After a brief rest, back out to a record stop and dim sum for dinner.

<-  Pleep rockin’ out with the Haffinfatteners.

First up, we have to get to Kowloon. The Star Ferry Company was founded in 1898. Jeff thinks these boats are probably about that old, too. They certainly have character, and are an iconic HK experience.

The crossing from Wan Chai pier (HK) to Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon) takes 8 minutes and runs you HK$2.50  (US$0.32).  Um yeah, EPIC bargain too. 🙂

The Avenue of the Comic Stars opened in Kowloon Park in 2012. The landmark, featuring 24 characters dating back to the 1960s, aims to promote comic culture. Hong Kong region is the third largest comic exporter in the world.

Here are a few of the figures we saw. The characters range in size to 2m – 3m and date from publications from the 1960s to today.

I did a bit of shopping today. Stopped in at a lovely silk shop and picked up a beautiful scarf with cherry blossoms on it (finally!), as well as a few gifts.  Also strolled the Jade Market (and got hassled by every vendor with the hard sell) and picked up a few more goodies including a black jade dragon. I was on a mission for something with a dragon.

The Moomin characters were a favorite of mine growing up and I stocked up on Moomin-ness in Japan and Helsinki. Just last week when we were randomly looking up things in Hong Kong, we ran across The Moomin Cafe. We didn’t go to the one in Tokyo, and it seemed appropriate to not pass up another opportunity.

In stark contrast to the rest of our adventure in Kowloon, the Moomin Cafe is in the Ocean Terminal on Victoria Harbor: bright, clean white interior, beautiful restaurants and swanky shops.  Up on the third floor sits the tiny cafe. We’d pre-scouted the menu to figure out which end of our Kowloon trip we wanted to stop in, and ultimately decided dessert was the way to go.

We were seated at a table with Sniff and ordered desserts.  The staff routinely rotates the large, stuffed characters among the tables so we also got to dine with the Haffinfatteners (mushroom-like silent creatures with “jazz hands”, above) and Moomintroll. They also had Moominmama, Little My, Snufkin, The Ancestor and Snork Maiden.

Thank you to my travel partners for putting up with this stop to see my childhood friends.

The gramophone recording of Elvis was particularly impressive – the richness of the sound, the texture for lack of a better description made you feel like he was right there in the room, playing just for us. As the guys looked through the impressive collection, “Sam” also shared some piano and violin tracks with me.

Definitely a unique experience. When we walked out a hour and a half later it was as though we’d been hanging out in a friend’s living room, chatting about music. And in fact, we were.

Next up, dinner at Dim Dim Sum.  I’d read of this place in several blogs, all touting it as better than the two Michelin star dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong. I ran across it again in Time Out Hong Kong. Random blog posts backed by one of my go-to sources for local info, I figured we had to give it a try.  It was awesome! We rolled out thoroughly stuffed – perfect end to the day.

Round 1 (clockwise from top left):  Shanghai soup dumpling with black truffle, Cha Siu Bao (BBQ pork buns), beef meatballs with sun-dried tangerine peel, pan-fried stuffed eggplant with teriyaki sauce, and shrimp and pork dumplings with crab roe.

Round 2: deep fried wontons with sweet and sour sauce, and rice with beef and fried egg.

Signing off to start looking at what’s up for tomorrow. Good night!