Hong Kong
22 March 2026
This’ll be a long one. Sorry.
We arrived in Hong Kong okay, and we DO have Internet, it’s just really slow, like an old “dial up” connection. We signed up for an evening tour and light show in Hong Kong. Two busloads of us left the ship at 5 p.m. for downtown. China drives on the right, like a proper country, but Hong Kong still drives on the left, a gift remaining from their days as a British colony, 1841 to 1997.
The bus set us off onto crowded city sidewalks and we were led by our local guide to a restaurant on a high floor of a skyscraper. I quickly noticed that, contrary to the stereotype, most of the younger locals in Hong Kong are about as tall as we Westerners.
The meal took me back nearly 30 years, to my 3-weeks spent in China on a University of Arkansas Alumni Assn. tour. Our table was set with 2 sets of chopsticks, one set brown and one black. We decided 1 set was for moving food from the family-style dishes to our plates, and the other set was for eating the food, with the color coding to help us keep things in order. Luckily, we also each had a knife and fork. If I had to eat with just chopsticks, I’d be skin and bones. Hmm, maybe that wouldn’t be a bad idea. There were no napkins on the table, but each person had an inadequate “moist towelette” packet.
I had forgotten how their restaurants often feature large round tables with a huge “lazy Susan,” a turntable (rotating tray), in the center of the table. They bring the food out, one dish at a time, each dish in a big bowl, family-style, put it on the turntable, and everybody grabs some as one person slowly turns the table and the food passes by. Let the germ sharing begin, because everybody uses the same spoons in each dish to fill their plate, and if someone happens to have a communicable disease on their hands, each person after them uses their spoon and now likely has the disease.
Also, and I watch these things, almost everybody serves themself “seconds” by taking the spoon of food from the bowl and tapping the spoon on their dirty plate, the plate they’ve already been eating off of for 20 minutes, then they put that now-dirty spoon back into the community cesspool for others to share.
Some, well, most, call me obsessed with germs, but, back in my dental school days, I watched a video (well, back then it would have been a reel-to-reel movie, not a video) where they had a group of people sharing a meal family-style. Before the meal began, they rubbed one person’s hands with a clear liquid that’s only visible under a “blacklight”. The group proceeded to eat their meal, then they brought out the UV light and everybody at the table was glowing. The “germs” were on every hand at the table, and every face. No matter how hard we try, all people eventually touch their face, and that’s how most viruses infect us. OK, enough of that. I’ll just sit here in my stateroom and wait for the symptoms to develop…
After the meal, with the delicious Peking Duck devoured, we walked to the nearby Peninsula Hotel, which the guide said is the oldest in town, over 100 years old. He used “over 100 years old” about several things he pointed out, like we’d think that’s really old. The hotel looked a lot like the Peabody Hotel in Memphis (over 150 years old). The Peabody lobby is more beautiful, but the Peninsula Hotel lobby was about twice as big. I was more impressed by the Rolls Royce and Bentley automobiles parked out front.
From the hotel we crossed the street to the large Cultural Center, with cinemas as well as halls for live performances, then went outside to see the 8 p.m. city light show. As music played from speakers, the high-rise office buildings a half-mile across the harbor lit up with quite a colored light show, with laser beams moving atop the buildings, timed to the beat of the music. It was OK, but the dancing waters fountain show at Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas is a lot more impressive to me.
Our evening ended with a bus ride to “the night market,” with about 1000 street booths set up, open only from sundown to 11 p.m., selling about a billion different items made in China. Since we didn’t have any local money, we didn’t make any purchases, not that I’d have made any purchase anyway. The Bowlins and I walked a couple of blocks of it then headed back to the bus to wait on the others to also not spend any money. David told the bus driver, “You’re a good driver!” Then I pointed out to David the sign above the driver that says, “It is a violation of the law to talk to the bus driver.” Poor David. Now he’s an outlaw like I am.
Unlike the other harbors we’ve visited, I saw very few pleasure craft in the Hong Kong harbor, in a city of 7.5 million. Few sailboats, no jet skis, no fishing boats. I did see a couple of rowing crews, but nothing like the crowded harbors of much smaller cities we’ve seen on the rest of the trip. Just a few nearly-empty passenger ferries carrying people from one side of the harbor to the other, and working vessels such as oil tankers and tug boats pushing barges.
There was traffic moving on the 8-lane highway across the harbor, but the vehicles are few and far between. It’s noticeable that they all move at the same speed. I’ve not seen a single car pass another on the highway. I’d guess that speeding is frowned upon here, and conformity is smiled upon.
After our evening walking the streets of downtown Hong Kong, I can say that, unlike the other places we’ve visited, there were two noticeable differences in Hong Kong. I never once heard a police siren or saw blue lights, and, with wall-to-wall people in the streets everywhere, I never saw a single policeman or police car. Apparently, they’re not needed. Our guide did, however, warn us to protect our stuff against pickpockets, but he said there’s no danger of more severe crime, like robbery, muggings, or worse.
Note: there’s a second page, below, of Hong Kong images to see…
Note: there’s a second page, above, of Hong Kong images to see…
Today most of our Kiwi and Aussie (New Zealander and Australian) folks left the boat and headed back to their home’s version of fall weather. I’ll miss their accents a lot. Fewer than half the guests on board signed on for the full world voyage. The majority just did a leg of the trip, like San Francisco to Tahiti or Sydney to Hong Kong, then flew back home.
I’ll post my Hong Kong photos, with captions, after we leave China and the full speed Internet returns to the ship! We decided to stay on the boat on our second day in Hong Kong, though a lot of people are going for a second day of city sights. This evening we sail on, headed for Vietnam, leaving behind the 7.5 million people of Hong Kong, who all eat with sticks.