Hailing a cab in Hong Kong and other things

Today's blog was supposed to be about another aspect of Hong Kong life, hailing cabs to get around.  But as I re-read it before publishing, it is another rambling discourse on my travels.  So, here goes...

When my son and I arrived at the Hong Kong airport, we found it very easy to get a cab, as is usual at airports.  We walked outside to the taxi stand, got in the taxi line and had a cab within 2 minutes.


For the next few days, we did not need a cab.  From the hotel on Kowloon, we walked to the Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade, to the Star Ferry to get to the funicular for Victoria Peak, to the Sampan cruise, etc.  Then, my son and I moved to Hong Kong Island.   We thought that the hotel in Kowloon would hail a cab for us, but they don't do that.  So, we went outside in front of the hotel to start the process.  There was already an Asian couple out there looking for a cab.  We went further down the line to wait our turn.   A cab stopped, the couple told the driver where they wanted to go and the driver said no.   The lady looked surprised and looked at us and said maybe he will take you where you want to go.  So, my son went up to the cab, looked in the window (the driver is on the right side of the car) and told him the name of the hotel and that it was located on Hong Kong Island.  Again, the driver said no and drove off.  Both the other couple and my son and I tried to hail down other cabs.  But as the cabs drove by, they shook their head "no" at us and kept speeding by.  My son noticed that there were more cabs on the other side of the street.  We went on the other side of this very busy street, Nathan Rd, and nothing.  We were right next to the Metro so I suggested that we take the Metro.  Of course, I had a very big and heavy suitcase and my son's was very light.   I felt I had to pack for many activities:  light clothes for sightseeing because it was hot and humid, hiking clothes and shoes, business casual clothes because my sister and my brother in law were taking everyone to the Four Season's hotel restaurant named Lung King Heen, which means "View of the Dragon".    Devin and I hiked Dragon's Back a few days later.  This is the beautiful cover of the menu from the restaurant.   A few days later, my son and I went to the Hong Kong Museum of Fine Arts and saw that there was a recurring theme in ancient art about a dragon chasing a pearl.  I wonder if that is what inspired this cover.

 

 

 

 This restaurant is the first Chinese restaurant in the world to receive 3 Michelin stars.  Below is a picture of bird's nest soup.  I had heard about this soup for a very long time and really wanted to try it.  I had always thought that it would be crunchy like the typical birds nests that you see in the trees.  Well, that is not what it is.  This is how About.com describes it:


Authentic bird's nest soup is made using the nests of the swiftlet, a tiny bird found throughout southeast Asia.  The swiftlet lives in dark caves, using a method of echolocation similar to the bat to get around. Instead of twigs and straw, the swiftlet makes its nest from strands of its own gummy saliva, which hardens when exposed to air.  Humans who harvest the swiftlet nests often come from families that have made their living this way for generations.  Prying the nests from the cave walls is extremely dangerous, and many harvesters die each year.
Once the nests are harvested, they are cleaned and sold to restaurants, where they are served simmered in chicken broth.

 

 

Here is a picture of it.  The bird's nest is the brown substance floating in the soup of almond cream.  To purchase bird's nest, they are around $2500/kg.  So, you can see why only a small amount is used.  When the waiter came around, I asked him how the birds nest were prepared for the soup  to make sure (i.e, was the hardened saliva cleaned up) that I would be OK with it.  He was really sweet describing the process and answering my questions and didn't act outraged or offended at the question. :)

 

 Here are some of the other dishes:

A pork belly:

 A foie gras dish:

Crushed chrysanthemum petals in gelatin:

 I didn't know ahead of time, but this turned out to be a belated birthday present (2013) for me!!!!  What an absolutely wonderful surprise and present!

 

 Well, I guess that I have really digressed from my cab stories.  I was trying to talk about why my suitcase was so big and digressed again onto my favorite topic, food and family.  :)  Back to the story...

