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Published: April 6th 2014
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RED SAILS IN THE SMOG
Traditional Chinese junk We slipped into Victoria Harbor on a cool spring morning, sailing past the landmark buildings in Hong Kong and Kowloon and docking, as usual, at the Overseas Passenger Terminal. We were busy packing up and making our farewells to our shipboard friends. Since we were staying another week in Hong Kong, we decided to ship most of our cruise clothes home using Luggage Free. This is a convenient and fairly reasonable way to lighten your load if you don’t want to be schlepping your bags around. Luggage Free comes right to the ship, picks up your stuff, sends it to the United States via Fed Ex, clears it through customs and delivers it to your front door, or in our case to our dock, in no time. It is a very handy service.
On our last evening aboard the ship we watched the Hong Kong laser show light up the nighttime sky and had our final dinner at the Hot Rocks Grill. The next morning we disembarked and caught a cab to Discovery Bay. Disco Bay, as it is referred to locally, is located on Lantau Island which is about a 30 minute ride from the cruise terminal. Our taxi
driver, who has been driving for 40 years, had never been to Lantau. We found this rather surprising and more so when he stopped the cab
on the freeway to try to figure out how to get there. Since we didn’t know how to say “get moving now!” in Chinese, we encouraged him with gestures and yelps to move before we got hit by a big truck. We ended up using the GPS on our iPad to direct him to the entrance. Thank you Steve Jobs!
Discovery Bay is a modern development filled with ex-patriots from all over the world. It is a very international community. Private cars are not allowed within the development and it is crisscrossed with walking and biking paths and buses and golf carts everywhere. It costs thousands of dollars to secure a golf cart permit and is thus probably a real status symbol. Who needs a Rolls when you can have a golf buggy? Anyway it is a bit of suburbia made up of families with kids and dogs. I think nannies outnumber any other workers here.
We rented a two bedroom apartment overlooking the bay, Disneyworld and Hong Kong in the distance.
THE OLD RADISSON DIAMOND
Very rare multi-hull cruise ship now used as a gambling ship in Hong Kong Every night at 8pm Disneyworld has a pretty spectacular fireworks show which we could see from our balcony. The other great thing is that there are ferries every 30 minutes from D’Bay to Hong Kong. We bought an Octopus Card which is a super deal and is accepted by all buses, trains, ferries, subways and can also be used like a debit card at convenience stores, for taxies and even MacDonalds.
We always enjoy shopping at local markets and doing some of our own cooking. We took day trips to other outlying islands. We also met up with our friend, Roxanna, who is president of Princeton Tailors in Hong Kong. Roxanna has been coming aboard world cruise ships for years offering her excellent tailoring services. We first met her in 2004 on the Voyager and have gotten to know her over the years. Roxanna took us to her favorite dim sum restaurant on the 33
rd floor of a skyscraper towering over the Peninsula Hotel.
The last two nights we stayed at a nice hotel by the airport. By chance, Kevin found out that a childhood acquaintance from Lockport, NY lives in Hong Kong and has been there for
ROXANNA
President of Princeton Tailors and woman about town years. Wallace is an international businessman who with his wife, Jennifer raised their two sons in Hong Kong. We arranged to meet on our last day and Wally really showed us the town. He picked us up at the subway station in his Jag and drove to the backside of the island by Stanley. Then we went to lunch at the American Club and met up with some of his friends. He took us to his penthouse apartment and then down into the financial center of Hong Kong. Wally is a great guide and has very interesting insights into international business and life in Hong Kong along with some funny tales of growing up in Lockport.
The next day we boarded our United flight to San Francisco. We had a wonderful two month cruise on a beautiful ship with lovely folks visiting exotic ports. And we really enjoyed our stay in Hong Kong. It is one of the most exciting and vibrant cities in the world. We will be heading this way next January on Silversea Whisper leaving from Los Angeles and cruising the South Pacific and Asia, ending in Singapore in March. We can’t wait!
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Mary Ann & Bobby
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Hey Susan & Kevin! Very interesting! Sounds like a great trip! We know that was very special having an old friend be you tour guide. You were very lucky! We so enjoy reading what you write & seeing your pics. Any Mah? Love,Mary Ann & Bobby