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Hong Kong to Home
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What an incredible response I got to my last post:
Cherikoff's bakery?
Jul 17, 2007 04:28 EST by cherikoff (211.30.230.17) New!
"My grandfather started the first Cherikoff bakery on Nathan Road as you say and I read about you wanting to get to one of the many Cherikoff bakeries now in China. Are they a quality bakery? Or is it because they still offer European specialties rather than the semi-sweet or unpalatable (for Caucasians) baked products in Chinese bakeries?"
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Small world! Leslie says, "Isn't the internet a truly wonderful thing!"
Saturday: Finished packing and caught the bus at 7:50 to the Star Ferry, across the harbor, through a mall, and here we are again at Tsim Chai Kee Noodle for king prawn wonton noodle soup, etc. all over again for breakfast. On the ferry on the way back, I drank a can of Nescafe coffee facing backward, watching Hong Kong Island recede ... back at GH at 10:50 for last shower, check-out, use internet, walk to the A21 bus stop 4-5 blocks from GH.
Another great bus ride and here we are at HK airport 9 hours before our flight leaves so we won't have to pay an extra day for left luggage. Really, it's no problem to be early because GH check-out time is 12 and HK is too hot for wandering for us without a shower at the end of the wander. And there is no urgency to wander because this is the 6th time we've been here since 2005 and actually, we've wandered this place many times since 1978. And, there are not many better places to be than in this airport.
Through the afternoon we had coffee at Pacific Coffee, steamed bun with BBQ pork at Lost China Snacks, child's chicken strip dinner at Popeye's, and roast duck on rice at Café de Coral. Wandered duty-free shops, Leslie sampling Rose Essentials from Bvlgari and trying to get me to put on something from Armani. Okashi Land shop has Collon Crackers - hopefully not a typo. They also sell 1000 gm bags of duck tongues (a lot of tongues, I'm thinking) - two for me please. Great gifts for someone. Maybe I'll bring a bag home for you.
The HK airport is on Lantau Island in the South China Sea and is reached via an elegant suspension bridge. In the early evening I walked to a different side of the terminal and looked out the window to see a 747 illuminated by the sun setting in clouds over the shining water and green hills beyond.
To lay me down
To lay me down
Let the world go by, like clouds a-streaming
To lay me down
To lay me down
To lay me down
One last time
Settled in at Gate 63 around 9pm, waiting for 11pm boarding.
To lay me down
One last time
I'm flying tonight
Already
Little girl wearing a black dress with sparkling glitter trim moon-walking backwards on the moving sidewalk running through the center of departure
I'm flying, we're flying
Soon
Over the dark Pacific and under the wide, black and starry sky.
I have a good and simple book (The Hidden Life of Dogs), but the excitement of the departure terminal is too much.
Leslie: We're in the HK airport, again drinking coffee at Pacific Coffee, hmmmm. We had to come about 8 hours early or get tagged with another $30 US charge for our Left Luggage, so here we are.
David, remember when Thai wouldn't let you check your luggage even in 1st class several hours before your flight so you had to lug it around or pay to put it in Left Luggage? Cathay Pacific took ours cheerfully at 1:30 for our flight that departs at 11:30 tonight and said that we could have brought it as early as 6:00 am. I wonder if that's Thai's lousy service or the ever looking for another Baht BK airport? Anyway, if you have a choice, give Cathay Pacific a try.
So we'll go thru customs and immigration shortly and hang out in the Departure Lounge. We do love an airport and this one is great!! I'm going to polish my nails for the first time in a month once we get settled- I have this awesome tiny bottle of straight Japanese acetone that I bought in a little shop in Chiang Mai mall not often frequented by westerners. The girl I bought it from had to figure out from my charades what I wanted and there was no way to explain that it had to be seriously "non-green" to take off this OPI polish but she was certain her stuff was good and it's industrial strength after all. I love helpful people when traveling - it really makes things easier.
So off we go again. See all of you soon. Love, Mom/Leslie
Long flight. The "living earthquake" guy sitting in front of Leslie spilled his orange juice and that gave us a little drama. Food was good - this is Cathay Pacific. We assembled a "tripnic" (Leslie's word) from the snacks from this flight for the next and last flight, which is on American Airlines (the airline that sells crummy boxes of high sodium, high saturated fats, high sugar snacks).
LAX not bad this time around. Flying out of LA we start out over the Pacific - midnight black with a few sparkles from ships and LA an endless carpet of lights sparkling in the night. Coming into DFW 3:30am California time and 5:30 Texas time we can see the dawn lighting barely the sky with traces of red. The last time I saw the dawn was in Luang Prabang.
"Whole generations of westerners who went out there as soldiers, doctors, planters, journalists ... lost their hearts to these lands of the Mekong ... they are places that take over a man's soul" (from River of Time by Jon Swain, one of the last westerners out of Cambodia in 1975).
Like the cashier at Tsim Chai Kee Noodle said when we said goodbye our last time there for breakfast on Saturday as we left - "See you next year, maybe." And she said, "Thank you. By-by."
The garden is lush, overgrown, some roses blooming - roses, jasmine, and 4 o'clocks perfuming the night air. We're home.
Good trip. Thank you. By-by.
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Finally, a little poetry for the last entry for this trip.
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea ...
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say;
"Come you back, you British Soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay;
Can't you 'ear their paddles clunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' 'er name was Supi-Yaw-Lat jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,
An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,
An' wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:
Bloomin' idol made o' mud--
Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd--
Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!
On the road to Mandalay ...
When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow,
She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "Kulla-la-lo!"
With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek again my cheek
We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak.
Elephants a-piling teak
In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak!
On the road to Mandalay ...
But that's all shove be'ind me -- long ago and fur away,
An' there ain't no 'buses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;
An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:
"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else."
No! you won't 'eed nothin' else
But them spicy garlic smells,
An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells;
On the road to Mandalay ...
I am sick 'o wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones,
An' the blasted English drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;
Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but wot do they understand?
Beefy face an' grubby 'and--
Law! wot do they understand?
I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!
On the road to Mandalay . . .
Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there ain't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', and it's there that I would be--
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
O the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!
"Whole generations of westerners who went out there as soldiers, doctors, planters, journalists ... lost their hearts to these lands of the Mekong ... they are places that take over a man's soul" (from River of Time by Jon Swain, one of the last westerners out of Cambodia in 1975).
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