Hiking through High Junk Peak Country Trail

In a city with over 7 million people, it's a challenge to find a quiet spot away from the crowds. That's why I love to go hiking on the weekends. Hong Kong's rugged landscapes and natural environments are often overshadowed by its night-life and shopping. But Hong Kong actually has over 50 different scenic hiking trails that vary in difficulty and terrain. Since Hong Kong is a coastal city the view of the marine areas at different points during the hike really is beautiful.

I've gone hiking a couple of times this year in the Spring and early Summer, but I like hiking in the Autumn best. The weather is warm but breezy and more importantly the humidity low (<50%).

CharK and I started at the High Junk Peak Country Trail entrance just off Clear Water Bay Road and followed the trail to the Pavillion. It was our first time through this trail and stopped to take a lot of photos along the way. It really helped that we had seen some photographs of the trail before hand, from www.hike.hk This is a fantastic site which features many of HK's trails, and the owner offers some good descriptions of the landmarks to watch for on your hike. Our hike was about half of the length of the entire trail and we took about 1.5 hours...pretty slow but we took a lot of photos along the way and spent some time to enjoy the scenery.

The main entrance to the High Junk Peak Country Trail on Clear Water Bay Road (Photo: CathC)

We headed in the attempted to head to大廟 (Photo: CathC)

Typical hiking trail--lots of stairs and rocks (Photo:CathC)

The trail had a wide variety of vegetation include this young bamboo trees (Photo:CathC)

The houses look very picturesque from up here. You can even see they carved out a corner of the mountain for the house on the top right corner (Photo: CathC)

A view of the latest developments in Lohas Park from the trail (Photo:CharK)

The HK government takes care of these hiking trails and they've placed a series of distance posts along the trail to help you find your way (Photo: CathC)

We exited the trail here and ended up back onto Clear Water Bay Road (Photo: CathC)

My favourite view during the hike. We looking in the direction of Port Shelter (Photo: CathC)

There is still another half to this trail that I'd to come back and finish. This part of the hike is famous for the amazing view of the Clear Water Bay beaches. After that hike it'd be nice to head down to the beach too. Autumn is turning out to be one of my favourite time of the year...

Walking around Whampoa

Hung Hom is a pretty eclectic nighbourhour in the southeast region of the Kowloon Peninsula. There's a variety of traditional HK cafes, dessert houses, and independent shops up and down Tak Man Street (德民街). At the end of the street is the Whampoa Garden which consists of residential buildings and over 300 shops, including a boat-shaped shopping centre known simply as the Whampoa.

The boat themed shopping centre at Whampoa Garden (Photo:CathC)

Apparently a there's a large Japanese immigrants and expatriate population living in the Whampoa expatriats, which explains the good mix of Western/Asian/fusion restaurants and shops. For dinner tonight CharK and I went to Ant One-a nice restaurant with both a unique menu and friendly service.

I'd classify Ant One as a fusion restaurant that draws inspiration from Italian and East Asian cuisines. They serve dishes like salads, pastas, pizza dishes--with softshell crabs, peking duck, and laksa. My favourite dish of the night was their peking duck spring onion pancake (known as a puffy pastry "pizza" on the menu). The overall combination with the salty spring onion and fragrant duck was delicious; it was slightly odd tasting biting into parts where there was only cheese.

Interesting fusion between the East and West--a spring onion pancake topped with mozzarella and peking duck (Photo: CathC)

Another interesting combination was the soft-shell crab pasta in a laksa sauce (Photo:CathC).

Even just a little bit of the sesame vinaigrette dressing seem to cover most of the taste of smoked salmon dragonfruit salad, so this was just an ok tasting salad to me.

If you know me, I can have desserts for any meal of the day (I'd happily start the day with a slide of leftover  pie or spongecake). So I was really happy to end my meal with this yummy green tea Crème brûlée. The green tea was fragrant but not too overpowering as it can get in some green tea desserts.

