Hong Kong by Night

We made it!  For the first time ever, Gerard and I are in Asia.  We landed around 6:30 pm Hong Kong time, a half hour earlier than planned.  (Remember, that's 6:30 am Eastern time.)  We flew very close to the North Pole, up and over Siberia in Russia and down through China from the north.  Apparently the shortest route.  And a wonderful experience on Cathay Pacific.  They treated us well.

Our hotel driver picked us up and carried us off to the Langham Hotel in Kowloon, a suburb of Hong Kong.  Good to know they were expecting us.

We have to say, the service here is phenomenal.  Lots of people taking care of you.  And the hotel is wonderful.

After eating 2 meals on the plane, plus they offered sandwiches and snacks 2 other times -- well, it was 15 hours after all -- we weren't overly hungry, and we felt we needed to walk around for a bit in case any blood clots decided to take root in our legs, or something.  We would need something to tide us over to morning at the end of walk.  So we headed off to the harbour boardwalk. Wonderful night for a stroll.  28C with a warm breeze. 

Clock tower - that's Joanne in the foreground looking at the symphony building.

The 4 of us along the boardwalk.  Just beautiful looking across Hong Kong Harbour to downtown Hong Kong.

And Bruce Lee was there.

So we were a tad hungry since we hadn't eaten for about 6 hours.  And what do you know!  We stumbled across a very busy German pub for our nightcap.  Had a beer (some of us 2), and an appetizer plate of sausages, cheeses and pickles.

Tomorrow morning, we do a Foodie Tour until around 1 pm, and a harbour tour in the evening.  We'll think of other things to do in the afternoon.

Must hit the sack.  It's been a very lonnnnnngggggggg day.

Taking Off

 We're under way!  Today's the day we take off for Hong Kong.

Joanne and Dan Clements, our friends, arrived at our house around 11:15.  They brought both their cars as there is work going on on their street in Cambridge for some time, so they parked their cars in our garage.  We'll take them.  Dave said if the one car runs out of gas, he's got 3 more now to choose from!

Boulevard Limousine arrived at 11:30 sharp to pick us up and take us to the airport.  Here we are, getting into the limousine, and in the limo.  The driver would have to pour us out after though!










A fine celebration and great way to start our trip.



Here's our plane - Cathay Pacific 777 direct to Hong Kong from Toronto.  About half an hour now until boarding, or less, so must sign off at this point.  We'll arrive in Hong Kong around 7 pm tomorrow (15 -1/2 hours from now).  We will be exactly 12 hours ahead of all of you in the Eastern time zone.

And, by the way, we did manage to get everything into carry-on baggage - with room to spare!

You will hear from us next when we're in Hong Kong.

Map of Southeast Asia

We are busy preparing for this wonderful trip to Asia.  Can't wait!  I mentioned in the first blog our itinerary.  Here's a map of southeast Asia and I've marked our flight routes on it, so it gives you some idea to where we're flying.  Yep, 7 different flights in total - taking off and landing - ugh.  This would include our return flight from Denpasar (Bali) to Hong Kong, then Hong Kong to Toronto, which I didn't bother to mark on here.  If you really want to see the areas more clearly, you can check them out on Google Maps, or another map of your choice.

We're trying to figure out what to take, and take it all in carry-on!  This is what our friends are doing.  They're experienced at this, and we don't want to hold them up waiting at the baggage carousel for us.  I don't think we'll have a problem, actually.  The more we think about it, the more we think it can be done.  I'll let you know how that goes.

We've checked all the hotels where we're staying.  It appears there are only 1 or 2 where wifi is not free...and we're staying in 8 different hotels over the 22 days.  So I should be able to blog pretty well every night.  We'll check the cost of the non-free ones and if it's not ridiculous, we'll probably pay just to keep you lovely people up-to-date.

Until then...September 25th is quickly approaching!

Uh Oh

We're not going on our cruise :(

The ship is out of commission for the rest of the Alaska bookings this fall.  There was a problem with it about a week ago which caused some changes to the southbound journey from Seward.  Supposedly that problem was fixed...but I guess not.

Sigh :( :(  We're all geared up and nowhere to go.  All the stuff we have to cancel.  Flights, hotels in Alaska, car rental...ugh.  Major disappointment.  But what can one do?

So now we have to decide...do we go to Vancouver anyway and visit Gerard's brother, or do we take the trailer out for a journey, or something else, or nothing...just enjoy the cottage for another couple of weeks?  I think we have to sit on this for a few days to decide.

However, as far as we know, we're still going to Asia Sept 25th.  Since it's not a tour, the only thing that could be cancelled is our flight(s)!

Preamble

This blog is set up to record our 2 trips this fall.

The first trip is to Alaska aboard the Celebrity Millennium cruise ship.  We are leaving for Vancouver Aug 28th, sailing Aug 30th, arriving in Anchorage Sept 6th, and flying home from Anchorage Sept 10th.

Our ship

Our route

The second trip is to Asia.  We are flying to Singapore Sept 25th, with a stop-off for 3 days in Hong Kong, then on to Singapore.  After a few days, we will fly to Kuching, Malaysia, on the island of Borneo, then over to Kuala Lumpur and Malacca on the Malay peninsula.  We finish up on the island of Bali in Indonesia, from where we fly home via Hong Kong on Oct 16th.

Stay tuned!