It has been nearly two months since I last posted. A lot of life has changed; a lot of things have happened, a lot is going on. However, I need to finish up my China/Hong Kong trip recap…
I awoke after a short and fitful sleep to this view out of my hotel room window.
1 star view
I had about two hours to wait before we were supposed to leave and about 30 minutes until breakfast started. ok, I’ll just hang in my room. I did not take a shower. The shower stall was way too dark for that (one dim light in the ceiling and a stone floor surrounded by black glass? sexy). Instead I amused myself with looking at the snack bar offerings.
Is that Dried Tunip I see?
I had a free breakfast buffet coupon (two, actually, though I’m not sure why) and, so, at the prescribed time I went downstairs to the third floor to try my luck. Breakfast, as a rule, is pretty accessible. I have eaten many a Chinese buffet breakfast: there’s usually fruit, noodles, jook (mmmmmmm…) and some sort of deep-fried thing. This was also going to be better than the meals of the previous day because I could control what I put onto my plate. I arrived at the third floor, hungry and full of optimism!
I walked in to the buffet breakfast room and every Chinese businessman’s head swiveled toward me. If there had been music, it would have stopped. I took a survey of the area. Straight ahead was the stack of plates to start the buffet line. They were sitting on a table that was covered with what used to be a pink, floor-length cloth. To the right of that, along the wall, were the hot plates, chafing dishes, bowls and the random steam carts of breakfast. In the middle of the room were about 20 tables with seats for 8 people at each. These tables were also covered by formerly pink, floor-length tablecloths. There was also a world-class sound system, stage and lights in the non-lit half of the room. It seems that preceding a night of debauchery the local swells like to sing a bit of karaoke. The fact that half of the room was not lit gave the whole scene an ominous look; I couldn’t tell who might be lurking in the shadows. If there were going to be lurkers, they would be here. It felt like I had wandered into a David Lynch movie in one of the bad scenes. I approached the stack of plates, found one that didn’t have bits of things clinging to it and moved to the right. The room was silent and the man half-way down the buffet line simply stopped what he was doing and stared at me.
Just a couple of tasty close-ups of the “sex bar” offerings…
Use after unclean sex contact.
Eliminate Strange Odor.
First was a case of ice cream with access from the back and no-one behind it. Nope. Next was a table with wafer-thin slices of watermelon triangles on a large platter. I took three pieces with the provided toothpicks. Next was jook. What’s jook, you ask? Imagine a large pot of water. Now add a handful of white rice. Cook that until the rice has disintegrated into mostly nothingness and your water is sort of opaque and stringy. Now add “1000 year old eggs” cut into pieces, bits of mystery meat, maybe a veggie or two and you’ve got yourself some breakfast. (I have had jook before and it’s not that bad. This stuff, though, looked bad.) It was quite popular as evidenced by the large puddles of it on the tablecloth. Someone before me had served himself by taking the ladle to the stack of bowls (instead of bringing the bowl to the ladle) and had gotten a quite a bit of it down the side of all the dishes. I moved on. Next was a table of the non-jook things. First was hard-boiled eggs; I added one to my plate. Next was sausage links; very Western and greenish-grey. Nope. Next was an empty dish with a placard next to it that it was “three meat noodle”. I tried to think what the three meats might be and failed. Next was a dish called scrambled eggs that resembled a lumpy mass resting in some yellowish water. Nope. At the end of the table was an old steam cart with two types of dim sum; I took one of each and realized that I had reached the end of the food. I looked back down the line of tables and dishes. I looked at the sad watermelon, hard-boiled egg and two little dim-sum dumplings on my plate. Did I miss something? Evidently not… I found an empty table and sat down. Where was the tea? I could find dented steel coffee pots with cold, greasy coffee and jugs of soya milk but no tea. Yikes; this is China. How could they not have tea? Other people had tea. I didn’t want to investigate and get grabbed by a lurker.
