Favorite Philosopher's Blog

Here is is Sunday already and I’m left trying to figure out what happened Thursday, Friday and Saturday!  No matter how tired one is, a travel journal should always be kept up daily…

Thursday we had our usual breakfast at the hotel breakfast buffet, nothing very unusual   Then we took a ferry to Lamma Island (no this was not the ferry! The Queen Elizabeth docked there – seriously huge cruise ship).   Here are some ferry boat related photos:  fake sampan…

Once we arrived at  Yung Shue Wan on Lamma Island we hiked,via paved trail (still, up and down and my knees were not yet recovered from the day before, so I was rather grouchy about it…), to the other side of the island, Sok Kwu Wan, where there is pretty much just a waterfront of fresh fish restaurants.

Once we got off the ferry the trail meanders through the town.  The trail is just wide enough for a golf cart and a half and the main mode of vehicle transportation is electric carts that hold everything from produce and building materials to people.  I guess you have to know someone – the only people I saw riding were a woman about my age in animated conversation with the driver as they flew past and later a young woman in giggling conversation with the driver – I think he was trying to scare her a bit with his driving.  Some things are universal all over the world.

         I made the guys all use hand wipes after they obsessively checked the change return for coins… a little sidewalk shrine

this was cool: appeared to be a bed/crib headboard re-purposed into a street grate over a ditch.

..

Eventually the trail left the town and then the scenery was either greenery or vegetable gardens.  The houses are typically ramshackle with anything one might need to live or fix something or whatever out in the side yard in a heap – pvc pipe, bicycle tires, cardboard boxes, you name it.   Dogs are everywhere running freely, most with collars and very skittish – they appear as though they have been “trained” to not approach strangers as even looking at them as if you might reach out and pet them (which I wouldn’t anyway, I know the stranger danger dog rules…) causes them to skirt around you and cower ever so slightly.  The trail then took us up and over the higher points (to the creak, creak, creak of my knees) where there were some lovely views – really, anytime you get to a higher point there are fantabulous views of the water and green island mountains.

 approaching the fishing village  one of the man made caves that was apparently built by the Japanese during WWII to house “kamikaze motorboats”- this one was a tunnel that was started and not fiinished when the war ended, but supposedly there are more finished ones around the island.

These are dogs.  I have no idea what it’s all about.  They are all black. At one point when we were eating we could see them all run to one end of the beach (for food?) except for one dog who remained sitting there at attention and eventually other dogs came back to it (with food?)  Then, typical of dogs, they all went back to sleep.

Temple at Sok Kwu Wan:

We had dinner there in Sok Kwue Wan Rainbow Bay, the entire waterfront one fresh seafood restaurant after another.  Some of the fish didn’t look so damn fresh to me, floating as they were in the aquariums, but upon closer inspection they were simply on their way out. Still…it creeped me out a bit. I honestly don’t remember what I have eaten anymore, there is a lot of group ordering as you would a Chinese restaurant at home.  Some of it I enjoy, others not so much.  I eat a lot of rice to settle my stomach as it seems that there is a lot of oil used in the cooking.

After dinner the rest of the group headed off for a poker game with friends but as I was falling asleep in my plate of fried rice Al and I opted to ferry back home.  I have not even been able to take my makeup off on these nights – just falling into bed already asleep before I arrive at the hotel….

The view of Hong Kong, awaiting the ferry home

Arrived at 5 a.m., Patti and Al were at airport to meet me.  I was feeling pretty spry, glad to be at my destination.  We had breakfast at the hotel buffet at Panorama Hotel in Kowloon which overlooks Victoria Harbor and the city of Hong Kong just across a narrow waterway.  Patti went off to her daily yoga and Jeff, Al, Jimbo (another old buddy from SF softball days) and I took off for parts unknown which included a stop at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Museum,  Dr.Sun  (1866-1925) being a learned man who helped bring down the two thousand year old Qing Dynasty and establish the Republic of China before he died at age 59 of liver cancer.  It was interesting but the history was so overwhelmingly confusing and the names so foreign throughout the exhibits that I admit I needed the video at the end to have it make any sense.  Gorgeous building built in 1914 as the home of businessman Ho Kom Tong, Edwardian style.  Lovely and exceptionally well preserved.

In order to arrive at this place we took public transportation over to Hong Kong and then walked and walked and walked.  I had my hiking boots on for our later hike which turned out to be a good thing, even with my comfortable new sandals it might have been a challenge. Except for all the plane stuff I traveled light – not even a pair of tennis shoes!   Hong Kong was surprisingly hilly – a la San Francisco and we walked up stairs and hills   – which was a bit of a foreshadowing to the Dragon’s Tail hike.

We also stopped at the Man Mo Temple on our way back to our meeting spot for the hike.  The Man Mo Temple is a small temple, filled with copious amounts of incense, where people come to offer prayers.  Built in 1847 and offers homage to the god of literature Man) and the god of war (Mo).

