…..but it has taken awhile ! I now seem to have fully adjusted to the time change and am working on an almost full battery, or maybe three of my four cylinders ! I had a very enjoyable excursion to Stanley Market with a violinist colleague, and we relaxed with a drink on the waterfront enjoying the sun and sea breeze.
Stanley is named after Lord Stanley who was Colonial Secretary prior to the cessation of Hong Kong. After the annexation of Hong Kong in 1842, the British made Stanley the temporary administrative centre.
Present day Stanley was where the British and Canadian troops mounted a last stand during the Battle of Hong Kong. The survivors surrendered to Japanese forces in December 1941. The fort in Stanley which was previously British Army barracks is now occupied by the People’s Liberation Army following the handover to China in 1997. We decided we were probably being watched by some long range cyber binoculars, and we were also quite sure that the watchers would get very bored, very fast, as two aging ladies with about £25 between them might not make the greatest spy material.
Stanley is a very popular tourist venue and gets very busy so at 9.30am we left the hotel and got bus 260 from just opposite the hotel entrance and 45 minutes later we were enjoying the seaside atmosphere of this East meets West small town.
It was just as I remembered it, small vibrantly coloured alleyways full of market stalls and sellers enticing one in to see their wears with the call…’missy missy come in now’ ! We were, of course enticed, and spent some of our dollars on stuff we didn’t know we needed.
Then we sat in Busy Bees cafe and had decent coffee and tea, which I was served in a beautiful teapot and cup and saucer. The milk jug didn’t match, as clearly only the westerners use milk, thus completely ruining what is considered a national jewel of a drink…..Oops ! My teaspoon of milk felt like committing a faux pas at least, and a crime at worst !
The bus ride to Stanley is wild, and zigzags all the way. One holds on for dear life as the corners loom up every 100 metres, sort of a cheap rollercoaster with a driver whose daily fun is scaring the wits out of the unwary tourist. The most expensive apartments are on this side of Hong Kong Island, and we checked prices in the window of an estate agent. HK is the most expensive place to live in the world, so I am reliably told, thus you won’t be surprised to learn that a studio apartment in Stanley costs about £750,000 or $HK7,000,000. We thought we would have one each.
On another note ( ha ha) I got my instruction for tomorrow morning’s travel to Sha Tin in the New Territories. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the car goes at 8.15am. Almost civilised ! It was just as well that the note was posted under my door as the schedule has not yet been replaced by one which a normal human can actually read……so my plan was to go to the lobby for about 7.30 and hope for the best !
Well that’s it. Tomorrow I face a full week of head on, wall to wall, nose to tail singing. Wish me luck !
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