I still held the interest of most of the restaurant and decided that the best thing would be to eat and scoot. The hard-boiled egg had a green yolk. The dim sum tasted funny, the watermelon disappeared on my tongue when I tried to eat it. Oh well, at least I can leave; oops two people from dinner last night sat down at my table. More talk in a language I don’t understand. Cool! I asked one of them where the tea was. He brought me a chipped pot and a coffee mug full of tea. I thanked him, drank it and tried not to think about it.
I spent a lot of time looking at the clock and left the table with 20 minutes to spare before we were all supposed to meet in the lobby. The walk back to my room was interesting – I could see that someone has spit down the front of the standing ashtray, I hear a man throwing up (think cartoon sounds and you’ll get a sense of it) and finally decipher the mystery of the three switches in my room.
Ashtray. Poor aim.
I couldn’t figure out what these switches were for. I pushed them and nothing seemed to happen.
I realized no one else knew what they were for either. Most of the rooms had all three lights lit.
I get down to the lobby and find everyone waiting for me as I am late by 2 minutes. Ok! Let’s go!
We drove to the next factory and I worked until noon, which was when I was picked up by another factory owner and his representatives who took me to lunch. The owner didn’t speak english well and so the meal was spent with lots of translating and big smiles and more food being put onto my plate. There was a giant beef shank thing, deep-fried fish, more fatty pork wrapped in lettuce, some tough greens… Again, I didn’t eat much – I was getting used to this…
This is like a roadside stand of carved stone. They aren’t too worried about theft.
At the factory we worked until 4:30 and then left to go to the airport. I was traveling back to Hong Kong with two other people and the flight was full. Luckily (for me) my flights had been booked so late by my company that there were only first class seats left. Darn! We got to use the lounge (which was stocked with tea, beer, wine and all sorts of Chinese packaged snacks). I was so hungry at that point that I had no appetite. I contented myself with a cup of tea although what I wanted was a beer. A lot of beer.
Our flight was announced and the three of us left to go board. The boarding area was incredibly crowded – I was thankful that we had been able to wait in the lounge. An announcement was made: the plane was late by 20 minutes. Ok; fine. I wandered over to a shop as an excuse to do anything except stand awkwardly with two Chinese people who were intent on entertaining me. Did I want anything? No, thanks, I just like to look. Look at this stuffed panda bear! Look at this necklace! Look at this crystal Hello Kitty! Do I want it? No, thank you. I would buy it for you. No, really, I just like to look at sparkly things that other people spend money on…
Giant slabs of stone. These are going to be someone’s countertops…
I’m ever so tired and I know that I have a 1.5 hour flight, a 45 minute taxi ride and a recap to write before I can sleep. I am trying not to be terribly cranky.
There is another announcement made: the airplane actually hasn’t left the place it’s coming from and so it will be over an hour. I scream internally and then ask my companions if they would like to try to get back into the lounge. We try. They are let in easily because they are frequent fliers. I am also a frequent flier club member but I am also a first class ticket holder which I feel should mean even more. I tell the gatekeeper girls that they already have my admittance ticket to the lounge. They eye me suspiciously. I have had it up to my eyeballs with this sort of thing and I give them a death stare. They let me in which was the sensible thing to do because my inner two-year-old was about to come out and was looking for an Excuse To Make A Scene.
We wait in the lounge. I have another cup of tea and think of the amazing meal I’m going to have when I get back to Hong Kong. I try my luck with the free WiFi but my phone is dead. My iPad is also dead and, as we all know, I had no China plug. Instead of expending my energy finding something that would work I pull out my work Blackberry (how many electronics can one little girl have? All of them, that’s how many). This was a big mistake as about 300 emails suddenly downloaded. I put the Blackberry away and stared blankly off into space. My computer was also dead. I should have been working on my recap but my brain had completely checked out.
The plane finally arrived and we boarded an hour after we were supposed to have landed in Hong Kong. As soon as I sat down I ordered a glass of champagne and relaxed for the first time in a day and a half. I nodded off as soon as we were airborne and woke up when they started to serve the meal. Here’s the funny thing: I hadn’t eaten much of anything for the past two days but I refused the airline meal because I didn’t want to ruin my appetite. What?
