Larry and I both woke up feeling tired and groggy on Thursday. The vacation was starting to catch up with us. Larry also had a cough and felt under the weather. We scrapped our plans to figure out Hong Kong’s bus system for a ride to the other side of the Island.
We went to Pacific Coffee for espressos.
During our second espresso Larry said, “Let’s go see the longest escalator in the world.” So we started walking west. We didn’t walk far until we found another one of those outdoor markets. This cheered us up – I don’t know why, except that the markets seemed to contain the unexpected. Larry bought a pocket watch with a picture of Chairman Mao on the face. Mao’s extended hand moved back and forth with the tick of each second.
About an hour, and a few purchases later we found another Pacific Coffee! Our mantra for the day, “Thank Buddha for Pacific Coffee!” We had another shot of caffeine and this one did the trick. We were raring to find the world’s longest escalator.
The escalator isn’t one long ride. It’s a series of escalators that go partway up one of the peaks in Hong Kong. It runs uphill most of the time (which is the way we rode it) and goes downhill during morning rush hour. It’s a total of 2,598 feet of escalator ride.
Larry was in the lead, going to each new level of escalator as we got off the preceding one. I followed, mumbling, “Ya know, we’re gonna have to walk all the way down…” When we finally got to the top, we walked along a few streets and found ourselves at the Hong Kong Zoo.
We meandered the zoo, had lunch, and eventually went back to our hotel. For our last night in Hong Kong we wanted find someplace special to eat supper. As we walked the streets of Hong Kong, we peaked in every restaurant we passed. Either the menu wasn’t in English, the seats looked uncomfortable, or the place just looked wrong.
Along Hennessy Road (one of the busier streets) Larry noticed a sign on a second story window that advertised a Korean barbecue restaurant. We checked it out and found that after loading up a plate of raw meat and veggies at the buffet, we would cook our food on a small grill in the middle of our table. Larry said, “Aww, we gotta do this!” It was a lot of fun. And our host, even though he didn’t speak English, was so helpful and made sure that I tried every dessert on the buffet table.
Our flight back to the U.S. was leaving in the morning. We were full, happy and exhausted. We went back to our hotel to pack and sleep.
Wikipedia on world's longest escalator:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central-Mid-Levels_escalator
Love that bottom picture - the crowded signs - that says it all!
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