Penny-wise and Pound Foolish

We checked into the Ibis North Point hotel this afternoon. We're using it as a bridge between one apartment and another.

And we discovered that for a mere $88, we could be transported back to Europe in the blink of an eye.

The Ibis is a French-owned hotel; part of the Accor chain. It's known as a budget hotel, to be sure. Probably comparable to Motel 6, but Euro-style. We have perhaps 180 square feet of space -- two thirds the size of my childhood bedroom -- with a bed and a desk built into the window. I have a fabulous view of Victoria Harbour.

But all those perks of Hong Kong I was talking about yesterday? Not so much here. There is French-style check in (slow and uninformative) and an almost French-sized elevator. It took me as long to get internet service, today, as it did for me to run three errands yesterday.

C'est la vie.

I'm told the IHT puts its tryout editors here. Ack. I can't imagine spending two nights here, much less a week. We were fortunate enough to stay in the Harbour View when we first arrived, and it's head and shoulders above this hotel. (And, not to put too fine a point on it, only $40 more at this time.)

But we're here just for 24 hours. Not enough time to worry about space, and I'm working days, too, so Paul and I only have to co-exist to sleep.

Another in a series of adventures, right?

Next stop: Mid-Levels West

And the Living is Easy

There is no disputing that life here (my life, anyway) is pretty easy. I have no chores and my errands are easy to accomplish.

I was a little concerned that moving back to a city would mean that daily life is a little more complicated. That certainly was the case in Paris. But not here. My goodness ... you can get anything you want everywhere. The shops don't close early and they seem to be open seven days a week.

This morning I needed to run some errands before work. I managed to go to drop off the laundry, get keys made and buy an orchid at the florist, all in under 20 minutes. Beat that!

The laundry is across the street from our current apartment (and yes, we are moving again this weekend) so that was a piece of cake. In at 12:45 p.m., out at 5 p.m.. 36 hong kong dollars. The I crossed back to the apartment and cut across the alleyway, past the always-crowded hot pot restaurant and over to the hardware store. (see photo).

The hardware store is probably the size of my sister-in-law's sewing room, nee walk-in closet. It offers faucets and light bulbs on the outside, and switches and keys and all sorts of other things. It cost me 20 hong kong and 5 minutes to get 4 keys made. Granted, getting keys made in SoCal isn't difficult, time-consuming, or expensive. But it isn't always easy to find a place that will make them for you.

And in Paris, it's worse. They don't really do keys there ... Keys are proprietary and expensive. You must prove you are the owner or legal resident of an apartment before you can get copies made, and then they take 10 days and cost upward of $50.

Then, I went looking for a plant. I went to two florists, actually, before I decided on a lovely pale green orchid as a gift for the guy whose apartment we're borrowing.

Total time, about 15 minutes.

It's amazing to have everything at my fingertips, so to speak. Supermarket, laundry, restaurants galore, stationery shop, framers, florists, butchers, green grocers, bakeries ... everything in one square block.

I could get used to this.

No Place for a Gweilo

I was wandering around the neighborhood today and thought I'd check out the Causeway Bay Market. It's an indoor market filled with stalls, not unlike an outdoor market.

The signs outside suggest all sorts of interesting things inside, so in I went.

Things were a little too interesting. I don't think there are many Westerners in there; I got almost as many stares as I offered back. At first I thought it was just the usual fare: fish and meat and vegetables.

But no.

There was a cage at one of the fish stalls, and I glanced at it, thinking the shellfish was an odd size. Then I realized it wasn't shellfish at all, but frogs! The look on my face said it all, and then the vendor started to look at me, so I bugged out.

Moseyed around the vegetables and produce; nothing out of the ordinary up there. Although I think I saw some hundred-year-old eggs. These are eggs preserved in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime and rice straw. Anyway, I certainly smelled them. They are, I understand, an acquired taste.

Went back downstairs just in time to see the live birds. Ack! I'd been avoiding this. I looked over and the stall owner had a chicken by the neck, and was measuring it with the knife. Ack again! I looked away.

I didn't think I was squeamish like this. I'm OK with my meat hanging in the open air, although I do prefer refrigeration, yes. I'm OK with my fish laid out on ice. And in Paris, especially during game season, they hang dead animals all over the place. Recently dead. With fur and feathers.

Who knew my limit would be frogs and live chickens?

Baked Goods, Cont.

So Paul wrote earlier about his encounter with Chinese bread and just after reading it I passed by a bakery on my way back from running errands.

This was a different bakery, around the corner from the Indian restaurant. As I passed, I could smell the fresh-out-of the oven baked goods. Normally, I'm not a bakery kind of girl. I like cookies, but pastries not so much. And I'm a little wary of Chinese baked goods. They often have sesame or bean pastes hidden in the middle, and that often surprises me.

Anyway, the smell was tempting. I actually passed the bakery, then went back half a block. In the open window were apricot jam sticks, like croissant twists with raisins in them, and, presumably apricot jam. There also were pineapple buns, which I'd heard of and marshmallow buns, which I had not heard of.

Apparently pineapple buns contain no pineapple, but instead have a cross-hatch pattern on top that makes it look like a pineapple. I have no idea if the marshmallow buns have marshmallow in them, or just have the consistency of a marshmallow.

