December 3 2007 Corry and Jeff Visit Hong Kong and Lynn and Lee Visit the Phillipines

Corry & Jeff in HK, Lee & Lynn in the Philippines

Corry & Jeff landed in HK on Saturday, Nov 17th. Corry is one of my friends from the Texas Moms Yahoo Group. Her oldest son went to Trinity. They came in on a morning flight, which can be very hard, because you are jetlagged but it is better not to go to sleep. We took them out to see Central. We did the standards - up the escalator, down Hollywood road to the Man Mo temple, down thru Western, up thru the wet market, & then over to HK park to sit in the sun & relax for awhile. They enjoyed seeing all the families out for a stroll, & all the brides getting their pictures taken. Then we let them go back to the apartment, rest have dinner & go to bed. They did pretty well.

The next day, Sunday, they wanted t0 go to mass, so we took a taxi to Saint Joseph's. It was around this time that I realized that my fears of Corry being mistaken for a helper were SO not happening. No one would mistake Corry for anyone's maid! While they were at mass I went back to HK park & enjoyed the early morning quiet. After mass we walked from Saint Joseph's to Maxim's Palace at City Hall for Dim Sum. Maxims is so great, it’s really a shame we only go there when we have guests. After dim sum we were going to take the peak tram up to Victoria Peak but the lines on a Sunday were ridiculous so we took a double decker bus to Stanley instead. As is often the case visitors either love or hate Stanley market. In this case Corry loved it & Jeff was tolerant. Corry got to buy all of her HK souvenirs and Jeff got out of there w/o going completely mad. But then Jeff found the dragonboat association's shop & was able to buy a dragonboat t-shirt, so he was happy too. Lee was grocery shopping for thanksgiving (searching for those elusive American ingredients at every expat grocery store in HK) so he drove us back to the apartment.

 Daniel was supposed to have landed in HK Sunday night, but because of a little oversight on his part he was delayed for a day. He got all the way to the ticket counter in St. Louis before he realized that he had forgotten his passport. Fortunately for him his dad was able to rebook his ticket for the following day, which allowed him to go back to Columbia, watch the MU/KSU football game, & drive back to St. Louis in time to catch his flight one day late.

Sunday evening we took a ferry to Lamma Island & ate at the fishtank restaurant. This is another fun thing to do that we only do with visitors. At Rainbow Corry came up against the subtle obstinate stubbornness of the Chinese. Corry wanted her Singapore Noodles with our fish. But the Chinese consider noodles or rice to be "filler" food, only to be eaten if there isn't enough "good" food & you're still hungry. No matter how many times Corry asked them for the noodles their response was always "5 minutes" but no noodles appeared.  They finally came @ the end of the meal, exactly when the Chinese would have served them all along.

Monday morning we went on a Jason Wordie tour of some of the cemeteries in Happy Valley. Jason’s tours are usually very interesting & informative but I wondered if it would be boring just wandering around looking at some graves. Not so. We went to 3 graveyards, Catholic, Protestant, & Parisee. Each one was very different & Jason had unique stories to tell about the people buried there and their place in HK's history. The catholic cemetery had many Chinese graves and contained a chapel that is the oldest free-standing structure in HK. The military graveyard used to be part of the botanical gardens & was a beautiful place to walk through. The Parisee cemetery was very well maintained, because it was rented out to a plant store!  After the tour we met Lee for lunch @ Nga Trang. Then we went on the requisite trip on the peak tram.  Daniel arrived that evening none the worse for wear, and we had steak soup for dinner.

On Tuesday we took the Star Ferry to Kowloon, ate an early lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant, and then went to Sha Tin and visited the 10,000 Buddha’s monestary. We topped off the afternoon with  tea at the Grand Hyatt, but our visit was somewhat marred by the fact that  poor Daniel could not go to the buffet because he was only wearing sandels. So Corry and I had fun instead bringing him selected tidbits to eat.

