HK Day 4: Real Hong Kong

Monday, T and I decided to try breakfasting like the locals.  Various blogs and other info on the interwebs pointed us to a place in Central called Lin Heung Tea House.  Known for delicious congee (xi fan for Mandarin speakers, jok for Cantonese), we were excited to be able to order our breakfast off of carts (like Dim Sum).

Even though we were up super early (about 4:30am), our internet perusings kept us from getting underway until 7:00am, which we felt was a more suitable time to actually get going.  Being on the MTR at that early hour meant that we got to experience the HK morning commute.  Lots of tired looking people, as to be expected, and being out here in the "suburbs" on Lantau Island, we saw a higher ratio of expats.  We did not envy the men's full suits in the HK heat and humidity, but figure at least they won't freeze in their offices which are likely air conditioned to near-tundra temperatures (as are most of the shops).

Thanking the Google Gods for designing such amazing maps (the directional arrow, showing which way you're facing is particularly handy), we had little difficulty finding our breakfasting location.  The greater difficulty was in communicating and wondering about how sanitary the place might be.  [Vi, you would not have gone in.]  As an answer to my concerns about the cleanliness of the dishes (clean ones are stacked on the floor, for quick resetting of tables), a server/bus boy set a bowl of steaming hot water on the table in front of us.  He also threw down a little card listing the types of tea available.  I chose Jasmine and quickly looked around, looking at how others were using the water bowl.  Not seeing any other new diners, I assumed it was for washing our dishes.  As I swirled our little bowls and cups in the piping hot water, we noticed someone else pouring their tea over the ends of their chopsticks, also into the bowl.  We did that too.  Dishes "sanitized," we started looking around at the few carts, searching for recognizable foods.

No need to wait patiently for the carts to come to your table!  When a new cart came out, people would get up from their tables to check out the steaming items.

Unfortunately, they didn't actually have xi fan, which was disappointing.  Maybe we missed it, or maybe the people just couldn't understand what we were saying.  We did sample a variety of other things, none of which we'd ever had before.  The zhong zi (sticky rice with some kind of meaty filling, wrapped in leaves) was the closest item to anything we recognized.  About halfway through our dining experience, a nice couple sat at our table (shared tables appears common here) and the man offered us a variety of helpful tips - in English!  He taught us how to pour from a teapot properly (2 fingers inside the handle, thumb pressing down on top to keep it steady), told us what some of the more interesting looking foods were (another pair at our table ordered a LARGE helping of steamed pork liver...), and generally gave us advice about how and what to see in the city.

Tummies full, and hoping the hot water/tea dish washing was sufficient, we headed off in search of the Peak Tram.  Again, following the guidance of Google maps, we found the Peak Tram fairly easily.  We were expecting something somewhat more elaborate, especially after having been on the cable cars.  The tram is literally one tram vehicle with two cars that goes up and down a single, very steep track.  It has the feel of an old trolley from some place like Louisiana, but the track is so steep, you also kind of feel like you're on a roller coaster, and thus keep waiting for a stomach turning drop (which thankfully never happens).

There's the tram!

At the top of Victoria Peak, the main attraction is the Peak Tower, which has undergone several total make-overs - there are many photos showing previous iterations.  Inside the tower is a sort of mini-mall, with a random sampling of stores.  At the top level, next to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. (yes, themed after Forrest Gump...) is TonyMoly, a Korean cosmetics company that makes some of the cutest packaging.  We made a quick pit stop.

View from the coffee shop

Thirsty and hot, as usual, our next stop was a little coffee shop with fantastic views out over the city.  T tried a blended iced coffee, but I stuck with bottled water.  Re-hydrated, we explored the rest of the establishments on Victoria Peak before joining the queue for the return trip.  As I mentioned earlier, it's one vehicle that goes up and down the track.  There's no turning around.  So on the way down the mountain, you're sitting backwards.  This really feels like a roller coaster, but fortunately the ride is just slow and smooth enough to prevent any freak-outs.  Still, I think there were some who were glad when the tram ground to a stop.

