After messing with Kindle, I went up to the shop to see if I could help Monika with a new shipment of products. She had pretty much finished, so we went down to Repulse Bay Arcade and had a leisurely lunch outside. Here is a picture of the Arcade from the apartment’s patio:

If you have ever seen Love is a Many Splendored Thing with William Holden, this was the setting of the former Repulse Bay Hotel that was in that film. 

Monika returned to the shop, and I headed for Stanley to see what I could see. I got off the bus at Stanley Plaza and went down to see how things had changed since I was here 5 years ago.  Stanley Market is a huge maze of shops on the other side of the seafront from the Plaza. Between  the Plaza and the Market are lots of restaurants and bars with outside tables.

Last time I was here, there was nothing but the Murray House that had recently been moved from Central.  Now, there is a beautiful open area where people gather and enjoy the outdoors, and there are several levels of shops in the Plaza.  Murray House is now home to the Maritime Museum and several restaurants.

I went into a shop called GOD — Goods Of Desire.  It is very retro, with lots of party gifts.  I thought you might like to see how men’s underwear is marketed in this store:

What can I say!?

Not much else to share from my exploits today, so I thought you might want to see how easy it is to grab a cocktail after work on the way home.

 

In the US the only place I have seen Kirkland brand is in Costco. I was under the impression that Kirkland is Costco’s brand. And here it is in HK at a market that is much the same kind of thing as Costco – lots of random products in large quantities. This really pulls the world together in a way.

But wait — there’s more….

And imagine store after store of this —

 and

The picture of the crickets for the birds did not appear last night’s blog for some reason, although it did in the preview. Here it is again.

More later….

Just to focus in on that item on the railing….

Afterward, Monika made preparations to give a facial treatment to a client and I headed for Central to pick up a purse I’d brought with me from Tallahassee to be repaired.  They did a great job, I must say.  As I headed for the MTR (Mass Transit Railway) which is the subway, I stopped off to grab a bite to eat at a place called “Pret a Manger” (French for “Ready to Eat.”)  I have now found my new favorite lunch choice: a Peking duck wrap, which consisted of yummy, tender slices of Peking duck, lettuce, spinch, cucumber, and hoisin sauce in a soft plain wrap.  I know where I’ll be eating when I go to town next time!  I took the MTR to an area on the Kowloon side called Mon Kok.  There, I walked amidst a very long street of stalls selling knock-off watches, purses, and designer clothes.  Buying nothing, I walked further north to the Flower Market, which is essentially one long street of gorgeous cut flowers along with some plastic flowers and shops selling things for the small garden.

 

You can’t get the feel of the immensity of the selection from my few pictures, but I didn’t want to overwhelm you…  Suffice to say it was wall-to-wall flowers!

Beyond the Flower Market is the Bird Market where people bring their birds in cages for their daily outing and just sit and enjoy the company of other people with like interests. In this area there are also lots of birds for sale, along with all nature of bird seed, bird cages, water cups, and other food.

 

 

 

 

Yesterday was primarily my blog learning day.  After posting my first blog I didn’t have much time left to go into Central, so I walked down to the local supermarket, which is located in what used to be the famous Repulse Bay Hotel but is now a group of beautiful high-end shops and doctors’ offices, and spent about an hour looking at everything before purchasing what I wanted to make for dinner.  Monika has been making breakfast, lunch and dinner, with me cleaning up to try to contribute, but I wanted to make dinner so she could relax a bit.  I finally found an oriental black bean sauce for chicken, which was thawing out in the apartment.  I also purchased some beef for a future meal, and had purchased pork chops the day before for another meal.  Monika has been making the most marvelous meals!  I hope I can rise to the occasion…

The walk downstairs from the apartment to the market is fairly easy.  I take one elevator to the 3rd level car park, then I walk a short distance, go through a few doors, and take another elevator to the access gate that goes to the shops.  I’m still having trouble figuring out which elevators to take when I come up from the bus…  Security is amazing.  Gates with codes, security officers at all outside doors, etc.  They all know I am visiting and are very helpful.  Once inside the shop area, I take these beautiful stairs down to the market.

I tried to hide the guys taking wedding photos as much as I could.

Oh, I didn’t mention that this apartment building is undergoing major renovations to the interior and exterior.  Therefore there is bamboo scaffolding all around the lower exterior, which you will see in the next photo taken from the patio.  If I stay in the apartment during the day, there is constant drilling and banging, so yesterday was pretty intense while I was trying to learn to blog!  This morning they managed to come through the wall of the room in which I am staying, so I had plaster and stuff all over my bed.  Luckily I was not in it at the time!

