day 65 and 66, Hong Kong

Katie, that sounds terrible! We hope Caroline is OK.
Eliza, we will look for earrings for you.

Hong Kong

Yesterday we arrived here about noon. Went on a five hour shopping tour. The ship is too big to get right into the city so we had to take a smaller boat(tender) for about half an hour. It was cloudy and a bit rainy so the trip through the harbor wasn't as pleasant as we had hoped. Also I imagined Hong Kong to be full of little boats with people living on them and I had been warned that I would see extreme poverty. I guess China's economy has been booming and there are very few people left who live that way. The shopping wasn't as good as Beijing-can't bargain them down as much. We went to an open air market called Stanley market-apparently famous. Did get some neat stuff-a T-shirt for each grandkid with their name on it in Chinese. Hope I got the right size for everybody. We also got a big suitcase for around $30. We have bought so much stuff that two suitcases might not be enough. Hope we don't get home and think we wasted our money on a lot of junk! Our tour today(nine hours) stops at the Stanley market so I have a second chance to get a few things I missed.

Hey girls-who wears pierced earrings? Please let me know if you are interested in these. I have seen lots of really nice ones that are very inexpensive.

Back again,

Tour today not that good-mainly because weather was bad-rainy all day. Harbor tour on the junk. We went to Stanley market first but I couldn't find an adorable sweater-sort of what you see at Heartstrings-for Anna. Very frustrating as I saw it the day before but didn't have time to buy it. After the market we did go on a little boat called as San Pan and went around the fishing village-lots of pictures and videos I think. After that they took us to a very fancy place for a very elegant lunch. I think dad enjoyed the food more than I did. It was Cantonese-many different dishes brought out separately and put on a Lazy Susan at a table for 10 people. The first edition was suckling pig and I took a big bite and then realized I had a mouth full of disgusting rubbery fat! Too much to swallow with a big gulp of water. I had to spit it out and put it on my plate. Very embarrassing! I guess it is not surprising to have some food disasters when you are in an exotic country.

After lunch we decided to leave the tour. All that was left on the tour was a visit to a jewelry factory (did that the day before) and cable car ride to the top of Victoria mountain (whether too bad to see anything).

Our tour guide was pretty good but I think he was a frustrated comedian and that got a bit annoying after while. One thing I found interesting was that before 1997 (Hong Kong was returned to China then) people were very nervous about this as they like being a British colony so many of them left. Can you guess where they went? I clue is that the guide said they should name the city Hongcouver (20% of the city of Vancouver is now Chinese).

We felt we were very daring as we got a taxi and went to the ferry terminal and took the ferry to an island called Kowloon where we had been told we could buy silk. I did get some but I am very nervous you won't like it and I think it was a very exclusive store. I got a little suspicious that we overpaid when they put my purchases in a gorgeous silk carrying bag!

After that we returned to the main island and found the peer that would take us back to the ship. We were both exhausted and took a long nap. Dad is quite sick with a very bad cold and cough. I am beginning to think we may have to call the doctor. He skipped dinner and has practically slept ever since. It is now 8 AM (Sunday). We are now 12 hours ahead of you. Dad-I am dictating this at noon, just got up, hopefully starting to feel a bit better. What is it that Norman said? A lot of pain….. Nothing to worry about.

We left Hong Kong at midnight and are on our way to Vietnam. The weather is now very sunny and humid. The sea is quite calm-but not glassy-congrats to those of you that got the glassy quote. The funny thing was that the day after we wrote that the Capt. in his usual noon address described the sea is classy. I thought it was much glassy or the day before.

Vietnam should be very interesting. We are taking a short (4 hour) tour of the countryside and will visit a kindergarten. Hope we can take video. We have a bunch of tin whistles to give the kids. This should be a nice change as I am tired of big cities with skyscraper after skyscraper.