In Time

As I write this, I am somewhere near the Arctic Circle, or maybe I should say near it and above it. My flight left Hong Kong around 9:30 AM on the 9th of November, and by the time it touches down in JFK Airport in New York a bit more than 14 hours later – my watch will display 11:45 AM on November 9th.

Though I will spend more than 14 hours flying over the top of the northern Hemisphere, and have 14 plus hours added to my age, only 2 hours or so will pass on the clock. The time both literally and figuratively flew by. So, yup – time flies.

Speaking of time, yesterday morning I caught the 11:00 AM show at the UA Cinemas, 5/F Cityplaza, Tai Koo, Hong Kong. That’s the 5th floor of a large shopping mall right next door to my hotel. I had time to burn before my lunch appointment at 1:30 PM. You know, in Hong Kong, or at least in this theater – when you buy your ticket at the box office, you make a seat selection by pressing the icon for the seat you want on a electronic touch screen display of the available seats in the theater.

Then, when you get to the House or the specific theater (it’s a multiplex), you are shown to your seat by a cute young woman who wields a flash light. And what a seat it was -  a large leather and extremely comfortable movie seat and almost on a par with a seat that you might find only in the first class section of a trans-oceanic airplane.

I was there to watch In Time – the futuristic thriller that stars Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Olivia Wilde, Johnny Galecki who moonlighted from The Big Bang Theory, and Vincent Kartheiser. Directed and written by Andrew Nicol who also has directing credits most notably for Lord of War and Gattaca, and writing credits for The Truman Show, among others – the film has a simple premise; people stop aging at 25, and once you reach that age, you will live only for one more year, unless you can add more time to your life/account. In short – time is the new currency. Meaning everything you earn is paid to you in time, and everything you spend is deducted from your balance of time. A bus ride costs an hour, and when the price rises to two hours, someone will lose their life because they haven’t enough time to spend on this trip.

One day plus 12 minutes and 50 seconds to live - everyone might have more or less time but everyone has the same time-piece

The price of coffee might be 4 minutes, the price of a lunch could be 30 minutes and so forth. There’s a high stakes poker game in which a big pot amounted to a 1000 years. There’s a bank heist – the thieves walk away not with gold bullion bars, but with these metallic bars that one uses to upload time through your wrist into your life force which runs through your system the same as blood. While most folks are in a constant state of having to beg, borrow, steal, or earn time to continue their day to day lives, others are super-rich having acquired so much time (millions of years) that they are immortal, or nearly immortal.

Justin Timberlake as Will Salas - when his feet the floor he will be 'on the run'

That’s the premise. Beyond that, it’s simply a race against time. Will Salas (Timberlake) tells us that he’s been living day to day (he means that literally) for a while because his true age is now 28. He meets a man named Henry Hamilton played by Will Bomer who is 105 but looks 25 (everyone is either 25 or younger in appearance) but has had enough. He’s tired of the rat race. He wants to check out by handing over his one hundred years to Will via a wrist to wrist transfer. He does this while Will sleeps;  leaving himself about five minutes to go off and then die.

Cillian Murphy as Raymond Leon, the timekeeper slash cop

Will is accused of being Hamilton’s killer although we know this is not the case – the timekeepers (i.e. – cops) think otherwise. Cillian Murphy plays a time keeper/cop with a certain elan to him. He wears a stylish leather overcoat and he looks both fierce and determined and yet he seems strangely haunted because he knows that the system is desperate and dangerous for all but a few of the most corrupt and therefore the richest who control the allocation of the time. Though he himself is a day to day employee of the system, his job is to make sure that time remains where it should. Meaning that the poor will continue to die off as they haven’t the means to stay alive – but had everyone the means, the earth would ultimately perish because if no one died eventually there wouldn’t be enough space and we’d  run out of resources. So that is how the film offers a little philosophical chewing gum to its viewers.

