Hong Kong

Hong Kong, November 15, 2014

Here I sit on the top floor of our Hong Kong hotel. We are on the 35^th floor and all the buildings surrounding us have at least 70 floors, which means we are surrounded by glass and steel and if we want a view, we need to look at the reflections in the windows of our neighboring buildings.  I haven’t been here in fifteen years and the city is a stranger to me. Kowloon looks like the Hong Kong side did fifteen years ago, massive skyscrapers and dense housing developments, all amazing to me. 

Our flight here was painless. We had to get up early, for us, since they told us we needed to depart the hotel by 8 am due to heavy Friday traffic. Indeed it did take us almost an hour to get to the airport, but it was an amusing drive as we watched whole families on small motorbikes navigating the chaos of Hanoi traffic.  Check-in was another chaotic affair taking much more time than anticipated, but we still made it to the gate on time and the flight was lovely.  The train from Hong Kong Airport to Hong Kong Central Station is a marvel of efficiency and comfort.  For about $12 we got a ticket for two and in 24 minutes we were in the middle of Hong Kong. Things got sticky from this point on due to the Pro Democracy protests and demonstrations, which closed down the major road to our hotel.  There is normally a shuttle bus but it has been suspended and we were told to take a taxi.  There were four taxi lines with at least twenty folks in each line and only one taxi came in the first ten minutes – one for all four lines!  We bailed, found our way to the subway, and thanks to Cindy’s reading subway maps and charts on the fly, finally got to our destination about an hour after getting off the airport train.

We received a lovely note from our Hanoi guides (the Hanoi Kids) thanking us for taking the tour with them.  We visited an old traditional home on the tour, one that had belonged to a wealthy silk merchant in the early 1900s. In one of the rooms there was an old Olivetti manual typewriter and our guides were amazed that we knew what it was and even more amazed that we had learned to type on instruments just like this one.  We pointed out some of the features and they kept asking questions like, where is the delete button, where is the return button, etc.  Ah, youth!

We are off to have lunch with a couple that Cindy taught with in Moscow who are now working in Hong Kong. Hope to get some suggestions for our next three days of touring.   Cindy and Wm