The Peak Tram stop is at the edge of Honk Kong Park, a large, outdoor, somewhat jungly place with paved walkways and lots of stairs.  We saw a somewhat extreme looking work out group that made us think of Fit Camp (except perhaps less safe).  In the 93F heat, with 100% humidity (really, it was raining), weather.com told us it felt like 106F.  This group was running up and down the stairs, interspersed with burpees, and sprinting/grapevining/high-knee-ing up the slope of the mountain.  We were tired just watching them.  So we continued on our way through the park.  We walked past gardens, a large koi pond, and fountains before arriving at the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware.

The museum showcases all types of Chinese tea ware and even had a room for viewing a short video showing how teapots are traditionally made by hand.  Using the Museum as a welcome respite from the heat and giving our feet a change to relax, we spent the majority of our time in the children's playroom watching the videos about tea customs and how tea is made (from picking to packaging with Mr. Black Tea Leaf).  I'm pretty sure the playroom attendant thought we were quite odd.

Our last stop for the day was tea at the Upper House.  This is a hotel that is somehow attached to/on top of the JW Marriott.  A very stylish hotel in a stylish part of the city, our reservation was at 4:30, not for another 3 hours!  We were able to move it up to 3:30pm, but still needed to bide some time.  We looked around both the JW and Upper House for a place to sit and relax, but large hotel lobbies (with comfy couches and chairs for lounging) are not really a thing here.  Instead, we settled for just being out of the heat and walked around the large mall across the street.

Full of high end brands like Cartier, Hermes, and Burberry, we made one $5USD purchase at a pharmacy for throat lozenges.  The over-helpful shop attendants wanted me to buy a large glass bottle of Chinese medicine, whose main ingredient appeared to be bee propolis.  Interestingly, we got 3 flavors of lozenges - blackberry, plum, and green tea - and they all have bee propolis also.  They do have a medicine-y flavour, but much better than the medicated ones at home.

Mini sliders!

Tea at the Upper House is at Cafe Gray Deluxe on the 49th floor, providing more fantastic views of Hong Kong.  T chose Chinese oolong and I had lemon ginger.  The tea set itself was comparable in taste and quality to the Peninsula, we thought.  Cafe Gray was less expensive, but the ability to make reservations and thus not having to wait really earned Cafe Gray a lot of points.  The tea itself was definitely better at the Peninsula - both mine (green tea based) and T's (black tea based) were bitter on the second cup, thanks to their use of 3 tea bags in 2 cup teapots.  But, did we mention the view?

After a leisurely tea, with tummies full, we headed back to Disneyland, where we showered and promptly fell asleep.

Next time:  Enchanted Garden and Sham Shui Po!

HK Day 3: The Big Buddha

After finishing last night's post around 3:00am, we were surprised to wake up at 7:30am.  So we're either not on HK time yet or our bodies have decided 4hr sleeps are good enough.  Also, the sun rises earlier here - 5:40am today, so maybe that has something to do with it.

Anyway, we were up, so we got ready for breakfast (#9 - forgot to mention a couple showers yesterday).  Just as we were leaving our room, a Mousekeeping woman came to our door to ask whether we'd like new towels and bed sheets and when we'd like her to tidy our room.  We told her we were on our way to breakfast, and she could come in now.

Downstairs, Chef Mickey's was very busy.  The energy is different, and more frenetic here than in either the Chef Mickey's in WDW or Tokyo.  T described it as a more "Chuck E. Cheese" feel, which is pretty accurate.  The restaurant is louder, the only character to "meet" is Chef Mickey, and (possibly because of the craziness) he only poses for photos by the entrance to the restaurant.  We were seated right away, at a table set with yellow paper place mats and red napkins.  As she left us at our table, the hostess handed me a laminated card (obviously done by hand...) telling us that we could queue up for a photo with Chef Mickey any time between 8:00 and 10:45am.  Realizing we'd forgotten to bring both phone and camera for taking pictures, T went back to the room for them, giving me a chance to observe the surroundings.

