Hong Kong

Thank God we didn’t have to stay at Ho Chi Minh airport overnight - 5 hours there was quite enough. At least Harley loves watching planes and we were able to sneak our Duty Free gin into the frighteningly expensive tonic at the airport restaurant. 3 months in SE Asia really had made the transition back to ‘civilisation’ rather painful at least financially.

Talking about entering a different world as we took our HK taxi through a maze of skyscrapers, rather than a muddle of bamboo huts, towards the Disney owned Hollywood hotel. No we haven’t gone prematurely senile – this was a planned Christmas present to Ruby and Harley for being such good travellers. Ruby was so excited that she was still up as we arrived after midnight only to be greeted by Mickey Mouse windows and shower curtains. Oh my God what have we done….

The next morning the suspense was killing the kids as we took the free shuttle emblazoned with cartoon characters to Hong Kong Disney itself. I was close to killing myself having regretted the ‘2 days for the price of 1’ deal. I doubted I would make it to teatime of the first day. As it happened I was kept amused by the hoards of Asian unaccompanied adults queuing up to meet and greet Goofy and Cinderella amongst others ‘in person’. They were trying to queue barge the ‘Adventures of Pooh’ bumpy cart ride (somewhat psychedelic in the ‘woozle dream’ section) and were very excited by the Tarzan river raft that floated past several fearsome plastic beasts. In the UK I’m sure there would have been accusations of paedophilia but these adults were simply enthralled by the magic of Disney. I suppose if you had been fully exposed as a kid to the Pol Pot regime rather than the Disney channel you deserved to enjoy a bit of childish fantasy later in life. To be fair adults were catered to a bit with a pitch black top speed roller coaster called Space Mountain, a Disney version of the Oscars during which an incredibly well honed Tarzan almost lost his loincloth by pouncing rather too close to Karen and a half decent firework display. The kids were so excited they talked about it for weeks (Disneyland not Tarzan’s loincloth) but 2 days of being offered Mickey Mouse shaped toast for breakfast was enough for us and we headed off to Kowloon the remaining 2 days in Hong Kong.
I went straight out to meet a client at a hotel they were using to house the rowing competitors for the Beijing 2008 Olympics and we sculled a delicious bottle of wine made all the more pleasant due to the relative drought of Fine Wine in Indochina. We agreed to meet up ‘en famille’ the following evening at a spectacular top floor Japanese restaurant called Aqua. We made our way there indirectly by metro to Central, Shanks’ pony through the beautiful botanical gardens, peak tram up 45 degree slopes to the highest point in Hong Kong (just about level with the tallest 100 storey + skyscraper), bus through town and finally ferry at sunset back across to Kowloon. The food was truly delicious and after we had the added bonus of a laser show. From the 26th floor the famous backdrop of Hong Kong Island lit up and flashing with multicoloured fluorescence was spectacular as was the flooding of the bathroom complete with sewage on our return. Anyway we got free transport to the airport on the back of it the following afternoon and left in good spirits for Perth and the vastness of Australia….