11/14/2008

Without any accident, we woke up early in the morning on the second day. By early, I meant 3:50AM. Joshua had slept the longest until 6AM. Not many restaurants were open at that early hour. We took the taxi to Luk Yu Tea House. They opened at 7AM. We were one of the first guests there. Luk Yu was a very traditional dimsum place. Their seatings, decos, services and food were strictly traditional.

Instead of pushing carts around as in the states, the dimsum servers kept dishes in a container hung around their necks and cruised around the restaurant.

The above dishes could be found in Chinese restaurants in bay area, but not the following. It was the fish tummy dumpling!

It was still very early after dimsum breakfast, we decided to take a walk, blindly. We didn't have map in hand, but walked on Pottinger Street which was a little uphill road in old style pavement.

We also walked to the famous old Hong Kong Police Department building. It was historic, I have seen it in many Hong Kong movies.

We then accidentally walked up hill. A large population lived on hills. Instead of taking buses or cabs to work every morning, Hong Kong had this long escalator that connected uphill residensual area to downtown. We saw a lot of people riding the escalator down to the subway station.

And since the ride might take as long as 20 minutes, advertisers wouldn't want to waste good opportunities to advertise on the buildings along the escalator.

Downtown was full of tall buildings, definitely metropolitan.

Next, we arrived at Hong Kong convention center. It was by the beautiful Victoria Harbor. From the center, there was a great view of the ocean.

After a nap, Joshua went to the Hong Kong Sciences Museum. It was very much like the children's discovery museum in bay area, where kids played games to explore science and technologies. It happened to have a Lufengosaur (a Chinese uncovered disnosaur) fosil display. Joshua sure enjoyed it.

Dinner time again. This time, we took the tram uphill to "The Peak". The tram climbed the track up to the top of the hill. There was a galleria on the top, which consisted of shops and restaurants and viewing decks.

The restaurant we went to was called Tien Yi Restaurant. It was Chinese food again. We had a table by the ceiling-to-floor glass window which had a stunning view of Hong Kong valley.

The food was really so-so. Dishes like pigeon meat in lettuce wrap, lobster, clay-pot rice. But the view was worth the high price.

After dinner, we climbed onto the viewing deck. Again, this was one of the common scenes from Hong Kong movies or TV - a full city light of the valley.