Soho, Lan Kwai Fong and The Globe Pub

(Day 8 continued from the previous post)

On arrival back in the city, we wasted no time in making our way straight into Soho, where we walked through a street market on a steep mount. As I’ve said before, Hong Kong is alive with markets, open day and night. This brought us into the heart of Lan Kwai Fong, which is the most lively district of the city.

When in Kowloon, we thought that Tsim Sha Tsui was a lively place, but Lan Kwai Fong is just crazy. There are hidden nooks and crannies everywhere, with hundreds of bars. And a lot of the bars are not just crappy, dirty places with hardly any beer selection. There are a lot of great bars in Lan Kwai Fong.

One pub we found, near a steep flight of steps, was Cochrane’s, which I found to be the third outlet of the Hong Kong Brewing Company, selling its tasty craft beers as well as scores of Belgian and American ales. We ironically had an English beer there – Oxfordshire Pride of Oxford. Cochrane’s, like the Hong Kong Brew House, is alive with beer culture.

But that was merely on the way to The Globe, which was the final pub I really wanted to visit in Hong Kong. It was alleged to have a fantastic selection of world beers, and they were right! The pub has a semi wooden façade, and upon entering, it’s everything you’d expect from a great pub. It was small and not too brightly lit, and it had several taps, featuring some great beers, including the Belgian De Konnick.

But the best thing was the bottled beer selection. They sell a wide range of quite rare Belgian beers. We began with a Belhaven McCallum’s Stout, which is an unbelievable delicious Scottish stout, followed by Ramee Ambree, from Belgium, and a few more beers, bringing us to quite a late hour.

We stayed up late in the hotel room drinking a wide array of beers and ciders we’d found around the shops and supermarkets. That was our final night in the hotel, and in Hong Kong. We were all set for the next big leg of the journey… Singapore!

Discovery Bay, Tung Chung and Tai O

(Day 8 continues from the previous post)

Only a few minutes’ walk from the ferry terminal in Discovery Bay is Discovery Plaza. Everything is just so pristinely clean, and the sun was beating down. For an hour or more we walked around the town, and ended up in McSorley’s Ale House, on Discovery Plaza. It’s a traditional Irish pub selling its own house beer, McSorley’s Ale, which was delicious. The pub has a friendly cat, who wouldn’t leave me alone.

I noticed there are a lot of ex-pats in Discovery Bay. Indeed, I got the vibe that it’s directed toward the English. I can’t blame English people for coming to live there, because it’s just lovely. Very small, but very nice.

I wanted to check out another town on Lantau Island, and I really didn’t know the difference between any of the array of town names I saw on maps, so I suggested we get the bus all the way to the end of the line, at Tung Chung. I thought it would be a good opportunity to travel right across the island.

Buses there are efficient, but in truth we didn’t see much nature on the way to Tung Chung. One thing we did notice was that Lantau has its own version of The Peak mountain, and there is even a cable car you can get to the top. We didn’t do that, and instead alighted at in Tung Chung, which is the nearest town to Hong Kong airport.

We found very little there – just a few big ugly high-rises and a town square with a fountain. We made our way through the giant shopping centre and went into Taste supermarket to buy an Australian cider, before catching the train all the way back into Hong Kong City.

Ideally, I would have liked to catch the bus from Tung Chung to Tai O, which is alleged to be the most tradition town on the island - almost untouched by modern life. It’s a small Chinese-style fishing village with narrow street and quaint shops and eateries. It’s a pity we didn’t get there, but it was getting quite late by now, and Tai O is apparently a remote town.

(Day 8 is concluded in the next post)

Lantau Island, Ferries, and Discovery Bay

There are lots of islands surrounding Hong Kong. Indeed, aside from the Kowloon Peninsula, all the rest of the country is composed of islands – more than 200, I think. It’s almost an archipelago, but it’s not officially one.

On Day 8, we decided to go to another island. The next biggest island to Hong Kong Island is Lantau. It was either this or Lamma Island, just to the south, but since we really didn’t know what to expect either way, we settled on the largest of the two. A few days later, someone we met told us we really should have gone to Lamma Island, but hey, we had a good time.

We travelled on the tram to Central and walked to the ferry terminal. After having been to Macau a few days earlier, going through security checks in a maze of a terminal, we were a bit dubious that inter-island ferries might not be simple, but it was incredibly easy. You can get on ferries between the islands of Hong Kong as easily as you can get on a tram.

It didn’t cost much for the ticket, and it was only about 20 minutes to Lantau Island. The island used to be surrounded by a lot more mystique than it is these days. The fact that it’s now connected to Hong Kong Island by a train link has taken away this quality. However it still features an array of diverse small, quaint towns.

We landed in the town of Discovery Bay, which I thought was absolutely beautiful. The town is characterised by a horse-shoe bay and a small beach. There appeared to be two peninsulas, one residentially zoned and the other containing a mass of restaurants, shops, squares and pubs.

