Happy Wanderers: Thursday, March 8, 2018

Thursday, March 8, 2018

We sailed into Hong Kong harbor at about 7:00 this morning. Barbara narrated our approach. It was cold and rainy. Visibility was poor. What a contrast this Manila and to our earlier visits here.

We had a leisurely breakfast. We had been warned that Hong Kong officials are very thorough in their clearance process. It might take a while. After breakfast we did some organizing in the cabin. An announcement would be made when the ship was cleared. As time went by there were numerous announcements that we had not yet been cleared, and asking passengers to not congregate around the stairways and elevators. Finally at 8:00 we were informed the clearance had been completed. This long delay had led to a lot of grumbling. We chuckled because that served no useful purpose.

We waited a bit for the rush to clear, and left for the terminal. After getting a map, we made the long walk to the free shuttle bus to The Peninsula Hotel in central Hong Kong. While we waited for the bus we had a conversation with Miss Dolly. She is the matriarch of the ship, who had been pointed out to us before. Much of what we had been told was not kind. We took advantage of this opportunity to learn for ourselves. She was very pleasant. We guess her to be in her early 90’s. We will be more bold in asking the next time we see her. We did learn that this is her 34^th World Cruise. 32 of those have been on Holland America. She has been given her personal crew name tag. She has a reserved seat for entertainment and sits at the same table in the dining room. She told us that as a teen she had stowed away on a cruise ship. She was hidden by the crew, and not discovered until Hawaii. She was put ashore there, and worked to earn money for her passage home. Her father had said you got yourself there, so you get yourself back. She did after about a year.

Dolly was cordial and nothing like the person who had been described to us. We hope to visit with her again.

Our ride to downtown was necessitated because we were docked at the new cruise ship terminal. This is built on the old airport property. Alice and I had flown in here in 1996. It was the scariest landing we ever had. The approach was between high rise apartment buildings. We could count the laundry hung out to dry, and clearly see the faces of people on balconies.

A few years ago the new airport opened on Lantau Island. After some failed developments on the airport land, the city built the cruise terminal. The last time we were here we docked at a terminal just a few minutes walk from The Peninsula. Now we drove for 30 minutes through terrible traffic. This is progress?

Once in town we walked to the Kowloon Station. We had decided to find out how to get to Disneyland, and we followed the ship’s directions. This was a nice walk through a large shopping district along Canton Road. As we got closer to the station we encountered a series of pedestrian detours. These led us safely through traffic and past a huge construction site. Then we were in a retail complex, Elements. This was home not only to shops, but also to an ice rink and a myriad of restaurants. Finally we found our way to the train station on the 4^th level. Here we learned that the ride would take 45 minutes each way for $25 Hong Kong each. This is the great sum of about $3.25. Tickets are sold for cash only. We had left Amsterdam without local cash. We would try to visit Disneyland tomorrow.

We retraced our steps until we reached the end of Kowloon Park. Here we turned toward Nathan Road in search of a fabric shop in Chung King Mansions. Alice had learned of this place. As we waited for the elevator to in the Mansions, a woman explained that there were no longer fabric shops here. She directed us to a building that we had passed a few blocks back. Fabrics would wait. We returned to The Peninsula for the shuttle ride home.

We did all of this under gloomy skies with the temperature in the high 50’s. On and off showers made this even more uncomfortable. Nonetheless this was a good day.