Hong Kong

Lovely stopover in Hong Kong. One unexpected event. We arrived at our hotel on Monday night to be greeted by a bevy of media photographers – we didn’t know who could have tipped them off about our visit. It turned out that a swine flu sufferer had stayed in the hotel last week so there was a lot of media interest in how the hotel was dealing with it. Hygiene measures were VERY evident – we had our temp taken 3 times before we got to our room. All the staff are wearing masks and gloves. There are alcohol handwash dispensers all over the place and all imaginable surfaces are disinfected numerous times a day. But every cloud has a silver lining – we were upgraded to an executive room on the 19th floor with access to the club facilities so, unless we catch H1N1 it will have been a bonus to have Mr *** staying here last week.

We haven’t done a whole lot. We took a bus to Aberdeen – a former fishing village on the other side of the island. Caught the Star ferry across the harbour and back. Spent a couple of hours in the Art Gallery – fabulous exhibitions of extremely intricately ancient gold filigree and wonderful ceramics – Jane Barr would love it. And wlked quite a bit – sometimes more than we planned – got a bit lost a couple of times.

We had our friends Alan and Andrea Walker over for drinks last night – it was lovely catching up again. Then we strolled through the Ladies Market at FaYuen St. I used to be able to spot heaps of bargains there on previous visits but it all looked too tacky – I think I’m over buying cheap designer fakes – not too sure about the ethics of it either.

We are off in the morning to London – we warned Christy and Andy of our near-miss with Mr **** and offered to stay away from them for a few days till make sure we weren’t contagious. Andy says we are welcome as long as we don’t kiss him too much – I’ll have to restrain Phil – you know what he’s like.

PS Kimberley and Ginny = I tried to take a photo of a cat for you but I think they've all been eaten. Sorry!
Star Ferry across to the island
























Contrasting the old and the new at Central



























The junks at Aberdeen still act as ferries across to the island which is now covered with high rise. The old photos of just 60 years ago have just a few low level homes and store houses.
I took this photo for Jeff who has bought Noah and Maddie fishing rods and is trying to teach them to fish - I thought this might be a timely reminder.



The exterior of the Museum of Art had been tranformed by these posters - it used to look like this. I think it's a big improvement but Phil isn't so sure.




































A fruit stall in Fa Yuen Street