Amanda Seyfried as Sylvia Weis who will join Timberlake's Salas and go on the run with him but in this image, she's just a 'poor' little rich girl

But as a film, there’s not enough substance to keep you intrigued for two full hours. Watching people fret and worry about how the price of everything keeps going up and how their lives become a race against time, with more difficulty with each passing day is a fine starting point. People who are out of time actually drop dead and fall to the ground as death is instantaneous.

Olivia Wilde as the Mom of Will Salas

The timekeepers drive souped-up cars (resembling Dodge Chargers), people live in time zones or neighborhoods that have toll gates and high fences. The poor won’t want to spend some of their all too precious life force (time) to cross into a wealthier enclave. This creates a series of ghettos – for the poor, for the middle classes, and for the time super-wealthy, the neo-immortals. The richest enclave is called New Greenwich. The film was shot in L.A., so maybe calling the new communities by their real names like Rolling Hills, and Hidden Hills – each with median household incomes in excess of 200,000 – would have been too obvious.

Vincent Kartheiser as Phillippe Weis

When Will Salas shows up in New Greenwich for a high stakes poker game you know that tensions will mount. Kartheiser plays Phillippe Weis, who is the world’s richest man which means that he can live forever (immortal). Weis’s mother, wife, and daughter all look 25. The daughter, played by Amanda Seyfried, will become both Salas’s hostage then love interest.

The two of them are forced to go on the run after they rob a time bank, and in that sense they become a near future version of Bonnie and Clyde. By this time, the film is not much more than a chase and pursuit film.

In Time - Hong Kong film poster

The film will not overwhelm you with technical prowess or CGI effects. The hoodlums seem like updated gangs, the cops wear black leather, and the rich, well they look the part, and they live in fabulous mansions. That’s it – the film’s veneer is philosophical or as Ebert calls it – an allegory in which time is money, and people will pursue time in any way they can including violent crime when necessary. Truly, in this film, only the strong or most cunning and daring survive. But the bottom line – is that while this is a film in which no actor looks more than 25, none are particularly charismatic.

Timberlake looks the part, but as written, you can’t really get up enough feel for him to actually root for him. The rest of the actors and actresses are all young and up and coming, so it is quite likely you might be unfamiliar with at least some of the major players in this film. While the rich look elegant, and the desperate look suitably poor, you can’t identify with any group. Nor side for or against them emotionally. In that sense, the film is creatively bankrupt – just a few new ideas wrapped around some clichéd tired, and typical chase scenes as well as stock characters. This film is just like a flashily thick bankroll with a C-Note on top, but everything beneath is simply George Washington singletons.

Walking on the Moon

Moon Hill

Walking on the moon has a nice ring to it: it’s kind of astronaut-ish. Well, I did walk on the moon and I’m not even close to being an astronaut. Of course, I am referring to Moon Hill which is located in Yangshuo, Guangxi Province in China. To the right is a picture of the place as you might find it on a purchased postcard. All the rest of the pictures are my own photos.

And speaking of postcards, when we arrived at the entrance – kind of a parking lot, my guide, Rong, quickly handled the admission process – I think it was 15 RMB. She never asked me for it as it must have been included in her guide fee for the day. Immediately, we were set upon by three elderly ladies – all of which were hawking postcards, and assorted drinks. I had been warned about this by a couple I had met at the hotel. He said it won’t matter how many times you refuse, because you will eventually need to buy some water, if you haven’t brought your own, or if you don’t want to carry it up with you, you will be more than happy to buy some water from her.

I was warned that none of the old women will take ‘no’ for an answer, and one will literally join your walking group and go up the hill with you. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened, so instead of just me and Rong, the guide, we became a three-some. The lady carried a cooler that she held by a strap over her shoulder. There were about 4 bottles of water, and 4 cans of coke, and juice. She also carried some small oranges – real small, juicy and seedless as I would find out later. The guide had her own fanny back, and I later found out that she too carried some small oranges.