I'd say 80% of the clientele were Chinese, speaking either Cantonese or Mandarin (seemed mostly Mandarin, actually), 10% were Indian, and the remaining 10% comprised everyone else (a deer-in-headlights American family of 3, a German speaking family, and various other types of Asians).  I also noticed that while the Mandarin speaking small children were clearly very excited to be there, they were surprisingly well behaved.  Upon arrival, many were pointing out the not-so-hidden Mickeys omnipresent in the theming, but as soon as they were seated, they sat fairly quietly and patiently waiting for their parents to bring back plates of food from the buffet.  This meant that few children actually went to the buffet area, which is probably a good thing.

The food offerings sort of mirrored the breakdown of the clientele, though 50% was traditional Western breakfast fare (lots of pastries, scrambled and over easy eggs, pancakes, Mickey Waffles, etc.).  Interestingly, the Mickey Waffles and banana cakes (above) were the only specifically Disney food items.  Where WDW has Mickey shaped pancakes, Waffles, sprinkles and breakfast pizza, Japan had lots of Mickey-shaped things; yolks of soft boiled eggs, hash browns, pastries...  Both those restaurants have food areas (and probably seating areas too) that are twice the size of Chef Mickey's here in HK.  Thus, the individual food sections were also smaller, with less variety; made-to-order noodle soup, Indian (dal, rice with ghee & cumin seeds, curry), Japanese (various types of pickles, lox), dim sum.  Also, there was kind of an "every person for themselves" vibe.  Once seated, we had to flag down servers to get (terrible) hot tea and coffee.  They did do a quick job of clearing used dishes, however.  At the food stations, there was no order or flow to how people moved through the buffet.  Instead, people literally pushed through at any point.  I even had several people reach over me!  But, there were 2 types of delicious xiao long tang bao on offer (and only 4/steamer basket), so perhaps some of the pushing was warranted.  Overall, we felt that breakfast at the Langham Place was better, and comparable in price.

After our delicious breakfast, we collected our adventure bag (stocked with sunscreen, bottled water, wipes, and hand sanitizer) and headed off to find our way to the Big Buddha!

Aboard the Mickey train!

The MTR station is quite easy to get to; the Disney Resort Station is just outside the entrance to the park.  There is a special "Mickey train" which took us to the Sunny Bay stop, where we changed to the orange line to Tung Chung.  There, we were surprised to see an outlet mall right off of the MTR station.  Just past the mall is the entrance to the cable car station.

We bought round trip tickets in a standard cabin (as opposed to glass bottom, which seemed like it would be pretty terrifying) for $300HKD.  Another option was a one way ticket, but it appeared that to get back, you'd have to walk across several mountains (and swim across a bay) if you didn't have some other transport waiting for you at the top.  As an aside, there are actually 2 queues - one for the glass bottomed Crystal Cabins, and one for the standard cabins.  Not noticing any signage, we chose the wrong line and after waiting half an hour, were sent to the back of the proper line when we made it to the ticket taker...  Luckily there are at least twice (maybe 3x) as many standard cabins, so this line was shorter.

I was a little dubious about the cable car ride, not being a huge fan of heights.  But the ride is very smooth and not so fast that you feel like your car might fall at any moment.  In fact, the cabins are "naturally air conditioned" by vents, so we could feel and hear the wind gusts as welcome cool breezes, but did not feel any sway in the cabin.  Being a (scorchingly hot at 91F, but felt like 101F according to weather.com) clear day, the views were wonderful.

At the top, the cable cars drop you in a "village" called Ngong Ping.  This is pretty much a tourist village of shops selling all types of refreshment and souvenirs.  We walked through the village, stopping for a grapefruit juice at Starbucks (check out our Flickr for photos of some other intriguing Chinese options!), and made our way to the Big Buddha and temple.