A creamy dessert to end the night (Photo:CathC)

I know a lot of people aren't fans of fusion cuisine because the dishes often turn out to be a jumbled mix of ingredients that don't taste good together. But tonight's dinner proved to be an tasty exception. I'm glad we stumbled on this place during our trek around Hung Hom.

Vacationing in Sai Kung

Sai Kung is generally pretty removed from the rest of the city and is a nice getaway spot from the hustle and bustle of daily life. CharK and I like coming here on weekends for brunch at one of the local cafés. The fall is a great time for sitting on patio and we had a nice lunch at the Ali Oli Bakery this past weekend. I recommend the Shepard's pie, it's homemade and has a delicious beef and carrots filling. The chocolate granola bar is also one of my favourite desserts of theirs.

A chocolate-y granola bar from Ali Oli Bakery (Photo:CathC)

 After lunch we walked along the shore, and came across two cows and a calf eating grass. They apparently live in the mountains nearby and often block roads during the weekday traffic. Sai Kung is decently populated and the cows have adapted to all the traffic and people so they pretty much ignore all of people walking up to them to take photos.

Mom's eating while the calf sleeps nearby (Photo:CathC)

Even though we see these cows in the news periodically (related to traffic jams) people are still surprised to see them up close. Most people living here city folk after all.

I wasn't the only one taking photos of these cows (Photo: CathC)

Eventually, these cows moved into the parking lot after they had their fill of grass. Their moo-ing really echoed inside the parking lot too (Photo:CathC).

As we were walking around, a scent of roasted chestnuts filled the air. There use to be a lot of more of these street vendors in HK but the streetfood culture is slowly evolving into small shops and designated food districts instead. The vendor was saying business was slow for him that day. But in addition to chestnuts, he also roasted yams. And after we came back around 20 minutes late, we saw most of him yams were sold as well. So I guess the day wasn't all bad for him.

Typical HK street stalls--roasted yams and chestnuts (Photo:CathC)

These chestnuts are roasted in a big wok filled with sugar and coal (Photo:CathC)

Not only do tourists come to Sai Kung for seafood but turns out a lot of locals do as well. It's a very popular place for water sports like surfing and snorkling. Can't wait to come back here for another weekend getaway and enjoy the beach.

A taste of home

I never would have thought I'd be able to watch a hockey game at a shopping mall. But since ice rinks are commonly found in malls here, they are natural places for a game. Last night was a pre-season game between the Hong Kong Tycoon and the Macau Aces. I was surprised by the quality of game: it was quick paced and really clean (barely checking). Both teams looked like they consisted mostly of ex-pats but there were a few Chinese players as well. According to the website, the hockey game is part of CIHL, the first full contact league in Hong Kong. Another interesting fact is that the league is modeled after Canada`s British Columbia Hockey league (BCHL).

Surprised to see RBC as an official sponsor for an HK event. But sponsoring hockey for a Canadian company  makes sense! (Photo:CharK)

Enjoyed being able to to watch a hockey game up close (Photo:CathC)

It really was the fast-paced game since each of the 3 periods were only 12 minutes. The Megabox rink also seemed smaller than the typical arenas in Toronto. After watching the game, I must say I felt a little homesick. I suddenly missed going skating with a cup of Tim Horton's hot smoothie in my hand. But CharK and I had a nice pizza/pasta dinner at the mall, where we could watch the hockey game from the restaurant.

It was a really close game, the Tycoons were leading the game but the Aces ultimately caught up and won the game 3-2.  (Photo: CathC)

Even though outdoor sports like football (soccer) are traditionally more popular HK, hockey is now gaining popularity in HK--possibly due to the growing number of ex-pats working here. Earlier in the afternoon I even saw a kid's hockey league playing at the Megabox rink. The kids looked like they were enjoying the game, and skated very naturally and handled the puck well. But the odd thing was that neither team had a goalie. I wonder why they chose to play like this?

Yesterday's game was exciting to watch and all of the weekly games will be played here from now until the end of March. So I'm glad to have found an event to go if ever CharK or I feel homesick. Since there's also an Ikea inside Megabox I know I can always come here to find familiar snacks and a taste of home...