On Sunday, November 30, 2003 7:38 PM, Reef Fish wrote:

(snip)
> >I have never crawled back to the Peninsula Hotel.  I've always been
driven
> >back in one of their Rolls-Royce limousines! :-))

> Actually it would have been hard to crawl back to the Peninsula Hotel
> (in Kowloon) from Wan-Chai (in Hong Kong) unless you do the Australian
> Crawl across the harbor which would be a supreme challenge for a
> legless fella.

Mate!  In my earlier days just crawling back to the dockyard was so dfficult
that I invariably used to doss down in the China Fleet Club, ("Built by men
of the Royal Navy, for men of the Royal Navy").  Even that, in those days
and before the land reclamation, used to be on the waterfront.  The main bar
was a classic - tiles and sawdust on the floor to mop up the blood and beer!
The only hotels on the island worth mentioning were the Hilton and the
Mandarin - also just a stone's throw from the dockyard.  (We used to hold
races from the bar on the top floor of the Mandarin to the - then - 'Eagle's
Nest' on the top floor of the Hilton and back again; with the loser paying
for the drinks!) :-)

(Sadly, the China Fleet Club is no more!  It upgraded itself periodically
into the 'Nineties - and offered accommodation to former RN personnel and
their families that was a quarter the price of a similar standard elsewhere.
I never stayed there again!  But I did take Sylvia in to the place once,
when we were staying at the Mandarin, just to show her that piece of (my?)
history.  One of the then three bars was named after one of my old ships -
the Chichester.  Apart from ourselves and a few friends, it was empty.  But
the juke-box in one of the other bars could still be heard distinctly - and
still seemed to have the same record selection!  Sailors (Brits, Yanks and
Ozzies) were still playing,  "King of the Road", "The Man Who Shot Liberty
Valance", and, "All Along the Watchtower".  We all immediately removed
ourselves to the main bar and had a great evening!)  :-)))

Getting back from Kowloon - and beyond - always meant a trip on the Star
Ferry.  (Which used to take longer then, 'cause the straits were wider!)
:-)

With the tunnel between the island and Kowloon - that opened some time in
the early '70's -  getting "home" to the hotel was made so much easier!
:-))

> We were in Wan-Chai this afternoon en route to Time Square (Hong Kong's
> version, created about 10 years ago, fashioned after the Broadway
> Time Square in Manhattan, NY).  Hong Kong has changed so much since
> my youth days that I took the tram going the wrong direction trying to
> come back to the hotel.

It's changed since my youth, too - and I always get lost!  :-)))

>Even Sue knew we were going the wrong way by
> the time the surrounding landmarks were screaming that we were heading
> somewhere we had never seen before.  :-)   Fortunately, HK trams are
> still probably the cheapest public transportation in the world:  HK$2
> (less than 25 US cents) each ride whether it's one stop or 10 miles.

I still have an old tram ticket among my souvenirs of good memories and days
gone by.  :-)

> >Have a great time in HK - and definitely don't do anything that I might!
> >:-))

> Don't think you would go to a restaurant whose menu is the aquarium
> containing the fishes and crusteans to be picked out to be cooked for
> the dinner table.  :-)   That's where we'll be this evening -- a
> restaurant picked by my brother and mother for me to take them to
> dinner.  I might turn cannibal tonight!  :)

I had my first bowl of shark fin soup in HK - and I still have a photograph
of one of my mates holding up the live turtle that we later ate!  Aberdeen,
and its Floating Restaurants, wasn't a tourist attraction then, it was a
place that you went to for good food.  I know that atttitudes have since
changed, but it's still a place that has good memories of an age of -
comparative - innocence!  (Despite what some of us were doing elsewhere in
the region!)  :-(

Today, of course, there's always the risk that - in your case - turning
"cannibal" <bwg> means dealing with traces of cyanide from the groupers
brought in from, say, Indonesian waters!  Nevertheless, I'd love to visit
there again with you one day and compare notes about our respective
youths' - it'd be fun - and who knows, I might even persuade you to get at
tattoo!  :-)))

Have a good time, Mate.  :-)

Strike