After walking around the temple area, we bought some ice pops and headed up the stairs to the Big Buddha.  Definitely not for the faint of heart on this sweltering day, we got our workout for the day and were rewarded with more fantastic views.

 

Leaving the Big Buddha, we stopped in some of the stores in the "village," more to cool off than to really shop.  At the very end of the line of shops was a little tea shop, where we decided to stop for tea.  It was 2:30, and tea time after all.  The shop had a cute little seating area where we enjoyed a traditional tea ceremony and relaxed in the air conditioning whilst drinking 95C hot tea.

After tea, we re-boarded a cable car and headed back to Tung Chung.  We spent a few hours exploring the outlet mall, but didn't find anything particularly enticing.  By the time we returned to the hotel, I'd developed a sore throat and we were both a little hungry, so we went back to Hollywood and Dine.  We got a nice dinner of noodle soup for me and cha-siu-bao and fruit cup for T.  We got our food to go so we could eat it in our room after much needed showers (#10).  Well fed, we've been napping since about 7:00pm and now it's midnight.  I woke us up to soothe my throat with some more tea, but now it's back to bed!

Tomorrow:  Central and wontons

HK Day 2: Part 2

Afternoon tea at the Peninsula was worth the wait.  After spending almost exactly 2 hours standing in the queue, we were swiftly seated and had our orders taken in maybe 5 minutes.  T chose the Organic Peninsula blend along with an iced cappuccino while I had the Peninsula afternoon blend.  Both of us had the regular "tea set" which came along with a lychee mousse topped with homemade organic strawberry jam.

After waiting so long, we (probably like everyone before us) felt somewhat entitled to a leisurely tea experience.  By now, the live music seemed to encourage us to linger over our tea rather than making us feel that the time was passing slowly.  The 5 or 6 piece group (hard to tell, as they were a level above us, mostly obscured from view by columns) played 3 song sets of popular American tunes between 10minute breaks.  They were very good, though.  I think I forgot to mention in the previous post that not 5 minutes after we walked into the hotel, the band played "Part of Your World" from the Little Mermaid.  It was like they were playing it for us!  [Our wedding music was adapted- cleverly and carefully by Brudder- from the score of the Little Mermaid.]  We thought that was pretty perfect, and they did play one or two other Disney songs.  I remember hearing "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" anyway.

 

Though the edibles don't look like a lot in the photos, we were really quite full (maybe it was because we each drank 2 pots of tea) and couldn't finish the last 2 raisin scones.  One of the waiters swiftly boxed them up for us and we headed to Disneyland!

The taxi ride to Disneyland was about half an hour.  After seeing what we think was a building owned by my grandparents - it has a bathroom fixtures showroom in the bottom- I promptly fell asleep.  T woke me as we approached the gates welcoming us into the Disneyland Resort.  We were greeted in 3 languages by Cast Members who quickly determined our preferred language and took our luggage to deliver to our room (this 3 language greeting is something we are starting to get used to, and is not peculiar to Disney).  Check-in was quick and easy and we were happily surprised to find out that our room comes with complimentary park passes - enough for 7 days!  Perhaps we will spend more than half a day in the park after all.

After a short nap, we explored our hotel and the other one on property - the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel.  We are staying at Disney's Hollywood Hotel which I would equate to something like the Swan or Dolphin in WDW.  The room is similar to your standard American hotel room in terms of size, plus it has a tiny mini fridge.  It's significantly smaller than our room was at Tokyo "Dizunee Randuruu."  This hotel, like the Ambassador in Tokyo, is art deco themed, and reminds me of a land version of the cruise ships.  The lobby even smells like the lobby of the Dream.  There are 3 restaurants in the hotel - Chef Mickey's (looks similar to the one in Tokyo and WDW, we'll report back after breakfast tomorrow), The Lounge (looks... like a lounge...), and Hollywood and Dine (not much like Hollywood and Vine in Hollywood Studios in WDW, this is a small quick service sort of replacement for the lack of room service).

