2024 – Queen Mary 2 Grand World– Part 3 –Sydney to Singapore..3.2 Bitung to Hong Kong

Well, now all the fabulous, exciting ports coming up, like Hong Kong and Singapore, are going to have to beat Bitung as the passengers’ favorite.  People were talking about it all day, on March 10.  Every one of us felt like a celebrity.  We were bathing in the warmth of Bitung’s welcome.  I spent most of the day working on and delivering Newsletter 12, attached. 

I spent most of the day, working on client issues and plugging away at this blog.  In the evening, I met those of my people who were coming to dinner tonight at Sir Samuel’s.  I was delighted that it included my caregiver and her charge.  It was so rewarding to see her up, out, alert, eating and smiling.  We had a very nice time together.

With only 2 days to go until Hong Kong, March 11 was busy with preparations.  I wanted to be sure everyone had the best time ever.  There was one couple staying in Pacific Place and going to Elvon’s tailor, and a couple of others who were adventurous enough to take my advice.  And I was working on addresses in Chinese for all, just in case.

Liz came along to pay for lunch in Bitung, which I had put on my credit card. Two of the seafood nasi gorengs, most expensive on the menu, and three pints of beer, came to $21.16, total.  Liz was so happy, she decided to treat me, so I got that lovely lunch for the tip I left, which had been the last of my rupiah.

I went to the Commodore Club at 6:30pm, ,had a very nice time in congenial company, and ate alone in the dining room, as I am still coughing and don’t want to scare anyone. 

March 12 was much the same.  David Pong wrote to say he had had a relapse of the bug that’s going around and wouldn’t be showing me around the new HK Palace Museum after all.  I decided that was fine, because I am just recovering, myself and saving the energy was probably a good thing. 

I ate alone one more time and missed the show because I wanted to go to bed early before my two big days in Hong Kong.

On March 13 I woke up in Hong Kong.  I had packed yesterday for my overnight in Wanchai.  My backpack contained my computer, chargers for it, phone and watch, toothbrush, dopp kit and these clothes:

I was wearing boots, my light raincoat, black yoga pants, a long sleeved black leotard top and a diaphanous blouse.  At various times I wore every piece you see except the second pair of disposable underwear. 

Since I wasn’t going to the HK Palace Museum, and was traveling light, I decided to get to the Grand Hyatt the touristy way.  I left my room at 9:40am and went through customs at 10:00am, quickly, by facial recognition.  It was a long walk through the parking garage to the ship’s shuttle.  The new KaiTak Cruise Terminal is a work in progress and it’s pretty basic at the moment.  That explains why I couldn’t find a decent restaurant in it. Soon come, I’m sure.  At 10:45, the bus deposited us on Chatham Rd, with the usual instructions to take pictures of the surroundings so we could get back to the bus and the caution that the last bus was at 10:00pm.  I didn’t care.  I wasn’t coming back.  I just had myself pointed towards the Star Ferry and off I went along Chatham Rd to Salisbury Rd.  I crossed over to the waterfront at the HK Museum of Art and walked along the Avenue of the Stars to the Star Ferry.  I missed the 11:00am ferry by a couple of minutes and sat down to wait.  It never takes very long for another ferry to appear and I was soon on my way to Wanchai.  I took this picture of the ferry to Central and the Chinese Resort Ship that was docked in Ocean Terminal, where I would have wished the QM2 was. 

I was living in the nearer black building with the red bands, when I met Elvon.  Not all of the buildings you see here were there, then, certainly not the enormous IFC tower.  You see it better in this shot:

And if they call the thirty-story building behind the Ferris wheel the “thousand assholes”, you can just imagine what they call that one.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it was shaped that way on purpose.  Just before I got off the ferry in Wanchai, I got this shot in memory of Elvon.  It would have made him so proud:

That’s the new convention centre on the right, and I was staying in the Grand Hyatt, whose upper floors you can just see on the right of it.  I walked there from the Star Ferry, arriving around 11:40am.  My room was ready, so I checked in, left my backpack, used my facility and went downstairs to the taxi I had ordered on the way in. 

The taxi took me to Deep Water Bay and the Hong Kong Country Club, where I was the guest of Elvon’s old 2IC, Alwin Lam and his wife Agnes.  I had asked to bring along a friend, because I wanted Mabel Lam to meet her “relatives.”  Alwin invited the duck:

That was one oinker of a lunch, and an oinker of the very highest quality.  The Hong Country is known for the quality of its food.  Only in Hong Kong do you find a country club chef who can compete with the Michelin starred restaurants.  The members know what they want and they don’t mind paying.  It’s a terrific set-up, too.  Look at the picture again.  We are in our own private little room, where you can have any conversation you want, where the participants hear every word and there are no adjacent tables to eavesdrop.  It just doesn’t get better than that. 

We waddled out to Alwin’s car, and he had his driver drop Mabel and me at Hopewell Centre, where there was a Watson’s, easy walking distance from the Grand Hyatt.  Mabel had kindly agreed to come shopping with me, which, apart from just being fun, provided me with an interpreter and an extra set of arms to carry things.  I just needed mouthwash, elastic bandaging for my ankle and all the disposable underwear I could lay my hands on.  In Hong Kong my arse is an XL.  I bought 14 packets of 5.  They came in around 57 cents a pair.  The ship charges $3.00 to wash a pair of gotchies.  That’ll save me $170.  You can stop laughing now.  I have bought them online but not as cheap, nor as comfortable as Watsons’.  God bless uncle Li Ka-Sing.  He knows me.

