Friday 20^th February 2015 – Day at Sea.

 

Another busy day at sea and (hopefully) the last with our very noisy Chinese/Asian guests who never stop eating strange concoctions like for example fruit, hard boiled eggs and onions all on one plate – for breakfast!

 

We enjoyed the Dermot Murnaghan Q&A session. He is a good speaker and seems really genuine. Later we joined in the “groovy choir” which is open to all but consists of us all sitting in the Grand Lobby which (as Graeme and Sheila will know from the visit) is like a five star hotel. The acoustics are pretty good and as the songs were classics ranging from The Beatles to Sinatra – everyone knew some of them, so could sing away to their hearts content!

 

We didn’t know anything about Chinese wine (apparently they are the fifth largest producer of wine in the world) so when we saw there was a Chinese wine tasting presentation we decided to go along – purely from an educational standpoint obviously! The wines we tasted were more “old world” and not as fruity as we like - but we’ll definitely give the Zuishixian a go again. (At $45 a bottle it’s within our price range on the ship – wonder if there are any off-licences in Hong Kong?!)

 

At 7pm we went to a show by “The 4Tunes”. They are all West End class singers who harmonise really well and their version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” was not to be missed.

 

After this we decided to go and watch the film “Grand Budapest Hotel” starring Ralph Fiennes, Jude Law and Tilda Swinton amongst others. Ian had heard that is has been nominated for several Oscars so even though we didn’t know what it was about we decided to go and see it. Suffice to say – we still don’t really know what it was about!

 

Finally we had a nightcap and then retired to prepare ourselves for Hong Kong… (Just a quick editor’s note… Nesta has now finished her two litres of vodka but Ian still has one and a half litres of his whisky left! – lightweight!!)

 

 

Saturday 21^st February 2015 – Hong Kong.

 

Only 21 degrees and foggy – so we had to dig out our fleeces from the back of the wardrobe!

 

Sadly we were unable to meet up with Martin White (from Voyager) who lives here. We had planned to meet by the Star Ferry terminal but had received a text from him to the effect that although he was out of hospital he is confined to bed suffering from bronchitis. There is a flu epidemic in Hong Kong with apparently 250 deaths this winter. The ship’s advice, to prevent us catching avian flu, is not to hold or touch live birds…the mind boggles!

 

We took the ship’s shuttle along with Gary, Jenny, Diane and Lewanne from the new Kai Tak terminal in Kowloon (or white elephant terminal, as Martin called it) into Ocean Terminal. From here we got the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong Island and did one of the three “hop on, hop off” bus tours. The first stop was at Victoria Peak (the highest point in Hong Kong) and our tickets included a ride in the funicular railway up to the top. Gary and Jenny had been here seven years ago when it was peaceful and green - so they were amazed that it is now crawling with people and concreted over with Starbucks, Burger King etc. in evidence. The massive queues to get up – and back down – meant that by the time we got on to our open-top bus again, it was already 2pm.

 

The south of the island is much prettier, taking in Stanley, Aberdeen and Repulse Bay. The others got off again at Stanley (to “do” the market) but we stayed on and went back to the starting point. Incidentally, the trip was advertised as lasting two hours if you didn’t get off the bus – but our driver obviously didn’t know this - as he threw the bus round corners and tried to overtake any taxi he saw! Add to this the fact that it rained for the last 20 minutes of our ride, so we had the experience of being crammed in downstairs holding on to anything we could - whilst the driver tried to break his lap record. Not the most relaxing trip in the world!

 

We caught the shuttle back to the ship and explored the Kai Tak terminal. On top of the building is a park, water garden and walks. Lots of locals were there having picnics and taking “selfies” with the QM2 in the background.

 

In the evening, on the ship, there was “The Hebei Acrobatic & Magic Show” performed by a local group. It was very similar (and nowhere near as good) as the one in Singapore.

 

At 8-15pm we went up to Deck 13 to watch a laser show in the harbour area – but with the mist/haze about, it wasn’t very spectacular. The majority of the buildings had light shows playing on them so it was rather pretty. We like Hong Kong!