Chandelier in the Disneyland Hotel, not quite the same as the Roots' photo...

I had wanted to stay at the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel because it is themed after the Grand Floridian in WDW.  Alas, because we booked through DVC, the lottery got us into Hollywood instead.  From the outside, it looks like a mini version of the Grand (minus the monorail, small houses, and DVC sections).  Inside, it's also a mini version of the Grand, complete with the decorative elevator shaft in the lobby.  But the artwork is much more heavily/overtly Disney themed, including a 2 story painting of Aurora's castle in the staircase leading to the conference rooms.  That hotel has a Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique on the bottom floor as well as 3 restaurants: The Enchanted Garden (looks like the one aboard the Dream, same general theming outside, anyway), The Crystal Lotus (T says they're supposed to have really good dim sum - perhaps we'll try), and Walt's Cafe (not sure what the theme was here, perhaps something from Edwardian Britain, because the waitresses were all wearing aprons like Mary Poppins's).  Unfortunately, all the restaurants were closing as we made our rounds, so we couldn't try any of them.

We learned a new shirt-rolling technique from Pinterest, so our clothes look so neat and tidy!

Back at the Hollywood, we settled on "Cafe Mickey" take-away sandwiches from Hollywood and Dine with a Sprite and watermelon juice.  Back in the room, we unpacked our bags, and settled in only to find that none of the available outlets appeared to be providing electricity.  Each of the outlets available have switches to turn them on and off, but possibly because we were attempting to plug in our power strip, none of them were working (we tested with an electric kettle provided in the room).  Of course, we'd just fully settled in (read: unpacked all the clean clothes), and I was 90% sure we'd need to change rooms.  A quick call to the front desk sent someone in less than 5 minutes who was able to flip a switch in the closet and fix the problem!  Hurrah!  So now, we have power, a pot of sanitized boiled water, and neatly arranged drawers of clean clothing.  T has also finished captioning all the photos on Flickr, so I think we're all caught up.  It's also 2:40am, so we'd better get to sleep!

Tomorrow:  The Big Buddha

HK Day 2: Part 1

Our first full night in Hong Kong, we slept for a solid 7 hours.  We woke early to sun(!) shining into our room.  Considering that we'd expected thunder showers for nearly the entire trip, the sun and even some slivers of blue sky were a welcome sight.  After packing up, we headed down to the Lobby for breakfast.

The view from our room - blue sky!

The buffet included a delicious variety of foods including veggie curry, sushi, seared sole and a variety of Chinese breakfast items like hot soy milk, congee and shumai.  T enjoyed some of their perfectly ripe tropical fruits for both of us.

T's breakfast

G's breakfast

After breakfast, we showered (that's #5 since leaving DC, for folks at home keeping score) and got ready to begin our first adventure for the day.  We checked out and left our luggage with the bell stand.  We were also permitted to keep the big umbrella provided in our hotel room!  [Hoping that carrying around an umbrella will keep the rain away.]

We found our way across the street to the MongKok metro station and bought ourselves Octopus (read: SmarTrip for DCians) cards from the very kind woman in the booth who spoke perfect English- hooray!  We took the subway 5 stops to Lok Fu in search of the Kowloon Walled City Park.

Helpful signs above each of the doors on the train.

Kowloon Walled City used to be a crazy couple blocks that somehow was left out of the Chinese lease agreement with Britain.  Because it seemed to have no governing authority, it became a self-sufficient area in the middle of Hong Kong.  The podcast 99% Invisible told us that the population density was equivalent to Manhattan if everyone in the state of Texas were to move there....  Run by Tongs (the Chinese mafia), the place was well known for unlicensed dentistry, live wires, and "streets" less than 3ft wide.  Crazy (and dangerous!) as you might imagine, the Chinese government demolished the structure after the British lease of Hong Kong was over.  Curious?  Learn more about it here.

