Liz and Richard's 2007 Adventures

We've arrived in Hong Kong!

Five and a half hours in steerage to San Francisco from Toronto.....of course the crying children were next to Richard.  It is his doom to fly with children.  Why can't they travel with the dogs and cats in luggage?

Then..........Heaven..........15 hours in Business Class on Singapore Airlines. Yes, Virginia, there is a Travel God.  We were ensconced in the upper deck of a 747 - 28 passengers and 4 attendants and they really all do look like Balinese Dancers with an attitude that went out of fashion elsewhere with the Raj.

Wonderful food, beverages and 100 channels of current movies, top TV shows and news......all in TIVO on demand configuration so you can pause, speed or repeat. 

Did we mention the food?  Braised scallops, Korean spiced shortribs, grilled jumbo shrimps, dim sum.....and when you woke up with your internal clock ajar they were thrilled to hand make a foccacio with tuna and grilled vegetables sandwich.

A few pix:

But then, there were the seats.  La-Z-Boy eat your heart out.  The seats reclined; they extended; they squeezed and cuddled.  We not only slept, we dreamed.  Never dreamed on a plane before........had nightmares......but never dreamed. See this bad photo of Dickie in his airline bathtub.

Richard inevitably had to climb under the seat to find out how they did it and discovered more technology than a space shuttle launch.

Wonderful flight - when in doubt do fly Singapore Airlines Biz Class.  PS - there is a First Class - there the seats are Roman recliners with orgies and the attendants chew your food for you.

It's Fun to Stay at the YMCA!

Arrived in Hong Kong rested, relaxed, far better read and ready to dine.

Surprise..... Hong Kong is incredibly clean; we came in at rush hour and traffic wasn't in the Gardiner at dawn category; taxis are inexpensive, available and know where are are going; locals have a wonderful sense of personal space as they move down a sidewalk (unlike NYC on a bad day) and politeness is the national ethos.

When you travel with Elizabeth, the travel afficianado, you actually expect not the unexpected, but the expected.....top quality,usually at a great rate; but in   Hong Kong, we're actually staying at the YMCA.  Now we understand why those guys dressed up in Indian headdresses and hardhats.  The YMCA - believe it or not - is Hong Kong's best value, best attributes hotel.  Our room, with its rock solid bed, mini bar (beer at $3 CAD versus $12 in the Peninsula hotel bar!), personal safe, room service, high speed internet & a terrific breakfast buffet, plus other functional services costs $160 CAD versus $400 - $700 at high profile hotels.

Plus at the YMCA you get a National Geographic grade view of Downtown Hong Kong and the evening light show - this is the view from our room

We're in residence for 6 days.  Have a list of restaurants to experience and off to Macau for a day.

Visited the flower market and bird (caged pets) market this first afternoon (incredible availability of high end fowl - mynahs, African Grays, love bird variants and other parrots) plus the flower market (multiple orchids).  Thinking of renting a boat for a day to explore the harbour - the container port is awesome in scale.

Following are pics from the markets - we especially liked the 'rose condoms" - each bloom carefully protected!

So far not the sense of a "world class city" but we're in Kowloon, tomorrow we ferry across the harbor to explore Hong Kong city.

But there is much to see and do - we'll go back to the bird and flower markets and want to see the (no kidding) goldfish market, plus whole streets of esoteric specialities - herbalists, dried fish, jade market, ladies fashions, etc.

So far - and it is very early days - Hong Kong is not what we expected.  All positive - very clean, no chaotic congestion, very polite and efficient, but smog that you can cut with a knife - probably too much information here - after 26 hours on planes and in airports we're certainly over exuberant about having arrived.  Some recent pundits have suggested that the objective of a blog is to bridge the personal and the general with the inclusion of response - we'll see how we do this time around after our South American venture. Clearly need to up our picture count.

 

Hong Kong City Light Show - Video and pix

It's glitzy, so very Las Vegas and we love it.  Every night at 8:00pm for 15 minutes, downtown Hong Kong transforms itself into the world's largest light show.  The architecture is already spectacular, but when it illuminates with lasers and strobes dancing over the 60+ story towers, it is amazing.  Many of the buildings are covered in coloured lights and become structural chameleons in a mating dance frenzy.

We tried with partial success to capture the impact using the movie option on our still camera below.  Surprised more cities haven't duplicated the Hong Kong pyrotechnics.

Theme Streets - Flowers, Birds, Goldfish!

One charming sight is the Chinese taking their pet birds for a walk.  They congregate and chat like dog owners, without the necessity to stoop and scoop!

Bird Market

The Goldfish Market is a street with hundreds of stores dedicated to aquarium fish.  There are goldfish, tropical fish, saltwater fish and all the equipment required to maintain them.  Many of the stores are packed with people buying - so we have to assume there are some major home aquaria crowding out the humans in very tiny apartments!  Unfortunately tank glare makes photography difficult.

