there’s plenty of hiking companies who will take you out there, but with a little bit of work and some chinese ability, you don’t need to spend the 100 USD that some companies are charging.

how we did it:

1. late night bus to jixi. jixi is the hometown of hu jintao – and a four hour bus ride from shanghai which costs about 120 rmb. the buses left from a private station near the zhongshan north road station on line 1.

2. across the street from the long distance bus station in jixi – there is a village level bus station – just ask around for buses vans headed towards the hui hang gu dao/ancient road. should cost around 6 rmb.

3. from there follow the handpainted signs towards the ancient road. its fairly well signposted with one turn up the valley which we almost missed and lots of food, drinks and a few guesthouses along the way. and some spectacular views – especially for being a short weekend trip from shanghai.

4. by the end of your hike you can head to some county level seats – we just booked a mini bus all the way back to hangzhou and then some of us came directly back to shanghai that night.

here’s the photos:

yes, that’s right, even if hk is one of the most urban places in the world, one is only a 15 minute cab ride from getting into nature.

just over the last chinese new year, my friend andrew suggested we do a hike from the south side of hong kong island over the wong nai chung gap towards the north side, starting near stanley hiking over “the twins” and bypassing “violet hill.”

a view of stanley from the first twin

nature!

andrew’s sister’s dog buzz accompanied us for the hike, frolicking in the hk countryside, and eventually meeting up with a friendly, but large black lab named lucky.

here’s buzz exiting my photo with lucky in the background. lucky’s owner is up the hill behind andrew

after a vigorous (and i mean vigorous – that first climb is almost vertical!) 2 hour hike, we were ready for comestibles. near andrew’s sister’s apartment in happy valley is the michelin guide mentioned “dim sum” – however, being the middle of chinese new year meant that dim sum was not open, so we opted for “tasty congee and wonton noodles” instead.

sticking with the house specialty, we ordered some congee – i am a lifetime member of the lean pork and preserved egg congee fan club, myself. i sound like a broken record, but no one gets it quite right here in shanghai. in hong kong, happily, they take this sort of stuff seriously. the pork was shredded providing a nice tender accompaniment to the plain congee and salty preserved eggs. here in shanghai, the pork tends to be tough, sliced pieces, so this came as a nice contrast.

growing up in la, you tend to miss a lot of cantonese food. either that, or i only knew what my parents and relatives liked to eat. so it wasn’t until i moved in hong kong in 1997 that i discovered what is called “zha leung” – which is a chinese yau tiu, a salty crueler, wrapped inside of a rice flour roll. but since i’ve discovered it, man, i’ve ordered it every place i could.

tasty congee does a particularly good one.

the prices at tasty congee were not wallet friendly, and the wonton (or as spelled here “wantans”) were not the same quality that you’d find at mak’s or chim tsai kee, but the quality of the food would keep me coming back here, if i lived anywhere near happy valley or any of their other locations. it wasn’t cheap though, our meal (granted we were hungry and may have overordered a bit) was close to $200hkd for the two of us.

Tasty Congee & Noodle Wantun Shop ??????
G/F, 21 King Kwong St.,, Happy Valley
??????21???