Just a few of the 800 cousins - you'll need to make contact with each one of them

Well the journey consists of about 800 steps to the top of the hike which ends beneath the arch. The steps wend their way through the bamboo forests. Obviously it is not a straight route. Instead think of a set of folded sneaker laces before you take them out of the wrapper.

beneath the arch

Periodically, you arrive at small landings, where there would be stone benches. Along the way, the older woman spotted a length of bamboo, which she broke off the ends and handed it to me. It worked marvelously providing both additional support to push off of on the way up and for balance on the way down. If Moses could carry a staff, why couldn’t I.

That's Yangshuo town far below as we take in the view from the "Moon"

We made it to the plateau beneath the arch in about 40 minutes. Younger and fitter people can make it in about 20-25 minutes. And yes, I did need to buy some water. I bought the first one about ¾ of the way up, the second at the top, and the third about half way down. It was a hot day with temps in the low 80’s. The lady with the water allowed me to do a running tab as we walked – I only paid her at the end of the trip once we were back at the parking lot.

Yes, I also bought the packet of post cards too.

I thought it was a fun way to get some exercise. The view from the top would have been spectacular if the day had been clear, but it was hazy throughout. The steps are fairly broad and wide, and you are never walking in anyplace that might be considered perilous on the way up or down. But it still requires plenty of effort and energy on the way up, and as you travel downward you absolutely must keep your eyes down so you can focus on each step. In fact the staff became extremely useful on our downward journey.

2/3's of the expeditionary team - that's Rong in the yellow top

Tip: Make this your first destination of the day. We left the hotel at 9:00 AM, and by 9:15 we were just about ready to start the hike. You don’t want to do this once the day really begins to heat up.

East Hotel, Taikoo Station, Hong Kong

Meanwhile, back at the East Hotel, 29 Taikoo Shing Road, Hong Kong, things are really better than the impression you might have gotten from my article on breakfasts this morning. Around 1:30 PM today, after lunch, I was waiting for something and decided to cruise back to Feast, and take some images. I ran into one of the restaurant managers who absolutely remembered me, even though I had not voiced any verbal complaints while I had been there.

He again apologized. I asked if there were a number of new staff and he said just the opposite. The staff, in the main, and despite their youth, were pretty much a veteran crew – which leads me to believe that turn-over is is not an issue, and those folks like working there. The manager went on to explain, that a large conference was being held at the hotel, it was a Monday morning – and the heavy weight turn out for breakfast at the same time I was there, was most unusual. I thanked him personally for his waiving the check for my breakfast and said that I appreciated not only the gesture, but the fact that had been made aware of the delays in my service.

So the hotel, and the restaurant, will be given another look. First let’s look at my room. I do not have the harbor view room as pictorialized in the previous post. I’ve been to Hong Kong so many times, that I would not pay extra for a harbor view room. Geez, how many times have I crossed the harbor on the Star Ferry where I could see the harbor basically at sea=level but at the same time smell the sea and have the wind on my face at the same time.

But the hotel did give me an upgrade to a corner urban view. What this means is that I have full windows, nearly floor-to-ceiling, on two sides rather than just one. The hotel is very hi-tech. Your room key enables the elevator – without the room key, the elevator won’t leave the lobby. The key itself is scanned without inserting it into a slot. The room has a big queen bed with a down comforter – very substantial linens, 4 pillows, and a master switch to darken the entire room from your bedside.

My room, and the entire hotel comes with complimentary Wi-Fi or if you need to be wired there’s every kind of cable you can think of which enables me to watch the DVDs that I picked up here in HK on a 40 inch Panasonic TV that is not only wall mounted but comes away from the wall and swivels.

The hot water is plentiful, and with good water pressure, and you have a choice between a hand-held nozzle apparatus or the rainfall style showerhead which is built into the ceiling, The bathroom also has top of the line soaps and shampoos and rich thick towels. The toilet is in its own little room, and comes equipped with a phone meaning there are three phones in the room. There’s one by the bed, one at the desk, and one in the loo.

