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TEMPLE STREET NIGHT MARKET
Whether you're a shopper or not, the Temple Street night market is a must-visit just for the experience. It's located in Kowloon between the areas of Jordan and Yau Ma Tei just off Nathan Road. The market opens at 2pm but it doesn't come alive until after sunset. There you'll find all the typical night market offerings: t-shirts, clothes, souvenirs, trinkets, sunglasses and other accessories. In addition, there are fortune-tellers and impromptu Chinese opera performances. Natalie and I must have had our cheapest meal there and we ate in the middle of the street at a rickety plastic table, using plastic dishes and plastic chopsticks. We picked the busiest restaurant we could find which featured fresh seafood but we had chicken and pad thai. The funniest thing about it is that with all the expensive restaurants we dined at, Natalie said this was her most memorable.

PRE-BOOK SIGHTSEEING TOURS
You can pre-book all your tours and attractions in advance for Hong Kong or anywhere else in the world.

NOODLE SHOP
More inexpensive food. A block or two down from Nathan Road, on a side street, we stumbled upon another great restaurant. It looked promising because it was 3pm and it was the one restaurant packed with locals. The menu was in both Chinese and English with pictures and it was the first time the food actually looked like the pictures. The best part was that it was so inexpensive. A large bowl of Shanghai noodle soup with dumplings cost HK$42 ($5 USD). The restaurant is called Relax For A While and since they don't have a website, I scanned their card.

OLYMPIC EVENTS IN HONG KONG
Did you know that the Olympics begin on August 8th, 2008 at 8pm in Beijing? The only event held outside of China's capital is the equestrian event, which will be held in Hong Kong. Here's more information.

LIGHT SHOW
For the past four years, Hong Kong has been displaying the "World's Largest Permanent Light and Sound Show", granted this title by the Guinness World Records. It takes place every night at 8pm for about 20 minutes. It used to last longer but with all the environmental concerns, it's been cut down. A mere five minutes would be a delight and would suffice. I didn't think it was all that cool at first, probably because during our first few nights, the sky was hazy. But when it cleared up, it was quite entertaining watching laser beams and colored lights dance along the skyline's 44 buildings. The highlight is seeing IM Pei's building all lit up and the best vantage point is from a harbor cruise or in front of the Hong Kong Space Museum. For more information, visit Tourism.gov.hk/symphony.

RED PEPPER
The one restaurant I remembered enjoying from 1993 was The Red Pepper (card scan). It's Szechuan so the food is spicy and has been a favorite of ex-pats since 1970. It's located in Causeway Bay (from Central: two stops by MTR HK$4, taxi HK$26, tram HK$2), is open for lunch and dinner and the service was ridiculously good. Every minute the waiters kept coming by to top off my tea (HK$8) to keep it warm. Also right when we sat down, they brought over three bowls: peanuts, spicy cabbage and pickled cucumbers -- they were all so good but we did get charged HK$36 ($TK USD) for them. We asked for bottled water and they brought out Panna (HK$30). We enjoyed chicken with cashews (HK$90), fried noodles (HK$85) and rice (HK$10). A little plastic pepper is the chopstick holder and it's a nice touch.

NOTE: Restaurants in China don't offer fortune cookies at the end of the meal. This is an American gimmick.

TOUR GUIDE
If you're looking for a Hong Kong tour guide, I can highly recommend Joe Lee who was recommended to us by the Hong Kong Tourism Board. He's a lifelong Hong Kong resident and knows the city like the back of his hand. His prices vary depending on length and what you want to do but here's his contact info. He's also a travel agent so he can help you explore nearby cities and/or countries.



REPULSE BAY
Just up the road (about a 20-minute taxi ride) is Repulse Bay and Stanley Market. They are in the Southern District of Hong Kong and both are considered must-visit locations. Repulse Bay was developed into a beach in 1910 and I took a walk down the beach with Joe and Natalie, admiring the sand, water and the famous apartment building with a hole. The hole is apparently good feng shui and allows the dragon (the hill is shaped like a dragon) to travel from the mountain to the water, without the obstruction of the building. At the southern end is the Tin Hau temple that has statues of two goddesses, Kwun Yum and Tin Hau and a bridge that if you walk over, will supposedly grant you three extra days to your life.

STANLEY MARKET
Everyone's favorite open-air marketplace is Stanley Market. The bargains used to be more than they were in the ‘90s but they still offer significant savings in clothing, particularly silk garments and traditional Chinese dress. But they have jewelry, toys, souvenirs and Chinese arts and crafts. Stanley Market has gone commercial since the last time I was here. The first thing I noticed was a small Hagen-Dazs shop and built-up shops including a mall on the back end. There's also a new maritime museum that's housed in the old Murray House, which was once a government building in Central. They dismantled it in 1982 and stored the facade in a warehouse until it was moved to Stanley in 1999. I highly recommend the China House of Stanley for dim sum (here's their card scan).

GETTING TO THE BIG BUDDHA
I'd heard so much about the Big Buddha that I had to go out and visit it. The best way to get there from Central is by the MTR (15.50 per person each way) to the Tung Center. It takes 30 minutes and then you can either take a 25-minute tram (HK$58 one way, HK$88 = $11 USD R/T) or a 45-minute bus ride. I'm afraid of heights and the tram was looking crazy scary to me and I was going to take the bus but people said that's even crazier as there are no guard rails and the drivers are out of control. To put the myths aside I tried both. Neither were that insane. The cable car was high and I had sweaty palms but I was glad I did it. The views of the Hong Kong Airport were outstanding, which helped take my mind off of it and we had a cool couple from New York in our 17 passenger car; it wasn't busy so they didn't pack us in like sardines. I took the bus down and there were guard rails and the driver did a fine job handling the winding roads.

BIG BUDDHA
The Big Buddha is one of the five large Buddha statues in China and this one is the world's tallest outdoor seated Buddha. The bronze statue was completed in 1993 and is located on Lantau Island near Po Lin Monastery. To reach the 34-meter-tall Big Buddha requires 268 steps. There is no charge unless you want to enter the exhibition halls inside. Then it's HK$60 and includes a vegetarian meal. Wear a hat and lots of sunscreen; it was hot the day we were there!

HONG KONG OVERALL
I can't tell you how much I love Hong Kong; so much so that I am seriously thinking about living here in the fall for a few months, especially if you know who doesn't win! The people are friendly, the place is clean, the food is incredible, the public transportation is amazing, the views are insane, it's easy to navigate and it's centrally located, just an hour or two from most South Asia countries. What's not to love?

VIDEO
Here's a four-minute Johnny Jet video of my trip to Hong Kong. We also have all the Johnny Jet videos ever made on YouTube.

NEXT WEEK
Next week we travel back to the U.S. and try out Delta's new helicopter service. It makes traveling to and from JFK as easy as can be! 1 | 2 | <<< Previous Page | 4



*PLEASE tell us what you think of this week's newsletter!

Note: This trip was sponsored in part by Hong Kong Tourism, Hotel Jen, Pearl on the Peak, Shangri-La Kowloon, InterContinental Hong Kong, and the Mandarin Oriental.

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