Stanley

In Korea, our bathrooms always had showers that were attached to the sink. There was no stand alone stall or curtain to separate the space. We dealt with it and we got used to it. On Saturday morning, when we woke up in our shoebox sized room at Chungking Mansion the shower situation was similar. Except at this place the shower wasn't attached above the sink, it was above the toilet. We had fun trying to work the angles of the shower nozzle so that we didn't have to wash while sitting directly on the toilet, and then it was time to check out for the day and leave our mansion behind.

We decided to drop our backpacks off in a locker at Sheung Wan station where we'd catch the ferry back to China at the end of the day anyway. After getting rid of our bags, we got a decent breakfast at "Oliver's Super Sandwiches" in the Shun Tak Center before catching a bus from Central to Stanley, our destination for the day.

The bus was a double decker, and we sat on top. It was cool to travel around Hong Kong by bus instead of by subway for once, because we got to see some different parts of the city and map things out in our heads a little better. After we left the city, the trip became very hilly and steep. Usually, we were driving along cliff sides looking straight down at beautiful beaches and bright blue water. There's something about being in a double decker bus, though, that makes you feel like you're constantly going to die. It always feels like the bus is about to tip over and roll down the cliff. We also hit trees all along the drive- it's a wonder there's any leaves left!

The bus let us off at Stanley Plaza. We weren't sure if it was the right stop, but some nice ladies from the NY Times told us it was and how to find the market we were looking for. The plaza is a compact, 4 or 5 story shopping mall and this was the view from where we were let off. How un-Hong Kong does that look? It was a really pretty area. We shopped in the plaza for a little while- there's a great import store there called Taste- and then walked down to Stanley Market.

The market is a decent sized series of alley ways and small shops selling the regular HK market stuff: magnets, paintings, bags and t-shirts. I thought this was probably the suckiest market we've visited. Every stall seemed to be selling the same things, the products seemed outdated, like they'd been gathering dust in Stanley for years, and the prices were really high. There wasn't a single item I was interested in or thought "oh that's a fair price". Skip it!

The one noteworthy product in Stanley market.

After 15 minutes of looking around the market we decided to walk over to St. Stephen's Beach. It's about a 10 minute walk along the coast from the market. We'd both completely forgot and left our bathing suits in the locker back in Sheung Wan so we couldn't swim. Even though the water wasn't that warm, it was swimmable, and the temperature was close to 30. It would have been nice!

Another shot of the beach. As you can see, other than a few other people we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Even if you aren't swimming, there's something relaxing about being on the beach. We loved it.

There is exactly one restaurant on the beach, The Lanai, and it actually turned out to have great food. I got a big plate of nachos with guac and sour cream with a beer for $10 and Mel got fish and chips. Sitting in the sun, on a beach, drinking a beer- this is pretty far from October in Canada!

I took this picture on our walk back from the beach towards the plaza. Hong Kong, as well as where we live in Shenzhen, is so green and tropical. We love it. Sometimes it just feels like you're living in the jungle, especially when there are proper vines hanging from the trees!

We passed by a random group of people dancing along to Gangnam Style...

This is the "strip" in Stanley. The market in the alleyways between those buildings and there's a bunch of restaurants along the water too.

There was a trail that led to a park and a temple, but on our way to the temple we had to beware of snake. When you see a sign like this, everything looks like snake! In the 2 minute walk we passed by a hose, hundreds of long, dangling ferns, and dozens of exposed tree roots that were extremely snake-like.

An offering left at the temple.

Inside the temple.

After picking some things up at the Taste import store, we caught an express bus back to Causeway Bay so we could go to the Jason's Supermarket we'd seen yesterday.

We went to Jason's and got salted caramel mochas at the Starbucks in the basement. They had wifi and we had some extra time, so I decided to search for something to do. I wanted to see if there were any Daisos in Hong Kong and, if so, were there any close by? Daiso is an awesome Japanese dollar store we used to shop at all the time in Korea and Taiwan. They really have everything you're looking for, all the stuff that's so overpriced in China. Turns out, Daiso in Hong Kong is called "Jusco Living Plaza" and there was one about 10 minutes from us. Sweet! Off we went...

They had the neck gel we were looking for.

Men's lipstick.

Mat for earthquake... like I said, everything you need! We bought a bunch of stuff- a bike tire pump, some wine glasses, tea lights and a tea light burner... lots of good stuff.

We also bought a freezer bag so we could get some cold items from Jason's and bring them back to China without too much meltage. We got some chicken pies, potato skins, guacamole, and lots of cheap British chips and chocolate that we can't get in Shenzhen. I love being able to get cheap British imports from Hong Kong- we really like Haribo candies, Cadbury chocolate and Walker's crisps! Also, something we noticed that was kind of funny, a lot of the health claims on the American products were blacked out with marker. If your health claims don't fly in a Chinese country, you know you have issues!

We went back to Sheung Wan to collect our backpacks from the locker. One thing I have to post about that is so annoying at these lockers is that they only take $10 HKD coins and you need like 6 of them to use a locker for a day. So, basically, no one has that many $10 coins and you will always need change. Well, a nearby newsstand has taken advantage of this. Although there is a change machine there, it is always mysteriously unplugged (we've used these lockers 3 times over a 2 month period and it's alwayyyyys unplugged) and the only place to get change on the whole floor is the newsstand and they always make you buy something. I have bought so much gum from that stupid store.

We were a little freaked as we boarded our ferry back to Shenzhen: the boat was rocking up and down so much you'd think it was sitting in white water rapids (the water was nearly still). I can't explain the science behind it, but when we started moving the boat leveled out and it was a good trip. It was time to pig out on all our HK goodies and pet our cat. And the best part of all: it was only Saturday- we still had a whole full day off to be lazy and hang out before school started for the week.