Asia Holiday 2013, August 16 (Peaking Out)

I decided not to go to either Aberdeen or the Ocean Park theme park, partly because I didn't think there would be time, and partly because the reviews of the latter weren't too encouraging - in particular the amount of waiting in line, just like every other theme park anyone has ever been to.

I started off walking uphill on Hong Kong Island under the Central-Mid Level Escalators. I didn't know it at the time, but they only run one way, and that's downhill until 10am to suit the business crowd in the morning, then uphill for the rest of the day. These escalators seem like they go on forever, or at least 800 metres if you believe the intranet. I instead had to take the stairs and try to follow where the escalators were going from the streets below. I was planning on taking a ride straight back down again, but since it was close by I went across to the HK Zoological and Botanical Gardens. The gardens were ok, there were a few animals like birds and monkeys, but that was about it.

Central-Mid Level escalators.

No idea what these things are called.

More importantly, the top of the gardens also happens to be the start of Old Peak Road, leading all the way up to the top of Victoria Peak. I hadn't read much about the climb, so I didn't know what I was in for, but I soon found out it was indeed a killer - the heat and humidity of the day and a heavy backpack did not help. Some sections are extremely steep where you feel like you are hardly making any progress at all, but there are a few rare places where it flattens out a bit and you get a chance to recover. I also had many opportunities to rest and recover while trying to understand the directions on the sign posts, which seem to contradict each other or not point in the direction of any path. According to my Garmin GPS watch, it took about 24 minutes to cover the 1.7 kilometres uphill to reach The Peak Tower.

Starting up Old Peak Road.

Further along Old Peak Road.

At the top is a small tower you can maybe take an elevator up to get a view of Hong Kong from the roof, but I kept walking along The Peak circle walk, or that's what I think it's called. It's a loop (as the name suggests) which allows you to see the western side of the Hong Kong coast, then there is supposed to be a reservoir around the other side of the island but all I saw after that point was a blanket of white fog. I got a few good shots on downtown Hong Kong at least, the photos really don't capture it well but it is an impressive sight in person. When you get back to the start you can go into The Peak Galleria shopping mall, which has a free observation deck that is partially obstructed by The Peak Tower directly in front of it. Given how foggy it was, it really didn't matter either way.

Along the circle walk.

Instead of walking down I gave the tram a shot, it's one of those good old funicular railways. The downhill ride is uneventful because the seats only face one way, so you are looking in the opposite direction to which you're travelling on the way down. I didn't have to wait to go down luckily, but there was a massive queue waiting to go up at the bottom. I think hiking up would be much more fun, even without standing in line for half an hour. The tram entrance is near HK Park, which is different to the previously mentioned Botanical and Zoological gardens. It was better than expected, with some interesting looking lakes and fountains and stuff. There might have been some animals around as well.

Heading backwards down the funicular.

The uphill track.

HK Park.

I went back to the hotel to plan a few activites for the afternoon, passing through a few places along the way:

• Pacific Place had a Giga Sports store with better prices than any Nike store so far
• Li Yuen Street East and Li Yuen Street West are supposed to be market streets, but not a single magnet to be found!
• Pottinger Street was like a small China Town within Hong Kong (if that is possible) with lots of fruit and vegetable stalls
• Lunch at a Mexican restaurant called Mr Taco Truck - disappointingly false adversting because there is no truck
• The vegetable burrito was alright but only had rice as the base, no beans

An underwhelming lunch.

Pottinger Street.

The afternoon was back across to Kowloon again. First stop was the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin temple, and I'm glad I didn't need to ask anyone for directions to that. It was just a place with a few temples, mostly being visited by locals who were dropping off bunches of those joss (incense) sticks at each of the temples along the way. I've decided that temples all pretty much look the same and usually don't really make for interesting photos.

Reminded me of the castle guards in Zelda 2.

The main temple at Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin.

Another temple at Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin.

The next stop was Mong Kok for some shopping objectives. The first goal was a magnet, so I set off down the market and souvenirs street, only there was lots of electronics. I had turned down one street too early and was in the Electronics street (Sai Yeung Choi street) instead. The next one looked much more like a junk market street (aka Tung Choi Street aka Ladies Market?) where all the stalls were selling almost identical rubbish, usually one or more of:

• Cheap watches
• Hats
• Mobile phone cases
• Leather belts and wallets
• T-shirts

A few places did have magnets, but they were pretty poor looking ceramic ones, which don't rate highly on the Magnet Index:

• 1 - Rubber
• 1 - Metal (rare)
• 2 - Plastic photo prints (most common)
• 3 - Ceramic

The market street.

I reached the end of the street so had to settle for the best I could find, some sort of embossed plastic photo, which was acceptable. One more street over was an ever better place - Fa Yuen Street or Sneaker Street! I was pretty desperate for some larger shoes as the ones I had taken were a bit too small and causing blisters on my toes every day. The prices weren't great, but I was a little desperate so in one of the two official Nike stores I found a decent price for LunarGlide+ 4 at about $90. I asked the guy if they had a 12.5 and he told me they don't have half sizes!? This is in the ACTUAL NIKE STORE, not a generic small shop. So I asked for a 13 instead, but they had nothing above 11. No problem, I have an entire street of sneakers to find a pair...

I walked in and out of countless smaller shops along the street and started to notice a strange pattern. Every shop had exactly the same range of shoes at EXACTLY the same price (also every shop was almost impossible to move around in). Total price collusion. I found a model of LunarGlide+ 4, which suspiciously had the same color on sale each time. Each time I asked, they never had anything close to my size, maybe once I got lucky with a 12. Just out of curioisity, I looked at the labels inside some of the shoes, and they do indeed have half sizes of Nike in Hong Kong!

The sneaker street, almost timed perfectly for the gold Audi (and Mister Softee).

Also sneaker street (and Mister Softee).

I had to concede defeat as it was getting late in the evening and I wasn't even close to success, so I jumped back on the train to Hong Kong. I stopped in at Paisano's on the way home to grab a pizza, normally not worth mentioning except:

• I ordered the middle size, called "large", which is in fact a monstrosity, I only just got through half
• Not sure if it was the pizza (probably) or the day's activities, but I woke up insanely dehydrated at 3am
• The tap water is not drinkable, so I had to get up, get dressed and run across the street in the rain to visit the nearest 7-Eleven

STEP-O-METER: 42076 steps