 

 

 

The Dragon is the mountain range that my son and I would be hiking a few days from then.  Anyway, I needed nice clothes for that incredible restaurant.  I also needed hiking clothes for our hike of Dragon's Back with good hiking shoes. I had my huge bag of vitamins that I take everyday. I needed bathing suits for swimming.  (One of the reasons that I had picked our second hotel was because it had a gorgeous roof top swimming pool.  I thought that after our hikes and touring, we would come back to the hotel, have a nice relaxing swim and have cocktails on the roof looking over the city.  My son had been having a lot of stressful travelling for work and I thought that this would be perfect for him.  The only problem was that we never got back to the hotel early enough to use the pool at night.  It closed at 9:30 pm!!  :)  ) 

Long story to say that I had a big suitcase!  Even though my son had been travelling for a couple of weeks by the time we got to Hong Kong, he had a very small suitcase.  Go figure...  Anyway, he very sweetly volunteered to take care of my suitcase.  On one of my last few flights, the two rollers were badly damaged and now it no longer rolled properly on the streets.  And of course, going into the subway, he had to carry it up stairs going into the subway and then down stairs to get the tickets, then down more stairs to the train.  It was very sweet. 

The directions on the hotel website were to take the Metro to the Central station and then take a bus.  But we found out later that you could take a Metro to within a few blocks away.  Anyway, we took the Metro to cross the harbor and get in the general area of the hotel.  Then we thought we would take a cab.  That is when our cab odyssey began again.  I thought there would be cabs outside the station.  Well, there were rails all along the sidewalk there and we wouldn't be able to access a cab.  We walked to corner to try to hail a cab-that they would turn the corner and go to a safe location to stop.  Again, no luck.  They just whizzed by.  A lady came up to us and said that cabs could not stop there, but if we went to the building cattycornered to us, they would be able to stop.  So we went over there and started the process all over again.  No luck, just whizzed by.  A beautifully dressed Australian woman came up to us and explained that only certain cabs would be able to stop for us there.  They had to have a cardboard sign on their dashboard.  But they whizzed by so fast, I could never see the difference.  I suggested to my son that maybe we should walk over to the Mandarin Oriental hotel two blocks away and get the bellman there to hail one when out of the blue one stopped and agreed to take us to the hotel.  Hallelujah!!  I didn't see a cardboard sign on his dashboard so I don't know why he stopped. 

Our last adventure with hailing a cab occurred on our last touring day in Hong Kong.  We had spent most of the day getting to our hiking trail, hiking and getting back.  We decided to try a Szechuan restaurant that was recommended by a friend of my son's wife.  My son determined a Metro route that would get us into the area.  Then we began walking.  We walked and walked, up and over pedestrian overpasses over streets, over highways.  We tried to hail cabs, but again nothing.  We thought this was crazy!  Finally, we found the restaurant.  We decided that when we were leaving, we would ask the restaurant manager and also the police officer outside how to catch a taxi.  Well, to digress to food again....We ordered a bunch of interesting foods...Marinated wild mushrooms,   shrimp on a bed of cellophane noodles, and I ordered Szechuan spicy pork.  I would have loved to order a few glasses of wine after the walk, but I thought that I might have to have my wits about me if we could not hail a cab again and we had to walk all the way back again.  So, I just ordered a beer.  When the waitress brought the spicy pork dish out, I thought "Oh, no.....".  First of all, it was a BIG bowl, probably 20" in diameter and deep.  Secondly, the whole top of it was covered in chopped hot, red, chili peppers-not like the Szechuan at home where there are whole chili peppers scattered about that you can easily put to the side.  When the waiter saw our faces, he said that this was only a 2 in hotness.  They went up to 10.  So, he fished out the top layer of chili peppers.  :)  It was still very hot and I like hot foods.  I forgot to take pictures of this.  I think because I was so tired from our walk.  :)  Anyway, when we were finished eating, I felt revived, ready for our cab adventure. 

