One more week in Hong Kong, and the reality is slowly starting to dawn that the whole trip is now slowly drawing to a close. In less than seven days we will be jetting off to our final country, number twenty three of the trip I believe, and before we know it we’ll be back in England with nothing but memories of our last twelve months. Ah well, that’s how it goes I suppose, nothing good lasts forever. And it has been one hell of a trip!

Anyway, it’s not quite over yet, and we still had a fair bit to tick off our Hong Kong list before the weekend. There actually was a list by the way, of things to see and do. And not just big ticket items and excursions, but also all the little things that you might otherwise forget, and then regret. That’s why it’s been so hectic I guess, trying to squeeze in all those little but important things, so that the kids get a decent, rounded view of Hong Kong. Who knows what it will be like on our next visit, whenever that may be.

We had visited the Man Mo Temple in Sheung Wan the day before, and the more eagle eyed readers of my last blog may have noticed a picture of Kate, kneeling at the altar and shaking a small container filled with wooden sticks. This is a common practice in Buddhist temples, involving shaking said container, while thinking about a certain aspect of your life, until one of the little sticks falls to the ground. This process probably has a name, but at the time of writing this blog I am on an airplane and unable to find out what it’s called. So we’re gonna call it Shaky Stick. Anyway, when you have completed Shaky Stick, you make a note of the number on whichever stick has chosen you, and visit a local fortune teller, normally based near the Temple, to have the number deciphered and give you a prediction of your future. There were no Shaky Stick clairvoyants available when we visited, so we headed back to the same area to see if any were out today.

Sure enough, on the steps by Cat Street, a wise looking old chap sporting a fetching Confucius-esque beard and straw hat seemed to have set up shop. So we got in line and waited our turn. Dereck, as his desk-mounted name plaque informed us was his name, seemed keen not to tell us our fortune however. He immediately sat Bam down, and declared he was going to teach her to write her name in traditional Chinese calligraphy. He was a theatrical kinda chap, who soon informed us that he learnt the ancient art of calligraphy in King’s Cross. This, to be honest, set alarm bells ringing. But we were invested by this point, as he had already started guiding Bam’s hand with the gold tipped paintbrush. He had asked us for her name, and seemed slightly surprised when Kate gave him a Chinese name. None of your shonky translation skills needed here thanks Dereck, she’s a local! Now, I don’t know an awful lot about Chinese calligraphy, but Kate does. And she did not look impressed at his efforts. Not surprising really I guess, he did learn it in London.

After he had finished with Bam, Dereck proceeded to sit Hunter down for his turn. Almost as if he sensed the palpable distrust that was, by this point, emanating visibly from my wife’s face, Dereck attempted to bolster his credibility by telling us how he had been filmed by some News Crew because of his tireless efforts in teaching kids this ancient art form. He asked for Hunter’s name, which Kate again delivered in obviously perfect Cantonese. Now, this was perhaps the most foolhardy move on Dereck’s part, but he then proceeded to “translate” Hunter’s Chinese name back for us. Almost as if we should be surprised, and indeed impressed by its meaning of Hunter Dragon. That did it. “I know what his bloody name means, I GAVE IT TO HIM!” Just hurry up and do the writing Dereck – your con has been rumbled, you are a charlatan and we all know it. The only reason we were still there was for the comedy value. And your beard!

As if to rub salt into wound, Dereck informed us that he charges 400 dollars per person for this service. FORTY BLOODY QUID! I am in the wrong game. Now painfully aware that the jig is well and truly up, he does a two for one deal, which brings daylight robbery down to only a slight mugging. He then had the cheek to quote for deciphering our fortunes as well. Haha, you must be kidding. Ten out of ten for effort you old vagabond, but I think we’ll leave it. I suspect he drives home every night in a golden Rolls Royce.

We met up with Ken and Amy again, this time with Amy’s son who had just moved to HK from China, that evening in Causeway Bay where we had a table booked in the Outback Steakhouse. The following day was going to be Kate’s birthday, and Ken very kindly wanted to treat us all to a slap-up steak dinner to celebrate. We headed to our favourite local arcade to lose a few quid on the machines first. They have a game which involves tossing coins onto a table and attempting to land them in certain areas to win tickets. It was surprisingly addictive, for the kids and the adults, and we had been building up a fair few tickets in the last few weeks in the hope of trading them for a semi-decent prize before we left, as opposed to the usual array of plasticky rubbish we usually bring home from ticket arcades. Several thousand tickets better off, we made our way to the restaurant and enjoyed a perfectly cooked tomahawk steak dinner with all the trimmings, before a quick wander through the local mall. I’ve said it before, but it’s been great to hang out with Ken and Co so much on this trip, and especially nice that he can spend a birthday with his daughter and her family for the first time in many years. 