The curly things hanging from the ceiling are incense and take forever and a day to burn.

The side streets are generally narrow and more like alley ways, just as you might imagine a British/Chinese city to be: decidedly western shops interspersed with shops that appear to have been there since the time of the great wall. Organized chaos.  Unlike our super regulated USA, construction workers are emptying out buildings of lumber and drywall and insulation right in front of you as you walk down the street.  Large laundry-looking baskets are piled up – I don’t know the purpose of them as yet.  Neon signs and LED signs and hanging paper signs compete side by side.

I love it.  I love not knowing what anyone is saying -I find it strangely relaxing, almost like being alone.  I love not knowing what a shop is about until I peek inside.  I love being here, instead of in Chinatown in the US. I love the strange smells.  I love how people are shielding themselves with umbrellas and their babies with newspapers over their heads and it is merely spitting outside.  I love that people are wearing masks when they are sick and going about their business instead of coughing in your face.  I love that I don’t know what any of the food is on the menus and have to just dive in and check it out. And of course I love the children.

I’m not much of a shopper in general, but if I were this is the place to do it.  Our hotel in Kowloon is in the district of Tsim Sha Tsui and although our area is much like the areas described above with numerous tiny shops, like Hong Kong central it has crazy high end flagship store such as Louis Vuitton and Chanel.

In the afternoon we met Jeff and Patti’s friend, another Jim who is a power dude here in Hong Kong.  He and his driver met us and we drove for about an hour past miles and miles and miles and I’m not kidding, miles of high rise apartment buildings that looked like not much more than dorm buildings.  Apparently no one has a washer and drier because every apartment was festooned with clothes hanging out to dry either inside or out.  As Patti noted they all look they are jammed full of stuff – which if you’re living in a dorm room is probably the case.  What impressed me the most however was the sheer number of buildings for so many miles, and they were all skyscrapers.

Then, suddenly, we were in green space.  Lush mountains of green space.  We arrived at the starting point for our hike.  I was hesitant.  I had pretty much been up since the night before with two hours of sleep.  The hike was 7.5 kilometers (about 4.5 miles) and 2.5 hours long and as previously mentioned, mountainous.  Dragon’s Tail and all that.  Fantastic view at the top.  Still and all, I was nervous, but not one to be left behind, I started trekking.

Visions of the Grand Canyon, truly the hike from hell (never did write about it – what happens in the G.C. stays in the G.C. – but suffice to say Jan was deathly ill and shouldn’t have done it at all and I could have lived my life without hiking nine miles up and nine miles back on mostly stairs cut out of the canyon.  We are 1%-ers though and maybe now 5 years later I may be able to jot something down.  On the other hand, what happens in G.C…)

This hike started with stairs going up.  The two locals who were guiding us – Jim and another who joined us, Rob, took off like the locals they are.  I had my trekking poles and just decided to plod along at my own pace.  The trail felt like the rain forest but very rocky.  You got a sense that in the rainy season that the trail would be a great place to sled down the mud.  Every so often there would be some attempt at water control under or across the trail – a sewer pipe here, a grate there, a rubber hose her, a PVC pipe there.  There were bird serenading me all along the way – foreign birds that I could rarely see in the foliage but whose songs enchanted me and kept me sane while my body worried.

Patti and I stuck close together – Patti is not a hiker in general and we got into a nice repartee of bitching about the hike.  At one point I was pretty much by myself – I knew they had stopped ahead and I was climbing yet another set of 30 steps when four dogs appeared at the top of the steps.  Freaked me out.  I called to my party and got no answer.  More freaking out, planning how I would defend myself with my trekking poles.   The dogs looked at me and kept going and not long after a man came behind them.  When I caught up with the group I read them the riot act about sticking closer to me, that I was doing the best I could.  The dogs somehow got corralled into a fenced in area by what appeared to be a dog trainer.  I don’t know.  I thought I was in wilderness.

The hike went on  – and on – and on.  We got to the point where we could choose between going up to the summit or heading back down.  Need I tell you what the group consensus was?  On we went.  More up and then down and then up – the dragon’s tail doncha know.  It’s the down that kills the knees.  The view was outstanding from the top, but as a once again spoiled California girl all I could think was “this looks a lot like the SF Bay.”  But it wasn’t, it was Hong Kong, as was evidenced by looking in the other direction and seeing those miles and miles of apartment buildings in the city below.

Heading downhill, I began to laugh hysterically.  It was the last two miles of the descent into the Grand Canyon all over again.  Step by painful step, planting the trekking poles carefully so as to lessen the impact on my knees.  I could not believe I was reliving the last two excruciating miles of the GC descent.  All I could do was laugh. Maniacally.

one twentieth of the endless apartment buildings.

nice part of the hike – after the first set of steps.  Thought I was home free…

the Summit – the Dragon has been slayed…

OK, well maybe it is a little sweeter than SF Bay…by the way it is not smoggy – it is a bit misty and overcast, very SF-ish as it were.

