The R&R Big Adventure

Ho Lee Fook

After I posted my last entry, R and I had dinner in the restaurant of the airport hotel in Fiji (there was nowhere else to go in that wet weather). Our lovely waitress remembered us from when we stayed there a few days previously. At the end of the meal she assembled some of her colleagues to sing us a traditional Fijian farewell song (special treatment!), similar to the one we had had when we left Malolo Island. It was very touching and personal, and made our final memories of Fiji very positive ones, despite the atrocious weather we had endured the last few days.

The morning of our departure on Saturday it was of course sunny with blue skies. We had a long, ten hour daytime flight to Hong Kong, and I ended up watching ‘Deadpool and Wolverine’, just for the one liners. (‘I’m all out of devil’s dandruff and now I’m shaking like an angry vibrator’ was one of my favourites). We are in Hong Kong for little more than 24hrs, as a stopover before we fly to Bangkok where we will be spending New Year with Robert’s brother and his husband (a total coincidence, as they had booked their trip before ours). Hong Kong is one of the few places on this trip we have been to before and we were interested to see what its ‘SAR’ (Special Administrative Region) status actually meant now, especially given events over the last few years. I first came here in 2006, just after I met Robert, and back then it still had a very British influence; now there are far fewer Caucasian faces around and the Chinese influence has become increasingly more noticeable: for example, far more of the famous neon signs on the skyscrapers  written in Chinese, more (very boxy) Chinese cars on the streets, and more Chinese retailers. We noted that many British retailers we had previously seen no longer had a presence here. Hong Kong still has many luxury shopping malls: Chanel and Tiffany (amongst other luxury retailers) have outlets everywhere, possibly due to Hong Kong apparently having the largest numbers of ultra-high net worth individuals of any city.  The shops here must rub their hands with glee, especially as Chinese New Year is in just a few weeks’ time.

We arrived late afternoon and decided to make the most of the short time we had here by hitting the streets for some sightseeing. We took the iconic Star ferry across the water to Kowloon and admired the Island skyline as the sun was setting. After a couple of hours walking I was definitely flagging from jet lag, and I could tell from the look of terror R has on his face when he is really shattered that he needed sleep as well. As we could finally enjoy a Saturday night out in a city that actually had nightlife – our first proper night out since Medellin in early October – we took a tactical disco nap. It took a while to rouse ourselves from the very comfortable hotel bed, but we managed it, and thought we would try to get a table at Ho Lee Fook restaurant (say it out loud) which was recommended to us. Despite not having a reservation, we managed to get the last free table. It was a bit touristy, but the food really was delicious, especially their signature pork dish. Their curated ‘80s playlist (ABC, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Heaven 17, to name but a few) was a real trip down memory lane. If I had one criticism, the sharp-suited waiters with identikit pencil moustaches could have done with a little less flouncing, and a bit more waiter-ing. We then went to a couple of bars and ended up in a local gay club which had a good DJ (and sound system) and, unlike New Zealand, quite a few customers.

This morning was a bit bleary-eyed, but we got ourselves together to get NYE haircuts (a considerable step-up from the ones we had in Samoa) and do a bit of shopping. I noticed this last time we were in Hong Kong at Christmas – and it is still the case – this city fully embraces poinsettias at Christmas: every office block foyer, public area, shopping centre and restaurant has poinsettias everywhere. They are even in random flower beds and central reservations. We rode the tram this morning and stopped off at a market where the fish were so fresh they were still flapping on their ice blocks, whilst a shrimp had made a bid to escape from its tank, and was slowly expiring on the pavement ☹. Given we have been away from home for nearly three months now, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to take advantage of one of the M&S Food outlets, still dotted around the city, for our lunch. Sitting on a bench in the sunshine to eat our M&S sandwiches and pork pies (bliss), we noticed a sign telling us not to do pretty much anything. We had to double check eating in public was still ok. I saw a similar sign was on one of the waterside piers later, informing readers of an Act introduced in 2020, and warning that anyone playing music ‘for the annoyance of any other person’ (define?) would be fined the equivalent of £1,000 and imprisoned for two weeks. Maybe TfL should follow by example.

We took another ferry this afternoon to enjoy a drink on the Kowloon waterside, before it was time to head back to the hotel to pick up our bags and return to the airport for our late flight to Bangkok. I was engrossed by the size of the stewardess’ lips as she was talking to me. They were clearly doing a BOGOF when she got her last collagen injections. Pete Burns would have been jealous.