Here is one of the buses I take to Central. My favorite place to sit is front row on top — my chances of getting car sick increase with every row further back!  Hong Kong is often compared to the fjords of Norway. The roads around the island are very curvy, yet there is only one lane each direction with cut-outs for slower vehicles to use (if they are considerate) so others can pass.  The most amazing thing is to be in a bus and pass another huge vehicle going in the other direction, expecially as you enter a curve and the fronts of both vehicles stick out and nearly touch!  I have no idea how the drivers navigate this terrain, but they somehow manage.  I’ll try to take a picture to give you a visual.

Repulse Bay is exposed to the ocean.  When you look at the map, it is the first area you come to when coming in from the ocean.  Freighter traffic is constantly visible on the horizon as the enormous ships carry their cargo to the harbor.

Here is a shot of Repulse Bay again taken from the patio, between rows and columns of scaffolding.  At the very top of the photo is South Beach, which is where Monika and I walked the other day — to give you a sense of its location in relation to RB.

When I lived in HK back in the 60s, I will never forget going to a party with a bunch of sailors down at the building in the foreground.  We were on the roof.  One sailor was so drunk he thought he was on a float in the water, like the ones you see here.  All of a sudden he flung himself off the roof, as if he were just easing himself off a raft and going into the water (see lower left corner of roof), and landed on his back on the sidewalk below, which was about three stories considering being on the roof!  I was horrified.  I ran all the way from there up to my apartment, which was across the street where you saw the picture of the bus, and up about two hundred steps and then several floors to the apartment and called an ambulance.  By the time I got back, the ambulance had arrived and the sailor was already up and refusing to go.  I think they eventually forced him into it.  But it was really quite a traumatic experience for me at age 17.  Ah, memories!!

Until next time….

 

 

This is my first ever blog.  Hopefully this will be interesting and informative for all who read it.  I am visiting Hong Kong for two months.  I arrived on Feb. 20 and after about a week of sending emails back home to various people I decided now would be a good time to learn how to blog.  I will try to post every day or so to let you know what I’ve been doing and share pictures of my exploits.

I spent the first week in HK trying to familiarize — or should I say RE-familiarize — myself with this amazing city of nearly 8 million people, a far cry from my hometown of Tallahassee with about 250,000!  To get a good overview of Hong Kong, check out Wikipedia.

The reason I am in Hong Kong is that I used to live here in the 60s and my school, King George V (KGV, i.e., Cagey Five), is having a reunion.  This is also a buying trip for my home and fashion accessories business, YUEN MI PRODUCTIONS.  I have been back in touch with my schoolmates since the late 90s and have attended reunions in Sydney (2001), Hong Kong (2007), and Vancouver (2008).  The Vancouver one was a Hong Kong reunion and was not limited to KGV alumni, so we got to visit with friends we used to compete against in sports and party with on weekends.  For this reunion, they expect about 400 people.  I am fortunate to be staying with friends, Gopal and Monika Lalchandani. They live in Repulse Bay, which is on the south side of the island and is where I used to live, so it’s very familiar.

In 2007 I stayed with my brother Robin and his wife Boots.  They live in the liveliest area of this city: Central.  That’s downtown.  That’s where most of the action is.  And it was a simple matter of walking 100 paces from their flat in “Mid-Levels” to the world’s longest covered escalator that took me down to Central, where I would walk until my feet just about fell off.  And it was HOT HOT HOT and HUMID HUMID HUMID.  This trip, it is winter and much cooler.  The weather has not been very sunny yet, but hopefully that will change soon.  From Repulse Bay, I now take a double decker bus to Central, which takes about 20-25 minutes.  Not a bad ride.  And the scenery is fascinating.  I never tire of it.

So in my first week I have taken numerous bus rides, ridden the MTR (subway, rail system) to Kowloon to make a special purchase and also got the soles and heels of my boots repaired while I waited for just 1/2 hr!, taken a purse in to be repaired (now ready; picking up today), shopped at the Stanley Market, walked from Repulse Bay to Hong Kong Country Club which is almost to Aberdeen, walked with Monika from RB to South Beach, had lunch and visited with Boots for 3 hours, had lunch with Robin when he got back from Jakarta, and visited with him for about 2 hours before he had to race off to work, walked miles in Central, and seen about 6 movies.  Gopal and Monika love movies, and so do I, and they own a store where they rent videos so they have access to everything imaginable.  Saw Hugo the day before the Academy Awards, so that was timely!