Another clear day greeted us this morning as we got up just a little later than yesterday and headed up for breakfast. Then it was back to the metro to meet up with the Hop on / Hop off bus. Today we’d planned to take the ‘Green Route’ which goes to the village of Stanley on the south side of the island. It takes about an hour by the bus winds about past the Happy Valley racecourse and the Ocean Park aquarium and theme park, the worlds 13th most visited theme park (according to Wikipedia).
The road is very scenic as it winds around the mountainsides through Repulse Bay. There are unconfirmed suggestions that this was where a British naval operation took place to ‘repulse’ local pirates that were severely impacting British trade at the time. We stopped at the town on Stanley, which was the initial British settlement on Hong Kong Island.
Stanley was also the last place that was defended by British and Canadian soldiers prior to the Japanese occupation in December 1941. It is now a tourist market town and it’s redeveloped waterfront has plenty of eating options as well. Being Monday, it was fairly quiet and some of the market stores were closed.
We had some lunch at the most air-conditioned place we could see, which happened to serve Californian Mexican food, so not quite local fare. As we strolled around the markets I saw a person who looked a lot like one of the vendor reps I’d been talking to prior to coming on holidays. When he greeted me like an old friend, I realised he was indeed the same person. It does go to show, that you’ve always got to be a little prepared no matter how far away you think you are!
After lunch we walked over to ‘Murray House’ which now sits along this waterfront development and houses restaurants and a H&M store. It was the centre for British command in Victoria Harbour, but was removed, block by block from its original location in 1982 to facilitate the construction of the HSBC building. In the 1990s it was rebuilt at Stanley, the only problem being that once rebuilt there were 6 columns left over, that now stand in front of the building.
We caught the bus back to the ferry terminal and made our way back to the hotel. Debbie went off to get a foot massage, while I grabbed a 15 minute power-nap. Being a sucker for a decent sunset, we went to the Club Lounge on level 41 and watched the day’s light fade away.
To close out the day, we went to the ‘cash-only’ dumpling place that we’d intended to visit the first night. They serve an astonishing range of different styles of dumpling with lots of different fillings. The best were a Baked Bun with Barbecue Pork. We’d not had something like that before, but there were like Steamed Pork Buns, but crispy on the outside.
We tried 3 or 4 other things on the menu that were all pretty good as well. Once we were full and finished we paid our $20 Aussie dollars and came back to the hotel for an early night as we’re aiming for a bright start in the morning.
Until Tomorrow!
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