Ten Tips About Hong Kong

1. Eat stir-fried kailan. The prioritisation of this particular tip is indicative of how seriously I mean this. I generally would never ever voluntarily order it here, not even the species touted as being of HK parentage. Not my kind of vegetable. But my goodness, was I lucky that my friend WS ordered it when we met up for dinner last week. Damn delicious. Guess the HK-ers, being Chinese, keep the good stuff for local consumption and export the lesser grades. Either that, or the HK kailan we get here is actually Malaysian-grown. Scam!

2. If you are staying longer than a day and plan to use public transport (which I highly recommend) other than taxis, get what’s known as the Octopus card. Very handy because you can use it on the ferries, trains and buses at discounted fares and also in the Watsons chain of pharmacies and 7-11. You have to have at least HK$50 (HK$43 is refundable when you leave HK, $7 processing fee) on the card. The exchange rate for HK$ to RM is approximately half, btw. And about 1/5 for HK$ to SGD.

3. If you want a good, cheap and bloody excellent view of the HK harbour, stay at the Salisbury YMCA in Kowloon. Don’t let visions of scruffy backpackers and dormitories scare you…this is the Ritz Carlton of YMCAs, without giving you wallet-burn. It has the same harbour view as what you’d get at the Peninsula, one of HK’s premier hotels. They’re right next to each other.

4. If bargain shopping is your thing, stay on the Kowloon side, not on Hong Kong island. Two words - Factory outlets. The Esprit factory outlet was less than a minute’s walk around the corner of Kowloon hotel (where I stayed, and which is behind Peninsula Hotel). Oh my goodness. Esprit fans, prepare to flail at your chests in ululating despair. I picked up a corduroy jacket for RM105 and two t-shirts at RM19 a piece. I think denim jackets were going for around RM100 as well.

5. Go towards the end/beginning of seasons, ie Winter/Spring, Summer/Autumn. The sales give new meaning to the term fashion-conscious. You get good branded stuff at rock-bottom prices because darlings, last season, literal and figurative. Practically everything was discounted by at least 70%. Somewhere along Nathan Road, I scored ankle-high socks for RM3.40 a pair and polar fleece scarves at RM2.45 a piece. Adventure gear enthusiasts would know, polar fleece is THE outerwear material of choice; light, warm and NOT cheap.

6. For the love of all that is capitalistic, never pay full price. I was told that one should target for a third of the asking price. At the Ladies Market, a silk table runner was priced at HKD120. My hesitation (didn’t even have to say anything) brought it to HKD80. Turning away dropped the price to HKD60. Two steps out of the stall, it was HKD50. At another place, 3 silk fans were HKD35 for 3. Because I looked unimpressed, the shopowner asked me how much I’d be willing to pay. The question then becomes, exactly what’s the value??

You’d think that you can’t bargain at proper shops. Well. Mum was in a shop where a fake fur and silk top was marked as discounted from HKD5000 to HKD2500. Boldly asking for a further discount got a reply of HKD1200. Pooh-pooh-ing and walking out of the shop resulted in the price dropping to HKD800.

I got a set of four glass bottles with traditional river scenes and Chinese characters painted on the inside the bottle for the grand sum of RM38.

Says a lot about the price of labour in China, dunnit?

7. Dim sum are not made equal. Not even in restaurants packed with locals. Actually, with the floods of people from China entering HK legally these days, it’s hard to tell the locals from the motherlanders just by sight. Back to the dim sum. Unless you’re willing to pay a premium in the hotels or higher end restaurants on Hong Kong island, I’d say you get much better stuff in Singapore (Crystal Jade), Melbourne or Sydney.

8. In HK, they don’t say “ta pau” for take-away. That gives you away as a tourist. There’s another more formal word, but the one that amused me most was “hung kai”. As in “yat kor chow meen, hung kai” (one fried noodle, taking a walk). Roadside diners are generally good for all manner of noodles and rice dishes. Oh and try their rice! God, we’re really being scammed with rice over here in Malaysia (let's not forget the kailan!!). Even the lowest grade rice in HK is way better than a lot of the superior brands here. There’s an almost glutinous-like quality to theirs. Tasty goodness.

9. Take the Star ferry to cross between Kowloon and HK island. It costs HK$2.20 and takes about 10 minutes. Scenic, cheap and you get to cross a HK-must-do off the list. Compare that to HK$9 for a 2 minute ride between Tsim Sha Tsui station and Central in a train that goes under the water in an enclosed tunnel. I swear I could smell seawater when exiting the train at Central. Don’t even bother with taxis, there’s a HK$50 surcharge just to cross, apparently.

10. Coffee junkies, bring your own stash of instant coffee. The local variety sucks so bad. You know how the actors on HK dramas always seem to order “lai cha”, thereby implying that it doesn’t taste of dishwater? It does. Tea with milk never tasted so bad.

Kowloon hotel has pretty decent rooms. Don't expect enough room to do the waltz in, but it fits two single beds pretty snugly. With about a foot of space btwn them. And the Tv doubles as an LCD monitor. Real multi-function space savers, these HK-ers.

I have pictures, but they’re mainly of the squalor (very interesting, hence their 60% starring role on my camera) of those pigeonholes they call apartments above rather modern shopfronts. I’ve been too lazy to download them though, so this will have to do.