Feast

The overall decor is a blonde wood floor with a thick shag rug beneath the platform bed. The room is trimmed in black, with lots of black venetian blinds. I’d say the room was warm and inviting, with the beige walls and beige bedding, and lacked only a decent side chair. However the desk chair is excellent and is on wheels so you can roll it away to watch TV. You can also plug your laptop into the TV via a provided HDMI cable which means you have a big screen to work with.

Feast 2

I’m going to give the hotel a very good rating, and despite the faux pas at this morning’s breakfast I’d recommend it. Two other major plusses – the hotel is literally just a few steps from the MTR D1 Exit at Taikoo Station, and you can actually exit the MTR and get into the hotel without getting wet even in a rain storm, and in 10 seconds or less

Feast 3

Also you have the two excellent shopping malls also less than a 1 minute walk away. In fact you can walk directly from Feast right into a shopping plaza without even going back down to street level. So I am going to wrap this up by saying that if business takes you to the Far East, and if Hong Kong is your destination, then head East, friends – to the East Hotel. And I haven’t even discussed the outdoor heated swimming pool and the rooftop bar and gardens.

Beginning the Day – Chinese Style

Wednesday November 2nd – It is about 10:30 in the morning. I have just returned from my morning expedition. I will leave Hong Kong for the 1st time tomorrow evening. But I needed to lay in some items for today and tomorrow. So the first item on my agenda was some orange juice. I’d not seen any that looked worthwhile in the neighborhood near the apartment. But I did see some Minute Maid OJ in tall bottles in Hong Kong MTR Station yesterday.

The Harmony Restaurant

The Harmony Restaurant, which is between Wing Lok Rd and Bonham Strand on Morrison St in Sheung Wan, was my destination. I suppose this is the Hong Kong equivalent of a diner back in the States. I had the Set B breakfast which included coffee, toast, a fried egg, a small hamburger patty and a very slender slice of cooked ham. Twenty three HK dollars – a bit more than $3 US; your basic no frills first meal of the day. Still, it beats cooking and then cleaning a frying pan and plates back in the apartment. The place was quite busy but the service was fast. I was the only westerner in the place.

With a window seat in a small booth – I had a commanding view of the pedestrian traffic. For the most part, more people seemed to be coming down from the higher levels of Sheung Wan heading for the mass transit MTR Station. These folks would be heading to their jobs and businesses. But then there would be a strong flow of folks heading in the opposite direction, deeper into the Sheung Wan’s commercial and business district. While I didn’t think of it as I watched for the first time – it came to me on the next day – the pedestrian traffic inbound into Sheung Wan was no doubt linked to the fact that an MTR train had arrived. Sheung Wan is the last and most westerly station on the Island Line of the MTR, and those folks were going to their places of employment in Sheung Wan.

Blake Gardens

I made my way back up into the hills with a patterned walk of first up a hill for a block – via either a street or stairs, then turn right, go a block west, then go up another street or stairs for about three reps until I came to the bottom of the Blake Gardens which meant I was only about 2-3 minutes away from the apartment unless I stopped to rest, to read, or to admire the roots of the banyan trees.

Banyan Tree roots

Friday – Nov. 4th – I arrived here in Yangshuo, Guangxi Province, China last night. My Flight to Guilin arrived at 11:30PM and it is about a 70 kilometer drive through the mountains to Yangshuo and specifically to the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat. I got through immigration rather quickly – no doubt the result of the fact that I sat in the 4th row on the plane and I am six feet four tall and my long legs just allow me to walk faster than most. I had to wait a bit for my car and driver as the flight had been early and he was still in his car while I had cleared immigration. The 70 klicks went by in less than an hour. The night desk clerk Jenny was there waiting for me, and she short-cutted the check-in by saying that I could hand in my passport in the morning.

