February 15 2007 Friends Visit and Then I Go to Singapore

Last week Cyndi Sommerfeld and her sister Sherri visited from Singapore. They were great guests! Sherri is on a trip around the world. She has been to Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and lots of places in Asia. Cyndi and her husband Frank used to live in Columbia. They both used to work for 3M (Frank still does). In fact Cyndi worked for Lee for awhile. Now they live in Singapore and Cyndi is an expat wife, like me (only younger and with 3 kids still at home!).

They had beautiful weather for their trip to Hong Kong. The sky was blue, the temps were in the 60’s and 70’s and the pollution levels were marginally lower. On Monday I showed them the basic Hong Kong island tour. We went into SoHo, up the escalator, and then caught a trolley and walked through the Wan Chai wet market. I showed them how the MTR worked and got them as far as the Peak Tram Station. Then they were on their own for the afternoon, since I had another activity that I needed to do. But they did great. They went up to the Peak, tried the Peak Café and said it was good so now I’ll have to try it too. Then they bravely set off on the MTR to visit the markets, all by themselves. They went to the Flower Market, the Bird Market and (accidentally) the Ladies Market too.

That night we went over to Kowloon, watched the light show, and then ate at our wonderful Indian Restaurant over in TST. We haven’t been there in awhile. It’s not really very convenient from our house, so we’ve been trying other Indian restaurants in Central and SoHo. But now I’m convinced; it’s really much better than any other Indian restaurant we’ve been to in Hong Kong. Sherri and Cyndi agreed that it was really good, surprisingly good after climbing up those rather dubious looking stairs!

The next day we went to Maxims for Dim Sum, and then set out for the cable car and the big Buddha. I looked anxiously at the clouds all morning, but the weather was perfect. It was a perfect Buddha day. The view from the cable cars is incredible. We could see the Buddha off in the distance as clear as could be. If we get a nice day like that when Joanne and Phil and Gail are here we’ll take them to see the Buddha too.

The last day we went on a Michael Hansen hike. This hike took in two little islands, Cheung Chau and a peninsula off of Lantau. We toured around Cheung Chau and I had little fantasies about living there and taking the ferry in to Central whenever I needed a little bit of city life. Then we took another ferry over to Lantau. The views on the peninsula were spectacular, as usual – so much fun to show to friends – Hong Kong’s hidden treasures, available to anyone who is fairly fit and has two good legs. The second leg of this hike ended at Po Beach, a long deserted stretch of sand at this time of year. We took off our shoes and socks and hiked in the water for the last little bit, which felt just great.

Then this week was “turn around is fair play” since Lee had a business trip to Singapore and I tagged along. Cyndi and Sherri were happy to entertain me. Actually the first night Lee and I took Sherri to eat chili crab and pepper crab at East Coast Seafood, since she hadn’t had a chance to do that yet. It was even better than I remembered it, AND even messier. I tried to chew on the crab shells and just suck out the meat, but that just didn’t work for me. I had to use tools to get at the meat. But, although I had very messy hands, I stayed pretty clean past my second knuckle!

Since I’ve already been to Singapore once and seen a lot of the tourist sights, we did things more on the level of “what do expat ladies do in Singapore?” The first day they picked me up at my hotel and we went to lunch on Clark Quay. It’s a little bit like San Antonio’s Riverwalk, but sunny, hot and multi-ethnic. They have recently built these giant umbrellas all over it, so it’s possible to stay in the shade and be marginally cooler, yet still be outside. I wish I had taken a picture of them now. They were very interesting-looking, and made pleasing cool shapes in the sky. They didn’t block out the sun and you could still see the blue sky; they just made things kind of shady.

After lunch we went to the Asian Civilization museum. This was an amazing treat. Cyndi has a friend that is a docent at the museum and she gave us a private tour. The museum was filled with all kinds of artifacts and information about all the different peoples and religions that have settled in Singapore. I especially liked the Korans, which were SO beautiful, and all the different Buddha’s. I learned a little more about Buddhism too. That’s a definite gap in my knowledge.

The second day they took me to a place called the Pottery Jungle. That was lots of fun, wandering through all kinds of ceramic treasures, out in this open-air shop. I wish there would have been a way to get one of the great big bowls back to Hong Kong, but I figure that trying to ship something like that would be crazy. That afternoon I wandered around Orchard Road by myself. I bought Lee one of the new little shuffles for v-day, and bought myself some nice pants and a vest at DKNY. The nice thing about the stores in Singapore; the clothes fit! Not so many skinny Asian butts there!

 The last night Lee took me to Sammy’s Curry House. It was a banana leaf curry place, in an old black and white colonial building. The curry was good, but the atmosphere was even better. It felt like we had drifted backwards in time and were suddenly visiting a corner of the British Empire.

Now, here we are, back in Hong Kong, on a chilly, cloudy, misty day. This afternoon I decided to walk home from Central, something I actually have never done. It was cool enough and I was just curious how long it would take me. From Queen’s Road to Conduit Road on the Escalator took 15 minutes, and that was with mostly standing and not walking (saving my strength for what was ahead). From the top of the Escalator to our apartment took 20 minutes. So, it really wasn’t that bad, although the very last bit up Old Peak is very steep. It would be pretty terrible on a really hot day, but at this time of year, if I have the time and I’ve got the right shoes on, I’ll probably do it again sometimes.

Chinese New Year is almost here. I’m sort of ready, I think. I’m eager to experience it here, whatever that may mean!