I ordered another glass of champagne and to my great happiness, found that the seats had little plugs in them for computers and such. Hooray! I started on my recap; the champagne was definitely helping. The Australian man next to me was talking about the deals he had cut on this trip and generally how awesome he was (to no one in particular). Whatever. I concentrated on uploading the pictures I had taken at the factory that would be included with my recap. My iPhone was being charged by my computer which was, in turn, being charged by the magical electrical airplane seat. I felt content and optimistic that life would be ok after all.
We landed in Hong Kong and, since there were no gates available, we had to disembark on a hard stand (basically a rolling staircase) and ride busses to the terminal. My heart sunk; it was already 9:45. They released the swells first (meaning me and my first class compatriots). My two travel partners were somewhere in the back. It’s ok – we’ll meet up in the terminal. I took the long, long walk to the customs/immigration area and I realized that there were very few other passengers in the lines. I could zip through; I sent an instant message on my Blackberry letting my people know that I would meet them on the other side of customs. It took me about 2 minutes to get through immigration (yes, this is my picture in my passport) and 1 minute to get through customs. I waited at the other side of the security door. I knew they both had checked luggage. It was 10:00. I was antsy and hungry and two glasses of champagne were helping me to think very clearly. I turned and went to the taxi stand, got into a taxi and left a voicemail on the only phone number I had for my travel partners. Half way there I realized two things: 1) my taxi driver was fearless, reckless and was determined to be the fastest car on the road. 2) this could go very badly. What if they waited around for me and never got the voicemail? I started e-mailing from my Blackberry in a mild state of panic, heightened by the fear that I was going to die in this taxi when it went careening off a bridge…
All’s well that ends well – I made it back to the hotel safely. They figured out what had happened and left the airport after seeing I wasn’t waiting in the terminal (the Blackberry with the voicemail on it was dead). I made it up to my room, ordered room service, and began writing a behemoth recap. My meal arrived and I gratefully ate all of it though I was really too tired to enjoy it. At 1:30 I sent my recap, took a shower and was in bed by 2. It was nice to be back.
Saturday morning I met my people at 8:00 and we drove 4 hours north to visit our last factory. We had to cross the border and I had to confirm, yet again, that this was my passport and picture.
Look closely – there’s a giant horse and rider on top of that mountain. He is an ancient warrior and his weapon is pointing at Taiwan. Apparently there’s also a nuclear facility around there. I asked if the missiles were pointing at Taiwan, too. Everyone thought me very clever.
We arrived at noon, just in time for lunch… Please no! This lunch was in a very fancy private room in a swank hotel. They even had diamonds on the walls. However, there were no towels in the bathroom when I went in to wash my hands… Sigh.
The walls were quilted with vinyl and diamonds.
More stuff that looks like something I don’t want to eat. There was a “teriyaki” dish (their word, not mine) and when I tried it the meat was tough, stringy and sweet. There was a soup that smelled really bad (smell is bad, taste is good! No thanks!), some dumpling type thing, charred pieces of fat on a skewer, fish with it’s eyeballs popping out, more fatty pork in lettuce, some sort of bun thing… I claim jet lag and eat very little.
The most distracting thing about this lunch was that there was a large-screen TV on silent showing a variety of shows. When we arrived it was the story of the recent thousand-year-old year old egg scandal. Apparently, instead of curing the eggs for the prescribed length of time (it’s not 1,000 years, I know that much) there is a company that used a copper compound to turn the eggs green and makes them look authentic. The newscaster had real and fake eggs and she gave us sure-fire ways to determine if we were about to eat a good one or a bad one (the number of black spots that look like mold is a dead give-away. The more black spots the better it is. I find this hard to believe but who am I?). Later, when we’re having lunch, there’s some sort of talent show with a well-coiffed, tuxedo-wearing male Chinese singer. He has three very distinguished, English looking back-up singers; a grey-haired man, a woman and a younger man. They are all doing synchronized arm movements while the main singer sings; sometimes he joins in. The back-up singers faces are deadpan while they wave their arms above their heads. The singer is seducing the camera with come-hither looks. It’s fascinating.
