Last week Lee’s Aunt Dot and her daughter Ann visited us from Fayette, Missouri. This was a huge adventure for them, and I’m happy to say that in spite of a few mishaps they had a good time and so did we!
The only foreign country Dot has ever visited is Mexico, and that was a long time ago. She doesn’t like to fly and is afraid of heights and escalators (more on that in a minute). Both of them have not had an opportunity to try a lot of different types of food. In spite of all of this, they were both really brave and adventurous. With a little medical help, Dot survived the 13 hour flight across the ocean without any problems. We figured out ways to avoid terrifying Dot with precipitous heights, even in Hong Kong. And, with time out for good behavior, they bravely tried some new cuisines, including Dim Sum, traditional Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese foods. Ann even tried sushi, and thought it was pretty good!
I have my standard “introduction to Hong Kong” tour that I take all of our visitors on, usually on their first day here. That tour normally starts off with a trip up the escalator. It’s a great way to see a slice of Central Hong Kong, plus the escalator itself is pretty amazing. Ann at one time mentioned that Dot got “a little nervous” on escalators and didn’t like to go DOWN them, but since we were just going up I didn’t think we’d have a problem. WRONG! I really had no idea how terrifying she found them. I felt very badly when by the third escalator she was white in the face and rigid with fear. We had made it to Hollywood Road, so that seemed like a good time to get off the escalator and go see the Man Mo Temple.
After that we were able to avoid escalators for the most part, but it took a little creativity. It’s really amazing how many escalators there are in Hong Kong! And sometime an escalator was the ONLY way to get from point A to point B.
On Sunday, we went out for Dim Sum, which as always is so much fun. We went to Maxims and tried all kinds of dumplings and other goodies. We seem to never go for Dim Sum unless we have visitors, which is a shame since we both like it so much. After Dim Sum we walked through the underground passageway to show them the maids enjoying their day off, and then into the Prince’s Building so that they could see Oliver’s, a typical expat grocery store. Oliver’s is on the third floor. Normally we take an escalator to get there, but we found an elevator to take instead. We went to the store, bought a few groceries and then got back on the elevator (er, lift) to go back down to the first floor. Suddenly the elevator lurched to a halt. We were stuck between floors! I had never been on a stuck elevator before. We were fortunate to have a Cantonese-speaking woman on the elevator with us. She called the building management who went quickly to work to rescue us. It didn’t really take that long, maybe 15 minutes, but that was 15 minutes too long for Lee. His type A-ness didn’t handle being stuck in an elevator very well, but there was nothing he could do about it.
The funniest thing happened once we were rescued. The building management was very apologetic and made sure we were all okay. They filled out some sort of form and I gave them my card. At the end he asked us “any other complaints?” We stared at him and then burst into laughter! How do you answer a question like that when you’ve just been rescued from a stuck elevator???
Our adventures on Sunday, however, we not yet complete. We decided that it would be fun to take Dot and Ann for a ride on the ding-ding, the little trams that run along the northern shore of Hong Kong Island. They really are a great way to get a close-up view of Hong Kong life without doing a lot of walking. Ann and I got on first and went up to the upper level of the tram so that she could get a better view of the city. Lee and Dot stayed on the first level. After we got on I realized that I didn’t know which stop we were supposed to get off on, so I called down to Lee to ask him. He was still standing in the entryway of the tram, and his grocery bags were on the floor. There was no sign of Dot. He turned around and looked up the tram stairwell at me and said rather fiercely “NOT NOW”. I thought okaaayyyy and went to sit down. Later I found out that poor Dot had somehow managed to get stuck in the turnstile in the entrance to the tram! We are still not sure how it happened, or, how she got herself disentangled, but we subsequently found out that she was not the first person that had happened to. When I looked down the stairwell Lee was trying to untangle her and hold off the Filipino maids that were trying to get on the tram at the same time. I guess he was a little stressed!
Dot and Ann had other adventures too. We found out that although there are handicapped entrances to Admiralty MTR station there is no lift from the station down to the trains. You HAVE to take an escalator or take the stairs. Dot took the stairs. We went to the Big Buddha without riding the cable cars and it was fine. In fact it was fun to take the fast ferry and then take a bus up the mountain. Ann rode the Peak Tram and enjoyed it. We ate dinner one night up on the Peak at Café Deco on a clear night with a magnificent view. They saw Lan Kway Fong in action. They saw Hong Kong TV and watched our latest obsession, American Idol, with us.
It was really fun to show them our beautiful city. I’m so glad Ann was brave and brought her mother to visit us. It really is one of the joys of living here – getting to show folks that would never otherwise make it to Asia this side of the world.
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