Jumbo Floating Restaurant--You Gotta Go!

Monday evening--Hong Kong

It is raining when we get into the taxi for Jumbo. Not hard, and since it has been all day, everything is wet. Our driver may be new to his profession, or he seems to be. The first few turns, we drift through them. That means slide, not sideways, but close. Either he is new, or his tires have absolutely no traction. Either way, I am concerned, but say nothing.

After the first few slides, he drives very carefully, and we arrive at Jumbo with no further problems. But quite a drive--way across town. Thankfully it is rush hour and we really can’t go very fast.

Grace is amazed at what she sees. We approach the landing which is certainly lit up. At the landing, we get onto a smaller boat to take us to the bigger boat, Jumbo. Unfortunately, Jumbo is not lit up yet, just the entrance. But still impressive. A three-minute ride later, we disembark and enter the restaurant. We are sent upstairs, and to the VIP room. Not sure I like this; they are all western tables, set for four. But the décor is magnificent, and Grace likes it. We have a table at the window facing the landing we came from.

I get a noodle dish with garlic and abalone sauce, very mild, but they mix and cook it at the table which is a nice show. Grace gets a shrimp dish with pumpkin, onions, and beef knuckles. It is better and very hot, heat hot. We also order a vegetable plate, green beans with two different kinds of fungus, or mushrooms. Water to drink. The food is very good, very, but not quite as spicy as we like. But then Cantonese cuisine is not known for its spiciness. It does have a reputation, but I will save that for another blog, another day.

Back downstairs and onto the smaller boat and back to the landing. It is a slow night what with the rain, and we are a bit concerned about getting a taxi. Maybe ten minutes of waiting and the attendant says he will run down to the main cross street and see if he can get one. No sooner does he get out his umbrella and start than one pulls up.

This guy is not cautious at all. He turns out to be a real speed demon, and lucky for us, his tires do a good job, not slipping once. Grace refers to him as “Mr. Fung’s Wild Ride” and says he should work at the new Disneyland here. We get back in a fraction of the time, but both Grace and I are a bit disoriented because we come into the street a different way. So I tell him to drive some more, but we are going away from the hotel, not towards it. Finally it hits us and we stop and walk back, almost from the Star Ferry terminal. The rain has stopped, so it is not too bad. But then the rain starts again about 200 feet from the hotel entrance.

One thing fascinates me. The two tolls to Jumbo were $40.00 and the other $5.00 HKD. Coming back? Nope, $15.00 and $5.00. I don’t drive many tolls roads where I live, but different costs for different directions on the same road does seem strange. The ride also is quite different, but then we came different roads, and it certainly was longer one way. But then going to Jumbo, he was only driving at 1/3 the speed the back driver guy drove. So one way was $157.00, the way back is $102.00. Do I think we were taken by going man? No, but maybe I am just slow or too trusting.

Airport tomorrow.

Rainy Day in Hong Kong--There's a Typhoon Out There!

Monday, Sept 28—It’s still Hong Kong

Not a good day, but gotta do something.

We wake—late--and it is raining outside. There is a typhoon several hundred miles south of us, headed from the Phillipines through Hainan and going into Viet Nam. We are in the rain shield to the northwest. Typhoon in the Pacific is the same thing as a hurricane in the Atlantic. Lots of rain and flooding in Manila on the TV; images from more remote locations are slower to get on TV. But southern China and Viet Nam are bracing for a big one.

We try to get going, but we are worn out, so it is almost 10:30 before we go downstairs. Raining harder than we thought, so plans to walk over towards Kowloon Park and do some trinket shopping and go to Kenny’s Restaurant for lunch are put on hold.

Sorry to miss Kenny’s as it is popular because they have a worldwide selection; you can choose Thai while your friend gets French while another gets American. But the rain is too hard, and I have no desire to walk on these cobblestone streets and sidewalks when they are wet and slippery.

I make a couple of phone calls, one to a stamp dealer I recently bought some stamps from at an auction. Not open yet; it is 10:50. Call again at 11:30 and he answers. He will have to get back to me as his staff is still not in. Hong Kong stays up late and sleeps in--evidently.

So we head to the Thai restaurant that overlooks the harbor. Still closed; they open at 12:00.

So plan four, we go down to the mall and try to find something. Lots of food stalls here, and we pick one after “reading” the menu at several. I get Sour and Spicy Chicken over rice, Grace gets Sweet and Spicy Fish over rice. Drink is coffee or tea. We are in China--I ask for tea, so does Grace. We sit down and Grace opens her paper glass to add sugar. Tea, well, yes, but English tea with milk already added. Terrible, I can’t drink mine. Grace tries, adds more sugar, and tries again, but not much luck getting it down. Food is OK.

We wander some more. It is still raining, maybe harder. So it is after 12:00 and we head to the Thai restaurant and have a beer on the outdoor covered patio. That harbor is nice, but it is raining, and we cannot see all the way across the harbor. One is enough; we are not really up for much of anything. I do take some pictures through the rain of the very large catamaran ferries that seem to be everywhere. There are seven of them below us at the terminal while we have the beer. One has on its side New Ferry LXXVI which I think translates to 76. That is quite some ferry fleet!

Lobby has a notice that we are at Level 1 for Typhoon preparedness. Level 1 is more like pay attention, there is a typhoon within 24 hours of Hong Kong. We hope we are gone if it turns north.

Back to the room. Message on the phone from the stamp dealer says I owe a number in USD. I do a quick conversion. I thought they would add packing and shipping charges, but it is less in USD than my invoice, substantially less. I call again, nobody there. So I put a check in the mail to him for the amount he said in the message with a comment that he might want to double-check as I do not think it is enough. Hey, I want the stamps, so, yes, I am going to call his attention to it.

Naptime.

Up again at 4:30, both of us are already packed and antsy. Still raining, don’t think it will stop before we head to the airport tomorrow morning. At least all of our stuff fits inside the suitcases. And we only have one each plus a carry-on.

Dinner tonight at Jumbo Floating Restaurant. Jumbo is across town in Aberdeen, a floating restaurant that is ALL lit up and designed like a Chinese boat with dragons on both ends. We will have to take a water taxi out to it after that land taxi (car) to the location. Pictures to follow. You have to visit Jumbo. I read that it is much more than a restaurant now, an amusement park on the water. Chinese restaurants like this are much better in a group, but it is just the two of us. Group meals mean there are more choices and I like that.

Probably next blog we will be back in the US. First thing I’ll do is clean up my computer. It has been running very slowly since about Jing de zhen. Not sure if something has been added, but I’m thinking I need to check.

Best to all. It has been fun, but Grace and I both agree that 21 days in China is enough, maybe more than enough.