July 17th, and that can only mean one thing – Kate’s birthday. I won’t tell you how old she is (ahem…38), but she doesn’t look a day over 30, and she’s still just as beautiful as the day we met. Normally, I would have been frantically searching for a pressie on the build up to her birthday, but this year is a little difficult, what with the luggage restrictions etc. So this year I got a free pass. The other problem is that the weather in HK took a bit of a turn for the worse, and the tropical Typhoon that had been circling the area menacingly had actually made landfall earlier that morning, raising the alert level to an 8. For the uninitiated, that basically means game over – everything is shut. Stay indoors, turn on the TV, and wait it out. For us, it meant Kate had a particularly perfect birthday treat in store. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, it’s time to do home school! On the plus side, we actually managed to finish home school. Completely! Well, almost, Hunter had a couple of extra exams to do, but lessons were done. In actual fact, that is a pretty good birthday present – no more home school. That’s a full 36 weeks of English and Maths, done. It was almost sad in a way. Nah, over it – SCHOOL’S OUT.

Luckily, we managed to find a local Cha chaan teng which was open for birthday noodles, and even more luckily we were also able to find a cake shop open for business. 

Supposedly, the typhoon warning was due to be downgraded later that afternoon, so there was not much else we could do apart from chill out in the hotel room and wait for the weather to pass. Unluckily for Hunter, this meant that we had time for him to get one of his extra exams out of the way. He’s come on a long way this year with his schoolwork, they both have. There was a slight, niggling doubt in the back of my mind that we were doing the right thing for them at the start of this year, educationally speaking at least. But, they have both kept up with the relentless flow of the school syllabus admirably, and I believe they’ll slot back into school life no problem at all come September.

We were indeed released from our Typhoon prison that afternoon, and we caught a train into Mong Kok to have a birthday dinner with yet another of Kate’s old buddies, Sarah. MK is full of Korean BBQ joints where, for a paltry sum you can stuff your face with all manner of meats and vegetables, as well as helping yourself to a fridge full of soft drinks and beers. The catch is that you have to cook it yourself, but that’s half the fun of it I guess. And you only have yourself to blame for any dodgy tummy upsets you may suffer later on. If you pay a little more, you can even gain access to different menus with better quality items. I wouldn’t bother though, there’s plenty on the cheap menu to keep you busy even for offal haters like me. Plus, I saw the people next to me (who paid three times as much as us) cooking a T-Bone steak that had been brought to the table completely frozen. Try cooking that medium rare!

One last birthday treat for Kate, she had booked a masseuse to pay us a visit in our hotel room later that night. Get your minds out of the gutter, it wasn’t that sort of masseuse! Ivy used to visit Kate and her friends at Headland Hotel when they used to fly together, and she still honoured the “crew” rates. So Bam bagged herself an hour’s light relief before Kate had a full two hour work over. What about us boys? Well, Hunter had some iPad downtime while I caught up on the blog. Martyrs, right!

Not too far away from Hong Kong, connected to the mainland of China lies the curious region of Macao. This is another “Special Administrative Region of China due to its past as a colony. But not of Britain – this is a former colony of Portugal. Those conquering Portuguese used to be pretty active out this way a long time ago, and Macao was leased by Portugal as a trading post from 1557 until 1887, after which it remained a Portuguese colony all the way up until it was handed back to China in 1999. It’s an interesting place, where Portuguese is still taught in the schools, and the streets and town squares could fool you into thinking you were somewhere in Europe. It’s also, apparently, the most densely populated region in the world, with 680,000 residents sharing under 13 square miles of land. I’ve been there before with Kate and Hunter, via the ferry from HK. But in 2018, China decided to create another way to get to Macao by opening the Hong Kong-Zhuihai-Macau bridge. This incredible feat of engineering is a 34 mile long series of bridges and tunnels, spanning the gap between Hong Kong airport and the mainland, via four artificial islands. There was nothing wrong with accessing Macao by ferry, in fact it is easier, more convenient and actually quicker. But China loves to show off, and so built the longest sea spanning bridge in the world just to show they could. It also enables people to jump off a plane in HK, and straight onto a bus whisking them off to the far East’s answer to Las Vegas. Macao is home to no less than 36 casinos, and gambling actually accounts for 50% of the economy. Apart from seeing the sights, people only really go to Macao for gambling and eating. 

