Saturday

I woke up early after a restful night’s sleep and got some computer work done after breakfast and before heading out to two different gardens.

Hong Kong Park — This is a lovely greenspace with lots of flowers, turtles sunning themselves on rocks in a large pond and a walk-through aviary. All free. I managed to get a few shots of the feathery guys eating on the fruit stations but the low point was getting pooped on by a Bali Mynah bird. :(

Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens — After a few wrong turns (sensing a theme here?) I managed to find my way over to this zoo. Also free. There are many varieties of unusual primates and while it was nice to see these creatures up close, it reminded me why I don’t like zoos very much. There are lots of places to sit and marvel at the fact that this park is completely surrounded by skyscrapers.

I was getting hungry at this point so I headed to Hong Kong station’s basement to try my luck at Tim Ho Wan – a famous dim sum place. The crowd was large, so I opted for take-away instead of a long wait. My steamed shrimp dumplings were very good but I noticed them being roughly dumped into my take-away container so one was busted open. The baked BBQ pork buns were also good but a bit too sweet for my tastes. I spied some folks eating outside on the ground level entrance amidst a large courtyard area, so that’s where I camped to enjoy my dim sum.

At this point my photo-taking and wandering with Google maps had drained my phone battery, so I headed back to the room to recharge and give my feet a break.

After an hour or so break I took the MTR to Kowloon Island to find my favorite souvenir shop, Elegant Tang Dynasty and pick up a few things.

Nathan Road was absolutely packed with people and it was hard to maneuver around the crowds. After ducking into a few stores, I decided to head to the harbor for the nightly laser light show.

On the way, I grabbed a green tea ice cream cone at McDonald’s (I know, but it was green tea flavored!) and found a spot along the railing. Unfortunately is was very hazy and there was no music to accompany the lights were I was so I wandered off after a few minutes and went on the hunt for the Din Tai Fung location in the Silvercord Mall.

Most of the food places are in the basement but Din Tai Fung is on one of the top floors after several rounds of escalators. I was only one person and mentioned I wouldn’t mind sharing a table but when ten minutes went by and the 1-2 person number didn’t change I gave up (I was still eight numbers away). I had been to the flagship location in Taipei several times a few weeks ago and noticed that the Hong Kong location was more expensive and charged for tea. Boo.

Instead, I hustled back to Sheung Wan and managed to snag a seat at Dim Sum Square (the place that was closed the night before). I was seated with a lady and her young son and after a bit of staring and then a polite/shy hello out of the boy, we mostly kept to ourselves. They were out of xiaolongbao but I did get the crystal shrimp dumplings (Ha Gao), the baked BBQ pork buns and an order of the shrimp, pork and roe dumplings. Everything was absolutely tasty.

I was pretty beat from walking around all day, so I opted to chill in the room and catch up on some stuff before bed.