Since I had arrived late in the night, and the drive down from Guilin had followed the G65 highway through the mountains and had passed through no towns, there had not even been a single billboard – I hadn’t seen a thing.

Room with a view

These were the views from my room the next morning.

The Yulong River, Yangshuo, Guangxi Province, China

Breakfast here was a real treat. You could sit wherever you liked in the dining room (below), or you could sit outdoors at the many tables beneath umbrellas on the banks of the Yulong River. The Set 2 breakfast was choice of juice and coffee or tea, scrambled eggs, with a choice of bacon or ham, plus toast. The waitresses all spoke English and remembered your room number and your name. The pretty girls with their perfect manners – just a marvelous way to begin the day.

Part of dining room in Yangshuo Mountain Retreat

Monday – November 7th – I’m back in Hong Kong and staying at the East Hotel in Taikoo. This is a decidedly hi-tech hotel (more about the hotel later; we are still talking breakfasts). The breakfast is served in Feast – get it? East Hotel and F for food = Feast. Breakfast is handled by a young staff all in tee shirts and jeans or blazers, tee shirts and jeans. The hotel is doing a brisk breakfast. I hear about a dozen different languages and the crowd is made up more of people about business than people who are tourists – but wow, so many beautiful women.

Feast in the East

Service is horrendous. A lovely hostess picks me up at the entrance and seats me and asks if I want coffee or tea. This is a two part breakfast – a continental breakfast buffet style plus cooked to order hot breakfast chosen from a menu. I’ve traveled extensively in Asia and always – repeat always – the coffee has been poured and is waiting for you by the time you return to your table with your selections from the buffet.

Not this time. I finished the buffet items and had read half of the South China Morning Post. In New York you have the Occupy Wall Street people; in Hong Kong the brokers are organizing protests because the Hong Kong Markets wish to EXTEND the trading hours. Anyway I have to ask for the coffee again because it was MIA. Finally it arrives but no hot breakfast menu. I request the menu and ultimately place my order- Scrambled eggs with bacon – the works. My second cup of coffee is also delayed. The food takes forever to arrive.

Room with a View 2 - Hotel East in Taikoo

After the food arrived, and I finished it – I called for the chit to sign. A moment later, a young man comes over and apologizes for the excessive delays with my breakfast. Per his manager, breakfast is on the house. No charge. Well then – there you go. And off I go back upstairs to write this piece since I am no longer burdened by the Great Firewall of China.

Back In The World

While Yangshuo in Guangxi Province is only about 70 kilometers from Guilin. And Guilin is only an hour by airplane from Hong Kong, the distance was insurmountable for me to post any updates from Yangshuo.

We can blame it on the Great Firewall of China. I couldn’t access my own blog website. Nor could I access my friends’ blogs. In fact I couldn’t even post a review of the apartment because I couldn’t log in with my Facebook account. China doesn’t want people to blog, discuss, or post opinions.

That has changed now that I’m back in the world. Mou man tai as they say here in HK – no problem. Different rules for Hong Kong. And I’ll pop open another Tsingtao beer to celebrate. Updates to follow – just not tonight

You Can’t Get There From Here

The day began earlier than expected as I’m still off kilter time-wise. This is the natural result of what is called jet-lag. The plan was a day trip out to Stanley Bay which is on the south side of Hong Kong Island. Stanley is a small town notable for waterfront dining and shopping.

We met at the 973 Bus stop on Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon. They should change the name from Canton Road to Designer Label Street or maybe Rodeo Drive East. The actual bus stop was directly in front of a Mont Blanc Pen Store, a few doors up from a Piaget Watch Store, and directly across the street were the Louis Vuitton and Hermes superstores. These places were not selling knock-offs. These were the real things. That’s what this part of town is known for – Consumerism at its zenith. Zenith starts with Z which rhymes with C which stands for conspicuous and costly. Notice the people standing in line to get into the store at 10:30 in the morning. Also within a stone’s throw were Gucci, Tiffany’s, Ferragamo, Rolex, Coco Chanel, Dior, and some other Italian designer shops.This list of available ‘brand names’ seemed endless.

