Hong Kong

The flight from Beijing landed late afternoon, and again I cleared customs and immigration quickly. So quickly, in fact, that my ride had not yet arrived. I waited about fifteen minutes before being met and driven to my hotel. I stayed at the Bishop Lei hotel in the mid-level of Hong Kong Island. After check in, I took the shuttle down to Landmark Center, which is where one goes to shop. I had one purchase in mind: Reading material. I had exhausted my books back in Cambodia, and was dying for some English language reading.

All there was were clothing stores, jewelry stores, more clothing stores, restaurants, expensive restaurants, and clothing stores. I finally found a book store that had English language books, and bought a guide to Hong Kong restaurants. I then sought out a moderately priced Sichuan restaurant, and had dinner of spicy chicken and sharks' fin soup. The moderately priced restaurant cost me HK$560, or about $75 US dollars. $10 of the tab was for water, Clearly, it was cheap places for me in the future.

I took the escalator back up to Robinson Road and the hotel.

November 30 was my last day at a destination for my vacation. I spent the day in Hong Kong. First, I sought out some dim sum, having heard so many wonderful things about Hong Kong dim sum. It took a while to find a decent place in Kowloon, and even then, I had a better selection at Hong Sing Tea House in Sunnyvale. Clearly, the top cooks are moving out, too, as this was only on par with that back home. Maybe I found the wrong place.

After that, I took a walk on the waterfront. I saw a large bird of prey perched, then later soaring overhead. It was dark, with a forked tail, and white patches on the wings. Milvus migrans, the black kite. Later in the day, I'd see a kettle of four black kites, and there are many more in Hong Kong.

Next stop was a park, and the History Museum. This was interesting. More interesting was the bird market. You could get anything you'd want for your birds, lots of cages, lots of species, lots of food. Orin would enjoy this place.

Back to the ferry, which I took to the island. From there, I took the tram to the top of Victoria Peak. Naturally, there is a shopping center at the summit. I hiked my way around the summit (the actual top was off limits) and used my last roll of film here.

Back down the tram, and a visit to Hong Kong park. I visited the aviary, where there were kingfishers and an oriental diver. Next was a conservatory with an exhibit on the plants of America, focusing on the plants of eastern North Carolina. Then, I went past the wedding area, where many couples were queued for weddings in Hong Kong park. Last, I walked back to the escalator to drop off my stuff before dinner.

I headed back to Kowloon (where the food was cheaper) and visited Gaylord's Indian restaurant. It was highly recommended in the book, and deserved the recommendation. The cheap meal came out to only $30 US. On the way from the underground, I passed a large bookstore, and bought a book for the flight home, "Red Flag over Hong Kong." Back at the hotel, CNN International's lead sports story was Indiana's victory over Duke in the NIT finals. Oh well.

After a night's sleep, I was ready for my flight. I woke very early, effectively on Hawaii time. Breakfast at the hotel was disappointing, but expensive. I had a ride to the airport, where I checked in to China Air. I had three bags, and they told me to pack them into two bags, as that was my limit, and they'd need to charge for a third bag. So, here I am in the airport moving dirty clothes from one bag to another, over packing it. That bag weighed 80 pounds. I still had to take the camera bag to a different area, as it was oversized. I managed to make it by with four carry-on "bags." (One was a box with a silk kite in it, which would have been destroyed had it been checked. One was my back pack, with reading materials and water. One was my film, which I always asked to have hand checked. Last was the smaller bag of laundry that would not fit.

I changed planes in Taipei. The stay in Taiwan was brief, and they would not accept Hong Kong dollars, only US, Japan, and Taiwan. The flight from Taipei to San Francisco was on an MD-11, which is a smaller plane with a 2-5-2 seating configuration. It was packed. The plane was hot, and had very little fresh air. None of the movies were worth noting, and the food was not as good as the other airlines.

I must have met the criteria for being a drug smuggler, because I was singled out to have every bag searched from top to bottom by our customs. They found nothing. This after the long delay to get through immigration, and the long delay to get the bags. Finally, a couple hours after landing, I got out of the airport, where Dave Taylor met me. We had lunch at Chevy's in Foster City, and I got to see my cats again.

I was home, too soon, after a very enjoyable trip.