Descend we did.  We hopped on the bus to Shek-O near the beginning of the hike. Shek-O is the home of several beaches where surfers go.  The town is tiny mish-mash of huts and cafes and bars, most indistinguishable from each other and in a maze that even got our local friend lost.

.  adorable…

this was where Rob realized he had taken us in the wrong direction to the pub and we were at a dead end…

Not to be deterred Rob takes off again. Wish I had taken more photos – we must have walked for five minutes through a maze of buildings like this, past little abodes with pretty flowers pots and the biggest Crown of Thorns plant I ever saw, cooking smells emanating from them that made my mouth water.

Copacabana at Shek-O beach…

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The pub we were looking for was closed and we ended up stumbling upon a beachside pub/restaurant that started out with a libation and ended up with what was arguably a 5-star dinner.  A whole sea bass stuffed with rosemary and capers was my choice. Unfortunately I didn’t realize mine would arrive flaming and I was in the bathroom at that exact moment!  Oh well, everyone else enjoyed it… The owner/waitress had clearly been formally trained at some point in her life – the service and presentation was impeccable from start to finish – but I think she found her paradise in Shek-O, m’self.

By this time I had been up about 24 hours except for that two hours on the Tokyo to Hong Kong jaunt.  The original group of Patti, Jeff,  Al and I caught a jitney bus from the beach back to a metro station somewhere in Hong Kong.  The ride was about 45 minutes and harrowing – first of all, that whole driving on the wrong side of the road thing is VERY disconcerting the first time – and our driver, although not taking chances, knew the dark curving road better than we did so she drove a little faster than we would have.

I honestly don’t remember much about getting home on the metro.  It was a long ride and I stood against the rail with my eyes closed.  When we got off and I realized we were just transferring to another train I started to think I was in the twilight zone.  That part of the trip involved me leaning on the rail, holding on to the hand strap with both hands and dropping my head onto my arms to sleep – it was all I could do.  Keeping my eyes open was no longer an option.

Getting off the train was a few blocks from the hotel and the crisp air and bright lights gave me enough energy to make it in the front door of the hotel, but wait – there were “treats” on the thirty ninth floor, and Jeff and Al said isn’t that why we had skipped desert?

So of course, I took one more detour to the treat lounge and had ten of the most delicious mini cream puffs I have ever tasted.

My pillow from home never ever ever felt so good.

I truly thought I was going to throw up. Not because I am afraid to travel by myself – I rather enjoy it – but because I had fifty pounds of crap on my back half of which was for Al’s benefit and for which I was sure he was totally ungrateful. And he had made the connections too close. And in general I don’t know why I married him or why I thought I wanted to go to Hong Kong with him. And because the USA Rugby team was on his plane, not mine. In other words, I was seriously pissed off and also bummed out. It really was going to be a drag – for both of us – to have to travel the distance alone. I almost felt worse for him. Almost.
I called Andy, who was on his way to the gym and asked him to come get me. Fortunately he was able to and my plan was to turn right around and go home. Then Patti got wind of this. This woman could sell ocean front property in Arizona. Wednesday’s not too late! Al’s been so excited you are coming! I’ll meet you at the airport! We’ll have a spa day and my friend will take us shopping and barter for jade! (say no more – my favorite rock…) All this while waiting at United Customer No Service to figure out how to get my luggage off the next plane to Hong Kong, which was a plane that would go through Haneda (I had no idea before today that Haneda is Tokyo International Airport), where it would sit for three hours and then go on to Hong Kong from there. I made a snap decision to – go.
I had about five hours so Andy scooped me up, took me to his place in Martinez, which God love him took an hour through heavy traffic while he listened to me rant and rave. At his house I unloaded some of the food, stretched my legs, ate a few homemade chocolate chip cookies, repacked everything so that it made sense for the new plan, took the BART back to the airport (boy, do I miss public transportation right to the airport doors. How ‘bout it, Orange County?) It was exactly what I needed and I don’t know if I could have continued in the same positive mind set had it not been for my wonderful son taking care of his mama.
So – the rest is pretty mundane. Slept well, my Nook didn’t work because for some reason it wanted me to enter my name and credit card. Barnes and Noble is skating on thin ice with me. Tokyo airport is amazing. Crazy clean, free luggage carts (hallelujah – I really honestly have no shoulders and neck left) and toilet stalls with bidets, front, back, dryer. Are you SERIOUS? In the airport toilet stall? Of course I used it after 12 hours in the air. The cart even fits in the stall. Japanese who work at the airport are insanely polite, in a passive aggressive kind of way. You might not understand what they are saying but you don’t need to – you do what they say – that accommodating smile from someone in power is rather scary.
As I was waiting I of course got online, and there on FB page was a friend who posted something, quite coincidentally, about Japanese Kit-Kats which come in flavors you’ve never heard of that are the best thing on the planet. I went back to the souvenir store to see if I could get “one” and there were Costco sized boxes of them stacked. I guess it’s a thing. I didn’t buy any and then a while later I decided the coincidence of it all meant I really should just go get some, what was one more thing stuffed into my carry on, and the store had closed (it was midnight in Tokyo). Oh well. Next time?
Now I am nearing Hong Kong. It will be 5:30 a.m. Wednesday (Tuesday evening in LA) when we land. Patti will be waiting for me at the airport to escort me back to the hotel, hassle free. All in all it wasn’t a bad trip. I had an open seat next to me for this part of the trip (four hours) and I managed to crunch myself up (yay for travelling with my bed pillow – you can call me crazy but I never regret it) and sleep for two hours. Ate some kind of weird Japanese airplane food and am ready to begin the fun. I think Al should arrange for me to have my picture taken with the rugby team or the star or something, don’t you?
We are scheduled to go on a hike over the Dragon’s Tail mountain today – I packed my trekking poles but they are in my checked luggage and hopefully it arrives. The nice lady at Haneda asked for my baggage claim and she claims it’s on the flight.
Well, the captain is telling us we’re getting close and I have to laugh, he has that same low key, drawn out, eeehhhhh, thing going on in Japanese as English speaking pilot has!
I am ready to hike, that’s for sure. Stay tuned…

