Reunion with long-time friends Teresa and Tim

PHIL: Mar 7/Day 21

Ferry to Central to buy a replacement for our stolen Canon. Of course the store doesn’t have an exact replica as our ‘old’ camera was a year old (!), so we try out a range of its successors and buy a more sophisticated version for significantly less money.

Reunion with Tim and Teresa in Hongkong

Dim sum lunch with one of Allie’s old colleagues from the 80s along with her HK Civil Service husband who keeps fairly quiet during the entire meal.

It’s still cold and windy and Beijing promises to be sub-zero, so we might need to invest in some warmer clothes when we get there.

ALLIE: DAY 21: Wednesday, 7^th of March

A day in and out of Hong Kong

I am pissed… sorry to say that, but it’s true. Well, not in the American way I have to add (since I learnt today that in American “pissed” means actually “pissed off with something or someone”, but in the English sense, meaning “being quite drunk”!).
We have just had a couple of glasses of some very nice Australian red wine at the “China Bear” pub, and talked to the Pilipino bar girl who is obviously married to one of the pub owners. (I was nearly the only female in the pub, the rest being foreign expatriate men).

Ok, what did we do today? I went for a cold swim in the morning, whilst my husband was intensely “inspecting the inside of his eye-lids” as he calls it. Then we went across to Hong Kong Central and Kowloon to buy a new camera. For lunch we met with Teresa and he husband Tim to eat Dim Sum at a very crowded Chinese restaurant in the City Hall.

...and another reunion 10 years later!!

Even before we sat down the industrious waiters started to throw bits and pieces of little food snacks at us. We hardly had the time to greet each other. Efficiency certainly was the name of the game. The minute one customer finishes, the next load is seated.

 Nice to see my friend Teresa again. She still looks the same after 21 years of knowing her form that very first time of coming to Hong Kong! Teresa’s German is very good, but unfortunately she can’t find a new job after quitting her work with the Symphony Orchestra of Hong Kong (for whatever reason I don’t know).
Tim, her husband is working for the government, “for a fat salary, but the job is  boring”. Phil and I look at each other and think the same: we couldn’t and wouldn’t want to spend such a boring live even if it would earn the best money in the world!

Travel back on the ferry I leave my husband to do emails whilst I follow the “heritage trail of Mui Wo” that brings me to a little monastery and some interesting looking graves. The ashes are put into pots and lined up along a circular shaped grave. I have never seen anything like it in Asia. Our new camera works well and I enjoy trying it out on this walk.

delicious Chinese food

We decide to return to the “China Bear” pub for our last glass of decent wine (before North Korea). The pub is packed with foreigners, all male I have to add. The pub runs well and I like it here, our little Pilipino waitress says, and I am married to one of the guys in here, she hastily adds.

Well, and now it’s time to go to bed or wait until my parents ring or my husband has some other ideas….