Day 36 - Thursday May 25, 2017 - Hong Kong
As they were able to give us a room when we checked in at 8.30 am, we unpacked and sat for a while before venturing out. We’re staying at the Holiday Inn in Kowloon, where we’ve stayed several times before. The lobby has been redone since we were last here though it looks like the rooms should be next; our room is a little tired around the edges and showing its age though it’s perfectly clean and comfortable. We’d barely been in the room for 30 seconds before there was a knock on the door – one of the housekeeping staff, who’d been sent to make sure everything in the room was ok.
Neither of us slept very much on the plane so, although we were both fine when we arrived this morning, we faded fast. After running the gauntlet of the ever-present touts on Nathan Road trying to persuade you to have a suit made or to buy a fake Rolex, we stopped for coffee. We were fading fast so opted to return to the hotel for a siesta. I realised a couple of weeks ago that I hadn’t scheduled any downtime/do nothing days into this trip. As this is now day 36, I think our energy levels and appetite for sightseeing are starting to flag a bit.
We go to dinner at Hing Fat, not far from the hotel, on Ashley Road. We’ve been here several times before. Although it seems to get very mixed reviews (on places like Trip Advisor) the food is good, if perhaps a little pricey. We order too much but end up eating it all, more or less. In one of those weird quirks that happen in life, it was here that we once met Anne-Margaret’s boss and his wife from A-M’s Queensland Rail days. We both knew them well, as we used to see them socially in Brisbane. We had debated whether or not to go out to dinner and then ended up stopping at an ATM to get some cash before, somewhat randomly, choosing Hing Fat for dinner. We walk in and, unnoticed by us, a voice calls out ‘Anne-Margaret!’. They were on their way home to Brisbane from Paris …. of all the Chinese restaurants in all the world for us to walk in to at that precise point in time …. it’s funny how life works sometimes.
After dinner, we walk down to the harbour front for the 8 pm Symphony of Lights show. When we got the shuttle bus from the Kowloon MTR Express station over to the hotel this morning, there is an enormous amount of construction going on (roads? flyovers? buildings? Who knows?). There was quite a lot last time we were here but even more now. There’s also construction (possibly the renovation of the Hong Kong Museum of Art, which is currently closed) going on at the harbour front, so we had to pick our way around some of that to get to the water. We were early so sat and watched the lights across the water on Hong Kong Island and the boats going by. When the show finally started, it seemed to us to not have quite the same pizzaz as before – or may be we’ve just seen it too many times now for it to be quite so arresting.
We head back to the hotel, crossing the street in front of the infamous Chungking Mansions, which is next to the hotel. Even Chungking Mansions isn’t quite what it used to be. A rabbit warren of several buildings, it houses a varied collection of shops, restaurants and hotels, boarding houses and who knows what else. Venture in if you dare. It used to look the part – the exterior of the building was amazingly decrepit and crumbling but in recent times it has had a facelift and isn’t the scary looking building that it used to be.
Back at the hotel, we have a drink in the bar. Not too many people in there when we come in – on one side of us are two fairly quiet Americans (drinking, of all things, Budweiser) and on the other side of us a noisy group of half a dozen Indians, jabbering away in that curiously sing-song English-with-a-bit-of-something-else-thrown-in. Eventually, the bar starts to fill up and, for us, it’s time for bed.