The day began early: 3:00 am. One hour later, a black limousine came by in the early moments of a fluffy snowfall and we drove to Logan Airport in Boston. For the first time ever, I witnessed Route 128 with virtually no traffic; the snow began to cover the roadway and no trucks emerged to plow it off.
Our plane was supposed to leave at 6:00 am. But two inches of snow already stuck to the wings of the regional jet. The de-icing truck came by and promptly its spurt of green liquid sputtered and died. We didn't get underway to JFK Airport until 7:30, consuming all of our buffer for the trip.
Upon arrival at JFK, we needed to switch terminals, since Cathay Pacific operated the plane. We had to trudge outside in the 20 degree weather, bags in tow, board a skytrain monorail, then reverse the process to enter the terminal. Upon arrival, one of my colleagues discovered his seat on the flight was taken, leaving only two of us to board the 777 which would bring us to Hong Kong.
May I say, sixteen hours is way too long for a plane flight. I won't describe it; simply, one wants to get off the plane after about 10 hours or so. We finally arrived. My head was sore, my gums felt swollen and my toes were numb. Otherwise . . .
We changed our money to Hong Kong dollars and the agent also sold us a high speed train ticket. After a short delay, we boarded the train. Whoosh -- the train easily exceeded 150 mph as we took a twenty minute ride to our destination of Kowloon. Outside, we saw a high density of fifty story apartment buildings inland and dark green mountains rising up behind us.
At Kowloon, we found our way up one story to a shuttle bus stop. The free bus took us through a loop on the very busy streets of Kowloon, dropping us at the final stop, the Royal Pacific Hotel and Towers. Twenty-two hours after departing home, I was grateful to have my feet on the ground again.
A quick shower and shave washed away the worst of my aches and pains. About an hour later, I walked with a colleague down Canton Road, through a shopping district that looked like a cross between Times Square and Picadilly Circus; one downtown mall after another vied for our attention and dollars.
Per the concierge, our destination was the Peking Garden. We rounded a corner and the expanse of Hong Kong harbor lay before us. Twilight neared and a faint veil of low clouds overhung Hong Kong city, but we had a clear view of the skyline and my colleague told me how the last Batman movie had a scene set among those buildings. The harbor skyline looks like this from our hotel. The tall building is Two International Financial Centre, the tallest structure in Hong Kong City.
The restaurant was on the fourth floor. The service wasn't very fast, but the food was hot, diverse and filling. I began with a fish soup, which was okay, but eyed the Hot and Sour soup served to my friend. We expected dim sum next, but instead our main dishes of chicken with vegetables and scallops sauteed in a soya sauce came out. The dishes didn't disappoint and helped to fill our stomachs with more substantial food after the various lighter meals from the plane. We washed it all down with mugs of Tsingtao beer. The promised dim sum, filled with bits of pork, finally emerged and struck the right ending note for the meal.
Walking back, we were approached several times by men attempting to sell us goods like watches and leather goods. It dawned on us that we were now the minority -- caucasians in a land where the average tint of flesh tones had more yellow than ours and where even our hair stood out. Overhead, a neon banner wished us "Season's Greetings" -- the Chinese New Year was only a few days away.
Thus ended our first night in Hong Kong. Exhaustion overcame us and I began the foggy sleep of the jet-lagged traveler at 8:00 pm and weighed in with ten fitful hours. I'll write more about the trip in another post.