We go, at last, to the factory and I take a tour and look at the two things they are producing for us. Two? Other factories have had 10-12… I am impressed by the facility but my company is small potatoes to them; they’re not interested in our business. I wonder why I’m here and what the point is. I am cold, wearing a sweater, but the factory manager is sweating through his shirt. By the end of the tour his shoulders are more dry than the rest of him but that’s fixed as soon as we get back outside in the monsoon that has started. I am tired – it’s all I can do to finish up the tiny bit of work that needed to be done.
I was fascinated by all the building that is going on in the countryside. These massive structures are everywhere. It seems that China is working on a relocation program where farmers and peasants will be moved to these high-rise apartments. I’m not sure that’s going to work out.
Some had seen better days.
Finally, we leave. We head back to Hong Kong, cross the border and arrive an hour earlier than expected. The driver had outdistanced the rain and was making the most of it. I’m sure he was irritated that his Saturday was being spent driving around China. This hour was an unexpected gift as I finished up my last recap very quickly (I had been working on it in the car on the way back)! I went down to the lobby and used my second “free drink” coupon on a glass of wine while I watched the 8:00 light show in Victoria Harbor. What to do for dinner? I looked at the lobby menu. I really didn’t want a club sandwich or french fries, I wanted food; Good Food.
Spoon by Alain Ducasse is one of three Michelin-starred restaurants in the Intercontinental Hotel. It was to Spoon that I went and I made up for the past gastronomic abstinence with total gluttony… First: a litchi martini. Then, bottle of sparkling water (because, well, why not?) then the chef sent out three different types of appetizers. I was pretty much done after the appetizers but I thought it would be pretty stinky to just say “thanks for the free food!” and split. So, I ordered a pasta dish and a glass of wine. After that I looked at the dessert menu just to be polite. I was quite stuffed so I just ordered a glass of desert wine (because, well, why not?) and then the chef sent out cherry sorbet and some sort of cherry pastry since it was cherry season. Oh yes, and home made marshmallows, chocolates and macaroons. I couldn’t help but eat it. I felt it would be rude to let it go unappreciated. The chocolates and macaroons were packaged up for me in a delightful box to go. I was full of food and alcohol by the time I left. It was lovely!
home made marshmallows, chocolate covered cherries, and some of the macaroons.
I lost 3 lbs in China and I’m pretty sure that meal more than made them up. Moral of the story: eat at Spoon.
I got up at 5:30 on Sunday morning to be at the airport by 7:00. I had booked a car from the hotel to take me there because I didn’t want to deal with a taxi (one death-defying taxi ride was enough for this trip). Also, I felt that between the sex hotel, delayed flights, and missing my entire weekend I shouldn’t have to wrangle with a taxi cab at 6:15 in the morning. The car was there, waiting. It was lovely.
Check in was fine, customs was fine, immigration was the standard question with the standard answer (yes, this is really me) and I had two hours to spare before my flight. I went to the Cathay lounge and had a lovely breakfast of a giant plate of noodles, some tea, some sparkling water, more tea, more noodles, some dim sum and a cappuccino. I was even able to iChat with my Better Half and his family on the other side of the world. Technology is amazing.
The flight home was great. I slept most of the way, watched some movies, slept more, ate a little, and landed in Gotham just a few hours after I left. It really is remarkable to fly half way around the world in only 14 hours.
Thus ends my China trip saga. I am now in a situation where I probably won’t travel to China (unless it’s on my own dime) so goodbye, lovely Intercontinental Hotel!
On the flip side… goodbye, other people who make my schedules, encourage me to eat things I don’t want to and usher me around like I have never been outside The Compound.
Goodbye, bosses who are never happy.
Goodbye, unrealistic expectations.
Goodbye, anxiety.
Hello, New Chapter.
Bryant Park. Because, well, why not?
little girl in Gotham 