With getting back to the hotel at midnight the night before, we didn’t end up going lights out until 1:30am, so we slept in a bit this morning and the girls knew we would just plan on meeting them later, but we didn’t really have a specific agenda for Friday. Their plan was to get up and go do a hike on Lamma Island (known for great hikes and pretty beaches) in the morning before it got hot, as they are early risers, this seemed like a good plan.
I heard from Shelly around 9:30am with a text. She was showing me pictures of what it was like on the MTR at rush hour. I texted her back after I saw the pictures, ‘This is every nightmare of Asia, I always imagined.’ Up until this point, I hadn’t really experienced crushing crowds. I mean, sure, traveling around the MTR stations did feel a bit like spawning up stream with the other salmon all going the same direction. You needed to keep pace, know where you were going and step out of the way, if you were unsure. The efficiency of this process only works if folks are all minding the unexpressed rules of getting around. Once, I saw an elderly woman fall in the midst of the chaos, and it was nice to see that everything froze in that moment and every commuter around her stopped to help and make sure she was okay. I loved watching how they take care of their elderly so well. Not just in this situation but in many others I observed.
Shelly and Amy T had ended up meeting up with Amy T’s friend, Ashley, in the morning and then headed over to Lamma Island. Amy T texted us around 11am to give us an update on what they were doing and options for the afternoon. She said her friend, Ashley, suggested there is an opportunity to rent bikes on the Island and bike from one end of the island to the other end of the island, along different paths.
Conceptually, this sounded like a great idea and we were both trying to figure out if we were up for a train ride to an Island, then bike rides, then coming back and getting ready for another dinner SoHo (we wanted to take the girls out this night as a thank you for all their excellent tour guide offerings this week).
Amy T and Shelly still hadn’t got to the Island and were going to do a hike before bike rides. We still had time to decide what we wanted to do and what we might feel like doing once we got going. About an hour later they texted and the said they had just got to the trailhead and were staring their hike. We were still in our beds just lounging and looking at our phones, reading etc. No Dodger game today so I had the morning off. Ha, ha. But it felt luxurious not to push ourselves to have to be anywhere. Sometimes you just need a morning off and no plan.
About an hour later Shelly texted us and said, ‘It’s a fishing village and no “cars” allowed. It’s really cool to see, but may not be worth your travel to get here in the sense that it would take us an hour from where we were at to get to the place to take the ferry, and the ferry schedule isn’t as regular as the train schedule, we’d have to align the arrival train time with the departing ferry time, etc.’ Bottom line, she communicated, if we were tired and would rather just stay on Hong Kong Island, they understood, but if we were up for adventure come. She helped us really confirm a no with ‘Also, this trip would involve a lot of seat and DEET bug spray. Still a really cool hike.’
We were very appreciative of the updates and understanding the reality of the energy required and effort involved to get to that island and what we might see and experience once we arrived. It was the last day of our trip before we traveled home, and Amy B and I were good with a rest day at a coffee shop so I could blog and she could read and then enjoy a nice dinner with the girls. That sounded like a perfect plan so I found a coffee shop in SoHo that seemed really easy to find and about .2 miles from the Metro stop.
By now it was about 2pm, and we hadn’t had anything to eat yet. And I hadn’t had coffee. So we were hoping this coffee shop, that looked like it had nice ambiance to hang out in and a great menu, would be easy to find. Not so much. We walked around a good 1/2 hour trying to find it, and Google Maps doesn’t always work so great in foreign countries in helping you find a place when you are trying to walk around. Your little ‘dot’ avatar on the map keeps jumping around, even if you aren’t moving. It is maddening. I get on my phone and go on the website for the coffee chain and look up the store again to confirm the address and then I see it ‘We’ve moved! Opening soon in a new location.’ Ugh The perils of finding a place to go on Yelp and not actually going to the official website.
I did have a back-up coffee shop and Amy says, ‘Let’s just find a Taxi to take us there, I’m getting very hungry and it is so hot.’ I say okay and we start looking for a Taxi, every one that goes by us is full and we saw about 20 taxis. She asked me if I knew where the Metro station was from where we were and I start looking at my phone to find out. Then she taps my shoulder, and – what do you know – it was right in front of us. We decided to get on the Metro and go one stop back, where the other coffee shop was going to be and test our skills in finding that place without Amy T. To this point, we hadn’t really been paying attention to details at all because Amy T had it covered and led us around. We just enjoyed the sights and following her lead. Now that we were figuring it out, it took much more focus.
We ended up back at the Central stop and pretty easily found the coffee shop we were looking for. It was very close to where we were the night before at dinner, so it didn’t seem hard at all to find it. Once inside, it definitely had a very modern industrial look to it with tiny tiny tables. So tiny, we pushed two together to try to make one table. Amy says, ‘hmm, I don’ t think you’ll be doing much blogging here.’
They did serve LEGIT cappuccinos, and when Amy tried to order her tea iced, the limited English speaking guy helping us said, no they don’t serve tea iced. She said okay, well, can I have a glass full of ice with my hot tea, he said, ‘No.’ She asked again, explaining with gestures, to make sure he understood. His eyes lit up, ‘Yes, we can do that.’ Problem solved. She also was asking him if the tea was decaffeinated, he looked at her confused and she asked to see the bag of tea leaves and she was able to confirm, yes, no caffeine.