We asked the waitress about how to find a cab and she said to go around the corner to the front of the YMCA.  We asked a man downstairs (22 floors down) and he said the same thing.  We went around the corner and saw a line of people waiting for cabs.  We thought YES, we are finally in the right place.  We WILL get a cab!!!  And then the process started again.  Cabs would stop and let people off but say no to letting people on.  My son ran down the street to cabs letting people off at the corner and they said no.  Finally, some cabs stopped and the people in front of us got in.  We were next.  A cab comes by us slowly looking. He passes us up and the people at the end of the line get in.  I look at the girls in horror and she says "Sorry, I called him!" and motions to her phone.  My son has now resorted to using all kinds of hand motions to stop the cabs-holding out his arm,  waving in a sort of hacking motion, using 2 arms in sort of a "help" sign, on and on.  It was becoming so ridiculous, I started giggling.  I didn't let my son see it because I thought that he would think that I went off the deep end.  :)   Then.....a cab stops!!!  We just jumped in.  We didn't ask him if he would go.  We would just sort of have a "sit in".    We told him where we wanted to go.  He didn't know the hotel, but my son told him the nearest Metro which was a couple of blocks away.  The cab driver nodded his head and off we went!  I could not believe it!  We had successfully hailed a cab in Hong Kong! Luckily, our new hotel did have a concierge that WOULD hail a cab for the airport.  What a relief!

When writing this blog, I decided to look up what the proper techniques is for hailing cabs in Hong Kong.  It turns out that there are a series of rules.  They cannot stop at the side of the road that has double yellow lines between certain hours or single yellow lines between other hours.  They can drop off in some places, but cannot pick up there.
 double yellow lines are no pick-up, no drop zones even for taxis if they are 24-hour zones. If they are 7am to 12am, then they can only pick-up and drop-off between midnight and 7am. The rest of the day is off limits.
This is the suggestion from the CNN Travel website that I found.
To get a cab that is willing to cross the harbor, you could do the obvious and look for one of the rare signs for a cross-harbor taxi stand.
Or you could just randomly flag down cabs and have an awkward shouting negotiation through the car window with the driver who will be seated on the far side of the car.
Or use the cross-harbor arm wave.
Extend one arm in front of on-coming cab, use the hand and wrist to make an ocean wave motion, indicating that you want the cab to metaphorically brave the harbor waters.

Interesting...I never thought of mimicking a wave motion to go across the harbor.  To go to the airport, should I mimic flying? 

This is what the Geoexpat website said as to how to hail a cab to go cross harbor:
If you want to go cross harbour (through a tunnel) make a "walk like an Egyptian" type gesture to indicate that you want to go through the cross harbour tunnel.

I don't quite get the connection between the "walk like an Egyptian" gesture and going across the harbor, but it is nice to know if I ever go back.  And maybe when we were in front of the YMCA and my son resorted to all kinds of crazy arm gestures, maybe he hit on the right one which means "In the name of all that is right, please take us back to our hotel!"

 

The interesting people of Hong Kong

I just returned from a trip to Hong Kong.  There were some interesting things about the people in/from Hong Kong.  It began on the flight there.  The passengers were 90% Asian.  I assume that they were either from Hong Kong or mainland China. 

I had upgraded my seat to a preferred seat.  They gave me a seat at the bulkhead on an aisle.  I had plenty of room.  I was in the center of the plane, with no row to my left.  So, there was an empty space to left of me where an emergency door was located and right behind the bathroom. 

There was a nice gentleman from Hong Kong seated next to me on the plane.  We chatted for awhile and then the plane took off.  I read for about an hour.  I had started a book that my son recommended, Heart of Darkness.  The airline had served drinks and a snack.  After that, one or two people at a time began to line up for the bathroom.  They would wait in the empty space between me and the exit door.  I began noticing that when it was one person waiting, they were almost always exercising.  The first was a woman who bent over and was lightly punching with her fists all along the outside of her legs.  Later, there was a man who put his hands on his hips and was doing leg squats.  There was a dwarf who pressed the front of his body against the wall of the airplane with his right arm extended above him, stretching against the wall.  Then, he switched arms.  There was a lady who leaned over and grabbed the exit door arm and alternately stretched her legs behind her.  I have to say that this one worried me.  I needed to know what it took to open that door.  It was dim in the cabin by now, so I had to really squint my eyes to see the directions for opening the door.  It seems as if there are a few steps you need to do before rotating the arm to open the door.  So, I was relieved.   Then, there was a lady who lightly punched her shoulders and arms over and over again.  It was very interesting to watch all this activity and made the time go by very quickly.  I am sure this was done for health reasons to keep the blood flowing and so that muscles did not get stiff.  I have heard many recommendations that on long flights, you should walk around the plane, do exercises in your seat, wear compression sox, but I have never seen this parade of exercises before.  To be honest, even if I thought that I should do it, I couldn't because it would be as if you were performing in front of an audience.   The exercises were done in front of the first row of seats on that side of the plane.  When I do my exercises at the Fitness class, which has a wall to wall mirror, my plan is usually to be directly behind the instructor so that I really cannot be seen.  I could not exercise in front of  200 or so people in that section of the airplane.  But I am sure that all those exercising people felt great when they arrived in Hong Kong.

