Ladies Market and not-so-abandoned Ma Wan Village

Apparently Leilei was up till 5am, while I got some fractured sleep till 10am when I knew I had to go down for breakfast. I roused Leilei but he was having none of it and I didn’t argue. As I arrived at the eating place I was told breakfast finished at 10.30, and then again by the same person as I sat down to eat after making sure I had a second plate full of pains au chocolat. The people on the table next to me had the same plan of appropriating such pains, and I felt it was a little cheeky as my need was genuine and these people had already stuffed themselves and didn’t look like they’d starve in a long while. Something about the lure of free food I suppose. But my plan was slightly better as I actually had a small plastic bag to put my stolen wares into, plus a genuine excuse if I got caught.

Back upstairs I saw some startling news about whiteshirts beating blackshirts, and had no idea how true it was. But it made me realise that wearing pink yesterday was probably a good idea. Never have I had to worry about what colour to wear on holiday before but for the moment it has to be a consideration.

By the time we left the hotel it was 1pm but we weren’t planning on lunch. Instead Leilei wanted to go to Ladies Market, which didn’t sound his style, until he mentioned it sold electronic goods and had five floors. I had a dubious memory about having taken Xixi to such a place ten years previous, so was happy to hop up two stops on the MTR to Monkok, after first dropping off my broken laptop at a repair shop and spending 350 HKD to get it looked at. We went to where Google said it would be but all we found was a market like Temple Street but about twice the size. Leilei was in the mood to buy a cap and a “purple bape top” whatever that was. I explained about the art of haggling and how to be able to walk away always.

Leilei at Ladies Market

I needed a couple of universal-to-UK/HK adapters, and found some and asked the stallholder how much in Mandarin (I told Leilei that using Mandarin would definitely get you an extra 20% off as they’d know you knew something). She said 25 kuai each and I looked surprised. I told her that last time I was here three years ago they were 5 kuai (actually it was 10 years since I’d been to the market), and she laughed and said it was inflation, but I could have one for 20. I walked away, and disappointingly she didn’t chase after me.

But at the next place the stallholder wanted 10 for one, so I said I’d give her 20 for three and she said ok and that was that. A more reasonable inflation as I really did get them for 5 each 10 years ago. We were still looking for this five storey building and when I checked again on Google Maps there was a picture of exactly where we were and it dawned on us Ladies Market was just a bigger version of Temple Street and we had no idea where Leilei had got his five storey idea from.

In the hotel I looked up unusual things to do in Hong Kong as we had no appetite to go to Disney, and the thing that grabbed my interest was an abandoned village named Ma Wan village. Looking on the map I saw it was in the south east, and not that far on the tube from Wanchai where we were to meet up with my mate tonight. So we took the tube to the nearest stop and walked in the general direction, into an interesting old area that had the air of a fishing village but with many restaurants. The village seemed to go on for a while, and as we walked we saw a few abandoned houses but certainly the place wasn’t abandoned; there was even a clean public toilet and I managed to get a cold beer and something for Leilei. Well I wanted to wander further and he didn’t so this time I let him have his way as we didn’t want to be late in Wanchai.

Joey Bees - some cool number plates around here

Leilei in the not-so-abandoned Ma Wan Village

Not too far off from touching the hoop

What else would you do while waiting for the tube?

At Wanchai you’d never have guessed the place was the centre of mass protests yesterday. Literally no sign of unrest, just a fairly bustily place with many westerners. We met up with my mate’s wife, and two kids who I hadn’t seen for eight years, then met him a few mins later as he’d been to the doctor. We walked to his wife’s friend’s place and had some glorious goose and pork and Leilei also had his fill. They had brought their own beers and I asked if that was ok here but apparently it was only ok as they knew the owner. The owner spoke perfect Mandarin so it was easy to communicate and tell her how good the food was. We talked about the protests, Brexit, education in general, and hoped the kids were taking in what we were saying, not to give them specific opinions, but just in general to make them aware. I like how being good at maths is normal here, and literally any cashier here will ask you for the extra bit of cash to make giving change easier. Leilei for the first time refused zhen zhu nai cha (or sometimes they call it bubble tea) as he’d had one last night and we realised the caffeine in that was probably partly responsible for staying up till 5am. We left them at Causeway and didn’t have any cause to go out as it was already 10.30pm and I didn’t want to do any last-minute packing as I was doing three days ago.

Back at the hotel, family in the UK, after having seen some photos of the “abandoned” Ma Wan, thought it appropriate to let me know that I had mistaken my Ma Wan for the actual abandoned Ma Wan which is actually nearby Disneyland. Well bloody Google didn’t tell me that it was that one and as much as I would have liked to visit it was much further away and quite honestly I rather like our own Ma Wan, and have resolved to come back and have a meal there one time, even if I never get to see the abandoned one. In the end I was up till 1am packing, including ironing all five shirts as it may be the last chance I get before I may have to use them for work. Leilei also fell asleep at that time but this time I couldn’t until 6am for a reason I’ll never know.

Long walks and avoiding the protests

And yet I woke up at 5.30am on the nose. I mean bang on 5.30am not on my nose. It was that wide awake feeling you know will not be quashed any time soon with German counting so I browsed for a while.

