Leaving Hong Kong

It started early

In the medical clinic. The hours are short as we are in port so at 8 am I was there for a refill on my cough medicine I got in LA. It turns out they don’t have the combo (guifenesin –sp—and codeine), so I left with codeine based cough suppressant and refill on my cough lozenges.

The only other patient was an elderly lady came with her tooth lovingly presented in a tissue. She was lucky we are in port on a weekday as they helped her find a dentist.

After breakfast we headed for the hop on hop off bus where we got a senior discount and finally found ourselves on the Star Ferry to go across the harbor to the bus that took us around the island. Neither of us recalls that much greenery or open areas before but we did make it to Stanley Market but stayed on the bus as we had much to see today.

The cost of housing is amazing. And the apartment buildings must be seen to understand how high and how compact they are. The architecture varies but is also repeated here and there. So much land is reclaimed which can mean it is filled in with dirt OR more commonly it seems from what we say, expanded on pylons on the water.

And the amount of construction here is beyond description.

After this long bus ride where we were lucky enough to be on the top in moderate weather with clear clean air (unlike yesterday where people were advised NOT to go outside if you didn’t have to). The breeze was wonderful but our faces are now windblown and never mind the hay stack that is my hair.

At the end of this, we made our way to the International Financial Center where we wandered around until we found an authentic Chinese restaurant and had dim sum, bow, beef and noodles, and beef soup with vegetables. Table sharing is necessary here but not problematic.

Less people speak English since the last time I was here so it is odd when you can’t find people who speak it.

Harbor tour

Next was a one hour tour of the harbor. It was a snoozer but you never know. Ed seemed to enjoy it. There were 3 young Asian girls all of whom were on their phones the whole time except one who slept most of the way. Why go? I was disappointed not to see the floating restaurant that is so colorful.

After this, we made it onto another hop on hop off and toured the Kowloon side. One of the funniest sites was going up Nathan Road, one of the most expensive shop areas here (and that’s saying a lot as the stores here somehow seem to have a bustling business for high end goods. So imagine these fru fru shops at ground level and you look up to see laundry hanging out the windows. I think half the city did their laundry yesterday.

But one stuck out. At the end of the row of shirts etc, was one lone bra and the cups were really large. I would love to have seen here. If I needed to hang my laundry like that, I’d at least put it in the middle of the other laundry hanging out.

There are old and new areas and buildings side by side  but it seems to work.

We got off around 4 and walked fast to get back to the ship and pick up some things and head out again.

HSBC Bank

Ed has a few really old bills from Hong Kong that no one will accept. So I stopped into this bank to see what the possibilities were. Eventually we wound up with a young woman who knew what to do; most had never seen such bills.

She smiled broadly and suggested we try to see them on eBay or such as their real value was probably ten times the face value. So now we know.

Apple Store … again.

Ed still had many apps to download (of his 140 apps! I’ll stop there to avoid any further editorial observations) and the WiFi is good there. Also he had some other questions.

I also needed to find out what was going on as the flashdrive accessory wouldn’t work on either device, and the SD chip reader only now and then. The summarize a very long and frustrating interventions for all. Here’s what I learned:

1.   Flash drives are for data only: no pictures. So we asked them to give us a refund on the flash drive adapter. This was not easy as it required approval from higher ups. And then the credit had to be put back onto the Apple Pay account where it had been charged. Well some things happened that none of them had ever seen so they will find a way to credit it back later and in the meantime we have all the info on the young man who is responsible for seeing this through.

2.   SD chip adapter: won’t work with those minichips that go into a carrier! Who knew. So I have to use wholly competent SD chips to transfer pics to our devices.

Having finished our business there, and since it was getting dark, we retraced our steps the several blocks back through these bustling malls that extend for blocks toward the ship. We checked in, threw out stuff down and went to open seating dinner. Met two couple new to us: one just joined the ship and the other have been on since LA with us but this is our first meeting.

Harbor Light Show

We excused ourselves to go see tonight’s light show over the harbor which was so much better than last night’s since the atmosphere is clear!

So now we leave Hong Kong, Devices working (we believe), everything up to date, and with hope that pulmonary problems will get better with cleaner air and meds to help.