Anyway, soon enough the 973 double decker bus arrived and we boarded. Our route would take us beneath Victoria Harbor via the Western Harbor Tunnel arriving on the western end of Sheung Wan. The bus route would climb up the hills of Pok Fu Lam, past the University of Hong Kong, and head south along the western coast of Hong Kong Island passing through Aberdeen, then two of the most picturesque and expensive places to live in Hong Kong – Deep Water Bay and Repulse Bay. Later in Stanley we passed a real estate brokerage where we saw dozens of listings for homes in Repulse Bay. One was offering a four bedroom, 4.5 baths, more than 4200 square feet home apartment. The cost to buy was 93 Million Hong Kong dollars which is just under 12 million US dollars. The cost to rent: HK$75,000 a month or a bit more than $9,600 US dollars a month.

Repulse Bay, Hong Kong

The road was quite windy, narrow, two-lanes, up and down hills, and had almost no stretches of straight or flat. Eventually we’d come down from the hills as Stanley is at sea level. Stanley Harbor spills directly into the South China Sea. The shopping is fun with everything from sporting goods, to home wares, from fashions to art, and antiques and curios to watches.

Entrance to Stanley Market

Our shopping purchases included a Beatles necktie with images of John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s faces stacked vertically, a Chairman Mao tee shirt only it wasn’t Mao’s face – instead it was ‘Chairman’ Obama, postcards, and a table runner.

The Murray House

Rather than having lunch at a waterfront restaurant, we opted for the Murray House (indoors and air-conditioned) which was a building originally built in 1844 and which housed the British Colonial offices. The building was located in Central on the north-side of Hong Kong. In 1984 the building was taken apart stone by stone and put into storage. In 2000, the building was re-assembled in Stanley. It currently houses the Hong Kong Maritime Museum and four restaurants. We ate at Wildfire sharing pizza, ribs, a chicken and pasta dish, a Caesar Salad, and a crab cake appetizer. I got a little buzzed on two large steins of ice-cold Carlsberg Beer.

Happy Valley & highway emerging from Aberdeen Tunnel

For our route back, we took the 260 Bus which passed through, actually under, the mountains of Hong Kong via the Aberdeen Tunnel. We’d emerge from the tunnel in the vicinity of the Hong Kong Jockey Club which is actually a venue for horse racing called Happy Valley. You round a bend and you pass the open end of the track, the huge grandstand does not completely circle the track. In the picture, you can see the road emerging from the tunnel and passing right along-side Happy Valley. What makes this sight so memorable are the soaring high-rise apartment towers that surround the track.

We ultimately arrived at Statue Square in Central and got off the bus. Rather than just grabbing a cab right there – we took the MTR to Sheung Wan where my apartment is. What we discovered is that it was quite difficult to get a cab at that time in Sheung Wan. We tried walking up the seemingly endless series of steps towards the apartment – but by the time we gave up and grabbed a taxi – we were on a street heading away from the apartment. We actually ended up going back down the hilly streets before circling around to go back up to Po Hing Fong. What I discovered is that it was easier to get to my apartment in Sheung Wan from Central rather than from Sheung Wan itself. Hence the title of this piece – You can’t get there from here.