Well. When last we left Rocky and Bullwinkle, they were to meet on the plane in San Francisco. Bullwinkle was coming from Las Vegas where he had been on his annual reunion with his siblings, Rocky was coming from Orange County. Rocky was telling her patients at work about this plan and all the women agreed it sounded very romantic “The next time I see him will be on the plane headed to Hong Kong.”
Which is the only reason I was going on this trip to begin with. Al had already been invited by Jeff and Patti Plonsker to go to Hong Kong for the World Sevens Rugby Tournament (or part of it anyway –I’ll know more later) – they all had all but given up on me. Between school and moving and Mom moving and work I had not been willing to travel much, even bowing out of the group trip to Mexico in September. Al was moping a bit, asking me things like “do you think you’re ever going to want to travel again?” I admit I had been a so-so traveler on the Panama Cruise, largely because I was preoccupied with all of the above. I decided for the sake of the marriage to, what the hell, go to Hong Kong. This shocked everyone especially Al, and Patti was delighted to have me come and save her from Al and Jeff (two oldest friends, getting older along with the recycled jokes…).
I was a little freaked out by 15 hours in the air but thanks to the internet and friends on facebook, I was prepared. I had my eye mask, my noise cancelling headphones, my compression hose, my crossword puzzle book, the travel cribbage board and cards, my Nook all charged up with two new books, my computer (on which I’m writing right now), my iPad. I had my moistened face wipes, my face lotion, my mini Kleenex, my extra chargers for all the tech toys. I also had stuff for Al that he would never think of in a million years but I knew he would be happy to have: his eye mask, his noise cancelling headphones, his compression hose, moistened face wipes, chargers for whatever he might need charging. Oh yes, and the comfortable sports warmup pants he asked me to bring at the last minute because he hadn’t even thought of that.
And food – lovely homemade turkey and avocado flatbread sandwiches, Cuties oranges, hard boiled eggs, nutrigrain bars, freshly cooked teriyaki broccoli (it would have gone bad in the fridge). I barely managed to jam this all into my backpack and another cooler bag and couldn’t wait to meet Al and transfer over some of this crap to an extra carryon I had also packed. To say I had reached the weight limit on my ability to carry stuff is an understatement.
Only one problem. My flight from Orange County was about to take off when the pilot said we were grounded on orders from SFO air traffic – apparently the ceiling was too low in SF. (I don’t even know what that means in SF. The ceiling is always low). Not knowing what might happen, we were told to deplane. This turned out to be twenty to thirty minutes I couldn’t afford with a one hour layover between this flight and the long haul to Hong Kong.
We were off the plane about twenty minutes when – we were told we were going. Back on the plane. We will be there in 50 minutes. No problem, that will be 12:55, plane leaves at 1:20. I can make this. Ask my kids or read the blog about the time we made it seconds before the doors closed. You only have to get ON the plane, it doesn’t matter how close you cut it.
I didn’t. We arrived on the new schedule and….waited for a gate. By this time Al and I were texting – he was on the plane. He was telling me exactly how to get to the new gate. We texted back and forth helplessly as the doors closed and he had no choice but to go on without me. Not before he told me the USA Rugby team was on the plane. To those of you who are not familiar with the physical specimens known as rubgy players, I was robbed…