Mabel and I hauled it all back to the hotel and she came up to see my view, from the seventeenth floor, which was spectacular:

I would be hosting drinks before dinner to watch the Symphony of Lights, which plays on HK buildings at 8pm every night.  Most of the buildings involved are part of this view.  I downloaded the music to my phone. 

After Mable left, I had a 45 minute bath, ordered an ice bucket for the champagne the Lams had given me at lunch time, and waited for my guests to arrive.  While I was waiting, I cleared my email and, what do you know? There were the horse race tips for the evening from our friend, Bill.  I was having dinner with Simon and Delia Clennell, Don Meyer and Cindy Kwok.  Simon, Don and Bill are all Mensa friends from my days in HK, more than thirty years ago. 

Don and Cindy arrived around 7.  We weren’t expecting Simon and Delia until dinner time.  The three of us drank champagne, ate the snacks Don and Cindy brought, and enjoyed the Symphony of Lights.  Then we went down to the eighth floor to One Harbour Road, the Grand Hyatt’s top class Chinese Restaurant.  Our table had a similar view to my room and the food was wonderful.

The picture would be clearer, if I had set the camera to auto, instead of no flash, but you get te idea and some of you know the people.  Not only is the food delicious, it’s a work of art:

And there’s nothing like being with good, old friends.  We never did bet on the horses, we just didn’t have the means to do it.  Next time, we’ll actually go to the races.

I slept like a log, with the curtains wide open and woke up on the 14th to that view I can never get enough of.  It took me quite a while, but I managed to pack everything I brought and bought into my backpack and one small Grand Hyatt shopping bag.  Then I checked out and met my McGill friends, Lily and Alex Chu and Elizabeth Law, for Dim Sum.  I had made it easy on myself.  We went to One Harbour Road again.  This, folks is what really good dim sum looks like:

It’s subtle, but it’s in the texture of the noodle, the freshness of the ingredients, and the flavour.  You don’t get that quality just anywhere.  It’s pretty rare outside of the very good restaurants and hotels of Hong Kong.  I made a pig of myself again, aided and abetted by my good friends.  It was so great to catch up.  It is interesting how Hong Kong people now view the world.  They are quite happy under Chinese rule, as many things work very well.  They are not worried about the new security laws.  They feel safe in Hong Kong.  They are particularly disgusted with Western politics, where billions are spent on election campaigns that could be used on infrastructure, housing, health care and other worthy projects.  There’s a good point there.

While I had been savouring One Harbour Road’s food last night, the Queen Mary 2 had its gala for its world cruise passengers at the Rosewood, a brand new hotel, on the Kowloon side.

I wanted to see what the new hotel was all about, so I decided to make it my base for the afternoon.  There couldn’t be an evening meal, because we were sailing, but Mabel said she could meet me for tea or a drink at five, and that sounded good to me.   I took a taxi to the Rosewood, flashed my IATA card and asked for a tour.  It was scheduled for an hour hence and so I went down to the mall below.

It was a very fancy mall, so all I bought was a $50 tube of lipstick from Yves St. Laurent, but it will make a nice souvenir, a memory every time I use it. The tour started on time and it gave me a chance to talk to the Director of Sales about how the Cunard banquet went last night.  He told me they had served Western food because when they try to serve a Chinese banquet to 500 westerners, the questions the servers get about everything break the timing of the service.  Too bad, but it makes a lot of sense. He was happy to tell me that the Rosewood opened in 2019 and is the top hotel in Asia and no 2 in the world.  A very simple room is over $900/night and they have some serious suites.  One of them is a 5-bedroom, 5,000 sq.ft suite.  It was rented to a celebrity for the 3 years of COVID. 

After my tour, and because of everything I had eaten in the past two days, all I wanted was water.  I went to the ground floor restaurant and asked for a glass, explaining my case, a bit.  The servers couldn’t have been nicer.  Over a period of about an hour they served me four glasses of water and I drained them all and used the facilities a couple of times.  No charge.  Dress well and go to the best places.  Always.

Mabel appeared about a quarter to five and I still wasn’t ready to eat anything, so we asked my nice server about our choices of bars.  Their lobby bar, the Darkside, is listed among the 50 best bars in the world so we went there.  The name comes from when Kowloon was referred to as the dark side of HK because all the skyscrapers were on the HK side, so as not to interfere with the airport, which has now moved to Lantau island.

The ceiling treatment was mesmerizing.  Those are hour glasses, containing varying amounts of white sand, flowing at varying speeds.  

There we sat, enjoying our expertly made cocktails, well attended to and happy.  Too soon it was 6:45 and I needed to get back to the ship for 8:00pm all aboard.  Of course, that 8:00 pm was an assumption, based on the fact that we were sailing at nine.  Had I been on board to read last night’s Daily Programme, I would have known that all aboard was actually 7:30 and when I clocked in on board at 7:32, I was the very last passenger to board. 

I went to sailaway and to bed without any supper.  I didn’t know if I would ever want to eat again.