It is X'mas eve, I called friends Eddy & his wife Judy out for supper.

Eddy works in Quarry Bay, so we first hooked up in Causeway Bay, and we shop a bit for my laptop bag. (found a messenger bag type from Targus... that was a really good one but is too expensive)


We left for TST just after sunset, people already off work and on the street. It's packed with people.... it's Causeway Bay, afterall. The atmosphere of Christmas is thick. I forgot how Christmas like in Hong Kong, I don't even think I feel so Christmas in Canada besides the weather (white and cold) and when in the shopping mall (all the people plus the Salvation army with bells). I guess I just never over here at the Hong Kong Island on X'mas eve and it's been many years since I was back in Hong Kong. The sounds and light, so vivid and saturated, flood into me. Again, that "so alive" feeling. This year, the police is putting the whole area in Paterson street and Lokart road as pedestrian zone. The street is packed with people. A multimedia advertisement of Moto A668 is by the street corner. With sound and sight, it creates a small world of its own in the middle of the crowd.

MTR is as usual very crowded, to say the least. We arrived TST without any further issue. The sight here is different than Causeway Bay, the whole Nathan road from TST to Jordon becomes pedestrian zone as well. But you can it feels like something is missing, when compared to Causeway Bay. There are a lot of people, still. Note, females in Hong Kong Island and Kowloon really have different style... you can tell right out. I guess it's also depends on where different crowds hangout.

We settled on Todai Japanese buffet, which is from US of A. I know they have a place in San Jose, but never been there before. We usually went for better Japanese food. cool Food is okey with a lot of variety. Price is a bit higher since it's x'mas, and they put a time cap to 9:00pm, so they can do a second round for the night. There is more time then we need anyway.

After the meal, we walk around to see the light decoration. We start heading toward TST east. We can see the crowd looming ahead of us (and here). We walked (and walked) to the walkway by the harbor, and follow the crowds heading toward Star Ferry.

Since there is crowd control from the police in effect, we can see a lot of police and crews using loud speakers to give direction to people. It feel a slight tension here, remembered the incident in LKF few years back.... The farther we walk, the more crowded it gets. it takes us sometimes to fight through (actually following the flow) the crowd arriving by the space museum. The walk of fame is closed for inflow traffic since there are too many people there already. Then we heard announcement that Star Ferry and Ocean Terminal is getting too crowded as well, so they stop the traffic. Damn, I thought I wil try to catch the ferry back home.

So we go on plan B, once again follow the crowd and turn north on Nathan road.



As we walked passed Panisulla hotel, we see a lot of people still trying to get to the Star Ferry and other "closed" area. Many are dressed in custom (x'mas hat and what you got there) and has small light and neo decoration/toys bought from the people selling on the street.

We get to the TST MTR enterce, but it's exit only... so no luck. Walk on to the Park Lane, there are x'mas carol. Finally, I arrived Jordon MTR, after a full circle from where we started. I bid fair well to my friends and hop on the tube to hit home.

So, been there, done that. One item checked off my list of things to do.

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