That evening we went on a boat ride in Victoria Harbor to see the light show. Jeff was disappointed to discover that our particular red sail boat was not a working model & that its red sails were merely decorative. Personally I wouldn't want to ride on a sailboat in the choppy waters of Victoria Harbor; I think that would be a lot like boating @ the Lake of the Ozarks.

Weds Corry and Jeff left for Manila & Corry’s reunion. We stayed in HK to enjoy

Daniel's visit. Mostly we just hung out, since this was Dan's third visit to HK, but we did manage to go on a New Territories hike & get semi lost in the process. Since we weren't in a remote area it didn't really matter, since we could always see the high rises in the distance. We saw the Gin Drinkers Line where the defense of HK fell to the Japanese. We saw lots of monkeys. I was carrying a diet coke & one male monkey decided that it was his & I didn't feel inclined to argue. I threw it in the bushes & he went & retrieved it. Got a great picture of him drinking from the can & another holding it & staring contemplatively into the distance.

I will put our visit to the Philippines in a separate entry, or maybe several separate entries, since I had a lot to report!

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Monday, Nov 26, Manila day 1: I landed in Manila airport with no problem. It wasn't a bad airport, the guidebook made it sound terrible but it was easy. Corry & Jeff met me & we went to our hotel to check in. The Manila Hotel is very historic. We saw the archives with the history of the hotel while we waited for our rooms to be ready. Then got in the car & drove to Corry's aunt's house. Terrible traffic, over whelming crowds, jeepneys everywhere. There are also these contraptions called tricycles that are really a motorbike with a sidecar attached and a sort of roof, that are also used as taxis. On the streets extreme poverty like I probably haven't seen since Honduras. There were kids outside the cake shop where we stopped begging. Then we go past two armed guards and we’re in the gated community where Corry's aunt lives. The house could be in Florida. Corry’s aunt has four helpers, two kitchens, two pianos. The contrast is startling to say the least. Dinner was my first introduction to Filipino food. I got to meet some of Corry's friends from school. They are all very high-achieving people, engineers and businessmen.

We drove a different way back to hotel. Suddenly we were in Makati, the business district. Again, the difference was startling. All of a sudden, instead of the chaos of Manila we could be in any modern city, with clean sidewalks, stores, and skyscrapers. Its actually surprising there isn't more unrest in the country; the chasm between the haves and have-nots seems so wide.

Tuesday, Nov 27, Corregidor. Corregidor is a small island in the mouth of Manila Bay. Strategically significant it was fought over fiercely during WW 2. The American & Filipino forces held out for 5 months. MacArthur declared "I shall return" here. The defeated soldiers were forced onto the Bataan Death March.

Today Corregidor is an island-wide memorial with the bombed ruins preserved as they were when the Philippines fell. It takes an hour on a fast ferry to get there. We spent the day on an open air trolley tour viewing the sites. Our tour guide was 70 years old & alternately charming & obnoxious. He teased a young couple that was with us beyond all reason. I felt sorry for them.

The ferry ride back to Manila was one of the roughest I have experienced, probably because of the nearby passage of several typhoons. I don't usually experience seasickness, but this was pretty bad. I was very happy to be off that boat!

That evening we met some of Corry's cousins at a popular Filipino restaurant called Aristocrats.  I'm beginning to realize that Filipino food consists primarily of MEAT, prepared in a variety of ways. 

Wednesday, November 28.  It was nice to have Lee w/ me in Manila. We ate breakfast at the hotel, and then we got a car & went to Makati so that we could buy Hard Rock Cafe Jeepney t-shirts.

Then a comedy of errors ensued. Our driver took us to the airport and drove away. Not 30 seconds later I asked Lee "where are the t-shirts?" He had left them in the car. All we knew was the driver’s # - 42. We called the hotel, they contacted the driver, & he came back & delivered the t-shirts to us for our undying gratitude & a nice tip. We got in line for security. "Oh you're at the wrong airport. You need the OTHER domestic airport" Yikes! It was a 20 minute taxi ride to the other airport, including a call to Corry to negotiate a fair price.

More on our Philippine Trip and Palawan in the next post!

