Hong Kong! October 2015

Finally on the plane after a bout of stunned disbelief in the airport!

This was the view from our hotel room, greeting us as we came in the first night. James planned for us royally. This was the JW Marriott on Queensway at Pacific Place in Central, right by the Admiralty metro station. Just after we snapped these photos and turned the lights on, there was a knock at the door, and the hotel fairies brought a pot of green tea and a dish of fruit. We unpacked, snacked and tried to fathom that we were back in HONG KONG.

Our first morning, the South China Morning Post led with this story. We were making jokes about it all week. "Oh, the HK Opera is doing Tosca. The cellos will be late!"

The breakfast buffet alone was worth the trip. And they sifted a different pattern onto my cappuccino every morning.

We are in HONG KONG?!

From the airport, we took a red cab (color-coded for toward HK). The airport was full of ads for high-end watches and apparel. As we waited at the taxi-stand, the cabbie ahead of us got out to throw luggage in the trunk. He was wearing a black shirt that said in white letters, "I'm fucking awesome." As we cruised toward the city, we saw a lot of very densely-packed, monolithic high-rises (photo at the end of this gallery). Also, the trunks of nearly all of the red cabs (i.e., airport toward city) were held closed with bungee cords around the bulging luggage. We read a lot of maps and a couple of travel books, and re-familiarized ourselves with the lay of the land. The subway was fantastic! The double-deckers lurch drunkenly around HK, same as ever. We had bilingual maps for the cabbies (who still operate only on cash). And our reloadable Octopus cards were good for bus or subway.

Past and present self, back to back

The hotel's logo/mascot is a griffin! After we got back, I cut up our key-cards to make jewelry.

A public-service announcement. Much more interesting than the ones when we were there! A short linguistic lesson.

This lil guy, Snorky, is very well-traveled. Goes to all the US historical publishing conferences!

We were on the Silver Star.

Isn't it pretty!

Pulling into Kowloon from HK side. There has been so much land "reclamation" that the trip across the harbor is MUCH shorter than in the past. Maybe 7 minutes?

Korean festival on Kowloon side!

I thought this was funny because it's the French word for "virtue" - so virtue is for sale - cheap!

Watson's pharmacy has everything you need - from aspirin to gastro remedies to longevity!

Moon cake, with the chop of the JW Marriott

This seemed like a perfect metaphor for Hong Kong - thriving magnificently on nothing. It was in a tiny park in Central, the size of a postage stamp. I looked up the kind of tree - a banyan.

Urban canyons. The color of paint seems to change when the can runs out. I thought of Gramps telling Karen why all the barns were covered in red paint: "It was on sale."

Yeah. Just don't do anything in this park.

Graffiti, HK style. I wonder what the binary code says?

It was dusk, and we were exploring in Central.

This seemed so characteristic of Hong Kong. At this storefront temple, there are devotions going on, and these are fine and good, and meanwhile plumbing has to happen. Oo! By the way, there were no signs at all of water rationing. There were some ominous clouds, but only light rain, and lots of smog.

As we wandered through Central, these were the final devotions at this storefront temple before it closed for the night, leaving the city to its weekend devices.

It seemed that every store had its shrine, inside or out. One porcelain place (all modern stuff for the kitchen) had a shrine with a life-size red deity raging in front of small blue tiles. This furniture place had a small, active shrine on the sidewalk, the joss still fragrant and ash-wands trembling over the remains of the day's devotions.

As we walked through the subway station and underpass around the Admiralty, there were some really neat posters. One was for Angelique Kidjo, a queen of African rhythm. Several touted Chow Yun Fat's latest movie, called OFFICE, showing him looking stern and handsome and incorruptible :-), and there were others showing a young siren and a more average-looking guy who was probably the sympathetic villain. I'm looking forward to seeing it!

In a public park in Central, dominated by tennis courts, we saw a stage and lights set up for some sort of minor spectacle. There were dragons! The people on the stage were making municipally mundane announcements, but the dragons were the main draw.

This photo would not normally be funny, but it's a bar, and these lovely and talented ladies are belting out "Ave Maria" to a funky beat. Which reminds me! St. Stephens is alive and well! http://ststephen.org.hk/index.aspx

2nd day began with, again, the stellar buffet and a creative top to the cappuccino and lively chat with the waitstaff. Pampered!

The universal sparrow. Always nice to see these guys in different cities.

Number 6 to Stanley. Inside, it was livid purple. The driver had poor impulse control. Filipina amahs on their Sunday off, swinging from the handholds, chattering in gorgeous lively Tagalog, headed for picnics in Deep Water Bay.

The walk into Stanley looks a lot the same from this angle. The lady plucking chickens is gone (!), and all the stalls are clothing, jewelry and souvenirs. But a couple of the linen vendors are the same. There is some plastic roofing over the footpaths. The whole thing is definitely cleaner and quieter... feels odd and a bit stifled. I realized i was instinctively stepping around noisome puddles that weren't there. No more washing of the mahjong tiles, bootleg albums or general bellowing in Cantonese. Missing its old hard-bitten vitality. Still felt like Stanley overall tho. A whole bunch of cafés have sprung up along the seawall.

Didn't seem right, seeing that flag over that sign.

There is a Watsons on the left. The grocery store is gone.