Many of the fish are pre packed in plastic bags (above) - the death rate must be tragic

That's a weird fish!

Flower Market

A Cultural Interlude at the Hong Kong Art Museum

Can you spot the original Auguste Chaboud "Yvette or Checkered Dress"?

   

Arrived in Siem Reap/Angkor Wat

It's Wednesday the 17th here - woke up very early this morning in Hong Kong to pouring rain - time to get outta town!

Thai Air to Bangkok (even BETTER seats than Singapore Airlines!) and then a turbo prop to Siem Reap (pronounced re-app as I've just discovered).

Our guide Dara met us at the airport and we've here for 5 days exploring the temples .... we're starting to back up on postings (LOTS still to come on the Hong Kong board) - we might catch up a bit this week as we have high speed in the room here too (amazing!)

Keep checking back!

Best regards

Liz and Richard

A couple of early Angkor Wat Pix

Spent our first full day here - morning at Angkor Wat and the afternoon at Angkor Thom (with a very sensible 3.5 hour break in the middle due to heat)

I'll try to upload a couple of pix - Richard took some lovely photos - not sure about the speed here though - although as I type I realize how remarkable this all is.....sitting in my hotel room, at my laptop, with internet connection......we live in amazing times!

Hot, hot, hot today - our lovely guide Dara did a great job of avoiding the crowds (and there are crowds) - somehow it seemed we were always alone - while there were great groups of people swirling around in other places.

And Hong the driver is charming and a welcome sight (the car is air conditioned!).  We're going to set out at 7am tomorrow for the Jungle Temple and I'm trying to convince Richard to do the sunrise at Angkor Wat - it means being there at 5:30AM - he grumbled about doing that at Easter Island but loved in the end.

Bangkok!

Arrived in Bangkok...we're a few countries behind in the blog.  Apologies.

Took 500 pictures at Angkor Wat et al.....need to edit!

Staying in a wonderful small hotel in Bangkok (only 5 rooms - we're on the top floor).  Our room has a large balcony that overlooks the river and Wat Arun on the other side - here's a picture from our balcony with Wat Arun in the background.

Of course that cup has tea in it!!

The river is a maze of traffic - tour boats, huge lumbering barges, ferries, tugs, etc.  We could sit for hours and literally watch the world go by....but the hotel has a highly recommended dining room so our evening is planned....then we must edit photos.

Best from Liz and Richard

The night view of Wat Arun from our Balcony

We are loving our riverside balcony.  The changing light on the Wat is more subtle than Hong Kong's skyscraper light shows, but fascinating.

Falling in love with Thai food.  It's like going to Italy and finding out they make more than spaghetti and pizza.  Last night a wonderful meal at our hotel.....first dish was four individual appetizers - spicy, crispy chicken wings, orange salad, cucumber julienne, and chicken satay.

Had to have more chicken wings

Then, grilled eggplants marinated with fish sauce, lime, chilies, shallots and dried shrimp - a totally different flavour profile - sour and hot

Closed with 2 fishes dishes - sauteed sea bass with celery, ginger and soy; and stir fried vermicelli with chilies, tiger prawns, kale and mushrooms.

All for $30 US in a restaurant with table cloths, candles and wonderful staff.

Because it is so hot the world here starts up in the cool of sunrise.  We've been getting up at first light - 5:30am/6:00am.....but then we have little choice since the rooster appears to be southeast Asia's favourite animal!

Now off to breakfast, wandering the city and - most importantly - finding a hard to find restaurant recommended in the NY Times.

(sorry about the Haiku like spacing on the text versus the pix - have to figure out what I'm doing wrong - also I've scaled the pix way down due to speed so they might be pixellating)

Some Run with Bulls....Others Walk with Tigers

Having much fun - blog continuity out of control though.

January 24th update - Bangkok - did all the tacky, wonderfully satisfying touristy things with our wonderful guide Tong - she's lots of fun and knowledgeable.

1)  Floating Market - here's the secret - ignore the souvenirs and concentrate on the food.  Eating hot soup in a rolling canoe is the definition of madness

2)  Walk with Tigers - keep chanting to selves "Seigfried and Roy", "Seigfried and Roy".  Here are a few early pictures (of hundreds)....

Dickie looks stern because the cub has just tried to remove his right ear.  Fortunately blood doesn't show in photo.

Liz cannot stop giggling as she does "the daftest thing in her life".

3)  Had a spectacular very late lunch at a floating restaurant under the actual "Bridge on the River Kwai" - drive home with our adorable guide singing along to her collection of old rock and roll.

It was a good day - we'll get the photos up and under control but here are a few from the Tiger Temple