A Kownloon visit

What a beautiful day yesterday in Hong Kong! From my hotel window at the Kowloon Sheraton (just next door to the Peninsula), I could see everything across the harbour all the way up to the top of the hill and the most far away island on the horizon. It was the first time from all the visits I did this year. The sight was awesome! Crisp, clear, sharp. My eyes just couldn't adjust.

One thing about Kowloon: it's a mess; just shopping but eating International cuisine is hard to find compared to Hong Kong. There was a terrance, hidden on a side street. It has International cuisines, kinda. Aussie bar and grill, Thai, Indian, Chinese. The rest pretty much local Chinese food. Of course, you can go to all the 5-stars hotels for a meal; but just ridiculous. Last week, Intercontinental Hotel had group food poisoning at a dinner buffet. Go figure. Anyway, I had more local food in Kowloon than in Hong Kong.

I wasn't to stay at the Kowloon Sheraton. I was to treat my parents for an overnight trip in Hong Kong, just to get away from all the "responsibilities" in Macau; my mom has shrunk from 95lbs to now sub-85 lbs! Dad's knee is hurting from all the running around, they couldn't eat because of all the "caregiver" stress. Of course, I targeted the Four Seasons. Unfortunately, one room is over HK$4,200 per night per room. I still have work and meetings to do - early! So not able to stay in the same room. So, I was thinking of a suite; at Four Seasons, it is HK$20,000 for the same type as the one I rented in Vancouver for only CAD$295.00 per day! Yikes. Then, I checked Shangri-la, over HK$2,900.00 per night. Hence Sheraton at Kowloon. Two rooms there is less than one room in Four Seasons, that was a no brainer. They had fun; that was the important point.

It just to show they are getting absentminded as caregivers. They use the wrong ferry tickets to and from Hong Kong. I was surprise the ticket guy did not notice when collecting the ferry tickets from Macau.

My flight going back to Shanghai was interesting too. I was suppose to leave HK at 845pm but since I was at the Airport Express check-in early, I got on the 7pm flight. Figured I would be home early. Well.... Engine problem. Dragon Air did a very good job making things smoothly. But some passengers, mostly from China, were like primitive braindead Neanderthal yelling, shouting at the ground crew. Complaining how bad the service was. It wasn't they updated people regularly, provided free water. And swap planes so that we leave not so late. Rather than leaving at 7pm, we took off at 8:30pm. Not bad. Finally arrived back at 10:45pm. An hour of car ride, arriving home at 11:30pm or so. I got iron-wife to book our regular driver to pick me up. It was a good call.