(Day 8 is continued in the next post)

Peak Tower, Bubba Gump and Hong Kong Brew House

You can walk all around the roof of the Peak Tower. From one perspective, you can see all the way down to Hong Kong City, across the Harbour, and much of Kowloon. Even the country’s tallest skyscraper is far below you. It’s a pity the air was so thick with moisture, or the view into the far distance would have been even more magnificent.

From the other sides of the tower, you can look onto the mountain itself, and onto the small town that is The Peak. I often wondered who lives up there and the types of views they’d have onto their country every minute of every day. It must be amazing. Also, there were hundreds of huge dragonflies flying all about us.

We headed back down the tower and it was time for a beer. It was lucky, then, that we found Bubba Gump. You might remember that name from a popular movie – Forest Gump. Indeed, it a shrimp restaurant stroke pub completely dedicated to Forest Gump, even going so far as to have the trademark bench just by the entrance, which presents a great photo opportunity.

We had a Tsingtau in there, then headed all the way town The Peak Tower to the town square at the foot of it. Just across the road is a pub called The Lookout. It has a great patio looking down onto the side of the mountain, but it’s extremely expensive.

Before heading back to the tram, we began heading down one of the many paths that lead down the mountain. I noticed several paths snaking their way up and down the mountain. I personally would have braved one of them, but my dad wasn’t of the same mind. I did however walk partway down the path we chose, and there are some great forest views there. Absolutely breath-taking.

After a smooth descent, we didn’t even go back to the hotel, deciding instead to head straight into town to look for the Hong Kong Brew House, which is the other outlet for the island’s brewery. We tried their rare Rickshaw Porter, as well as polished off the American microbrews. We drank absolutely everything the place has to offer. The best beers in town, and a must for any visitor.

The Peak and the Historic Peak Tram.

Much of Hong Kong (and indeed its surroundings, extending well into China) has a landscape of rolling hills and mountains completely covered by forest. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of Cairns and north-eastern Queensland, Australia.

Hong Kong City rests huddled against the harbour behind a huge mountain. On Day 7, our second day staying in the city, we took a cheap tram halfway to Central and headed for the Peak Tram depot. The Peak Tram takes thousands of people each day smoothly to the top of the mountain.

It costs thirty-odd Hong Kong dollars for a return ticket, plus about fifteen dollars more to get a Peak Lookout ticket. In total, the experience cost us the equivalent of about £3 each. It’s more than worth it, believe me!

The view, even partway up the mountain, was breathtaking. It’s quite steep, and some of it almost feels like a roller coaster. It’s about a 15-minute ride up to the top, where there is basically a small town called The Peak, dominated by a huge tower, appropriately called The Peak Tower.

The tram took us directly into the tower, which is full of big-brand shops, as well as some bars and restaurants, one of which was quite a find, and I’ll tell you about it shortly. There is a complex of escalators trailing up and down the tower, and we made our way up and up.

The top floor is the highest you can go without having the extra ticket to go all the way to the top. We took the final escalator all the way up to the roof of the tower. And I’ll tell you something… you don’t often have the opportunity to be in the presence of such breath-taking and awe-inspiring beauty.

Wan Chai, Trams, and the East End Brewery

Wan Chai, just next to Causeway Bay, has lots of bars, pubs, cafes and restaurants. Apart from Central, it’s probably the most happening place in Hong Kong.

The East End Brewery is just off the main road with the trams, and not far past the big park. It sells a small number of beers (two to four) craft beers from the Hong Kong Beer Company, as well as lots of Belgian beers and about 20 different American microbrews. It’s very impressive! The place gets very busy, but we got there nice and early.

By the time we finally escaped the place, it was dark, so we took the opportunity to catch the tram back to the hotel. Trams are reliable and very plentiful on Hong Kong Island. They’re double-decker and very small, and they can get very packed. The great thing is that you can go anywhere in the city for only HK$2, equivalent to about 16 pence!

We concluded Day 6 with a few beers in the hotel room. We managed to buy quite a few beers from local supermarkets. As I think I’ve mentioned before, the mainstay supermarket throughout Hong Kong is called Wellcome (intentionally spelt wrongly, I assume). Most items are quite cheap. Most things are inexpensive in this country.

Causeway Bay and Hong Kong Beer Company

We were back in Hong Kong the next day, courtesy of the ferry from Macau to the huge ferry terminal in the north west of Hong Kong Island, not too far from Central. However, our hotel, Newton Hotel, was located to the north east of the island, on Electric Road.

The distance from Central wasn’t a problem, because the entire city has so much to offer. In addition, the hotel we stayed in was good for a budget.

I never go to a new city without researching it first. When I say researching, you probably know by now what I’m referring to. Yes… beer! I’d found that there were three brewpubs on the island, but it turned out they aren’t actually brewpubs. There is one microbrewery at the other side of the island (in the Aberdeen region, which is alleged to be a very nice seaside place, but we didn’t end up going there). The microbrewery is called the Hong Kong Beer Company, and what I thought were brewpubs were actually outlets for the brewery.
But it was no loss, because we were very impressed with the East End Brewery, near the border between the Causeway Bay and Wan Chai areas, not far from our hotel. Causeway Bay is a nice area, but has a lot of offices blocks.