Walking the East side

Hong Kong is such a small place and yet there are so many parts of it that I rarely visit.  One of those places is the Eastern side of the metropolitan part of Hong Kong island.  It's not far, and it's not in anyway deserted, but it's definitely not the part of Hong Kong that draws the tourist crowds.  The expats tend to live around Central and to the West of the island, as well as in the further-out parts of Hong Kong.  The Eastern part of Hong Kong is more local.  It's still densely packed and full of people, but it certainly doesn't have the usual draws that most visitors to Hong Kong would want to see.

I went out to meet my friend early one morning.  We decided we would walk along the waterfront of Quarry Bay towards Heng Fa Chuen.  

It was a beautiful developed area of waterfront.  The paths were clean and open and it wasn't anywhere near as crowded as some of the areas towards Central.  The crowd felt a bit older and far more local.  There were few (if any) expats and Westerners out walking. 

It's worthwhile to come out here more.  As I become more localised to Hong Kong, I think more and more about where I belong and where I want to establish myself culturally.  Many of my old expat friends have left or started to leave, and I find myself increasingly with those more stable relationships which tend towards the local.  Maybe it's just part of a natural progression that was always meant to happen.

Coronavirus and restaurant dining

The restrictions have returned to Hong Kong and we're back to only being able to dine in groups of 8 again.  The restaurants also have to keep their capacity at only 60% which must be causing all sorts of problems for them.  A few of us had booked dinner on the first night of the returned restrictions, but there were only four of us.  Luckily for us, we made the cut with our booking and we didn't get cancelled.  Other diners wouldn't have been so lucky.  We knew other restaurants had full bookings, so there would have almost certainly been a culling of the list of reservations.

The dinner we had was good.  We had decided on a steakhouse and we ate a dinner that was heavy and full of dense but satisfying food.  The meat was cut thick and the sides were creamy and generally fried.  I looked through the wine list before we started and knowing the dominating and overwhelming flavours we were facing, ordered a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape with its stronger and more intense taste. 

We really were the lucky ones.  We were able to enjoy one another's company with great food, even as things around us slowly ground back to a halt.  Others wouldn't be so lucky and the general suffering that many were going through seemed to be increasing by the day.  There was still the odd bit of humour to be found though.  As we walked past the drinks trolley, we saw a large bottle of hand sanitiser placed in the middle.  This was now the selection of spirits in the age of coronavirus!

I walked out and decided to walk back home.  I felt full.  A bit too full which seems to usually be the case when you go to a steakhouse.  The streets were empty as I walked back.  Another Saturday night in Hong Kong which had been quietened by an unseen terror.