Our first update - November 4, 2012
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| Fran with the Hong Kong Island skyline behind her |
Our Air Canada flight left on time from Toronto on Sunday morning;
15 and ahalf hours direct to Hong Kong. As business class was completely full, we
settled comfortably into our bulk head seats...lots of legroom in front and
as soon as the plane reached altitude we brought down our wheeled carry on
and set it up in front of us as our leg rest...it certainly makes a long
flight like this much more comfortable.
The flight was totally smooth and both of us got a few hours of rest; we had
two meals (dinner and breakfast, with a corned beef sandwich as a snack
served between the two meals); the flight arrived about 20 minutes early.
The route was quite interesting; I had thought that we would be heading west
across the Pacific; instead, we headed north over Hudson's Bay and then
north east over Greenland and then over the top of the world, down over
Siberia and Mongolia and then China till we landed in Hong Kong's very large
airport.
There is a 13 hour time difference so we landed at 2:30 PM on Monday
afternoon after leaving at 10 AM on Sunday morning. This is just a one night
stopover for us to allow us to adjust to the time difference and catch up on
some much needed sleep.
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| The Waterway between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island |
Our schedule will see us leaving Hong Kong tomorrow (Tuesday) and flying to
the north of Thailand to the second largest city Chiang Mai where we will be
till next Sunday. We will spend Shabbat with Chabad in Chiang Mai and will
eat at their restaurant which is open daily.
We are staying at the Shangri La in Kowloon which is right next door to Rav
Meoded's shul and his excellent restaurant Mul Hayam.
After we end our Thailand and Vietnam tours in almost three weeks from now,
we will be once again coming to Hong Kong over a Shabbat and will be staying
at the same hotel in order to be close to the shul and its wonderful Shabbat
atmosphere.
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| One of the flowers on the side of Mody Road, Kowloon |
The Hong Kong airport is incredibly efficient. It is one of the largest in
the world and yet, it took us a total of 40 minutes to disembark, clear
immigration, get our luggage, walk thru customs, get HK dollars at an ATM,
buy tickets for the train to the city and get a SIM card for my phone.
Literally amazing! By then we were on the high speed train to the city which
comes every ten minutes and 23 minutes later we were in the heart of
Kowloon. At this point, included in the price of the train ride (about $10
each) is the shuttle bus which drops you at the door of your hotel. But due
to traffic and the fact that our hotel was the 6th and last stop, the ride
from the train to the hotel took another hour. So for efficiency, next time
I will take a cab from the train to the hotel. Cabs in HK are very cheap and
there are lots of them.
When we arrived at the hotel, about ten people (all employees of the hotel)
asked if they could assist us with check in and our luggage. Service is
really over the top here. We got to our room and it is a very beautiful and
modern well equipped room. Waiting for us was a fresh pot of tea served in a
classic Chinese tea service and some fresh fruit. When we told the bellhop
that we would be staying here over Shabbat in three weeks from now, he said
"do not worry...I know the drill with the stairs and the lights etc". As the
shul is next door, they are well aware of Shabbat issues.
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| Our room at the Shangri La, Kowloon |
We unpacked a few things and went out to explore the area.
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| The signs are great if you can understand Chinese! |
We were looking for a movie camera for this trip and we bought one at one of
the hundreds of camera shops on Nathan Road, a short walk from the hotel.
Fran found some very comfortable shoes, we found some kosher long life milk
from Australia and ou cereals in the local supermarket for breakfast, and we
then bought an extra suitcase to store items that we will not need in either
Thailand or Vietnam.
The concierge in our hotel said that they would store it for us over the
next 2 and a half weeks at no charge. And since we have a weight restriction
on the internal flights but no such restriction on our flights to and from
Canada because of our Elite Air Canada status, it makes sense for us to
leave whatever we can here.
We even walked thru the famous night market on Temple Street (it is a normal
street with traffic during the day but then turns into a massive market with
hundreds of stalls at 7 pm each night), but we held back from buying
anything because we have been told that there are much greater bargains
ahead in Bangkok, Vietnam and Shenzhen. We will see.....
We then took a 12 minute cab ride back to our hotel ($4), and then went next
door to the restaurant for dinner. We had a very nice dinner; the food was
very good, the place was quite full of Americans who were attending various
trade shows, and we finally returned to our hotel at 10 PM to rest up for
another travel day tomorrow.
First to Bangkok with a connection to Chiang Mai...
Till then....all the best
Fran and David
Sent at 5:47 am....a bit of jet lag :-)
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