Time and light

The 777 flight from Vancouver was great, but the plane is never in darkness-daylight the entire time. Air Canada has a great selection of movies, including some, like the Book Thief, which we missed in Olympia. I watched 4 movies, and 2 episodes each of Big Bang Theory and Modern Family. The 13.5 hr trip didn’t seem so arduous. The food on Air Canada was plentiful but ghastly, the only negative.

Once you cross the International Date Line, it is the next day. And, oddly, the time difference with the west coast is 15 hrs, but only 12 hrs to Cleveland!

Kowloon

We are staying in Kowloon, Hong Kong’s more modest neighborhood across Victoria Harbor, at the Park Hotel. It’s a great place, and the neighborhood, Tsim Sha Tsui (TST for short), bustling. Of course, this is the most densely populated place on earth. Walking anytime of the day or night is in a HUGE crowd. Unfortunately, there are predominant types of shops in Kowloon-jewelry and electronics, making much of the area feel a lot like Times Square on steroids.

The best part of the neighborhood is Kowloon Park and dim sum. The park is elevated, behind an historic mosque, and full of gaggles of cute schoolchildren, Tai-Chi and music. The old Banyan trees are fabulous.

 

 

Dim sum is, of course, fantastic. Some classic stuff and some unusual things. These lamb pancakes were stuffed with meat.

 

<

The last dinner was at a fine classic Chinese place overlooking Victoria Harbor, called Above and Beyond in the Hotel Icon. It’s the first time I’ve had fresh abalone since Tadich restaurant in 1973 in San Francisco

,

</a

And we had a lovely lunch at a tiny French place in Soho called On Lot 10-the beef tongue terrine was terrific!

</a

On To China

Transiting from Hong Kong to Lijiang via Kunming was not for the faint of heart. Leaving Hong Kong, we needed to take a shuttle bus to an outlying satellite, which took quite a while. When we got there, the gate had changed, and we needed to take two more shuttles to get to the proper place. Whew! But that was nothing compared to getting the boarding pass in Kunming for our second flight on Kunming Airlines, a regional carrier. There isn’t a check in spot for that airline, only a ticketing area that serves multiple airlines. And believe me, no one speaks English. We figured it out and then the good news: the airport food in Kunming is not like anything you have ever had. There is a chef in some of the places making authentic dishes from scratch. We had a picked fish soup, with fermented vegetables, and a beef hot pot chock full of Szechuan peppers and fresh chilies.

>