September 2 - Hong Kong
Today is the day we meet our next and last tour group: the "China In Depth" Tour. The tour is a month-long trek through China, and will end in Beijing at the end of the month. After this tour, we'll be on our own for the rest of the year. The hotel we're meeting at tonight is in Kowloon, and Jon and I are loathe to leave the Harbourview Renaissance although we know this luxury can't last forever. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the Renaissance Club and read the last English newspapers we'll have access to for a while. Jon was distraught because there was no paper that could tell him whether Florida won yesterday or not.
Then we went back to the room to pack, and my hubby Vidal Sasson did another color job on my hair. This time was much easier than in Na'ama Bay because I bought a L'oreal color kit which is much more user-friendly. And while Jon spent most of the time traumatizing me for fun, the color came out very nicely!
Hannibal
As I was washing out my hair, Jon went and grabbed some lunch for us to eat in the room in front of a movie. We ordered "Hannibal" and settled in to watch it. Jon read the book last year, and we saw the movie when it came out in theaters last year. But we wanted to watch it again because it was pretty good. Unfortunately, 20 minutes before the movie ended the movie shut off and the front desk could do nothing to fix it. This should be a capital offense: ending a movie like this just at the most climatic scene. Julianne Moore waking up in designer clothing from a drug-induced sleep, Ray Liotta acting very peculiar, and Anthony Hopkins cooking something in the kitchen. I mean C'MON!!!!! Thank god we knew how it ended or else we might have gone ballistic.
At 4:00, we checked out of the hotel, put on our backpacks, and trudged our way over to the Star Ferry terminal which would take us to Kowloon Island. Back into the real world of hotels with water-spotted walls, sort-of warm showers, and mothball-spelling bathrooms. Bye-bye Marriott!
Star Ferry
The Star Ferry was right down the street from the Renaissance, and we bought tickets and boarded the boat. The ride took only about 15 minutes and provided us with a beautiful view of the Hong Kong skyline. Unfortunately, our cameras were all fogged up because the hotel room was so nice and cold and the air outside was so warm and humid. So by the time the lenses began to de-fog, we had docked and had to get off the boat. It was raining, so we hopped into a taxi and asked him to take us to the West Hotel. Of course, he didn't speak English so we then tried the name of various streets around the hotel.
Still nothin'.
So we resorted to pointing him along the road and consulting our Lonely Planet map which had the street on it (but not the hotel). The taxi driver was very nice and, after insisting we buckle up, kept laughing and speaking to us as if we had some clue as to what he was talking about. But we were on our way and finally made it to the West Hotel after a few false stops along the way.
West Hotel
The West Hotel is not a bad hotel at all. Seems very clean and pretty new, so we were happy. Jon is devastated, however, because the TV in the room didn't have any channels that could fill him in on yesterday's Florida Game.
(This is something that I will never understand. I mean, what's the rush? The game's over right? The score's not going to change. So we won't find out the score for a couple of days. What's the big deal? I know I'm in big trouble now, because all the guys from the Rubin Football League are going flame me. But I felt the need to voice the irony here.) From Jon: Women just don't understand sports!
Intrepid Group
We met our group leader (Grant) and the rest of the group at 6:00 to do the briefing, exchange documents, and then go to dinner. We got the standard Intrepid spiel: responsible traveling, patience is a virtue, everyone in China spits so get over it, etc, etc. The group seems like an interesting mix of people and Grant is very laid-back so this will be a fun trip. We will be a group of 12 plus Grant. Not everyone had arrived, and some people had already eaten so Grant took a small group of us to dinner.
No Name Restaurant
We walked through Temple Street Market to go to a restaurant of which I never did get the name. Actually, the word "restaurant" is a bit kind. This was a place in a fenced-in parking lot with a tarp overhead and a bunch of tables, stools and fans set up. But the food was great! Grant ordered a bunch of dishes for the 7 of us which we shared. There were a couple of beef dishes, some dumplings, some chicken, and some prawns. It was very good and we were quite happy.
The Piers
It was about 9:00 when we finished dinner and it had stopped raining so Jon wanted to go down to the ferry terminal and take some photos of the Hong Kong skyline. So we said good-night to the rest of the group and hopped in a taxi to the ferry. The view was beautiful! Unfortunately, the polarizing lens wouldn't come off Jon's camera so the only pictures we got were with my digital camera. But they came out nice!
We decided to walk back to the hotel since it was pretty nice outside, and the walk took us about 25 minutes or so. But it was through the middle of Kowloon and it was nice to get outside without being hampered by rain. We went back to the hotel, showered, played some gin, and went to sleep.