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Nov 29th, Palawan. We checked into our little hotel on Wednesday night. Corry’s friend Rafael took us to an interesting restaurant. It was built over a mangrove swamp. It was open air & the food was quite good, especially the spicy shrimp & calamari.

The next day we took a boat to a small island in Honda Bay. Its remarkable how similar all these Asian beach places look to each other. This could be Thailand, or more likely Malaysia. The water is blue & green, there is a decrepit dock & some worn out beach chairs. We get to hang out here for the day, go snorkeling, etc. The only problem is the water is pretty choppy & murky from the aftermath of the typhoon that passed by here a couple of days ago.

The name of this little resort is "Dos Palmas", but Corry said that one of the palm trees died so they really should name it "Unos Palmas".

That night we ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant at Hotel Fleuris. The restaurant was very crowded so they put us upstairs in the "piano bar" all by ourselves. It was nice to eat something besides Filipino food for a change. A young man sat down to play piano for us. He was great! He played old & new standards & we had fun trying to guess the names of songs.

Friday, Nov 30th: Road to Sabang. Yes a really, really bad road, just like the guidebook said. This was the first day the road was open after the typhoon and it was very muddy. Rafael’s truck did well, except it didn’t have four wheel drive and in one place the ruts were too deep and we got stuck. We were lucky though, a Jeepney came by in a couple of minutes and pulled us out and on we went. We saw really full Jeepneys with rice bags & people hanging from the back & sitting on the roof. It took two hours on a dirt road to get to Sabang. It reminded me so much of Central America in the 70's. When we got to Sabang there was a backlog of people waiting to take a banca (a type of outrigger canoe) to the underground river, so we decided to hike the trail to get there instead. The trail was less than 5 k, but was a little misrepresented. There were more than 700 steps involved in getting there! We were all in good enough shape except Corry so we all just worried about her. It was one of those situations where she was basically stuck. There was no way out but onward so she just had to make the best of it. It was really a beautiful trail. It went along the beach, over rocks & through the jungle. Then the underground river was neat. It really was a river into a cave. We took a boat paddled by a guide. Lots of little bats, lots of swallows chirping in order to know where they were by the echo.

We took a banca back to Sabang. This is basically an outrigger canoe with a motor. The swells were big (3 feet?) & at first I was very nervous, but I gradually realized what a remarkably stable craft it was because of the outrigger. Then I started to enjoy it.

We ate at a good Filipino restaurant that night. One of the dishes we had was stingray cooked in coconut milk. It was excellent! Who would have guessed? The restaurant had a bamboo floor and we had to take our shoes off to walk on it. Fun!

Dec 1st. Today we went island hopping.. First we went to the wet market in Puerto Princesa. It was a very wet wet market & I wished I had my camera - pig heads, cow haunches & lots & lots of fish. We bought our lunch & then went to the pier to rent a banco for the day. I've decided I like banca travel.

The first island was named Pandan Island. It had really nice snorkeling. Colorful plants, lots of fish. We saw a black sea urchin and huge starfish. Our lunch was great - squid, fish, shrimp, crabs, an eggplant salad with tomatoes, garlic, ginger. Our cook was very able! Then Corry said I should look at the freshwater pearls the locals were selling. I ended up buying 3 or 4 strands of pearls for around $12 US.

Then we went to Snake Island, named for its very long skinny beach. The snorkeling wasn't as good but I took a long walk along the beach. While I was walking someone stole my mask & snorkel! Grrr. I was upset, but there was nothing I could do about it.

The last island was called Starfish Island, named for all the starfish, of course. By then I was tired and my mask was gone, so I just hung out on the beach. Some of the day trippers had collected a bunch of the starfish and Corry got a picture of around twelve of them all lined up.

This turned out to be a really great vacation. I’m so glad we went and really glad we got to do it with people that new the area. We were able to see and experience (and eat!) so much more than we would have otherwise. I also discovered that I haven’t completely become a “4 star” girl and can handle the occasional adventure travel with ease.