We found the park about 6 blocks from the metro stop.  It is now a beautiful outdoor area with playgrounds, picnic areas and green spaces for people to just enjoy the outdoors.  The only remaining evidence of the walled city is a single gate which must have led into the structure.

Having found the park and taking the requisite selfie, we headed back to the Langham Place.  We collected our luggage and went up to the spa where we were told we could shower and change.  This was a great perk.  I don't know if hotels in the States or elsewhere do this, but the gentleman told us about this possibility at check in so that we could plan!  [#6]

After our refreshing pit stop, we got in a taxi bound for The Peninsula for afternoon tea!  Having been a British colony for more than 100 years, Hong Kong still shows a lot of British influence ("look left" and "look right" painted on the streets for pedestrians - very helpful!).  We arrived at the Pen amidst a line of cars that included 2 Maseratis and a Rolls.  Looking good!  Again we took advantage of the bell stand and checked our luggage to join the 2 hour queue for tea.  And that's where we are now...  It's been about an hour and we can now see the front of the line!  We'll check in again tonight to add photos and tell you about the Disney Hollywood Hotel!

HK Day 1: Finally made it

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We landed in Hong Kong in the mid-afternoon on Friday, May 23.  Of course, we were very happy to finally arrive after the trials and tribulations of the prior couple days (a total of 37 hours travelling!), though Todd could have used another hour to wrap up watching the first season of Under the Dome (oh well, we’ll save that for the return flight; Gwen is rolling her eyes).  Getting through customs was a breeze.  One oddity that we noticed, however, is that Hong Kong passport control doesn’t give you a stamp in your passport.  Instead, they give you a little slip of paper indicating how long you’re allowed to stay in the country – best not to lose that!

As the Hong Kong airport is located on Lantau Island, we needed to catch a bus from the airport to our hotel, the Langham Place in Mong Kok on Kowloon peninsula.  Fortunately, while we were in Dubai, Gwen was able to correspond with the Langham Place and let them know about our delay.  When we walked up to the hotel’s desk at the airport, the folks there were expecting us.  After spending about half an hour waiting for the bus, surrounded by hilarious Chinese tour groups wearing matching hats or neon t-shirts, we were loaded onto a bus and got underway. While the bus ride took us through mostly industrial areas, the bus did take us past a few things of interest, including a gigantic shipping port and the cable cars on Lantau Island that you can ride up to the top of a mountain for great views and to see a large Buddha statute.

We got to the Langham Place around 5pm.  The hotel reminds us somewhat of the Hotel Akasaka Excel where we stayed in Tokyo.  Like the Akasaka, the entrance on the street level leads only to an elevator bay, which in turn takes you to the lobby one floor up. The rooms are similar in format too.  The check-in process was quite smooth, and our bags were delivered to our room by a zealous bell-hop who gave us an extensive tour of the amenities of the room.  Very nice over all! 

After washing up (very welcome after our most recent bout of travelling), we decided to explore the area around the hotel.  Mong Kok and the neighborhoods directly south along Nathan Road are extremely busy at night.  We walked about 20 minutes from Mong Kok to Jordan to find the Temple Street Night Market, a large, famous street market spanning a few blocks where folks sell a wide variety of items.  Over all, the market was very fun to see, but we did not stop to buy anything.  Many of the items for sale were touristy (e.g., I Heart Hong Kong t-shirts) and items started to repeat after a while (e.g., we saw several booths selling the same jade statutes, binoculars, and so on). 

