First night in Hong Kong with Leilei

Managed four hours’ sleep thanks to pillow so looking like a good investment so far though wonder if a cheaper one wouldn’t have been so good. It was interesting to see the plane landing from a camera underneath, and since we’d both managed over four hours’ sleep we weren’t complaining. We certainly didn’t complain when the luggage arrived on time (for the first time with Air France). Then the airport Express to Kowloon was only 15 quid for us both (take note Heathrow Express at 37 return when a single tube was 5.60). The free shuttle to Jordan was rather slow in the traffic that could have taken 5 minutes. Then the 10 minute walk in the rain with luggage that the girls wouldn’t have appreciated was ok. And that was that - we had arrived in our Hong Kong destination with no hassle whatsover.

I nearly forced Leilei to have a shower when he reasoned that if we were going out we might as well get one later. He was right, and I was acting as if Tan was there. So we walked out into the busy streets and probably found Temple Street night market, but I was keen to find somewhere to eat. I spoke Mandarin to the woman and she pretended not to understand...maybe it was my accent, or maybe she genuinely didn’t understand when I asked for goose. I relented and went back to English but she still didn’t understand what “goose” was. I said not to worry and ordered beef on rice, and Leilei ordered the dumplings and noodles in soup. He also seemed to recognise the characters for milk tea (奶茶) and ordered that, while I ordered a Qingdao.

When the woman returned with the drinks she asked me in Mandarin if I was trying to order er gou tou before, that sickening paint-stripper of a drink, and I said no I couldn’t abide such stuff, and why was she asking that anyway? Before it dawned on me that the “e” of goose and “rou” of meat must have sounded a little like the first and last words of the aforementioned drink. So I laughed and showed her the word for goose on my phone and then it clicked for her too. Oh yes we’re certainly back in the East now, and this is just the first step. Then, to Leilei’s his disgust he found the dumplings were not only vegetarian but also mostly filled with his most hated food - mushrooms. So after trying to get him to be more outgoing we basically swapped dishes and he did a good job despite the fact I’d already put hot chilli sauce on the rice. He enjoyed what he had and ate most of it, but I didn’t fancy the carby noodles, though for some reason the carby beer went down fine.