First Dispatch From Hong Kong

They say getting there is half the fun. I’m not so sure about that. My route was from Sarasota, Florida with a stop in Atlanta to JFK Airport in New York via Delta. Then flying from NY to Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific. Distance covered was close to 14,000 miles and it took approximately 23 hours from take off to touchdown.  The domestic flights in the USA went off without a hitch – not withstanding a sleepless Tuesday night – I was afraid I’d sleep through my alarm set for 4:30 AM in order to prepare for a 5:30 AM pickup to drive to the Sarasota Airport.  I had a near miss for my Atlanta to JFK leg of the trip as I only had 35 Minutes between landing and boarding AND I went to the wrong gate. In Sarasota they told me I was arriving at B24 and the Flight was from A28. Only it was departing  from B14. So I had to double back chop/chop but I made it safely as boarding had already started but fortunately hadn’t concluded.

Arrived in Hong Kong Airport after the sleepless 15 hour 15 minute flight  which arrived at 6:15 PM ahead of schedule as we were supposed to arrive at 7:00 PM. However, that gain was lost in the lengthy queues to pass through the immigration/passport control. Took the Airport Express Train to Hong Kong Central Station. 23 minutes and $100 HK dollars – a bit more than $12 US . Tickets are purchased from a machine with English. Nice, quick, fast and easy. Only there was a lengthy queue for taxis at Central.

My destination was Tai-On-Terrace, in the Sheung Wan section of Hong Kong. which means it was up in the hills. It was all city but it was all uphill. Not at all doable with luggage. ‘Just tell the taxi driver Po Hing Fong’ were the instructions and they worked like a charm. It was about a ten minute taxi ride which cost about 32.5 HK dollars (a bit over $4 US). I had trouble finding the entrance to the apartment but a quick call to Estelle, the apartment owner – and she came right down and met me.

The apartment was an L-Shaped studio – with a small kitchen and a nice big shower. Actually the apartment was  beautifully furnished and came complete  with A/C , the all important and must in Hong Kong de-humidifier, a 40 inch flat-panel TV with cable and a DVD player, WiFi for my laptop, a down comforter for the bed, and fresh linens and towels. The kitchen was fully workable complete with a coffee maker, a microwave, toaster, a small fridge, and a two burner electric range plus a full range of plates, glasses, etc.

The apartment was on the 1st floor which in HK means up one flight of steps from the entrance. The only thing the place lacked was a good view. Best news of all – right downstairs, actually under the apartment was a Viennese styled coffee house called Cafe LoisL. The fresh brewed to order Caffe Americano  and the croissant were delicious. Open daily.

The apartment was owned by a lovely French woman, Estelle B who is an International Certified Personal Trainer and she is the owner and founder of her own business called www.anhaowellnesss.com – Be Fit, Be Toned, Be Relaxed, and Be Recovered – a small plug for her because she was nice, and the apartment was great. After not sleeping on Tuesday night and a long and tiring trip which took all of Wednesday and most of Thursday, sleep beckons.

The pictures are of the apartment.

Shopping trip to Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon -side) Friday morning went as planned except for the heat – 82 degrees. Bought new eye glasses and new prescription sun-glasses at Classy Optical on Peking Road, also bought a USB headphones for my laptop. On the flight over I managed to destroy the small connecting card and plug by stepping on them.  Had some lunch and did some food shopping for the apartment.

I also scouted out the restaurant for tonight – The Serenade in the Hong Kong Cultural Center which is right next to the Star Ferry Kowloon side, and the famed Clock Tower. Across the street is the Peninsula Hotel that had a flotilla of Rolls Royce automobiles in the driveway. Meeting for dinner will be my friend Jeannette who I know since 1999 and Yu Ling who I know since 2000, and her husband Steve who is a Professor in Shantou University, which is sightly more than an hour away by plane.

This morning, going down hill past Blake Gardens, a small pocket park of greenery a couple of blocks away, and then down the rest of the way to the Sheung Wan MTR Station, I noticed something – one that I wasn’t ever going to walk up to the apartment from the MTR station. Two: every one that was walking up hill was walking very slowly, even the kids. And three – the steps weren’t made for the big feet of the westerners like me. They were decidedly small for the shorter Cantonese people.

I’m still a little tired from the jet-lag so an afternoon nap is a distinct possibility.