MARCH 3-5 HONG KONG (for about 36 hours)

Arrival in Hong Kong was on time, but we (I) was delayed at Passport control. “Just a random check,” they kept repeating, as they had me waiting while people with other-colored passports went right on in to the country. Steve waited for me beyond security. I wanted to run out and yell, “VIVA CUBA LIBRE!” and get some free publicity for my upcoming book, Seagull One: The Amazing True Story of Brothers to the Rescue, available September 2010 by the University Press of Florida, but I thought better of it. We had safely passed the first inspection when arriving in Hong Kong: the thermometer check. Right after you descend the steps of the transport bus from the plane to the terminal, airport personnel wearing hospital masks look at you menacingly while holding a thermometer in their hand. If you even look as if you’ve sneezed in the past month, they will detain you and stick the thermometer in your ear. They did it to all the suspicious children that were on board with us. Here, they only want your hard currency, not your germs.

We took the Airport Express train from the airport into the city, exactly 24 minutes (it would have been almost an hour by taxi) in a spotless high-speed train. It dropped us off at Central Station which is on Hong Kong island, and we took a taxi to the LKF Hotel. I still don’t remember what LKF stands for, except it’s the neighborhood we are in (although it sounds like a disease), which is like South Beach. It was crawling with people, literally spilling out of every restaurant and bar. If this was how it was on Wednesday night, I couldn’t imagine what the weekend would be like.

Our hotel is a boutique hotel (which stands for “really cool”) and the hotel staff wanted us to know just how cool they were. The décor was all sleek and brown and minimalist. Our room was huge, much bigger than our master bedroom at home, with a huge flat screen TV, espresso machine in the room, and “Look, we use Molten Brown products.” I’ve never had a hotel employee point out to me what kind of bath products they use. What they didn’t have was a proper converter for my American rollers and hair iron, so you can just imagine the bad hair day and a half I had in Hong Kong. It was 90 degrees and 90% humidity, and I actually had to wear a ponytail the second night.

We started hopping around the bars and finally settled on Italian food, which was delicious. It was fascinating to people watch, the different nationalities of people, most of them in their 30s, just out for fun, food, and drinks on a Wednesday evening. Every place was packed!

Getting around Hong Kong is not as easy as following the streets on your map, not that I can follow a map anyway, but here, when a map reads that two streets intersect, it isn’t exactly that way. The place is full of tall, skinny high rises to accommodate the dense population. In order not to have all these millions of people on the streets at the same time mixing with tourists like me trying to read a map, it’s as if between these tightly compacted long skinny buildings you had spider webs. Keep in mind that Hong Kong is all full of hills, so you have these high rises at all different levels. Imagine these spider webs being a series of stairs and escalators—yes, escalators, going up maybe seven storeys (that’s how they spell it here) between the buildings. These you navigate between the streets, and you may enter a restaurant perhaps on the fourth level, because restaurants as well as stores have different levels. Then there are huge walkways over the busier avenues and bridges. That way you have people walking at all levels, at all times. This place is crowded! But it works, traffic flows, it’s amazing. So as we walked up and down stairs and escalators, flowing with a progressively louder and more animated bunch of young professionals (Steve and I looked old-er), we ran into a Salsa Bar! OMG, Lily B., it looked like a class at Salsa Lovers down on Bird Road. I mean, these Chinos were moving and twirling and doing “la hermana por el brazo” moves. The music was blaring, people were crowded on the dance floor grinding out to salsa music, knowing how to do it. On stage were: the only black guy in Hong Kong, who looked like a Miami Dolphins right defensive tackle, wearing shades, and the only Latin-looking guy (Steve definitely doesn’t count) in Hong Kong, wearing a hat and beating a bongo. I was taken away to a tropical island (must have been the sweat dripping down my back) and thought of Celia Cruz:

Ese Chinito
Tiene tumbao
Y me lo dice
Con su mirada vi-rao

Tiene tumbao, tiene tumbao
Ese Chinito con los ojos virao

Anyway, I’ll further refrain from writing dance lyrics and being politically incorrect. Their moves were awesome, but they definitely needed more hip action.



“SAME-SAME”

The first time on this trip someone said to us, “same-same” we were being ripped off for a cab ride to Art’s neighborhood in Bangkok. When he charged us ten times more for the cab fare than he should, I said, “but that’s how much it costs to get to the airport.”
“Same-same.”
Sure buddy, it’s the same-same to you, but to me it’s moving the decimal point over.

