3rd day in HKG: The Pingshan With No Shan

We decided we’ll do one thing different in every trip, not the touristy stuff as mentioned by my travel partner. The night before bed, after the IC figured how we should get there by MTR, we decided: Pingshan Trail.

What attracted me to visit Pingshan was the old pagoda and the way Pingshan is positioned on the brochure – it made me feel slow, quiet and peaceful. It seems like a good change from the buzzing places we have been in for the past 2 days.

Switched metro and we arrived at Tin Shui Wai station. I soon realized, we are moving towards the “village Hong Kong”, like Yio Chu Kang Singapore?

Tsui Sing Lau (1486)

Tsui Sing Lau, the Gathering Stars Pagoda, is the only ancient pagoda left in Hong Kong. The pagoda is a ‘feng shui’ structure to prevent floods and evil influence from the north. I would not say the architecture was unique or particularly exciting. If one is expecting more architecture from this visit, you will be disappointed.

We started walking after we gathered from the pagoda care taker where we should head to begin the Pingshan Trail. We noticed some of the residents, in spite of staying in very old, small laned houses (like those in Shanghai), the interiors were nicely renovated. Mind you, some owned BMWs.

Tang Ancestral Hall

This ancestral hall was built by TANG Fung Shun, the fifth generation ancestor of the Tang clan about 700 years ago. It is the ancestral hall of the Ping Shan branch of the Tang clan. Mr Ting was commenting to me, it would have been most appropriate for our dear friend KC Tang to be here.

Yu Kiu Ancestral Hall

This ancestral hall locates right next of the Tang Ancestral Hall. It was built by the TANG Yu Sing and TANG Kiu Lum, brothers of the eleventh generation in the early sixteen century.

The entire Pingshan trial took us about 30 minutes but on a hot sunny day, it might not be particularly exciting.

We took a light rail train 68 M to Yuen Long, where we begin our FOOD hunt round TWO.

Yuen Long is similar to Toa Payoh New Town , a very self sufficient estate on its on away from the city. You can find all the brands like G2000, Adidas, Nike…etc and the famous Heng Hiang Lao Po ( aka Wife biscuit- a pastry with winter melon filling)

Big B Desserts

We were both very thirsty and so cold desserts were our first choice. We found Big B dessert and ordered the specialty Big B fruits platter..mind you it’s really huge ( just compare my face and the size of the bowl in the photo) …with fruits like kiwi, pineapple, mango, longan, lychee , atap seeds and jelly grass. Tasted good but I must say it’s not particularly unique or exciting. We also tried the mango chee chiong fan (CCF). Salute. I must comment that I am impressed with the Hongkies for their creativity with all the different fillings they can come up with to pair the plain chee chiong fan.

For the mango CCF, it is filled with sliced mango and topped with blended mango dressing. Not really nice, I prefer the you tiao filling CCF. We saw a lot of people ordering the plain CCF, with sesame and sweet sauce, but we were really too full after Big B and the mango CCF, so we gonna give it a miss.

Dessert at Kai Kee Dessert (佳记甜品) along Yau San Street.

Off we go to search for Heng Heung wife biscuit (along Castle Peak Road Yuen Long), it was crowded and we bought like 5 boxes and we left the shop. Saw another shop, Wing Wah, less crowded, but nicely packaged. We decided to give it a miss. Wanted to go for a massage but we gave up after being unable to locate it. I shop at G2000 and then was back to search for food again .

Mr Ting and I decided to try the famous beef bee hoon. It’s a small shop (Victory Beef-Ball 胜利牛丸, along Fau Tsoi Street, but crowded with people. They have 2 shops in Yuen Long. It’s really one of the best bee hoon soon I have eaten. A definite must try; the beef is cooked to perfection – just the right tenderness and the beef balls, bouncy. The soup is strongly beef flavored. I ordered the iced lemon tea which tasted fantastic, not acidic (like those which turns acidic when you add hot water for too long) , topped with fresh lemon slices. Cost us around 39 HKD.

I realized though Yuen Long, the Hongkies are generally very well mannered people. They queue for buses. Enough of food and off we go, back to Tsim Sha Tsui Empire Hotel and leave behind all our barang barang – which was mainly food.

After that, we headed down to Central again. This time we were going to take the “Tram” to Happy Valley.

The Tram ride was interesting … Happy Valley was the place where Horse Racing took place every Thursday. We were headed there on a mission – for Chee Cheong Fun with You Tiao from this place called TASTY CONGEE & NOODLE WONTON SHOP (正斗粥面专家) at Happy Valley, G/F, 21 King Kwong Street, TEL 852-2838-3922.

The Dough Fritters in Rice Roll was delicious and cost HKD 30.

They also had very good Beef Hor Fun at HKD 68.

The Duck Feet in XO Sauce was also lovely at HKD 44 for two feet.

After that Scrumptous meal, we went to look for this Cake Shop named Zoe. It was a tad difficult to find as it was a really tiny shop at the corner of some street. They sell small little pieces of cake which cost around HKD 30 each. It wasn’t cheap, but their chocolate cake was delicious. (We actually only ate the cakes we bought 1 day later, as we were too full and left it in the hotel fridge till we finally had stomach room to eat it.

We headed back to Central on the Tram.

Decided to look around for Zara and ended up at the Financial Centre, where there was both Zara and Mango. Unfortunately, nothing good was to be bought, or what’s good to be bought was not fated to be bought that night.

We went back to Stanley street, looking for some nice chill out place to rest ourselves, the bar – bohemian lounge on 3-5 Old Bailey Street Hong Kong, is no longer there. =( I heard it was good for Jazz.

Strolling round Central and Lan Kwai Fong numerous times in the sweltering Summer Heat, we finally chanced upon this Blues & Jazz place with a live band. The band was good and it was a little place with character and style. (Some of the people there were boldly dressed in leopard spots. =) Can’t remember the place but it’s a white building, along the back lane of LKF on the 2nd level of the building.