Hong Kong 7s and more...

Star Ferry for old times sake

Temple in Stanley

Gavin and Barbara

Hong Kong Stadium

You don't go to Hong Kong for 5 days to behave yourself. You definitely don't go to Hong Kong over Sevens weekend to behave yourself.

It's been 10 years since our last visit; did it take us that long to recover?

We arrived on Tuesday 4th April from Taipei. 

Once again we lucked out with our choice of hotel. Sohotel in the trendy Soho area, conveniently located 5 minutes from the MTR and a short  a walk from Lan Kwai Fong (LKF -infamous nightlife area in HK.)

The check in girl warned us that the room we had booked was small; ( did we want to upgrade to something bigger? )and she wasn't joking! It was well designed though, very modern and according to Neil just suitable for sleeping between parties! We got breakfast delivered to our room every day and stored our big suitcases in the left luggage room downstairs. After a wander around Central to refamiliarise ourselves with downtown Hong Kong, we went to Suzanne and Dag's apartment for dinner. It was fabulous to catch up after so long. And they have the most amazing art collection in their home...

On Wednesday we caught the MTR over to Kowloon to shop in Mong Kok and beyond. We met up with Krissie in LKF in the evening to hang out on the verandah of Zinc Bar, drink loads of SB and watch the party unfold in the street. We made friends with waiter Brian from Nigeria. ( how come all the bouncers and lots of the male bar staff in LKF are West African? )

On Thursday we were back in Tsim Sha Tsui and Central for more shopping. We met Barbara and Gavin in Wanchai ( another Hong Kong nightlife hot spot )in the evening for drinks at their local bar, Indian at their local restaurant and whisky at their local hotel, followed by live Ska music at The Wanch( they deny it's their local dive but they looked pretty at home! )

On Friday we headed out to Stanley ( for more shopping) and Ubered our way through vast amounts of traffic to the Hong Kong Stadium for the 7s in the late afternoon. So much fun. Followed by Thai food and beer at a local food stall with Gavin and Barbara and more party in LKF.

It's getting progressively harder to wake up each morning but we do make it back to the Sevens and Boerwors Corner by 11.30am. The Blitzbokke do us proud and the Saffers all around us get happier and happier.

After the games are done,we have to cool off with beer at a food stall before heading across to Wanchai with Dave and Krissie to Cinta- J for the best Philipino roast pork dinner ever. The live band are doing amazing covers of all our favourite ( how did they know?) songs and everyone in the place sings along and dances between mouthfuls of food and beer. This is way better than any karaoke can be!

On Sunday we meet Dave and Krissie for a Sunday roast at the Globe in Soho to see the Bokke lose in the finals before pouring ourselves into an Uber to the airport.

Taiwan

Our Apartment

Taipei 101

our neighbourhood

appeasing the ancestors

tofu selection

Killjoy was here

Chaing Kai-Shek Park

night market stall

queueing outside Din Tai Fung

Furlong

A week to chill and catch up with friends in Singapore is always good. This time we stayed with Claire and Graham; our wonderful hosts. They even organised a party so we could see everyone. Adding to the ever growing list of great places to eat in Singapore, we loved the roast chicken and veggies at the chain outlet Poulet.

On Wednesday 29 March, we flew to Taipei on my first trip to Taiwan. The iTaipei 2 Serviced Apartments proved to be a great find, located just minutes from the Grand Hyatt and the Taipei 101 building. On first impressions, Taiwan is an interesting cross between China and Japan. Air pollution is very bad but the city of Taipei is safe and fun. It's not as exciting as Hong Kong or as organised as Singapore and apart from literally 1 or 2 buildings, I can safely say Taipei has never won any architectural or town planning prizes. You may not visit for the urban beauty but you will visit for the food, especially Chinese and Japanese cuisines. We loved the well priced Japanese restaurant​s and visited the original Din Tai Fung for the best dim sum in the world. Of course it's a chain now with branches everywhere from Sydney ​to New York and one of our favourites whenever we are in Singapore but there's nothing like sharing tables with the rush of office workers for fluffy pork buns and juicy dumplings at the original 5 level shop in Linyi.

Taipei is also known for it's night markets when hundreds of food carts emerge from the back alleys and set up along busy pedestrianised shopping streets; pig organ soup next to green tea ice cream. We visited Shilin and Roahe.

Our favourite way to explore a city is by walking in the various different neighbourhoods. We don't need to tick off a lot of sites but we pepper our walking with a few touristy bits.

Xinji is the modern business area of town and Da'an has nice street life, cafes and restaurants.

We mastered the MRT and caught the train out to Songshan to wander around Wufenpu, the fashion district.

Ximen is a bustling shopping area filled with young people but just walk down a few side streets and you'll find the edgier arty and LGBT crowd.

Lin Sen North rd is the Japanese red light area.

We had a great time visiting Simon, Tina and the kids for delicious Chinese food at home. We went away to the local beach 'resort' of Furlong with them for the weekend too. The weather was fine for beach walks but not ideal for swimming. We did have good seafood and spend lots of time polishing off copious amounts of Simon's whisky and shooting the breeze into the early hours.