Well, the previous night I, being penny-wise and dollar-foolish, decided to buy an Octopus card. That’s what they call the MRT here, the rapid transit system, and the card said, and the airport attendant (I think) said, that it could be used for three days on all public transportation, and unlimited, and I would get HKD$50 back at the end. Great! Well, we go to get on the Star Ferry Thursday morning (after a very cool breakfast in our cool dining area on the coolest 27th floor of the LKF building) and the Octopus doesn’t work. Thinking this is a Communist plot against Cubans in particular, I start discussing this with the Star Ferry female employee, who was so nice and told me I had to cross over to the other side and speak with someone at the tourist information desk. “But it’s supposed to be for all public transportation,” I said. “But they told me at the airport, but it’s NOT FAIR!”
“Same-same.”

I was wrong, the card was only for MRT transportation and not everything else. We walked around Kowloon, which is on the other side of Hong Kong Island, and where all the heavy-duty shopping is. Actually, there’s heavy duty shopping everywhere. Down in the underground passageways of the MRT there is Gucci and Lowve. Amazing. Went to the Hong Kong Historical Museum and the display halls were fascinating. They recreated streets and buildings. Thank God the Museum of Art was closed on Thursdays, because I really needed a foot massage. We went into this random place, lured by the neon flashing foot sign. That’s how my feet felt. I got a foot massage and a manicure (Chinitas do nails in China!) and Steve got a full-body massage. They had deals here, and packages, and you could combine services, and they were offering discounts. We both insisted on only 50 minute treatments (it went in 50, 75, and 100 minute treatments). The words to describe this foot massage can only be used in Harlequin romances, it was so good. It only started off a little weird, when they had me soak my feet in a bucket with what smelled like Pinesol. I guess I did need disinfecting. But after that, it was pure bliss. During one particular moment of ecstacy, the owner came in and said, “You husband extend 25 minutes, you want extend 25 minutes?” And I said no, thank you. Well, husband must have been in a huge state of ecstacy when they gave him the bill, cos we later realized they had charged us both DOUBLE. They had charged us both for 100 minute treatments.

“Same-same.”

Now that I had happy feet, we went to The Peninsula for high tea. Beautiful hotel, beautiful lobby, and beautiful sconces. Steve had the best Club sandwich of his life. We enjoyed this repast while listening to a quartet.

We were so tired after the massage and the tea that we had to go rest at the hotel. Drinks before dinner then off to eat in the neighborhood, and once again, the bars and restaurants and clubs were packed.

There must be good food in Hong Kong, but we didn’t eat it (The Peninsula tea didn’t count). We walked into the Yung Kee Restaurant, where the ambiance was hopping, and it was full of locals. This must be good. We waited a few minutes for a table, then were taken to the third level of the restaurant and put in a room—by ourselves. There were warning bells going off somewhere. First, it smelled like rancid oil. But we put that aside as we watched all these huge groups enjoying a variety of dishes on the lazy susans they put in the center of the table. Our table didn’t have one. We kept peeking out of the door to see what other people were eating. We ordered the specialties: roasted pork and roasted goose. It was delivered too soon, and cold.
“I’m sorry, could you please heat this up?” They took it away. It came back smothered in some brown sauce. Cold.
“I’m sorry, perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,” I insisted, while Steve said, “Just let it go, let it go.”
The waiter called in a reinforcement.
“That’s how we serve here, not hot,” she said. “Same-same.”

We actually walked away from the meal. From now on The Yung Kee restaurant would forever be the Yuck-Kee restaurant.



FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 2010

After another super cool breakfast in our swanky boutique hotel, we took the Peak Tram up to The Peak, and the views are everything they say they are. The tram ride up, in a wooden tram is great, and you go back down the same way in the same tram, so you’re like falling backward. People live up there, mostly ex-pats it seemed, and they were all doing the circular walk Steve and I were doing, walking their dogs and children in strollers. The circular one-hour walk is full of signs along the way explaining the trail and all the trees. Steve read every single sign.

After the wonderful morning at the Peak, we checked out and took the Airport Express train back to the airport. The wonderful part was being able to check our bags on this side of the bay so we didn’t have to lug them on the train with us. The services here are so efficient and timely; they make everything so much easier. Had lunch at a great restaurant in the airport, so we did finally have a great Chinese meal in Hong Kong.