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Published: January 24th 2010
On the Aqualisa
Relaxing on the boatThe next two days in Hong Kong, where lots of fun. Mrs G, F and I decided that we would pretend to sneeze or cough in a crowded place, just because of the reaction you got. The people stared at you as if you had Swine flu - good thing they sell Swine Flu wipes! Lol. We had a ride on the traditional boat - no idea what type of boat it is - but it is very pretty. Sorry, it is like asking me what type of car something is - the answer you will normally get it the colour. We were the only people on their which was great. Cwock was being a bit of Monkey and kept trying to jump over board to have a swim. Good thing HB was there to stop him. I did have a bit of a Basil Fawlty moment with don't mention the war. F asked what K-11 stood for because in Germany they are the elite part of the army, so I said what like the SS? Woops, I actually meant SAS. Quick pass me a shovel, I have a big hole to dig. We took the boat over to Kowloon and
as soon as we got off the boat we got mobbed by load of school children doing surveys. It is amazing how quickly the day goes. We had only done the boat ride and spent an hour in the mall and it was already nearly 2pm. We had lunch in this colonial building that used to be a military installation. It was really stunning, but very out of keeping, as was the old brick firehouse, next to all the metal and glass sky scrapers.
After lunch we had a meander around the different markets. That was fun. The first one was the bird market. I have been to them all before, but I forgot just how badly caged these birds are. They are all crammed into small cages - some with 10-20 birds in. It made we want to cry. HB and I made friends with this African Grey Parrot that reminded me of Suku (who is our family pet and who has been in our family since the 60s). I wonder what my mum would have said if she had received the bird through the post. Hmmm I doubt she would have been too impressed with me. Some
Escape
Cwock trying to jump over board - naughty Cwock. of the parrots they had were chained up and had feathers missing were they had pulled them out due to boredom. Poor Mrs G had to leave the market as it made her so upset.
The next market was the flower market. I remember thinking when I first visited it with my mum that if I ever lived in Hong Kong I would come there every week to buy fresh flowers. There are so many varieties and colours. Hundreds of orchids - don’t you find them happy and relaxing flowers, I do. And blue flowers! I don’t think I have ever seen blue flowers. True you get blue bells and the such, but they are more purple blue than true blue. They had
blue roses! Amazing. The final market we visited was the fish market. Again, tons of fish all in plastic bags! Strange how that didn’t seem to make me sad. We don’t tend to think of fish having feelings, I wonder how they feel about it?
How I wished by now to have a day off. I had been working 11 days straight, and really wanted the last day in Hong Kong off because I wanted
to go up to the Peak, and try and book tickets to the ballet. But sadly it was not to be. I did have a fab day though. I took the kids to Ocean Park. Now I have been spoiled by Disney, the park was still clean in relation to other parks, but it was badly planned and had loads of those carnival stalls. The rides were also geared towards older and taller children. Which is fine, but I couldn’t even queue up with F. They told me I had to take HB out and that she couldn’t stand in line. WH? I’m sorry, why? So I stood at the top of the stairs in the way just to make it very difficult for them, then complained loudly about how I would never get this at Disney.
Because of this unfortunate event, it meant there was very little for HB to do. So we split up after lunch. F went off to the rides while HB and I went to watch the ice skating show. It was pretty cool. They did magic tricks while ice staking! I know it is just an illusion but when they put one skater
in a box and then shut a door with lighted spikes on and he appeared on a zip wire from the back of the hall. It seems like real magic.
The final thing we did was go to the parrot training show. HB kept choosing really inconvenient times to talk to me. Every time she would ask me something (normally along the lines of - when is it over) I would look at her and the bird would appear do its trick and fly off. Grrr. There was one brilliant moment when this beautiful looking Toucan came out and was meant to fly across the stage to a tree stump but it just sat on its perch and slowly shook its head. It was hilarious. The trainer kept getting closer and closer to the bird but it still refused to fly to him. Then it flew off to a different part of the stage. It was great. He did eventually fly onto the trainer’s hand, but it took awhile. Then they brought this girl onto the stage for a little bird to fly onto her hand, and his bird walked out the door in the back took one look,
turned round and scuttled back from whence it had come. Hehehehehe. I love it when things like that go wrong. Both F and I got to be in the show! I had a Scarlet Macaw land on my arm take some money from my hand and fly off.
Our final evening was spent in the hotel restaurant which is a 3 star Michelin Restaurant! I don’t think I have ever eaten somewhere so fancy. And what did I do while in this fancy place? That’s right I coloured in with HB. We had a minor melt down from her when she couldn’t find the pink pencil, so I had to take her out and have a few words. It was a case of switching from Glinda the good Witch to the Wicked Witch of the West and back again. It worked very well. F was great, he is such an adventurous kid with his food and will try anything. For breakfast he had the Hong Kong breakfast one day and the Japanese breakfast the next. He also tried this packed chicken wing that we brought from a sweet shop (of all places - they had some strange stuff there
Poor birds
All packed in - how tempting it was to buy one. - bags of dried craps, packets of chicken feet or Ducks kidney ugh). So at dinner he had Shark Fin soup! He only had a few mouthfuls because he didn’t like it, but give credit where it is due, the kid tried the stuff. I would never do that, mainly because I won’t eat shark, but even if I didn’t find it morally wrong to eat shark I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to eat the stuff.
Well that brings my Hong Kong Chapter to an end, and so begins the Vietnam section.
To be continued ...
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Ru
non-member comment
Le boat
The boat you were on is called a Chinese Junk. The Chinese have been building them for a very long time. I'm sure when you translate it back into Chinese it does not have the same meaning as what we might connect to it. Alas, if you had pointed the camera over the port side you would have snapped a picture of that bridge I was wandering about! Thanks for the great posts, it's crystal clear you were built for this job!