At this point I realized that I had forgotten my map with all my notes on all the places I wanted to visit at the hostel. I considered going back to get it, but since I have plenty of time in Hong Kong I decided a day of undirected exploring might be fun. I started off heading in a random direction until I got to a new metro station, getting some more construction pictures along the way!
Once at the subway station I did what any reasonable traveller would do: closed my eyes and randomly picked stops off the metro map. First it was off to Tai Po Market! Tai Po is a smaller town/city further north, and it took a few transfers to get to. The market itself was a large building that had different floors for different products - mostly food. All the exotic (to me) fruit and vegetables were interesting to see, but I'm still not used to their form of meat preparation (namely their inclusion of heads).
The top floor was a big caffeteria of small restaurants, all without English. I managed a pretty simple and very cheap lunch of fried rice and what I think was chicken by pointing at pictures.
Next it was back to the subway for another mystery trip. I forget the name of the station I got off at, but it was near Lion's Head rock (although I never figured out exactly which hill that was). Other than the rock, the metro station didn't have much of interest listed nearby, so I just picked a random road towards the hill. Eventually the sidewalk come to an end, but right next to where it ended I saw this unresistable invitation.
The stairs led to a locked gate in front of a power transformer, but there was also a small path at the top, which I of course followed. It split up into other paths, which eventually led to pipes and cement terracing that I assume are for drainage and reinforcement to keep the hill from crumbling down onto the roads and houses below. Not every rabbit hole can lead to Wonderland! At least I got to see some funky trees and bamboo groves
Back at the bottom I continued on until I reached Che Kung Temple. Che Kung was a general 900 years ago who became deified for his achievements (mostly ending plagues and winning battles). The temple is apparently really popular on Chinese New Years, but it was fairly quiet today.
My last stop was to see some of the shops and vendors around Mong Kok. There was a lot of very cheap (probably knockoff) merchandise, and I thought about buying some clothes but decided to hold off for now.
The highlight of the area was the famous Goldfish market of Tung Choi street. It's basically a huge stretch of street filled with exotic fish, snakes, spiders and other animals. Fish were displayed in both tanks and in little clear bags of water, but the sheer number of shops and animals, as well as the diversity, were amazing.
Hopefully I'll be a bit more organized in the upcoming days!
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