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Published: February 6th 2007
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Well, I wouldn’t wish the last week that I’ve had on anyone! Our original plan was an orderly departure from Frankfurt on a Wednesday followed by a leisurely stop in the UK with Rachael’s parents until Saturday and then a night of seeing my folks whilst at the leaving party of my cousin Phillip and his family who are leaving the UK for Melbourne, then to catch a BA flight out to Hong Kong after a leisurely overnight stop in London. So much for planning!
The reality was as follows:
BA announces that it is going to go on strike on the Monday a week before we actually planned to leave Germany. We manage to rebook our first flight out of Germany so that we leave Germany on the Sunday evening, 4 days before we originally planned to leave. I scramble around frantically trying to organize everything that is left to do before we leave whilst at the same time trying to still see as many people as possible for farewell drinks. No idea at this point how we are to get to Hong Kong as BA has said that it is striking every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for
the next 3 weeks. Our planned departure to HK was on 5/2/07 so we need to find an alternative.
On Thursday, BA announces that the first Monday strike is being called off so we jump on the phone and manage to bag a seat on one of the flights leaving on the following Monday!! This means that our leisurely stop in the UK is shortened somewhat to one night in Walsall in the company of Rachael’s parents. Sadly, the plan to see my folks and Phillip and his family before leaving had to be abandoned.
Well, the flight itself was uneventful except for the fact that we had just passed the point of no return by going into the departure lounge after checking in when we get a phone call from Pete to say that BA has sorted out it’s dispute and there would be no strikes. We could have left everything as it was and followed our original plan after all! I am sure we would have been fairly stressed out though if we had not got an alternative plan in place, so on balance, I think that under the circumstances, I am glad that we opted to come out to HK earlier, but I am bloody annoyed with BA as it is costing us an extra weeks hotel accommodation in HK and that’s not cheap!
So, here we are in Hong Kong! When we arrived, we had a text message from Trailfinders that the hotel that we had planned to stay at wanted double the original asking price to let us stay there as they only had higher quality rooms left at such short notice (we had to try to rebook due to the strike). Bugger that we thought and arranged our own accommodation from inside the airport. We are currently staying at the Wharney Guang Dong Hotel in the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong. It’s slap bang in the middle of the red light district, but is a plush hotel with a swimming pool (closed for the winter), a gym (haven’t visited this yet), a sauna (ditto) and a bar that has a range of 200 malt whiskeys (err … I’d imagine that we’ll manage to get there at some point!).
As I write this, we have been in Hong Kong for about 24 hours and it has been action packed! Last night, we booked into the Hotel at around 7:30 pm local time and then after a brief bit of unpacking went out on the town. We ended up eating at a very basic looking Vietnamese restaurant about half a mile from the hotel. The food was fabulous and it was served with as much free tea as you wanted. Rachael was cock-a-hoop. After that, we visited a couple of bars. The second bar we visited had one of the best machines I have ever seen in it… They were selling Guinness in cans but had a machine that vibrated the glass after the beer had been poured in which caused it to be aerated as though it had been pushed through a pipe. The bar lady demonstrated the effect with someone’s brandy and tonic and it fizzed up and split over the glass and all down the machine. We had a bit of a giggle at that. She still served it to the punter though!
Today has been spent cruising the shops - we started at some very posh shops where Rachael demonstrated the meaning of thrift by not spending on a dress that had been discounted by 50% that she didn’t know she wanted until she had seen it. It was just before she decided not to buy it that she uttered the line “I know, I know, it’s got to stop… but…” I think we must have walked at least 10 miles today just wandering around the shops and gawping at all the sky scrapers. It was fairly quiet in the morning, but at 12:30, it was like someone switched on a tap and suddenly there were thousands of people all queuing at little restaurants. After that, it seemed fairly crowded for the rest of the day. We stopped off for breakfast at a Pret-a-Manger and had a pot of tea and a cake at the Robuchon Boulangerie and Patiserie, so as you can see, we have really entered into the spirit of eating Hong Kong style! The afternoon was spent searching for a sports shop - not that difficult to find you’d imagine, and you’d be right if you were in Kowloon, but it must have taken us the better part of 4 hours to find one in one of the shopping centres that infest Hong Kong Island, and when we did eventually find one, there was another one directly opposite it. I get the feeling that in Hong Kong, there are districts for everything and that everything is clumped together and then does not exist outside of that district. Don’t know if that’s right or not, but it’s just the impression I get after being here for a day. Must mention the market leading up to Stanley Street - full of live fish in polystyrene containers of water and a cat - I don’t know how it managed to control itself.
Right, that’s enough journal for today. I am completely knackered.
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Boris
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Wish I'd be there with you
Hey guys, I am glad you made it to Hong Kong all right. Hopefully you can use the extra week there to overcome all the stress implicated by the strike. While your gone ... I will not stop to search for the storage room, where you left your gorgeous wine ;-) Cheers, Boris