I managed to get Leilei up just before 10 as breakfast finishes at 10:30, and I just managed to get a last-minute omelette and he managed loads of pains au chocolat after a sweet cereal - well we are on holiday I suppose. Blimey there were a lot of fatties eating breakfast...this is certainly not mainland China.

After breakfast we went for a longish walk towards the harbour in the heat and the rain that Hong Kong sometimes affords. While he was taking a few photos a couple of mainland girls came up to him to ask to take a photo with him - I was jealous! It wasn’t that long ago that would happen to me but he has stolen my thunder (well that is part of his Chinese name).

Looking over the harbour before he got accosted by women

We found a tube station and got an Octopus card though I keep calling it an Oyster card, and took the tube back one stop to the hotel. Lunch was simple noodles for Leilei and a sandwich for me from 7-11 as we were planning to see a Hong Kong-based mate tonight. I also managed a wee Skol and a tad of sleep before 4pm when I got up to check the news. I’d heard about the recent protests and it was Sunday, and then I saw what was happening. Apparently people were already setting up and it was around where we were due to meet up at Wanchai. In fact, according to some reports Wanchai was to be where the march would end. I IM’d my mate who seemed to think all the action was in Victoria Park so we should be ok.

Well I checked again and saw a tweet that didn’t fill me with such confidence, and he checked and found the MTR tube was filling up. Then I got a phone call and realised he’d realised the extent of the situation, and that even if we managed to meet up we’d be taken by the throngs of the crowd and wouldn’t have any say as to where we’d want to go. Not to mention I’d be responsible for a minor, and even if I wasn’t there were reports of bomb-making equipment having been found. We agreed to postpone till tomorrow. Relieved, I looked at some more news and it dawned on me this was taking place not much more than a mile away, but with a harbour between us.

With a little time on our hands Leilei and I took the MTR a few stops to Lok Fu to see the sight of Kowloon Walled City. It would have been great to explore before it was knocked down in the early 90s, but there are still a couple of places here with thin alleyways that feel seedy but safe. Leilei was in his element looking at the cars; the skirted vans, each one apparently unique, and a supercar every few minutes.

We walked through strange walkways in the general direction of the park, noting the different pathways for joggers, cylists, and walkers. Kowloon Walled City Park reminded me of something, and I wondered if it was where I went in 2008 to restart my visa. We had hoped to go to the old landing strip of Kai Tak airport, but they were busy building a new MTR station.

Strange walkways

We were in the area I had to stay with Xixi in 2008 and it brought back mixed emotions. We then took the MTR to Tsim Sha Tsui to see the lights from HK Island. It was far more packed than this morning, and loads of people were walking against our direction. As it was 8.15pm I guessed we’d just missed a fireworks display. Literally more than half the people were taking pictures of the anonymous lights on the other side of the river. At least put some people in them. I wonder if WeChat has a clever algorithm that finds these pictures and replaces them with a stock picture (that is actually better) and displays a copy of this instead of the hundreds of thousands of virtually identical ones. Like they may do for sunsets over the sea. Wouldn’t it be funny if they did? Like Google (reasonably) does to people’s uploaded MP3s.

Almost everyone was taking pictures of the lights with no human in them

One more stop up north to Jordan and we went to see the Temple Street Night Market, but it dawned on us that it was in fact the same place we went to last night. We’d planned to get a bite to eat there but Ll was tired and to be fair we’d walked over 20,000 steps today according to my phone, so as I still had a pack of noodles we went back and he had that, and had a shower while I went out to get a bite. 65 HKD for a bit of beef on rice was pretty pricey even for here, given the size of the place, but I didn’t complain, and ate it as quickly as possible as I was being asked why I was taking so long….

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.

Back to China via CDG and Hong Kong 2019

I’m such a wally I should have taken two days off before we planned to leave. Leilei and I really wanted to take the train from Guangzhou to Pingguo and I suggested this to Tan and she came back with the realistic repost that if the plane arrived late what would you do? The trains get booked up weeks in advance. But Leilei really wanted to spend some time in Hong Kong and actually after the relatively smooth journey last year (well, stressless) I was happy to travel at a different time from the girls. So I’d booked them to fly out on the 23rd July and us boys on 19th as we saved over 300 quid on the air tickets although I knew the train tickets wouldn’t be free.

But what it did mean was that us boys could stay in Hong Kong for a couple of days and not worry about missing the train to Pingguo very much. Ok it did mean Leilei missing 1.5 days of school but I did email to explain and they were fine about it, plus I’d booked our Guangzhou to Pingguo tickets a few weeks before. I hadn’t expected such high hotel prices but due to work I had some points that paid 320 of the 340 quid it would have cost to stay in the Novotel on Nathan Road, near to the street markets that Leilei was keen to go to.

But that was the bookings. Now we had to actually get to the airport and annoyingly I had a meeting at 1pm when I’d hoped to be leaving at 2. So it was genuinely last minute. As we left the house to go to the train station I went for a last minute pee and found I’d forgotten my razor plus the interdental brushes I’d just got delivered from Amazon. I shudder to think what else I may have forgotten.

