kowloon

we spent our second full day in hong kong across victoria harbor in a part of the city called kowloon. first stop was the hong hong temple. i have wanted to see this building my whole life! it was so wonderful to come around the corner, after getting off the subway and walking through the pouring rain, and see the golden angel moroni atop the temple. jane and i were able to participate in an endowment session (which was in chinese) and sit together in the celestial room. it was – celestial.

  

it seemed like the further away we got from hong kong island, the less westernized our surroundings were. after the temple we went deeper into kowloon towards the markets, and jane was kind to follow me on my hunt for a really authentic dim sum lunch. i loved feeling a little more immersed in what felt like “china” as we worked through the streets looking for a recommended restaurant.

after a bit of an adventure, we found the restaurant, and proceeded to be quite the spectacle as the only white people or english speakers in the place. i loved it. we somehow ordered some food, which turned out to be pretty gnarly (even though we ordered by far the most “normal” things on the menu – maybe we should have gone for the chicken feet or pig innards?…). it was awesome.

after lunch, we explored the many, many markets in kowloon (we saw so much, but i think we still missed about half of the markets). i love markets so this was a really fun afternoon for me.

first up was the flower market, which went on for blocks and blocks. i think these are about a third of my pictures – i couldn’t stop snapping because there were so many gorgeous colors and textures blooming everywhere! in addition to blossoms there were succulents and bonsai trees and lots of tacky fake and/or fresh flower arrangements. it was amazing!

next we checked out the bird market. there were gorgeous birdcages for sale, as well as food for birds (live grasshoppers in a bag!) and then the colorful birds themselves!

a friend of jane’s that had lived in hong kong for many years told us we must try the egg tarts sold at the various bakeries around the markets. she suggested her favourite place, supremecake. i tried a coconut milk egg white tart and a coconut flesh egg tart. i honestly have been thinking about those delicious, delicious tarts several times a day ever since. yum.

we walked through the open air food market and bought some huge asian pears. i loved the colors and energy and action of it all.

 

around the corner we found the goldfish market! there were huge walls of bags of fish all the way down the road.

then we walked down to a long street packed with tall stands called “ladies market.” we got some fake mark jacobs bags and toms shoes after some pretty stellar bargaining.

our last market stop (can you believe all these markets? i was in heaven) was the jade market, which was a little bit of a walk. on the way there we passed lots of food stalls with really interesting and outrageously bad smelling foods as the neon lights started to flicker on for the night. the jade market was stuffed with all kinds of jewelry.

after dinner, we went to see this breathtaking view from the kowloon promenade:

there is a super cheesy and fantastic light show every night, and we got to sit there right on the water, mesmerized. it is pretty amazing how everything is orchestrated – the lights on the bank of china building totally dance to the music! 

we got gelato and took the star ferry back across the harbor.
what an amazing day!