Tea House

There's an old Chinese tea house not too far from where I live called "Lin Heung".  It seems to be an old favourite in the area and one of the few old school places where you can get dim sum on the trolleys.  Most of the yum cha places in Hong Kong did away with the trolleys long ago, so there's definitely nostalgia for the places that still go about it the old way.

The place was completely packed and getting a table wasn't easy.  We walked around stalking those who seemed to be close to finishing and then jumped on their empty seats.  It was an interesting atmosphere, with noise and activity everywhere.  To an extent, it was a bit too much though as people leapt to their feet to charge towards the trolleys whenever they came out of the kitchen.  This was most certainly not the traditional way of doing things as you're meant to patiently wait at the table for the trolleys to come to you.

The food itself is also nothing special, though they did serve some types of dim sum you don't see too often at other restaurants anymore.  You're almost certainly able to get better dim sum at other places, but as an experience, this is still quite unique.

Crowded Macau

Living in Hong Kong meant being able to travel far more than I had been able to living in Sydney.  I was very keen to embrace this newfound opportunity for regular travel as soon as possible.  It seemed that the easiest place to start this was Macau.  It was only an hour away on the ferry and I had always enjoyed visiting in the past.  Shiral was visiting me on her way back to Sydney, so we both headed off early one morning for a day trip.

I was shocked by what we encountered.  It had been years since I had been in Macau, and the level of tourism from China has exploded.  I've never experienced such crowds before in my life.  Just getting up to the famous ruins of St Pauls involved a shuffle with hundreds (possibly thousands) of people jostling up a series of narrow streets.  The danger involved if there was an accident would have been huge.

Elsewhere, the crowds thinned out a bit, but it was still noticeable that there were far more people than in the past.  Even in front of the old stalwart of Macau, the Hotel Lisboa there was a constant stream of people walking in and out.

I've always loved going to Macau, but this trip didn't feel the same.  It was fun to spend the day with Shiral, but Macau just didn't have the same atmosphere that it used to.