Friday 28th & Saturday 29th March
The alarm rang at 6.00am and we awoke to be greeted with thick fog and the ships mournful fog horn sounding every two minutes. One hour later, showered and dressed but not breakfasted, we were up on deck for our arrival in a very foggy Hong Kong. Slightly early and with the fog horn reverberating off the sky scrapers on both sides of the harbour we made our way slowly passed the old Kai Tak airport, up between the Star Ferry terminals, did a handbrake turn and side slipped into number one berth at Ocean Terminal. From our cabin we look down onto the Kowloon ferry terminal and across to Central District Hong Kong side.
We disembarked into the Ocean Terminal after breakfast and for a city that changes on an almost daily basis the Ocean terminal has remained much the same as it was when it was built in the mid-sixties, on the outside that is. On the inside it has changed beyond all recognition. From an almost market stall layout with a hotchpotch of shops selling anything from local foodstuffs to silver and gold, it has gone to a sophisticated themed designer goods Mall with good WiFi. I say good, it still has a restricted speed to stop people using it for interactive games, which can be frustrating when you are downloading videos and even photos take quite a time. (The best speed I ever downloaded was when a helpful Radio Shack manager keyed in the shops password and everything went ballistic, all the photos waiting to upload started to upload simultaneously and were all gone in seconds).
Anyway we were going to review Honk Kong side, so we caught the Star Ferry to Wanchai, one of my old haunts which used to be just one street back from the harbour, but is now getting on for half a mile back due to land reclamation. It was just as busy as it always was, however, of the old Wanchai, only the street names remain the same, ghosts of bygone days. All the bars, all the street stalls, and all the girls who used to drape themselves around the doorways (and any unsuspecting sailor). All Gone! Not a single bar, not a single street stall and not a single girl (all married to sailors now I guess). The bars are now posh designer shops, the streets are now clear of clutter and full of earnest business men and women in smart suits busily going about their business. No one shouted Hey! Johnny! You want nice girl? once. Just as well those days are gone I suppose. It was a time when the streets were full of young fresh faced sailors looking for a good time in the few days they had ashore, not for old sailors with a nostalgic tear in their eye for the old days. We traversed the three or four roads that made up the area, looked at each other shrugged and headed for Central. Carol had also experienced some of those days with me, as we regularly wandered down there in the early seventies soaking up the atmosphere. It was here she first experienced the “Hey! Johnny! You want nice girl?” being shouted at me even though she was with me. After the first time, she ceased to be surprised, it was all part of the night street repartee and it kept her on her toes. 😉 We abandoned our plans to return that evening, as it was obvious that the area would not be the same and it would be even more poignant at night.
Central, by contrast, was still easily recognisable. Though posher, flashier, with buildings three to four times the height and many more elevated pedestrian walkways. It was still the same old Central, Business men talking importantly and frantically to each other as though their lives depended on it (mostly now on mobiles though). Limousines gliding into and out of underground car parks with elderly mandarins sitting in the back behind smoked glass, helicopters buzzing in and out. It was all the same only more so, (the only part that was exactly the same was the cenotaph) we loved it.
With legs feeling a good two inches shorter, we made our way to the Star Ferry past more harbour reclamation work and sailed back over to Kowloon. We had some tonic to buy. The weather had gradually improved from the slightly chilly morning fog that shrouded everything, to light grey skies and a gentle warmth. Kowloon was throbbing and we made a short foray up Nathan Road, found a supermarket that sold tonic, then made a detour back to the ship through the rear entry of Harbour City leading into Ocean Terminal thus avoiding the ‘you want nice suit? and you want nice watch?’ touts who by now were out in their hundreds clustering around the main entrance. We wanted to watch the ‘Symphony of Lights’ which, for those of you who are not aware, is an amazing spectacle involving most of the lights on both Hong Kong side and Kowloon dancing and changing colour to music played over loudspeakers, linked at intervals with laser beams. We checked for details of the time etc with the tourist information office and found that the music was broadcast on FM 103.4 mz, so we decided to watch it from the ship. This meant we would have time to go down to dinner immediately afterwards. We took our mobiles up to the Commodore lounge, ordered drinks and sat and waited. Right on cue the music started and the lights began to pulse along with it, the only problem was the mist was coming down again and whilst it didn’t obscure the lights, it did dim them and somewhat disappointingly the routine was exactly the same as five years ago. It was worth seeing again though and especially as this time it was in the comfort of a bar overlooking the harbour.
Down to our last dinner with Maxine and Bill, who are disembarking here and flying back to Brisbane after a few days extra stay in Hong Kong. Our table will now be repopulated by the new people joining tomorrow.
Saturday morning bought us with the fog (would you believe) rain. We seem to take it everywhere, we must have our own personal cloud like that cartoon character, because weather was hot 28°C and sunny, right up to the day before we arrived. Only showers I said, so after breakfast off we went to wander old haunts on Kowloon side. As we made our way up into what used to be the market area past the old marine police HQ (now open to the public) the rain had stopped but instead of getting brighter it was growing increasingly darker. So much so that the street lights were coming on, just as it seemed that it couldn’t get any darker there was a flash of lightening and crash of thunder and the heavens opened. It’s times like this you need shopping malls and everyone else was thankful too, they were packed. For all the designer shops there are in Hong Kong there is no shortage of shoppers and we wondered what the average monthly salary is. Everywhere we looked there was wealthy well-dressed shoppers busily spending like there was no tomorrow. The one big difference from the seventies is there are very few poor people now whereas they used to be the majority. They have either got rich or been moved out of the area. We spent quite a lot of our time being swept along on a tide of people all carrying designer carrier bags most of them young teenagers. The tourists just stood looking bemused.
Anyway we made our way back on board together with the 900 new passengers. The departing passengers were a mixture of Japanese and Australian the new passengers are mostly Brits and some Chinese. We watched the symphony of Lights again on the Balcony this time, everything was much clearer as there was no fog. You could hear the music on shore and the people partying over on Hong Kong as we sailed about fifteen minutes later through the harbour. The harbour side lights were incredible, not as subtle as Manhattan more garish or ‘in your face’ like Blackpool, but more sophisticated if you see what I mean, not to be missed for all that. At dinner we had five new people two couples from the UK and an American guy who has been on for the world cruise but changed tables four times, for various reasons. Will probably find out more about them all tomorrow. That was about it for Hong Kong one of the jewels in the crown. Day at sea tomorrow.