These gorgeous trees (Indian almonds) were way back behind the market. Remember how you'd come down the hill, past the steps up to the little supermarket, then straight to the T of the alley between stalls. Then you'd turn left past Patrick Ng's. Keep going and you'd be able to go up left for a different way home, or go right. So we went right and the alley led to this. Fish was drying on a line, an old man with a long grey pigtail was lecturing several people on "faddah, san and hoh-lee SPIR-IT!!" There was a tiny pinoy eatery, some fish drying on a clothesline, and a row of half-a-dozen apartments with old folks out on their verandahs. Each had red luck decorations by the doorway. If you kept going you'd get to Mong Kok Road.

You know what? Just take your laundry and move along.

This is where Stanley Village Road meets the seawall. Row of bustling cafes and bars.

This was the closest I could get to the old apartments, because now they are...

...this! Gate, doorman and all.

The steps from Stanley Beach road down to the end of the beach closest to the old apartment. The trees have grown!

Among the souvenirs on offer is Mao's little red book.

The Moon Festival was very different from the past. We went to Victoria Park, which was totally thronged. The crowd itself was the main attraction - what you'd expect - buoyant, polyglot and all different ages. One trim elderly man was standing near two kids, both on their dads' shoulders, one Chinese toddler and one blonde-ringleted girl. The old guy was making faces, beaming at them both and reaching out his hands to them, delightedly watching their expressions. I saw another elderly couple, both white-haired and still lithe, strolling together, faces glowing blue and red under the lights, clearly loving watching the crowd. They were the only couple i saw holding hands. All the young folks were on their phones and taking group selfies. Tagalog, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi and Japanese (heard one tourist saying in a bemused tone: "...wakaranai."). The government-erected lights were truly splendid... But there were almost no personal lanterns anywhere, and none for sale, which was just bizarre. No fireworks at all! There were some state-approved vendors, doing some dejected crafts, and one disconsolate table showed a dozen state-chosen examples of schoolchildren's lanterns. No more hawking (in either sense!) in HK. There was a big screen showing a meek little man trotting out slogans. The moon emerged from behind the clouds, took one disgusted look at the sanitized festivities, and took off for her big eclipse gig over the Americas.

I liked the personality of this front porch. Nice big shrine, towels drying matter-of-factly on the clothesline, retractable awning, and a gilded fence to class up the joint.

Another gorgeous banyan tree on the walk from the old HKIS site down to the beach. It was wonderful to retrace our old steps.

The land where you can put anything on a moped if you have enough string.

There is a new shrine at the end of the RB beach. Remember how Tin Hau and Kuan Kin stood at the right end as you faced the water? They've been moved down to the other end and re-tiled. There are lots of littler gods and creatures to keep them company.

I was going to re-take this photo from another angle, but it seemed so characteristic of HK that I left it.

Tin Hau is checking her phone.

Kuan Yin is rockin' out.

All the creatures in the shrine had some bling.

We got six extra days.

I was taking photos for some Korean ladies, turned around and found a red string at my feet! So i tied it under the man from the moon, during the moon festival.

Peek-a-boo

Just sit quietly on the beach.

This is what the moon festival was NOT like.

Mom, I made you some earrings with HK coins. Dad, you can have a pair too if you like.

High tea at the Mandarin. Mm-hmmm.

From the Mandarin, we came out onto Chater Street to find it closed down for the holiday, and thousands of Filipinas making the most of the day off. Most were sitting on spread-out cardboard on the street, at the Statues Garden fountain and on the ramp down into the MTR. They were picnicking, leaning companionably on each other, listening to music and braiding hair. This group had a Pinoy karaoke going, and they were having a ball. You know how when someone's singing, you can hear it in their voice if they're smiling? Even before we saw them, you could hear the hysterical laughter infusing the song. Twice in other areas today, we saw Pinay groups practicing dance moves for tonight. And here they were, dancing and singing tagalog hit songs, communing on cardboard on the street... in front of Cartier, Bulgari and the Mandarin Oriental.

The trams didn't look possible. They were so flimsy!

Super-moon over HK

Different landscape in this part of the city - urban canyons, cascades of traffic, swirling eddies of pedestrians, and long lazy slow trickles of downhill alleys. Explored Cat Street, Hollywood Road, the Man Mo temple, fusion dim sum and low-key haggling. Later we conquered the MTR and fell into Mong Kok. It was great!

Somebody lives here, walks past all this nonchalantly every day

The Man Mo temple was undergoing restoration

thought this looked like an expressive face for this building. Loved the pretty jade-green ceramic work, and the cheerfully painted ironwork surrounding the near-derelict air-conditioning unit. HK always seems to have a bright bit of beauty engaged inextricably with a functional scrap of ugliness.

Check out the business name! On the corner of Cat Street as you descend the Ladder Street steps.

The hotel had a business center. We went there to print K's boarding pass. It had several sterile cubicles, each with this fun little splash of color.

Chow Yun Fat's new movie. I wish we'd had time to go see it.

Mong Kok sears itself on your retina, while its smells torpedo up your nostrils. Felt great to be back in an Asian city.

I was wondering why the two sets of chopsticks, and Kathy offered: "Depends on if you're feeling more yin or more yang." We asked - the black are for your own plate, and the white are for serving from the communal dishes... you uncouth barbarian.

Projects on the way to the airport.

Really tired in Newark.

At the Star Ferry, Kath caught sight of this and laughed as she posed me.