2 Dec Hong Kong – Went to Eastern District & wandered round Hollywood Road and surrounding medicine and food shops & markets. Took MTR to Western District & met Debbie [Deborah Biber] for dim sum lunch. Went across to recommended shoe district and then up to Peak Tram again where we could see this time…
…tea up there…
…then returned to rest/jacuzzi then out to Sichuan Lau restaurant for dinner.
1 Dec Hong Kong – Ros elate, had breakfast at Kens & said goodbye to Phillipa. Went round Central District (main roads and alleyways) and into Mandarin Oriental. Then took ferry to Kowloon to collect D&P and wander around some more.
Rested/jacuzzi a while & met Janie’s friend Debbie Biber for drinks/light supper – had an early night.
We spent a fair bit of time with Debbie (Deborah) Biber towards the end of our time in Hong Kong; she was very pleasant company and it was very helpful for us to receive some local knowledge.
All the photos we took in Hong Kong during our four night stay – by which I mean all 34 photos – can be seen in raw form in the Flickr album below:
While in China, I did a great deal of thinking about the planned book which became Clean Business Cuisine. Here are the notes I made while on that trip. I shall not try to translate them.
30th Nov Hong Kong – Half day orientation tour early (after Breakfast at Kens) – up (Peak tram to) Victoria Peak in the rain – saw nothing…
Move on – nothing to see here
…then on to Stanley Market followed by Aberdeen Fishing Village including a Sanpan ride…
On return went across to Kowloon to drop off D&P and then went home to rest in jacuzzi. In evening walked round temple market and back along Nathan Road – got home quite late.
Perhaps I need to explain what D&P was, for any younger readers. Back in the day, photography was done on film – much of it on negative film. In order to see the photographs, you would take (or send) your completed rolls of film for developing and printing (D&P). Some people (like me in the late 1970s) even did their own at home – although I never got past doing that in black and white. My dad made his living by having a photographic shop, much of which was about selling D&P equipment and/or being an agent for D&P services.
I remember loving the large rooftop jacuzzi at the New World Harbour View. The hotel seemed very modern and luxurious compared with anything we’d encountered in China. Currently (2018) I think that hotel is the Renaissance Harbour View. Still highly regarded.
29 Nov. Guangzhou -> Hong Kong – Early start off to railway station for grueling journey – train surprisingly good once you finally get on it. Long wait to get through immigration at Hong Kong – rested in afternoon once we got to hotel. Then met up with Phillipa, Clive & Berni – had sandwich supper & then nipped across to Kowloon for a while – early night.
Janie and I both only have limited recall of this day. There was one older member of our tour who was really quite poorly by this stage – I remember the tour party needed to look after him on the journey and try to arrange for him to get medical attention on arrival. Word reached us that he was fine in the end.
…so we shouldn’t have been surprised by the grueling and wait-strewn nature of the journey.
I’m trying to recall Phillipa, Clive and Berni. I am pretty sure the latter pair are the red-headed couple on the right hand side of this picture from Shanghai – I think Phillipa is the youngish woman wearing a dark pullover in the middle of this group:
I remember that Janie had a crazy craving for some western food and in particular a club sandwich – hence the sandwich supper. I’m guessing that the others had a similar craving so we agreed to go on a club sandwich hunt together on that first post-tour night.
Our hotel in Hong Kong was the New World Harbour View, which was very pleasant.
Not sure whether this picture of me enjoying the harbour view was taken that first afternoon or not – who cares?
All the photos we took in Hong Kong during our four night stay – by which I mean all 34 photos – can be seen in raw form in the Flickr album below:
Three blithering pages of notes on how to go about transferring from our tour ending in Guangzhou to the unguided part of our holiday, starting in Hong Kong.
Perhaps some need reminding/informing that Hong Kong was still a British protectorate in 1993 – the “one country, two systems” transfer to Chinese rule thing was still at the planning stage.
To be fair, only the first page-and-a-half was really about the tortuous transfer – the rest was about what we might do in Hong Kong once we got there.
I won’t decipher my hieroglyphics in this piece but might extract some elements of them in my reports of our transfer to and then our time in Hong Kong.
I’m not sure why I generated lists of pseudo awards for our China tour. Perhaps it was at the suggestion of the Kuoni guides for some last night of the tour fun.
Perhaps it was my own idea and/or something I did purely for my and Janie’s own amusement.
I have peppered / am peppering the main pieces about this trip with transcriptions and explanations of the individual awards, so I shall not transcribe them again here.
28 Nov Guangzhou – Half day tour in morning – Temple Of Six Banyan Trees & Pagoda & then Chen Family Academy with rice-sized carvings etc.
View of Guangzhou, I think from our hotel/hotel room
Temple of the Six Banyan Trees
…and Pagoda…
Chan Family Academy
Child prodigy
I honoured the guide on our (Sally’s) coach in Guangzhou, who had the unfortunate name of Dhung, with:
The Neil Kinnock Award For Repetitive Speech
No photos from the latter half of the day.
Dim sum lunch at Friendship Restaurant followed by free afternoon – we just rested – then banquet in evening – food good and fun – went to local bar afterwards and then home.
I honoured one of the waitresses at the Friendship Restaurant with:
27 Nov. Guilin -> Guangzhou. Lie in / late start. Went for walk around Guilin then early lunch…
Nice views of Guilin – from our hotel or even hotel room, I’m guessing
…outing to reed flute caves (via a hill climb). Caves stunning – wandered around market after and then on to very early dinner (tea) & off to airport.
The notes don’t say so, but I recall that Janie and I were feeling much better this day.
Short flight to Guangzhou – several of our party were nearly run over by a passing plane – straight to hotel – White Swan – wandered round a bit & then early night.
No comment on the near death experience yet again in the hands of early 1990s Chinese domestic airlines.
I did give that China Southern flight second prize in the:
Claustrophobics Anonymous Award For Comfort.
I also honoured that airline/flight with the:
Gatwick Handling Award For In flight Catering for its crunchy water-chestnut drink and Darkie Mints…
…I remember the latter came in distinctly politically incorrect packaging.
All the photos we took on that day – by which I mean all 24 photos – can be seen in raw form in the Flickr album below:
…it was a bit of a relief to have a more leisurely-sounding itinerary for our full day in Guilin – a cruise on the Li River.
26 Nov Guilin – Li River cruise for most of the day – very picturesque – included lunch – (both Janie and I now feel poorly). Market at the end – returned home teatime – Janie went to bed – I rested a while, then had dinner and cultural show – early night.
This day really needs little more than the above text and some pictures to give the reader/viewer a good idea of what it was like to cruise on that river and observe the beautiful limestone karsts.
Water buffalo on the way to the boat
Our boat looked a bit like this
Janie ponders the pickle that last night’s snake ended up in
Lunch on board
Karsting my mind back for a suitable pun
Like a limestone cowboy…
Karst and crew?
The text from my notes infers that Janie didn’t get up for the dinner and cultural show, yet the cultural show photos were taken on her camera and I don’t think I would have taken pictures that look quite like these if I borrowed her camera for the evening. My guess is that Janie emerged for a while at some point in the evening – perhaps between dinner and show.
I do recall that we both felt odd for the last few days in China and indeed that a lot of people on the tour felt a bit poorly by then. Frankly, I suspect that we all had a touch of pollution-poisoning – I especially recall a nasty metallic-tasting cough that didn’t quite clear up until Bali.
Concluding with some sort of Asiatic conga line…oh dear!
All the photos we took on that day – by which I mean all 43 photos – can be seen in raw form in the Flickr album below:
