Susan's Shanghai Blog - Week 26 - Hong Kong Part 2 (Day 4)

So day 4 was Christmas Day and it started like any other Christmas day with waking up early, getting the turkey ready for the oven ... oh, wait ... no ... we were in Hong Kong! So of course, we did another walking tour, this time of the Western District, which is the most "chinese" section. As we walked down, we happened to see this really nice Christmas decoration so we took a picture.

As we got to Hillier Street, we were able to pick out She Wong Lam Snake Shop by the snake in the cage. Inside, there were lots of drawers lining its wall. Eaten as protection against the winter cold, snakes are often served in soup. They are also favored for their gallbladders, which are mixed with Chinese wine as cures for rheumatism. The shopkeeper supposedly grabs a snake out of one of the drawers, extracts the gallbladder, and mixes it in yellow wine, all without killing the snake.

Further down Des Voeux Rd is the Western Market (if you look closely at the writing on the half-circle part on the middle-left, you can make out the name. The market was built in 1906 in an Edwardian/Victorian style, and was first used as the waterfront Harbour Office and was then as a public market until 1988. It was supposed to be torn town but then they decided to renovate it into a bazaar for shops and artisans. On the ground floor are a handful of souvenir and gift shops that sell everything from Chinese seals to jade jewelry. Up on the first floor, retailers sell bolts of colorful cloth, buttons, clasps, and other sewing accessories. On the top floor is the Grand Stage, noted for its Cantonese fare and dim sum, as well as ballroom dancing nightly.

As we were walking, we came across an area of town that had lots of stores selling preserved foods, mostly seafood. On this one corner, they had these fish just hanging out drying. You can see them in the 1st picture hanging on the storefront. In the second picture, they were hanging on a construction thing ... weird. They seem to sell almost anything dried: Dried and salted fish, flattened squid, oysters, scallops, abalone, sea slugs, fish bladders, starfish, and shrimp.

As we headed towards Hollywood Road, we ran across this really lovely entrance to the Hollywood Road Park, which is a great little garden with a children's playground, a pond with goldfish, and Chinese pagodas. Across from the park we stopped for coffee.

A stop on every good Hong Kong tour is Cat Street, which is (or WAS) famous for its antiques. It looks like most of the "real" antique dealers have moved to Hollywood Road, and now what is on Cat Street seems an interesting mix of curios, replicas, and junk. Tom, yet again, was facinated by the replica Mao souvenirs.

So, the sign says "fresh meat", and maybe it is my upbringing, but I just don't really like my meat just hanging out in the open.

One of the things that we noticed about Hong Kong is that they tend to like to have their signs running across the road.

Along the mid-levels escalator, we saw this really cool building, and tried to get a good picture, but they didn't come out that great.

The Central Police Station is part of a complex of buildings that are the largest cluster of Victorian Architecture buildings in Hong Kong. The buildings were all built between 1864 and 1925 and used to be both the police headquarters and a prison. The buildings are falling into disrepair since it seems that nobody knows quite what to do with them.

There was a little street demonstration that passed by us near the Gucci store. No idea what it was about (or who), but it was neat to see anyway.

We headed up Dundell street towards a Starbucks at the foot of the Dundell Street Steps. Before they built the escalator, most of the streets had these steps that people had to walk up and down to get from their homes to where they worked. There are 4 gas lamps still there, installed between 1875 and 889 and are the last ones left in Hong Kong.

Then back to Charter Square for caroling from one of the school choirs in front of a great big tree.

Here is the other interesting thing about Christmas that is like New Years Eve. Mind you, it is a TERRIBLE picture, but when we went to dinner, they had all these "party favors" laid out on each table ... top hats, noise makers .. .the kinds of things we would have on New Year's Eve.