We arrived in Guangzhou a little before 8 a.m. The city is the capital of the Guangdong province. The people of Guangdong are called Cantonese, and it is the people of this province who have spearheaded Chinese emigration. We pushed our way out of the station house, or rather floated along with the crowd, showing our tickets at the entrance as usual, and was told not to put our luggage down because of the danger for theft, walked about 100 meters to the waiting minibus, and was driven straight to the hydrofoil terminal. The terminal was modern and nice, passport control gave no problems and we got on the hydrofoil leaving for Hong Kong at 09.30. The trip took 2 ½ hours. As I didn’t have any money, and therefore nothing to drink or nothing to eat, and also no more books to read, I ended up watching a Hong Kong action movie showing on the video. The landscape outside was not much to look at, but as we got closer to Hong Kong more and more skyscrapers appeared. 

The rain was pouring when we got there, we got a good sample of it as we moved from the boat to the terminal. More queuing moving along in a snail tempo, and some rude Germans. From the terminal you came straight into a large shopping center. We moved down in the basement, where we caught taxis to the hotel. Hotel Evergreen lies in the busy area of Kowloon, just below the mainstreet Nathan Road, with the popular night market in Temple Street one street down in the other direction. The taxiride was short, and the hotel turned out to be simple, but fine. The rooms were small and mostly windowless, although our room turned out to have a window towards an unattractive back alley behind what we thought was the sliding door to a closet. Alison and I shared this room the first night, but then the trip would be officially over. I had booked one extra night and got to keep the room, while Alison moved in with John and Donna for the two extra nights they were staying. Everyone except Yvonne and Nancy had some extra time in Hong Kong.

After having brought up our luggage and inspected the rooms, I went with the trio plus Vicky I and Vicky II to have lunch at McDonalds. We had planned this from early morning, and we were starving. First, though, we had to change our travellers cheques into Hong Kong dollars. Kath had been saying that Nathan Road had loads of money changers, so that is where we went. We had been advised to stay away from the banks, as they charged you a rather large fee. It turned out to be not all that simple. We trailed up and down Nathan Road for more than an hour, hungry and annoyed, trying to find a place that would change travellers cheques and also not charge a large fee. Eventually we got our money inside a jewellery store, by that time we didn’t care about the fee (30 HKD). And finally – McDonalds. In Hong Kong you can find at least one on every block. That Big Mac sure tasted good! When we were done eating it fortunately didn’t rain anymore (although the rain kept coming and going all day). We then went to have a look at Temple Street, but they had just started putting up the stalls for the night market, so we decided we would go back there later. Instead we walked along Nathan Road. Nathan Road is a neon jungle, with shops and restaurants of every kind. The more exclusive part is towards the harbour – ”the golden mile” – but we went in the other direction and turned up a sidestreet towards the Ladies Market, a street market that was supposed to contain everything a woman could want. Don’t know about that… Lots of junk, and an awful lot of people. I couldn’t take it for very long, and made my way slowly back to the hotel to get a rest before our last dinner together.

The dinner took place at a food market close to the hotel, a banquet meal in a decent restaurant would be very expensive in Hong Kong.  The food market is a rather large area in what can best be described as a shed. Here there are plenty of round tables and chairs, placed around, and then there are food stalls/kitchens where you can order your food. These kitchens have food on display; tiny pigs, several kinds of meat and intestines. Fish and other types of seafood are swimming around in white boxes of polystyrene. Fans in the ceiling, with no noticeable effect. Sweaty men with dirty T-shirts rolled up under their arms. We placed two tables together, Kath ordered the food. This time she among other things ordered frog, without saying anything. I couldn’t quite stomach it. The food was fine, and it was a very nice meal. Peter turned 40 the next day, so it was not only a farewell dinner but also sort of a celebration for him. We gave him a happy-birthday picture which we all had signed, and Kath had had a name chop made for him, saying ”pants-down”, the nickname John had given him early on (after having walked in on him all naked in his hotel room). So we had a few laughs, the birthday song was sung, pictures were taken etc. All to the amusement/bemusement of the guys who worked there and the other guests. I heard the next day that Steve had asked for the toilet, and was shown to a hole in the ground just behind the refrigerator. While he was standing there a couple of rats walked by. I am glad I didn’t find that out when I was eating. By the way, someone had seen on the news that a boat had sunk on the Yangtze the day after we were there, and more than 100 people had been killed. That is just so awful! It seems strange that so many died when you think how narrow the river is, but I remember how strong the undercurrents looked. And maybe it happened fast, or at night.

After dinner we went to the Temple Street night market. The market stretches along almost the whole street, it is huge. Small flags in all colours are hanging across the street between the houses on each side. Here you can find all kind of souvenirs, not to mention rip off products of all the famous brands. This was without a doubt a much better market than the one we had visited earlier in the day. But even though I had been sorry to have only one extra day in Hong Kong, at the end of the day I figured it wasn’t so bad after all.