We had planned to go to Macau to eat at a place called Fernando's
It is yet another joint we had seen on one of Anthony Bourdains shows and rates somewhere between shitful and quite good on TripAdvisor with the majority of the reviews swinging towards the better end.
One thing I discovered about this place is that getting around is not that easy.
Yes, I'd be happy to discuss this with anyone that disagrees, but I'll be doing face to face.
We went down to the China Ferry Terminal in Kowloon , a good 25 minutes walk away, only to discover that the ferries run less frequently on Sundays, and even less again after midday.
We had arrived at the ticket counter at 12:05.
WE would have been lucky to get to the restaurant by 3 in the afternoon.
This would have been OK if we were in Spain, but we weren't.
We decided to try again tomorrow.
Plan B was to get a bite to eat locally and then go to see the 10,000 Buddhas Temple only a short 15 minutes drive away by cab.
As we walked up Nathan Road the humidity was reaching new levels.
The level that really knocks me, and Tiz, about.
This is very interesting, especially given that until today I've always enjoyed very high humidity to go along with the high temperatures, that I also like.
I fear that yet again I may be contradicting the way I define myself.
Tiz was now getting pale and decided that we were going to go into the first eating place we could find.
Only a few steps further were blessed with a sandwich board displaying all sorts of food type pictures and all were graced with thousands of Chinese characters and not a single solitary Latin based one.
We walked up the steps, through the doors and were greeted with a "Hello, second floor."
The girl with the smile knew what we had come in for.
As we stepped out of the lift we were met with ~100 pairs of eyes, all looking at the only two pairs that were round.
"G'day folks. I'm sure youse have got some grouse Chinese tucker here!" is what I was thinking.
What we did was - go straight to the table we were directed to and sat down.
We proceeded to have a very good dim-sum meal that reminded us of how lucky we are to have places like the Golden Leaf in Preston.
Why are we lucky?
Because we are in China, in a restaurant full of locals and the tucker is exactly the same as we get in Preston, and at about the same price. The cans of beer were small though.
After enjoying a lunch in air-conditioned comfort we went back to the apartment where I prepared myself to get to the 10,000 Buddhas Temple.
I say "prepared" because I had a gut feeling that it was not going to go as easily as it might have in a Latin based speaking country.
I was right.
Despite my having a map and the location, in Cantonese, we struck one and then another cab driver that responded with "Sorry, #*&^%".
I couldn't figure out what was wrong but I knew that we were not going to get to the Temple today.
A good dose of extraordinarily high humidity and the frustration caused by not being able to communicate with the locals, for the very first time I can remember, was enough for me to give up.
We were here to chill out before going home and "chillin' out" I wasn't, at this point.
The best thing to do was go for a walk and keep with a reasonable distance from the apartment.
If the heat and humidity got too high we could take a break from counting Chow Tai Fook shops and go back, turn the aircon on to "Sub-zero/Dry" and relax.
It was a plan that worked for the better.
As night approached hunger visited again. How does one get hungry by doing near nothing all day?!
We crossed Nathan Road to visit some of the markets our host had told us about.
The ones that look like they're cheap, but none of the locals shop there because they are too dear.
*Marino looks confused*
I know that memory is a very subjective and unreliable tool to record history but I'm quite sure that this place has change a lot since I was last here and especially since it was handed back to the original owners.
Where there was once a complete multistory tower block selling, let's say, watches you now find almost every shop selling a variety of unrelated goods.
"Come in sir/madam, we have copy watches and handbags.", is an invitation you will often receive from a spruiker that you just know comes from the Indian subcontinent, and if you're foolish enough to go in for a purchase you'll find the watches, or handbags, interspersed with mens shavers, S5 smartphones, dried abalone (don't laugh), black cotton swabs, and list goes on.
What happened to the buildings that housed 400 camera shops, and only camera shops?
Or computers? Or just phones?
Is the internet to blame? I don't know either, but we need to find something to blame for all this chaos!
We walked around for a while and decided to try a sushi train place that looked good earlier on.
It must have been very good, because there was a queue waiting to get in and I was not going to do "queue to eat tonight".
We kept walking and found another sushi train place that wasn't all lit up, bright white and too hip for its own good.
We had a feast, but not as big as these family or petite locals sitting next to us.
I didn't think that these three very slender bodies could consume as much as they did!
It was great to see as these three made me look moderate, in my consumption.
As we stepped out the rain started. Wet but warm. This is a strange place indeed.
Here's a riddle for you-
What's the difference between the picture on the left and the one on the right?
The answer is -
100 meters, 10 minutes and 1% of humidity
(1% is all that's needed from you being your own shower, inside your close,
to the skies providing external moisture to keep you drenched.)
Earlier on in the night I was thinking "This place is like the early scene in Bladerunner where Deckard is eating at the ricebox truck, but without the rain and with a load more ambient light."
Now I would omit the "..... without the rain....." part.
As we walked "home", and even earlier in the eveneing, we came across quite a few stalls like these -
many with long queues and selling skewers of snacky, bites size stuff like this
One type of snack seemed much more popular than the rest.
It was a round deep fried ball of "stuff", about the size of a ping pong ball, 4 per skewer.
Tiz was curious as it to what it was.
I'm sure it was soylent green.
It's near midnight and we're going to try to get some sleep.
More tomorrow.
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