Bye Bye Beijing, Hello Hong Kong

Our evening sup in Beijing of Roast Duck with Chicago pals Shelagh and Mike and new Beijing pal Nancy was amazing, then it was up early Friday morning for one last mini-road trip with Mr. Yin—the 5am sprint to the airport, and hardly another soul on the road. Boarded our Cathay Pacific flight at 7:15, and after 3.5 hours of waiting for the local engineering crew to “fix something in the cockpit”, we were off to Hong Kong. Our intended arrival time of 11am having been extended to 2pm, I was still looking forward to the thrill of that real scary approach and landing, basically in between the big buildings like you see in all the movies…alas, there’s a new airport on a peninsula about 45 minutes from the center of civilization, so it was more like landing at LaGuardia. We were a bit amused by the large banners in the airport tram area advertising the upcoming Chinese Toy Builders and Suppliers Convention in Shanghai later this fall…will anyone attend?

We alighted from the terminal to find a quintessential Southeast-Asian late summer afternoon—the thick, showery, muggy haze sticking to us like a fine glue….and we did not rejoice. The drive in to the city past all the mountains was nice though, and after we crossed Tsing Ma, the world’s longest road and rail suspension bridge, we drove past a never-ending sea of cargo docks and the most gigantic collection of shipping containers I’ve ever seen. Who owns all those containers, how in the world do they keep track of them, and by the way…what in the world is in them?

We’re in the Sheraton, on the Kowloon side of the harbour--about a half-block from the waterfront and up on the 14th floor with, we are told, an amazing view of the Hong Kong side. The weather prevents us from enjoying it much, except at night, but we can see enough to know it’s way worth coming back. Our stroll up the Nathan Road past jillions of people trying to sell us Rolex watches and cameras and foot massages was uncomfortable on a number of levels—wicked muggy and damp and very jostley—so we opted for the relative calm of Kowloon Park. Later in the evening we caught some of the 8pm light show, where many of the buildings up against the harbour do a sort of coordinated light and split laser thing that’s pretty cool.

Now it’s time to prep for the fun that starts tomorrow at 6am…the main course of 13-hour flight to London, with a side dish of 3-hour layover at Heathrow, then for dessert a 3-hour flight onwards to Barcelona. Yum!