We took the MTR to Tsim Sha Tsui, and it was chaotic. There was like, to borrow a friend's phrase - a huge expanse of bobbing black heads. (Sounds like a teenager's worst nightmare - bobbing blackheads. Which of course you would get rid of with Smooth E Babyface Foam)

It was an ordered chaos, though. It was nice to see that people were orderly and waiting their turn in line despite everyone rushing to get home.

Up to this point, we remained happily ignorant tourists, thinking that this throng of people waiting for the MTR and queueing for buses and taxis were the normal Friday afternoon crowd returning home. It was only when we saw that all the shops were closed (a la Australia ages ago) that my flu-addled brain sensed that something was amiss.

I did the only thing a tourist would have done - speak to an expatriate gwailo about what was going on. He was quite amused by us, and said 'Didn't you hear? There's a grade eight typhoon warning and everyone's going home! Work's been called off and the shops are all closed!'

Blow, wind, blow. Blow what? Blow my holiday away. 

Can you believe it? We came to shop during the sale season, and with our luck we encountered Hong Kong's first Grade 8 typhoon warning in three years. All the shops were closed, except:

Yup, the toughest lil' 7-11s in the world.

Our plans for shopping out the window, we just walked around the Tsim Sha Tsui area. Since we were ignorant tourists, the typhoon would not affect us. What we don't know can't blow us away.  

It didn't help that my flu was still lingering. I wasn't so bad that I was hallucinating. Not yet, anyway.

Tsim Sha Tsui was the bayside area of Kowloon which is the mainland part of Hong Kong (think Seberang Perai). It had spectacular views of Hong Kong island which laid just out of reach.

There was an eerie calm with dour overcast clouds. There was an ominous feel in the air, as if they were trying to tell us something like 'Go back to your hotel!'

Luckily we didn't speak the language.

We walked along the bayside, and made the happiest discovery, the Avenue of Stars, Hong Kong's answer to the Hollywood's Walk of Fame. It was a cobbled pathway strewn intermittently with the stars of famous Hong Kong actors and actresses, including Wong Chau Sang (who?), Leung Ka Fai (who?) and Jackie Chan (yeah, I know him!)

(L - R) 1) The Avenue of Stars; 2) Jackie Chan's handprints (you can tell he didn't only press his hands into the cement, he kung-fued it); 3) the typhoon was so strong it blew the Avenue lopsided (okay, so it was just me being artisitic)

There were bronze statues all along the avenue as well, with life-size cast statues of a movie set, and famous stars including:

 Bruce Lee reminding us not to litter. Yo' daddy so weak his butt got kicked by a statue.

We walked for at least an hour along the bayside, and then I was really tired by then (a combination of the flu and fighting Bruce Lee) and so we found our way back to the hotel where I slept.

We woke up and wandered Temple street again and found what was to be our best meal (as per my friend: pang, leang, cheang - cheap, pretty, excellent) - the humble chok ('congee/porridge') made in the dirtiest shop we could find. My friend really liked his bowl of pei tan sau yok chok (century egg and lean meat), though for the life of me I couldn't understand his fascination with it. I was just happy to have something warm inside of me.

(I do have something warm inside of me. My heart. Awwww...)

(Yuck.)