June 20, 2004
The bus dropped down into town out of the hills of Hong Kong's New Territories just as night was falling. Out the window we saw clusters of high rise apartments with twinkling lights situated amidst the dramatic hills, deeply forested and fading to purple as darkness fell. The view was stunning; only we didn't know what we were looking at. Again, in Hong Kong, we were lost. This was a different bus than we took out of town in the morning and when we got off nothing looked familiar. All we knew was that it was still a long, long, way away from WINGS, safely tied to a dock on Lantau Island on the other side of Hong Kong.
We'd spent the day in the New Territories, visiting Hebe Haven Yacht Club, where they were having a grand opening for their new marina. We'd hoped to get a marina berth but the slips had all been taken months before. Anyhow, we enjoyed the party atmosphere, watched Chinese dragon dances, and the club plied us with free drinks and roast pig hors d-oeuvres all day. We met several local people and ran across some friends we'd met previously in The Philippines. It was a good day to socialize at Hebe Haven.
Now, however, we needed to get home, but how?
We walked a couple of blocks, and then saw our salvation: a subway station. We knew that once we got into the subway system we could find our way; it is fast, efficient, and well signed. Now that the solution to our transportation problems seemed to be well in hand, our thoughts turned to food; we needed to eat. We found a nearby restaurant which looked busy but had tables available, and went in. Hum? No menus in English. Never mind, we sat down. Three young, shiny-faced kids in yellow waitperson jackets crowded around our table to help us make an order and try out their English. We said, "Noodles, chicken, pork, vegetables, rice, and of course, beer." They laughed and nodded, and repeated, "Noodles, chicken, pork, vegetables, rice, and of course, beer." We laughed too, at the adventure of it all. Soon plates and bowls, and bottles arrived and for the next hour we happily splashed our way through $12 worth of food and drink, then stumbled out of the restaurant to the subway station, wondering what it would tell us about where we actually were.
We found that our bus trip had ended in Tseung Kwan O Station, exactly the opposite direction from Hebe Haven that we'd thought we'd been going. Oh well, onto the train.
One stop later we got off and ran across the concourse with about 500 other people and boarded the Kwun Tong line.
A few dozen stops after that, at Mon Kok, we again changed trains, and got on the Tsuen Wan Line, which took us to Kowloon, and then, after one more change to Tung Chung, where we got on a bus to Discovery Bay, and then picked up the shuttle to the marina.
At 11:00 PM we arrived at WINGS, and quickly fell into bed, happy that the day had gone so well.
Fred & Judy, SV WINGS, Hong Kong
