We took the long taxi ride from the airport to Tsim Sha Tsui in Kowloon on Canton Road, near the Temple Street Market.  All four of us squeezed into our new home for the next few days.  A single room apartment with a fold-out futon with IKEA decor.  The outlets were British but all the appliances were a mix of Australian and USA plugs.

Family is the first priority

We had not seen Gugu (姑姑), Sharleen’s aunt in over twenty years.  Gugu had been very good to Sharleen and her mom when they left Canton for Hong Kong.

Gugu came over almost as soon as we arrived and Sharleen and her had some time to catch up.  Ever the host, she insisted on taking us out to dinner with her daughter Vivian and Vivian’s boyfriend, Nicky.  They found a great local restaurant where we could sink our chopsticks into some food.  As is the usual tradition in our family, our eyes were bigger than our stomachs and we ordered far more than we could eat:

• Teem Soon Pi Gwut
• Teem Soon Donque and Fugi soup
• Gao choi fa (韭 菜 花)
• Choi Sum (菜心)
• Donque Choi (蘑菇 菜)
• Daofu Choi (豆 腐 菜)
• Ha Dan

And a few others I didn’t get the names of.  The cook came out and talked with people in the dining area, and all of us ate far more than we should have.

Hong Kong time was also an adjustment for us.  We are usually in bed by 9 at the latest and up at 7AM.  However, we didn’t even go out eat until 8PM.  We were all real tired by the time we got back from a late evening dinner.

The next day after a slow start, we went out visit with Gugu.  She lives near the Hong Kong Gold Coast with her 16 dogs: Poodles and Pomeranians and one retriever.  It was one loud mass of barking chaos with the house divided into older dogs and younger dogs and dogs that would and would not bite.  Many were friendly and the girls were in dog heaven.

GuGu had some fruit trees in the back and we ate the jackfruit.  It tasted like a cross between banana and pineapple.  Delicious.

We went out to eat one more time nearby.  Still full from the night before, we ordered half of the previous night and it was still too much.