Anyway we rushed off to the station but Awl called to say he’d pick up our spare keys. He met us at Pitfold and we managed to get all our luggage into his little Yaris hybrid and that saved us three minutes and some stress getting to the station. Cheers Awl.

The trip to Heathrow T4 was not that bad but there were a few steps that would have made it awkward had we been with Tan and Xixi. But after a bit of sweating and choosing to take steps rather than wait for the lifts we got to the Piccadilly line and the 50 minutes flew by, and was definitely quicker than going to Paddington to take the Express, and 30 quid cheaper each.

We may have been 25 minutes early for the drop-off of luggage, and I was sorely tempted to go to the arrivals lounge for a bite to eat and drink, but we did the self-service baggage tags and when I asked the bloke how long we’d have to wait he said we could go along now and drop off at the VIP place. I’m glad I asked as we dropped them off good’n’quick and the gaggle of Chinese students only cottoned on after we'd done that.

Both of us enjoying some decent grub - makes the journey part of the adventure

Is that how much they really charge? Now I know it's worth it...

Security was fine except for me being an idiot and leaving the fourth laptop in a bag. That wasted 10 minutes but we were in very good time and we found the lounge after I bought some duty free presents for friends in Pingguo. I’m slightly sad that the kids have grown up for the last six years pretty much expecting lounge access. For me it’s still a luxury and I get a buzz every time we get accepted even though I’ve bloody paid for it…. I also know it pays for itself in so many ways, but this year was annoyed to get a fancy cardboard thing in the post telling me of the amazing new features (none of which apply to me) and in the small-print telling me the price has gone up by 125 quid. Why not save on the postage and up it by less, or at least give the option?

Anyway the short hop to Paris Charles de Gaulle was pretty much that and the short delay was made up for in the air. We probably had the time to have a quick drink in the lounge but thought better of it as the risk of missing the long flight was not worth thinking about. Annoyingly, after passport control we did have 50 minutes, and I wondered about going back to enjoy the lounge but thought better of it again. To my shame I hadn’t bought a neck pillow, and based on my recent experiences going to and from Egypt I wish I had. Now I was prisoner in an airport with the prospect of a 12 hour flight and all I could see were 30, 40, 60 Euro such neck pillows. I made a decision I may well regret. I paid a whole 40 Euro for one that could be squashed down to a fraction of its size....lord I hope I live to justify this decision...if only I’d done it on Amazon last week.

Leilei on the way to Paris

Gosh the mix of my noise-cancelling headphones and the neck thing did seem to help - I didn’t get through the first film and then after dinner I started playing “Who wants to be a Millionaire?” and after losing the first few rounds (well, making 32,000) I hit the jackpot!

I hit the jackpot, and probably no-one cares! Well I'll be in Hong Kong soon so there....

Thankfully Leilei and I were both so tired we didn’t need to make a fuss of things, and we both got to sleep for a little bit after about three hours. Hope it lasts.

Beijing delay is kids' ok

As I had stayed at this hotel before I hadn’t ordered breakfast as 1) it was crap, and 2) it would have delayed us. So much to their chagrin I got the kids up at 6am (at least they’d had six hours’ sleep as opposed to my three and a half), and got us checked out by 6.15 to get the 6.30 bus to the airport in preparation for the 9.20 flight to Beijing. As luck would have it for the first time in years the check-in went without a hitch and we got to the landside lounge in good time. Having said that there was nothing much to entice us in this lounge, though from experience I knew there was nothing much more in the airside lounge. So we took advantage of the lounge’s own security path and got through half an hour before the flight after the kids had had their fill of shitty sugary drinks and wasabi peas. I was hours away from wanting a drink so braved it onto the flight, which could have been worse.

Oh the lounge in Beijing is one of the best we’ve been to in the world. Great food, comfortable seats in our own area, and a decent choice of drinks. Well, by now it was well after 1pm and our flight wasn’t for another four hours or so. The kids were in their element, with wifi and electricity, but we still found time for actual communication. Tan was coming back a couple of days later so we made sure to video chat with her.

While we were going through our second course of food we got the “terrible” news that our flight had been delayed one hour, and the kids cheered! I’ve justified it a thousand times before but when you’re obliged to travel as much as me (and hate it) then these little luxuries (although paid for) become incredibly worthwhile - it’s like an insurance for delayed flights and indeed it somewhat literally is. And then when our flight was delayed another half an hour I joined in with the celebrations and got myself a G&T because why not?

Lounge lizards

The flight was stress-less, maybe because it was just the three of us, and we arrived at Heathrow more-or-less on time anyway so who cares? I was really tempted to go to the arrivals lounge but the kids were tired so after unsuccessfully trying to get a local cab we tried Uber, which I feared would be much more expensive, and got a price much better that we’d been quoted for the cab that didn’t turn up.

Well Pingguo was over for a year...we all accept and mourn it a little. My main concern is that the kids won’t want to come back next year. But it’s been another lovely summer and we should concentrate on that, and the fact that within a few days the kids will be back in school and it will be all go again…. But I really hope we’ll be back next year.