Gate entrance to Temple Street Market

Nathan Road

After that, we walked back toward our hotel in search of dinner.  As mentioned, these neighborhoods were hopping at nighttime, and most every restaurant was packed even though it was now nearly 9:00pm.  Eventually, we ended up at Langham Place Mall, a gigantic and beautiful mall attached to our hotel, where we found a number of interesting restaurant options, including a restaurant serving various items on toast (such as meat floss on toast, and peanut butter toast), and a dessert restaurant focused exclusively on mochis.  We noticed that, though these restaurants were packed, they also were machines at getting customers seated, fed and out of their seats, and then cleaning up their tables in preparation for the next guests.  We settled on a raman restaurant, where we enjoyed the giant steaming bowls of noodles shown below.  So far, we haven’t had too much luck attempting to order in English, but the point at the menu and smile method seems to work fine!  All told, these giant bowls together were about $20 U.S.

Well-fed and ready for sleep, we ambled back to our hotel through the walk bridge connecting to the mall.  Gwen cranked out yesterday’s blog post before she conked out (Todd was already asleep).

HK day 0.5: Where were we?

So, there we were in Dubai, hotel voucher in hand, wandering through the expansive airport trying to figure out what time and day it was and what time and day our bodies thought it was.  [It was 1000 on Thursday 22 May, but our bodies thought it was 0200 on Thursday.]

Dubai's airport is enormous and beautiful.  The whole place is like a marble palace inside, and very, very quiet.  We did manage to wander our way to the proper desk to hand someone our voucher.  The nice man told us a shuttle would arrive for us shortly to take us to the hotel, where we should show our voucher again to get our room and credit for a 3 minute international phone call.  Kind of sounds like jail?  As John Mulaney would say, "ooooookay."  So we waited, and the shuttle arrived and drove us to the hotel.  

I'm not sure what the technical differences between a hotel and a motel are, but this one was a shack-y hotel at best.  I gave it 2 stars.  It was clearly a dumping place for all cattle class passengers of Emirates flights, as all the staff were prepared for our situation.  They even had a person handing out flyers for 2 hour tours of Dubai, leaving every other hour (not a bad idea, really).  We checked in at 1050, I know, because the breakfast buffet was closing in 10 minutes.  We took our newly procured vouchers to the dining hall style buffet area and enjoyed a slightly better breakfast than what we'd had on the plane.  Ten minutes later, we asked about getting wifi, and traded our 3 minute phone call for 24 hours of wifi (for 2 devices, even!).

Ok, ok so apparently they got 3 stars from somebody

Our room was... minimalist 80s style, containing 2 slightly larger than twin beds (apparently, they weren't sure if we were a couple or not).  Contrary to what our Emirates greeter had told us about the hotel providing all the "hygiene products we might need, like towels and toothbrushes," there were exactly 4 towels, one of which was a bath mat, and 2 shower caps.  No soap, let alone toothbrushes.  And, because we'd checked our 12kg small suitcase, we didn't have any of the "just in case" things I always pack, and so infrequently need.  We both wanted a shower, but that wasn't going to be too useful without soap of any kind, nor clean clothes to put on afterwards.  Plus, given 13 hours to hang out in Dubai, we didn't think we should sit in our hotel/motel room.  But, it was 95F+ outside.

 

Cleverly, we rallied our thinking powers and asked the Google what was nearby.  Google's response: The Dubai Mall, one of the world's largest shopping malls.  The fourth person we asked in the lobby told us it would cost 50 dirham(s?) to get a taxi to the mall.  The man in the business center (which was a corner of the cafe) who also handled currency exchange could not exchange our HKD for AED (dirhams), so we found our way across the atrium (which had a beautiful pool... too bad we didn't have bathing suits!) to find an ATM.

About an hour later, we walked into The Dubai Mall and were greeted by glorious air conditioning (yet not too cold!) and a dinosaur skeleton.  Apparently, the diplodocidus was found in 2008 in the US and brought to be displayed in Dubai.  We decided to set ourselves the goal of finding soap, shampoo, and clean socks and underwear at the very least.

