. Again I am not casting shade on Yun Kee -- if its age and location and clientele can support those prices, charge those prices I guess. But it's such a striking difference, paying over 3x what you're used to for the same kind of food.
I won't let it deter me from exploration on this trip, though. That would be a real shame: to let what will ultimately be a marginal difference of like a hundred-bucks (between "would've paid" and "did pay", over the few meals I'll be able to get on my own) stifle this chance to get out and explore this great city. Just: different areas, different markets. Cities, economies!
Anyway that's my review of Yun Kee: it is a nice Hong Kong eatery-type place that costs ~3x what such a place needs to, in my view, but I get it.
This Gathering of Peddlers What Was It?
At the corner of Connaught Place and Pedder Street, underneath these pedestrian overpasses with traffic rushing by in this kind of thick, congested chunk of city, I saw this.
Restaurants So Far
Zooooooooom. Audible! This section was going to be "my list of places I want to go on this trip", but honestly...who knows if I'll even keep to this vague 'list', right? Lemme just tell you about the places I've been so far.
Yun Kee -- dun. See Above.
Mott32 -- bit of a cheat here. This is not the kind of place I'd dismiss out of hand on its merits; a chic upscale take on Cantonese cuisine that's largely well reviewed sounds nice to me. But it's very expensive, the "chic" part doesn't actually interest me, etc. So I'd usually not put this on the list; but I had dinner with my senior colleague last night and he suggested it and we went there so I'm adding it to my list since I did it -- and certainly, it wasn't overrated or anything. It was really tasty Cantonese food that was very expensive but also very good, so y'know: that thing.
Y'know what THAT'S IT. Sorry, I know this post doesn't have much of a thrust or conceit or point, but I love HK and I like sharing it with the like 11.2 people I imagine reading this blog (hi, mom). As more interesting stuff happens, I will report back; or if I do any really awesome navel-gazing that I feel impelled to share.
Hoooong Kooooooooong here we go herewego
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