I didn't remember this happening when I took a flight from Saudi Arabia to Beijing last year.  But I wasn't sure if it was just that I didn't see it because I wasn't seated right next to that open area.  On my return flight this time, I was seated far to the back.  I could not see that area to tell what was happening.  But, about a half hour before the plane was ready to land, a man across the aisle from me, got up into the aisle put his hands on his hips and started rotating his hips around and around as if he was doing the hula hoop.  So, there you go. 

There was another very nice thing that happened during the trip.  My son and I decided to hike a trail called Dragon Back.  We took the Metro to a bus station where we were to take Bus 9.  We found it and used our "Octopus card", which is a pre-paid card.  My son had printed out the map and bus stops and was counting the stops as we went to know where to get off.  You are out in the country and at one of the stops, you just head up into the trail.  At one point, probably 30 minutes out, the lady next to me says, "Aren't you going hiking?".  I guess she knew that because of our backpacks and clothes.  I said yes we were.  She said, "Well, we just passed the bus stop where all the hikers normally get off.  You should ask the bus driver to stop immediately.  Then you can walk back up the hill to the bus stop and entrance to the hike.".  My son went and spoke with the driver and yes, we had missed it.  It turns out they don't stop at all the stops unless you let them know.  So the bus driver pulled over and told us it was just a 5 minute walk away.  I wasn't too crazy about this.  We were out in the country.  What if we couldn't find it?  Did they tell us the correct info?  etc, etc.  But we got off and did find it.  There was even a port a potty to start the hike off right.  We sprayed up with "Off".  I sprayed up so much that my son commented that I was going to leave a trail of dead insects as I went along.  But there WAS a sign at the beginning of the trail warning of dengue fever.  So, mosquitoes, beware!  Anyway, it was very nice of the woman to notice that we were going to hike and advise us of our mistake.

 It was quite a long hike.  It was supposed to last 2.5-3 hours, but because I am a slow hiker, it took us 4 hours.  There were beautiful vistas, interesting areas of vegetation and flowers.

  It ended at a lovely beach.  My son went swimming and I laid out on the beach.

  Around 4 pm, we decided that we had better start back to Hong Kong.  First, we had to find the bus stop.  Since we had come off the mountain, we had no idea how to get there from this little village.  I began asking people and a young man pointed the way.  We saw the bus stop for Bus #9 and there was a group of people waiting.  After about 15 minutes, a small bus stops (which has a sign saying Bus #10) and everyone standing there goes to get on.  I ask a Russian guy if he knows if it goes to the Metro.  He says that it goes to the same place as #9.  You just can't use your Octopus card.  You have to pay cash, $7 Hong Dollars.  We decide to get on.  As we are going along, we see Bus #9 pass us.  This route becomes a little different.  We are stopping at lots of places in the village.  I ask a young girl seated next to me if this bus goes to the Metro.  She says yes, it is the terminal stop.  So, I relax.  As long as we get to any Metro stop, we can get anywhere.  We get to the end and we are the last to get off.  I give the driver my fare and he says NO, it is $10 Hong Kong.  So, we go through all our change.  We are short 10 cents.  After a long day of hiking, I am thinking, I am just going to overpay him with the lowest denomination of currency that I have $20 Hong Kong. I just want to be back at the hotel now.  Then, suddenly,  the young girl who had been sitting next to me on the bus,  gets back on the bus and asks what the problem is.  I tell her that we are going through our change, that we are 10 cents short.  She hands the driver a $10 HK note and says OK, it is fine.  I say to her, let me pay you!  She says it is fine, but if I really want to do it, get off the bus so that the driver can go.  We get off the bus.  I give her the $20HK.  She gives me $10HK and then points us in the right direction for the Metro.  I just wanted to hug her, but I did not want to scare her.  :)

Everywhere we went in Hong Kong, the people were so very nice to us.  The people were just about the nicest part of the trip and the trip was great!