So I bought one of the apricot sticks, and it was hot and fresh. They use plastic bags here, instead of paper, which don't lend themselves to hot steaming things -- just makes them soggy. When I got it back to the apartment it was sort of falling apart.

But that's not what's important. Was it good? It was. Was it apricot? Sort of. Not slathered in apricot, but there was definitely some there. It was warm, and moist and tasty. A perfect bakery food.

Maybe the trick is to stay away from the proper bread?

About Those Fish ...

So earlier I mentioned that I was amused, walking by the many fish markets, to see the live fish. They pull them out of the tank and they flop around.

Well, I'm not amused anymore. Now I feel just awful. The more I see them, the more I see them gasping for breath. Their wide open mouths opening and closing and the gills flapping. It's really terrible.

Why the change of heart? I couldn't tell you. Maybe I've just been by more fish stalls since I've been here than I ever have before. But now, I don't want to see the gasping fish any more than I want to see the butcher kill the chickens. (And, thankfully, I haven't seen that).

It's not like I'm about to become a vegetarian. I understand that food lives, and comes from someplace. But I don't want to be amused by it.

I just wanted to clear this up.

Gosht Vinadaloo

Last night I hit a tipping point. I couldn't, as one colleague put it, bear to eat one more slimy noodle.

We went to grab some dinner last night in our new neighborhood of Tin Hau. Now, we've been in Hong Kong for 23 days, and I've probably had Chinese food (or food, as my brother Dan likes to say) 21 of those 23 days. My aim had been to hit a Thai restaurant I'd seen as we walked to the park in the afternoon, but before we got there, I spied an Indian place.

I'm not too proud to say I came just short of begging Paul to go in. He likes Indian, but is allergic to curry. I promised him there would be something he could eat. The menu was in English, the smells were exotic and nothing came with noodles. We ordered papadam (which I adore) and chicken tikka and lamb vindaloo and cheese naan. It was delicious.

My vindaloo, which supposedly had potatoes as well as lamb chunks, was incredibly spicy. Apparently, I have lost much of my ability to handle really spicy food, and this was a bit over the top.

Hong Kong has a long-established population of South Asians, according to Wikipedia, including more than 20,000 Indians. It is my understanding that a large number of them live Kowloon-side. Regardless, we haven't seen any Indian restaurants that I can recall.

Like Wan Chai, Tin Hau is dotted with dozens of restaurants. Unlike Wan Chai, however, there is a greater variety of cuisine available and a bit more attention given over to decor and presentation in the restaurants, without, it seems the prices going up dramatically.

We passed three Thai places, two Vietnamese, a Japanese and two dumpling restaurants. There also were two Chinese sweet shops serving only dessert. One of them, Ching Ching Desserts, is noted for its cream of almond and black sesame soup. According to one blogger "It's like drinking marzipan . . . and could find its way onto the menu of any five star restaurant in the world but you can get a bowl in Hong Kong for less than three bucks. "

And all this -- including the usual Chinese fare -- in a three block stretch.

The place we're staying now is well-located. We are surrounded by restaurants (there is a Chinese hot-pot place just across the alley) and food stalls and there is both a grocery and a laundry across the street.

Each neighborhood we go to (and this is our third) I find something even more appealing than the last one. If things go as planned (and of course, the never really do) we will try at least one more neighborhood and perhaps two before we leave.

It's been a blast discovering all these things. Now I have 10 days or so here to take advantage.

Relax -- Please Don't Rush!

This, apparently, is the motto of Hong Kong.

It's posted in the MTR and the people here have clearly taken it to heart. There are lots of signs in the subway, and most seem to have little effect. There are the constant admonishments to hold the handrail on the very steep escalators. There are signs encouraging people to take the steps for "good health." But mostly, people pay attention to the request not to be in a rush.

I have a few city traits, like walking quickly to get to where I want to be. For some people, it's because they are late. But I only walk quickly in comparison to others here. People here mosey. They meander. It doesn't help that I tend to go out about 2 p.m., when everyone is finishing up their lunch hour so the streets are crowded. But they clearly are in no hurry to get back to work.

It's rather maddening. The streets are crowded and it's not easy to maneuver around people -- especially because they have this uncanny ability to sense when you are about to go around them, and then they move in that same direction.

There is a theory that things here are slow-moving, contrary to most great and cosmopolitan cities, because of the weather. I haven't tested it in jam-packed Central, home of bankers and expats and movers and shakers. But I am not optimistic.

It's just unexpected. I know that Mexico and the Middle East have "manana" cultures. But I'm not living there and trying to get something done. And, it seems to me, Acapulco and Hong Kong and Marrakech are worlds apart in more ways than one.

OK. I feel like I'm not explaining this well. Imagine you are in Paris or in New York. You are going about your daily business, trying to get to work or run errands and the city is filled with tourists who are gawking. They stop to look up at the skyscrapers, they stop in the middle of the street to look at their maps, to find the metro, to marvel at a window display. This is daily life in Hong Kong. The residents behave like this. It's crazy!

Even if I learn to slow down, which is probably healthy, there will still be people in my way. The security guard in the MTR who decides to stop right in front of the escalator. The old woman who zig-zags down the sidewalk. The hordes of people going nowhere in particular.

I'm not relaxed, and I'm not in a rush.