We met up with Ken and Amy in Tung Chung and made our way to the Macao terminal. It’s not dissimilar to an airport, including passing passport control and security. Even though both regions are technically China, it still feels like you are travelling to another country. The tail end of the Typhoon was still lingering in the air, and the skies were dark and overcast meaning that we unfortunately didn’t have the best of views on the crossing. 45 minutes later we arrived, and had to work out how to get to the centre of town. Ken had a pretty good wheeze for this one – I guess he’s done this trip a few times. Don’t pay for a taxi, just head for the buses ferrying all the poker hungry punters into town, for free. Just make sure you pick the correct bus going to a casino in town, otherwise you could end up somewhere else entirely. Then when you arrive, ignore the reps trying to immediately usher you into the bosom of the waiting casino, and simply walk away. Thanks for the free ride, suckers!

After a quick lunch in one of the many quality restaurants for which Macao is known, we headed straight for its historic centre and perhaps the most recognisable location in Macao, Senado Square. This long, triangular paved area features a very recognisable pattern of black and white wavy lines typical of Portuguese town planning, and is flanked by terraces of colonial European style buildings. Along with the nearby “ruins of St. Paul’s”, this town centre forms a UNESCO world heritage site. Those ruins are one of the “Seven Wonders of Portuguese Origin In The World” according to Wikipedia. Although that seems like a strange list to make, right? Is there a “Seven Wonders” for every country? If not, then maybe there should be, otherwise it seems a bit greedy on Portugal’s part!

On our last visit to Hong Kong, we visited this place with Ken when Hunter was just 8 months old, and it gave us an ideal opportunity to recreate the photo 8 years later. Ken was even wearing the same outfit. Almost.

We wandered through the town, fighting through the crowds and sampling the various local delicacy freebies from the shops lining the ancient streets. St. Dominic’s church was also worth a look for a spot of 16th century baroque grandeur. To be honest, there are many notable sites worth a visit in the centre of this UNESCO site, but it was hot, very hot. And we soon grew tired of battling the relentless tide of tourists milling through the streets. 

We undertook the gruelling walk up to Monte Fort, primarily to escape the crowds, but also to get a lofty view over the city from behind the cannon studded walls. Interestingly, this 400 year old fort actually remained an active military site until 1965 when it was demilitarised and opened to the public. 

After some light refreshment in a traditional dairy dessert house, we headed for the ferry to take us home. The journey on the bridge to get here had been interesting, just to experience the impressive engineering first hand, but the extra expense of the much more convenient high speed ferry home seemed a more attractive prospect by this point. Plus, we all needed to get some beauty sleep as we had another full day of fun planned for the following day. 

Despite Big Wave Bay not living up to it’s name, we had been reliably informed that Cheung Sha, on the very south coast of Lantau Island should provide some pretty decent learner waves, and it had ben a while since the kids had been on a board so we booked a lesson. Only accessible by bus from Tung Chung, Cheung Sha is home to a bustling surf school where the local kids come to master the waves. Lessons are available in Cantonese or English, and despite the distinct lack of swell on our visit, the waves were just about surfable for kids and beginners. Lai Yu joined us for a dip in the ocean while the kids had their lesson. After the lesson, we called a taxi to head back for dinner just as the local wild cattle and buffalo had made their way down from the surrounding mountains to spend the night on the beach. They do this every day apparently as they prefer sleeping on the sand to sleeping on the hillsides. Beach bum cows eh, now I’ve seen it all. 

We actually managed a lie in the next day, a proper one! It had been a while, and we all needed it. Lunch in the local canteen was followed by a trip to the enormous Wong Tai Sin temple complex in Kowloon. This Taoist temple is one of the largest in HK, and is frequented by locals as well as bing a huge tourist attraction. This is due to the fact that it’s known primarily for answering whatever prayer is thrown its way. Wong Tai Sin was a shepherd boy, who achieved enlightenment following 40 years in seclusion practicing the art of curing all ills after meeting an immortal at the age of 15. Legend has it that he could not only cure all ills, but also make any wish come true. The many halls and altars of this sprawling 18,000 square metre complex is full of not only taoists, but also Buddhists and Confucians all seeking a little personal miracle. And it is quite a sight to behold.

We took the opportunity, while we were there, to finally have our Shaky Stick fortunes from Man Mo temple deciphered by one of the local fortune tellers. For only a few quid, as opposed to the rip-off prices of Dodgy Derick the cat-burglar of Cat Street, we had our fortunes deciphered. Some of the info we were given was actually scarily accurate. Although I still remain fairly sceptical of the accuracy as a whole, maybe there’s something in it.

Lai Yu was flying back home that day, so we all headed back to Tung Chung for a bite to eat and a trawl around the wet market before she headed off to work. “What is a wet market?” I hear you say. Well, it’s kinda like any other fresh produce market – you can buy all your fruit, vegetables, eggs, meat, fish, raw ingredients etc. BUT, you can also find all manner of live animals ready for the pot as well. You can pick a fish or some live seafood from the bubbling tanks, or you can pluck one of the poor little toads staring doefully from his cramped cage if you wish. The world is your oyster, or clam, or lobster, or crab, or eel… you get the idea.