We ordered some breakfast items and coffee and tea and took a seat to decide what we were going to do. Amy brought some reading and before I started blogging, I wanted to get a few cards written out that I had bought earlier in the week and also had stamps for. As we were leaving the following day, today was my last chance to get it done. As it turned out, it took a while to write the cards, so I never did get to blogging.
We spent about an hour there enjoying every taste of what we were served. They really did a great job with their menu items. It was also fun to people watch and see the hipster Hong Kongers popping in here on a Friday afternoon for a chat and a cup of coffee. It is so enjoyable to experience the coffee culture around the world and to see it really is pretty similar, no matter where you go.
Around 4:30pm we left the coffee shop and decided to walk to the place we were going to meet Shelly and Amy T for dinner. It was another Will recommendation, Yardbird. He said before he went to Hong Kong and was asking people not miss places to eat, this was another name that kept coming up with every person he talked to, Yardbird. I looked at Trip Advisor and they advised, since they don’t take reservations, if you don’t want a 90-minute wait, get there 30 minutes before when they open at 6:00pm and you won’t have a wait. We agreed to get there early to wait in line and have the girls meet us a 6pm.
We enjoyed the walk over to the restaurant and taking in our final afternoon in Hong Kong. We felt rested and ready for our long journey home on Saturday. On the way, we stopped in to Starbucks and picked up collector coffee mugs that said Hong Kong. It’s a thing now, I have Starbucks coffee mugs from Rio de Janeiro, France, Canada, India, and now Hong Kong. Some people collect shot glasses or t-shirts, me, I collect these international coffee mugs – as does Amy B. They go for a nice resale price on eBay. I saw the Rio one priced at $60 recently.
We arrived at the restaurant at 5:15pm, and decided to just be early. They had little chairs for you to sit on as you waited in line. In reality, people didn’t show to start getting in line until about 5:50pm and when they opened we were first in line. About 5:55pm, we heard from the girls who said their taxi still hadn’t arrived, the one they had ordered for a 5:40pm pick up. Apparently there was a taxi shortage this evening so they were having challenges. We tried to get a table without them at 6pm and the hostess was firm that we had to have our full party there before they could seat us. We really couldn’t do much about that or the fact that the girls were having a challenge getting there, They invited us to wait up at their bar and order some drinks. We enjoyed our time interacting with the bartenders and other staff members and it didn’t seem like too long at all before the girls arrived, looking lovely in two dresses.
They still had a nice booth for us that they were trying to hold and we were quickly attended to once we were seated, explaining the restaurant, and the share plate style of service. Yardbird is a chicken place that serves all parts of the chicken – and when I say all parts I mean all parts as the picture of the menu below shows. They also have some killer side dishes that were recommended on TripAdvisor as well as by our server. We decided to let our server just decide what to bring us – giving us a good sampling of their top menu items, but no weird stuff – like gizzards, etc.
Diners are encouraged to order small plates to be split across the table. Canadian head chef Matt Abergel takes a beak-to-tail approach in the kitchen, skewering every part of the chicken to make his yakitori, from neck and heart to knee and tail. Yakitori is a Japanese type of skewered chicken. Its preparation involves skewering the meat and grilling over a charcoal fire. During or after cooking, the meat is typically seasoned with tare sauce or salt. Chicken aside, there were plenty of punchy flavors in the other dishes we tried such as the KFC (Korean fried cauliflower) and sweet corn tempura they served in a little ball. Shelly and I were trying to figure out how they prepared this keeping the corn together as it was fried but not overcooking it? Amy T said, ‘this is like a corn pomegranate.’ So true!
They also had great cocktails and an extensive sake list. With hip young staff and loud music and it’s no surprise that Yardbird has been a smash hit with Hong Kong’s in-crowd. Apparently, people are willing to wait in line for hours to get a table at the no-reservations restaurant, which has a cool urban interior design, floor-to-ceiling windows, old-school wooden bar stools and sleek black table-tops.
This was a perfect ending to our week in Hong Kong and we all really enjoyed the experience at this hot spot. Preeti, a women that worked there that Amy and I had befriended when we were waiting for our table, realized we were leaving. She said, ‘No, please come to the bar, I want to buy you all drinks.’ She seemed like manager or something, so we headed over that way. Amy T and Shelly were pretty tired by now with their early start and full day of hiking and exploring, they decided to pass on the nightcap and headed back to their hotel in a taxi. We said our goodbyes there as we wouldn’t see them again until we got back to the U.S.A. They had an earlier flight than we did and were heading to Japan in the morning where they had 2 more nights of their trip left there.
Preeti then called Amy and I over and the nightcap turned out to be a huge shot of sake with several bartenders and Preeti gathered around. Apparently it was her birthday and she wanted to celebrate by sharing a shot with us, and I’m sure many other customers that she had picked out that evening. It was a great shot of premium sake and it was the perfect night cap.
When we were done, I asked Amy B if she wanted to head back over to Quinary for one more look at that scene with the talented bartenders. I felt like that one bartender was expecting to see me so he could make me another special drink. We pondered for about 2 minutes and decided, we were good. We were full, had just had a nightcap and probably heading back to get started on packing, etc. and wrap things up before our journey home tomorrow was the course of wisdom.