Hong Kong - 24 September

Despite our fatigue, Eileen and I vowed to get up this morning be off the boat by 9:00 am so that we could explore Hong Kong. We were a bit off with our estimate and didn’t make it off the ship until 10:00 but I consider that to be a major victory considering the sleep deprivation we’d been experiencing for the past five days. We had no specific plan other than to wander around the streets and enjoy the day. This was made a bit difficult with the Level 1 Typhoon that was blowing through the area. The rain was coming down in torrents at times but we were determined to see the city in spite of it.

At first, we wandered around areas of the city that could have been found in any large metropolitan area with many upscale western stores. We walked past the Pennisula Hotel which is known for its five-star quality. We decided to walk through it despite our less than elegant apparel and were very impressed by the place. We considered having tea there later in the day but learned that the wait list is usually hours long. Since I don’t even enjoy tea, I didn’t think that was an efficient use of my limited time in Hong Kong so we went back out into the rain and continued our wanderings.

We finally found a side street that had potential and wandered down that way. Our soon found ourselves amidst interesting herbal shops and a bajillion jewelry stores. Eileen was looking for earrings with Chinese characters on them and we were quite diligent in our quest. We found other jewelry to buy – opal earrings for Eileen and a lapis lazuli ring for me – but no earrings.

We enjoyed lunch at a small restaurant where we were the only westerners and then continued our quest to see the streets of Hong Kong. We finally got tired of that around 4:00 and returned to the ship. Drenched but bejeweled.

Dinner was at California Pizza Kitchen – sorry, but I just had to get a bite of American food while the opportunity presented itself. It was so damn good. The memory of it will probably sustain me for at least two or three weeks. After that, I spent some time working on the blog until the ship left port at 11:00. It was the most beautiful port that I’ve seen. Absolutely spectacular at night. It was a very quick visit to Hong Kong and certainly didn’t do it justice so it’s going to be another country to add to the list where I need to return.