Honk Kong today

Sunday 21st February



It is 5.10 am Sunday with us and 4.10 pm saturday in Ontario.

We are sailing slowly into Hong Kong this morning arriving about 8 am.

The Chinese authorities in Shanghai kept us hours longer on the ship than we should have been because of the dicy relationship between China and the US at the moment. President Obama has given millions in aid for missiles to Taiwan and is also meeting with the Dalai Lama, neither action strengthening the precarious bond between the two countries. However this political stuff had obviously not filtered down to the people we met in China who were warm and friendly to us all. It will be interesting to see if it has affected our arrival and ship clearance in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has enjoyed a special status (one nation, two systems) since the hand over from the British 10 years ago. They have their own legal system (the British one) and of course financially they are left pretty much on their own as a shop window and money maker for the Republic of China. They have been given a 50 year transition period so the question is will Hong Kong become more and more Chinese in that time or will the opposite be true and China become more Western. If Shanghai is anything to go by I vote for the latter.

Another question is 'will China replace the United States as a world power?' Think about it....empires have a way of falling eventually: Egyptian, Greek, Roman....jump to the British and now the enormous power of the United States. Unfortunately their commitment to save the world is breaking the bank.

Change of subject. One of our favourite stewards is leaving the ship today to fly home to the Phillipines. All ex-SAS-ites will remember Mandy in the faculty lounge bar. He is a brilliant bartender and we are all suffering from withdrawal. We went to say goodbye to him at 9 pm last night and I think his replacement (Maraya?) a delightful young woman, but without Mandy's special flare, was surprised to hear he would not be there this evening...she thought she had him for another day and there was a fleeting look of horror and panic when he said his plane left for the one and a half hour flight to Manilla this afternoon. She learned how to make a hot toddy last night, which she had never heard of. 'Hot toddy' said wih a Phillipino accent sounds very exotic! Fearing that I had a cold coming on that was my final libation for the night. Mandy gave me the option of having it with rum, brandy or Scotch. No prizes for guessing what I chose... should a hot toddy be made with anything except whisky? I think not....purist that I am.

No lights yet outside, just a very black darkness. I do hope we shall have good weather for HK, I am so looking forward to being there again. It's 5.45 am Back to bed and more later.

7.15 am....sailing into Hong Kong

Imagine dark hills, layer upon layer coming down to the sea and standing at the foot of them near the water tall pearl coloured skyscrapers, packed tightly together, row on row, with lights occasionally on in some of the thousand tiny windows, diamonds glittering. As we sail closer in to Kyloon we see different more creative shapes of buildings, smaller ships passing, cranes and anchored tugs....there a sampan styled motor boat, painted light blue, there a fishing vessel and on the shore now a mass of ochre and brown apartment buildings climbing the hills. This is a rich suburb, these are not massed together for the poor. Now a break in the density, just dark green hills and in the background a high almost-mountain. In Scotland it might be called Shehallion....the breast. Scotland is studded with shehallions.

Now an enclosed harbour of sampans and fishing boats, more jam packed skyscrapers in pinks and creams; meticulously built sea walls all along the shore and parks behind with lights hanging in the trees. Just as Las Vegas rises up in the middle of desert so Hong Kong rises out of the sea in dark green hills and surprises us. And here Liz was born 79 years ago....she has come full circle.

Cars and buses are running along the shore line, bright turquoise girders criss-cross and dark, shiny reflective office buildings that remind me of Toronto....we seem to be dashing in now...there are curved bridges spanning the water where we sail. There's a yellow double decker....probably originally London red... now the buildings show more character and shape.... these are still the outskirts I think. Here are apartments again, millions upon millions of homes....different lives and stories in each. They don't exude luxury, these are where ordinary people like us live their lives. There are some up on the hills which tower above the rest, like fingers pointing to the sky...imagine the views... more yellow buses and cars along the shore road... two ferries (Kowloon to the city?), it feels as though we shall simply plough right into down town! There I see SANYO bright red on a roof, there TOSHIBA in bright blue.

We're slowing down...

We are coming in to dock in Kyloon. From here we take the very short ferry ride to Hong Kong. As I write we are 'parking' slowly, our cabin on the port side facing the quay where the gangway will go down today from the 5th deck we are told. George has vanished, watching from some better vantage point

Ah....here he is. He feels he has brought the ship in ....apparently it was difficult docking because of high winds, however he has brought us in safely!!

Off to breakfast...more later..