Hong Kong Dim Sum

Alone on Hong Kong Island. Can't believe how breathtaking the city is. It's surrounded by shimmering water and lush, tropical mountains. Rolled in last night on the bus, and was awed by how tall the skyscrapers are. At one point we drove through a maze of residential towers; it was staggering how many apartments were packed into the buildings. Thousands of lit living rooms; the occasional face peering out; laundry strung across balconies, flapping in the wind. Woke up this morn in my hotel (30th floor baby, my one indulgence for this trip!). Spent ages gazing out the window.

Don't know what to do with myself. I have a one day stopover before Bangkok, and I am coming back later in July, so I don't feel super motivated to do research. I wanted to hook up with MC Yan and DJ Tommy of Lazy Motha Fucka or LMF (H.K. hip-hop pioneers), but those dudes are impossible to get in touch with. There is also a Chinese-Canadian rapper/film star named Edison Chen who is originally from Vancouver, but his style is more Canto-pop. And, as Jay Smooth reported last year, he's a little sketchy; he has been know to drop the N word in his rhymes. Apparently, he was jumped last year outside a record store in H.K. and beat up. By two teenagers, to boot.

It's real muggy here; much hotter than Japan. I'm pretty worn out, so I decided to shop and eat instead of hunting down hip-hop interviews. For some reason, I have always wanted to go for dim sum (Chinese brunch) in Hong Kong. Vancouver has a big Asian community, and I grew up eating dim sum with friends. For a while, my girls and I would go every Saturday morning to Sun Sui Wah. Usually you have to wait a ridiculously long time for a table, but one of the managers had a crush of my friend Jen, so we could always get in. (Without Jen, though, we were out of luck.) There, the trolleys would circle the restaurant, delivering steaming bamboo baskets filled with Ha Gow (shrimp dumplings), Shu Mai (pork and shrimp balls), Cha Su Bao (coconut buns with BBQ pork). I heard people talking about how amazing dim sum was in H.K., so it came to hold an almost mythic appeal for me.

So I took a taxi halfway across town today in search of delicious dim sum. Went to a place called Luk Yu Tea House, which is the oldest tea house in H.K. I expected that it would be filled with tourists, since it's pretty famous. But when I walked in, it was all Chinese business men. Caused a bit of a commotion. Don't think it's normal for chicks to dine solo here. Had to eat and run. And, sadly, the dim sum was better in Vancouver.