One more full day in Hong Kong, and one more tourist hit-list sight to visit. We met up with Ken and Amy in the Mid-Levels to catch the 19th century funicular railway to Victoria Peak, some 400 metres above us. The tram ride is pretty fun in itself, with gradients of over 25 degrees affording Hunter an opportunity for some hilariously impossible leaning photo ops.

The Peak, as it’s known, is one of the most affluent neighbourhoods in Hong Kong with property prices topping out at over £13,000 per square foot. And to be honest it’s pretty easy to see why when you grab an eyeful of the panoramic views on offer from the the Peak Tower and surrounding streets. You can pay to access the viewing deck on top of the peak tower, but to be honest it’s only a few floors above, and how much better could the view possibly get, right? Instead, we took a wander down Findlay Road to hang out awhile in the Lions Pavilion a few minutes walk away for a toll-free uninterrupted view of the entire length of Kowloon, and all the way to the Chinese border in the distance.

On Level 1 of the Peak Tower there’s a “free” attraction by the name of 3D Madness Adventure. It’s essentially an interactive gallery with 3D artworks which create funny photo opportunities as long as you position the camera correctly. I say “free” because, while most of it is free, the best exhibits are manned by professional photographers, and the results are available to purchase at an exorbitant price at the end. It’s pretty hard to sneak in any cheeky photos yourself, as by its very nature you need to be stood in exactly the right place. So really you’ve got no choice but to buy a photo or two. It’s worth it though, they know exactly where to position everyone to create some pretty memorable family pics.

Apart from eating or taking in the sights, there’s not really much else of any great interest at the top of the tallest hill in HK, so we boarded the funicular back to the base and headed off to another well heeled area right at the bottom of Hong Kong Island – Stanley.

Stanley is home to the appropriately named Stanley Market. This covered shopping parade is not dissimilar in the wares on offer to the likes of Ladies Market. The big difference is firstly the clientele – mainly foreign tourists soaking up the more relaxed beachy atmosphere – and secondly the prices. Even though it’s the same old crap on offer anywhere else, the prices were at least double. I mean, I guess it is Stanley darling.

We passed through the market and found ourselves on the deserted sands for a spot of beach-combing and a bit of a paddle. Typically for this part of the world, despite the obvious abundant natural beauty of this secluded cove, it is let down horrendously by the sheer volume of rubbish littered on the sand and floating in the warm water. It just seems such a shame watching the kids dodge the broken bottles and abandoned tyres, and I guess it explains why the beach is so deserted. 

Ah well, time for dinner! For our last family dinner we made our way back to Ken’s hood, Shau Kei Wan, and grabbed a table in Kam Tung Tai seafood restaurant. Hunter fancied trying some crab, so we ordered a couple along with some other things. The waiter was fairly vague with the “market” pricing of the crustaceans, but how bad could it be? Crabs in a nice restaurant out this way are normally about £20 or £30 each. Well it turns out that the people operating this particular restaurant aren’t selling ordinary crabs. Oh no, these crabs must have been some kind of rare breed, gold plated crabs or something because they were not £30 each. The bill turned up and it turned that these super crabs actually came to well over £100 each. I mean, it’s a good job Hunter enjoyed them cos they must have been the most expensive decapods I’ve ever eaten!

There was no point arguing though. Despite their rather sneaky pricing policy, we had ordered them and we had eaten them. So we paid, licked our wounds, and headed off for a bubble waffle nightcap around the corner.

That was it, the next day we packed our bags and checked out of what had become our HK home for the last three weeks. We had a few hours to kill before we needed to be at the airport, and we had a few final errands to run. A few weeks ago we had visited the memorial for Ken’s family, but we hadn’t yet managed to visit the other side of the family. Luckily, Kate remembered where the building was located, but finding where exactly the relevant plaque was located among the numerous floors stacked to the brim with thousands of similar plaques proved to be slightly more problematic. Luckily, one of the old caretakers lent us a hand, to find it, and also sold us some bits and pieces to burn up as an offering. 

Departed relatives duly respected, we made one last stop to have a final Dim Sum lunch with Kate’s uncle in Kwun Tong. Unfortunately there was no time for another impromptu piano lesson this time, so I guess we’ll have to take a rain check on that one.

We couldn’t quite believe how quickly the last three weeks had flown by. I had imagined it being a relaxing time catching up with family and friends, but the sheer volume of things we managed to squeeze in seemed to make it disappear in the blink of an eye. Ken and Amy met us at the airport to see us off. Hopefully there won’t be another global pandemic getting in the way, and it won’t be another four years before we all catch up again.

And that was that, next (and final) stop – Thailand…