Four hours later, more tired than we realized, we'd each procured new outfits (including the aforementioned socks and underwear), a bottle of baby shampoo, and 2 little, plastic travel bottles.  In search of a taxi stand, we were approached by a man asking if we needed a taxi.  Oh, how perfect - yes! we do need a taxi.  Please take us to our hotel.  45 minutes and 4 obvious u-turns later, we were at the hotel with the "cabbie" charging us 170AED.  T pushed back, but I was tired and got out to go exchange more money.  Walking into the hotel, the guy who got us the first taxi asked how it went and I quickly explained I needed more cash as I walked by him into the business center.  One of the bell boys followed and asked what was going on, so I explained.  He thought the cabbie's behaviour was outrageous and told me to go back out and ask for a bill or receipt or something to stall while he went to get a security person.  After stalling for about 2 minutes, during which the fare went down to 120AED, the bell boy came out himself, apparently unable to find back up and spoke to the driver for us.  So, lesson learned - even 3 star hotel/motels can have pluses.

Following this ridiculousness, we finally got our glorious shower with all purpose baby shampoo and a much needed 4 hour nap.

We woke up in time to use our vouchers at the dinner buffet.  It was a very tasty buffet, with a good effort at pleasing as many people as possible.  As we ate, we observed our fellow diners.  Of particular interest was an older gentleman, sitting alone.  Shortly after he sat down, a woman asked to sit with him, clearly a stranger.  He accepted and the two had a nice conversation getting to know each other.  [We weren't intentionally eavesdropping at first, the woman was speaking loudly so the man could hear her.]  As we were finishing up, the old man's grandson appeared and the three of them had dessert together.  It was such a nice thing to see how kind these perfect strangers were to one another.

After finishing our own dessert, T and I decided to head to the airport early.  Our flight wasn't until 0330, but we weren't interested in hanging out in our hotel room.  So we turned in our key and were told to have a seat for 10 minutes until someone came to tell us the shuttle to the airport had arrived.  After about 20 minutes, we decided nobody was going to tell us anything, so we went outside.  A shuttle had just arrived with a new load of displaced passengers, but we were told this one would be leaving empty, a shuttle bound for the airport would arrive in 10 minutes, please have a seat and wait.  Not willing to do that again, we waited outside, and amazingly enough, about 15 minutes later, a shuttle did arrive and took us to the airport.

Once at the airport, we breezed through security - only had to remove my laptop from my bag, but we got to keep our clothing on.  We headed straight for the Marhaba Business Class Lounge and used our Lounge Club passes (courtesy of Chase) to enjoy the next 3 hours in relative quiet, with unlimited tea, a selection of dinner-esque foods and accompaniments and free wifi.

Our second flight was closer to our expectations of what an Emirates flight would be like.  Aboard one of their newest Airbus A380s, just the fact that everything was cleaner, newer, and shinier helped the situation.  Also, there seemed to be only one child and she was sitting far enough away from us (or was well behaved enough) that we didn't hear her until we landed - making exclamations of excitement whilst returning to her seat from the lavatory.  [Side note: why are all airplane bathrooms called lavatories?]  The food was better this time around, though we didn't get two full meals, but instead had a "light bite" snack of a sandwich and blackberry muffin and breakfast.  Everyone had the same light bite, but the breakfast options were cheese omelet or chicken congee.  T had the omelet, I had the congee.  We were both pleased with our choices.

Being about half the length of our first flight helped a lot, too.  We still didn't sleep much, maybe an hour total, because we still didn't know what time our bodies thought it should be.  The night-day effects are pretty convincing!

Upon arrival in HKG, passport control was quite speedy, and we made our way to baggage claim.  To our pleasant surprise, both our bags turned up!  The little one (new for this trip) arrived looking about 5 years old, but they were both there, intact and that's all that really matters!  Finding the greeting desk for the Langham Place was pretty simple also, just following the signs.  We waited perhaps another half hour for our shuttle, having just missed the previous one, and were ready to start our Hong Kong adventure!

Next time: First foray into Hong Kong!