Breakfast this morning was back at Fairwood.
You might be wondering for what reason it was that we kept going back to the same place for breakfast day after day.
Perhaps it were the very fact that it was a Cha Chaan Teng.
Perhaps it were the fact that it was bright and cheery and crowded and offered typical CCT foods that one had to come Hong Kong to try.
What makes a CCT interesting isnt' just the menu.
There's also the ambience, the crowd, the dynamics of the place where you feel the urge to have something even if you don't have much of an appetite or are not in the mood to.
The menu, and the prices make it worth your while.
I won't say they're cheap- food prices at a CCT in the middle of Electric Road will not be on the low side- but the food's pretty solid and so the prices make it worth your while.
This morning I chose to go Asian with a bowl of Chicken and Corn porridge that came with fried radish cake of three whole pieces. There was, of course, coffee.
I liked the meal.
So a wee bit healthy it did feel but the kernel corn added a little bit of sweetness to the porridge, the shredded chicken had enough of those shreds to make you full, and best part of all- just in case you felt too clean- the radish cake was fried perfect to a crisp on all ends left and right.
Breakfast over we went back to Hotel Purple and got some work done.
Along the way I took a couple more pictures of the Wing Hing Road.
It might seem a little strange, like what's so special about this road that I should take pictures, but here's the thing.
Wing Hing Road isn't just a road with three (or more) hotels along her stretch for visiting tourists and tour groups. She is also a place with residents who live amongst the apartments here, and for those who come here all the way down, bus stops on either side.
What charmed me very much about this road was just how international the place really was. It was one of those streets where (without speaking) you couldn't tell the difference between the local, the visitor, and the diaspora.
Except maybe through their choice of clothing.
Many of the locals seemed to favor dark colors.
The elderly liked their puffers and their cardigans.
The younger liked their hoodies.
And there were always those clad in either windbreakers or sport jackets.
Ladies I saw oft seemed to wear cardigans or jackets.
But in terms of the architecture i liked seeing how there could be four-storeyed buildings where apartments had their glass window panels stretched wide side by side, or there could be twelve-storeyed buildings with apartments holding three small windows on one side and three small windows on the other.
And you soon realized that you were in fact seeing lots and lots of windows.
Not just from the buildings on Wing Hing Road, but even those of the building on the street behind whose windows peeped at you through the gap in between.
I thought it incredibly charming.
I also wondered about the people who stayed in these apartments above.
Something I noticed- not immediately- was that their windows seemed to be entirely closed. That surprised me. Sure, there might be dust and sounds and smells from the street below but with the weather so chilly and cool, I wondered why it was none of them opened the windows even a tiny inch.
I would have- dust and all.
Maybe sounds travel further and farther than we think they do, and here, what with the bus stop right below the block, maybe the occupants didn't want to immerse themselves with sounds of the street.
It was wonderful, made better when the sun broke through the clouds and did its surreal, evocative shine, throwing sharp silhouetted shadows right across the surface of the walls.
I was so mesmerized, I tell you.
Long time it had been since I'd had seen rays of sunshine cast such sharp, contrasting shadows over concrete structures.
As if some were living in light, some were living in dark, and some were living in the grey right in between.
Back in Hotel Purple we stayed in the room until it was time for lunch.
This afternoon we went to this place on Electric Road.
Don't ask me what the name was- I have no idea- but it was popular with the locals who all simply called out their orders to the staff as if they had been doing it every day.
The meal was delicious.
For HKD$50 we got a plate of roast goose rice, plus a bowl of ABC soup that had winter melon, or some other sort of melon in it.
But the soup was clear, tasty and surprisingly, refreshing.
I thought it helped clean the palate.
From here we headed out to Tsuen Wan for a meeting.
Having never been there before, and with a time restraint, we took an Uber there.
Don't ask me how much the fare was.
I don't remember.
It was a good meeting.
Hopefully it will be as fruitful as I pray it to be.
When we finished, we hung around at the CDW Mall downstairs the office building a while.
There wasn't much I was interested to see, but in the mall there was a compact Big C outlet offering a variety of products, and familiar favorites from Thailand. Besides a bit of fresh produce on the chiller shelves, there were a host of sauces, pastes, sweets, biscuits and snacks brought in from the country.
On the other side of the mall too there was, I think, a Marks & Spencer.
For some reason I didn't want to go see it.
Instead into Pacific Coffee we went, where, after studying the drinks menu a little, decided on a hot matcha latte.
You might find it surprising just why we'd have a drink but I guess it has been almost twenty years since we've had had drinks at the Pacific Coffee here in Hong Kong, and I still remember the outlet at Nathan Road where during the summer of 2006 we hung out there on the nice, comfortable chairs till late at night.
Curious me thought of exploring the area around CDW Mall a little bit so out the main door I went.
Right opposite the mall was a residential housing estate- the sight of which housing flats had me extremely curious- so up the overhead bridge I went to take a closer, more aerial view.
Whilst standing at the side of the bridge I noticed that there was no obvious secure entrance to the housing estate, and because I'm the brash kind who sometimes pushes boundaries within the limits of permission, I informed, I asked, and was given the go.
Of course, like how it had been in Mung Thong over in Thailand, it was to be a quick one, don't push it, in and out, and remember, only on the ground floor.
(Yes, of course, no question about that)
There is not much I'd like to write with regards about Fuk Loi Estate.
It would do no right if I were to write anything particular with one view or another, so I shall just leave the pictures here.
That doesn't mean I had no thoughts about the apartment blocks whether high or low.
For one thing- and this I can say- I was so struck by the similarities between this housing estate here in Tsuen Wan of Hong Kong's New Territories and another housing estate back here on the island right close to the old railway line.
The layout was almost similar.
The structures were almost similar.
And had it not been for the difference in aesthetic maintenance and municipal facilities (they seemed to have more red brick) and the surroundings and the estate's overall layout over the lay of the land, it might have looked- literally- almost the same.
Honestly, looking at these buildings as unobtrusively as possible, I was quietly wowed.
To think that I could have flown three hours from a hot, sunny island to a city of 12 degrees celsius with mountains and waters all, and yet, here were apartments so similar with structures so familiar, down even to the same number of window panels- as if the distance of the South China Sea hadn't separated both spaces at all.
Yet at the same time, I wasn't.
I come from Singapore.
This is Hong Kong.
Should I then be surprised?
Nah, not at all.
An administration is an administration, especially if they be present more or less around the same time.
I decided not to hang around the area too long.
Any more and I would really be an intruder interrupting people's lives in this living, breathing, energetic housing estate.
Even as I stood admiring the apartments and the shrubs and little gardens, people were coming home from work, children were coming home from school. There were cars turning in and out of the car park and here and there, there were lights being turned on in the homes.
I went back to CDW Mall, and we took the MTR back to Causeway Bay.
This evening we stopped at Fortress Hill MTR station because we hadn't yet had dinner and instead of hunting around the shops along Electric Road near the Tin Hau MTR station, I remembered seeing a Sushi Express across the road from Fortress Hill and thought it a good idea to have our evening meal there.
But the night didn't end there.
Not for me anyways.
After we'd gotten back I felt in the mood for a walk, so out back I went, heading down Wing Hing Road towards Electric Road, but instead of turning right and going along the road this time, further down I went, passing by the Causeway Bay Fire Station, and a little boulevard by the side of the water.
