Story and Photos by Skip Kaltenheuser
Hong Kong was always a favorite city, one that offered multiple adventures and my first close-up view of a great mix of East and West.
In the last offering in this Traveling Boy group effort, https://travelingboy.com/travel/favorite-airports-of-our-past/, I described one of my earlier landings in the city, via the old Kai Tak Airport, a legend of passenger terror.
But Kai Tak is long gone now, replaced in 1998 by Kong Kong International Airport on Chen Lap Kok Island in Lantau.
The handover of Hong Kong from British colonial rule to Chinese sovereignty, after 156 years of British rule that began after the first Opium War, was completed the prior year.
I had not been to Hong Kong since several years prior to the transfer, a second honeymoon of sorts, with a still relatively new bride.
An opportunity to again darken the door of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club on Hong Kong Island recently presented itself.
It was one of the few bright spots in a cascading travel hell. I left Washington, DC on January 24th, heading to the ASEAN Travel Conference on Cebu Island in the Philippines. The trip, with short layovers, was 25 hours long. That seemed onerous, particularly in today’s Economy Class.
That was nothing.
No short story, but with record winter storms, cancelled flights, plane malfunctions like a wing flap not working, etc., I landed in Cebu, mostly sleepless, on the 29th. That included two frozen days in Boston, fortunately at a hotel, after which another blizzard came in and my flight was again cancelled just as I got to the gate. Not wanting to be snowed in again, which would have deep-sixed my trip, I pleaded with an experienced old hand agent to get me into the air. He put me on the last plane out, at midnight, on Qatar Airways. After two hours of deicing it finally departed, slowly down the snowy runway for what seemed a very long time and then, with ample suspense, lifted off on the way to Doha. After a long sleepless night in Doha’s admittedly striking airport, I flew to Hong Kong. How best to survive a long layover there?
An old buddy, a longtime journalist in Hong Kong, met me at the airport and, as I had reciprocity with Hong Kong’s press club, we enjoyed dinner and drinks there until the club shut down, chatting away with the eclectic crowd that club always attracted, including criminal barristers and people involved in ocean freight, and diminishing journalists.
The last time I was in the club was New Year’s Eve to usher in 1993. Just before midnight, my wife and I had just returned to the club from the Lan Kwai Fong district located a ways down the hill from the club. The New Year’s Eve crowd was huge, shoulder to shoulder in the bars. The crowds gave us a bad feeling and we retreated up the hill to the club for the countdown.
Lucky break for us. Just before midnight the crowd of twenty or so thousand stampeded out of the district’s plentiful bars to cheer in the new year. Many rushed onto a narrow cobblestone street we had just walked up. There were ample spilled drinks mixing with string in a can and foam on a very steep grade. Revelers started sliding down, and panicked. People fell down and were trampled. At the bottom of the mayhem, bodies piled on bodies. Twenty people were crushed to death and scores injured.
Avoid large places, keep to small, the lesson of a Japanese folk tale, The Boy Who Drew Cats, came to mind.
But most memories of Hong Kong were far happier than that tragedy. They included the gone and sorely missed old Hong Kong Hilton, which before sunrise would put guests in a antique Bentley or antique Rolls and drop them halfway up the mountain, letting the joggers get acquainted with the island as they found their way back as the city and harbor below came to life. I’d missed Hong Kong and was thrilled to be back, catching a second wind that travel excitement can bring.
Enjoying the balmy air, we did a long walkabout on Hong Kong island. It was the first chance I had to try out a wide angle lens that arrived just before I left DC. Glad I kept my main camera with me when traveling, as the airlines lost my suitcase for another eight days, damaging it to boot. By the time it caught up to me on the island of Bohol (Philippines) my clothes were carrying me around.
The enclosed snaps are of urban landscapes that caught my eye as we walked to Hong Kong’s Star Ferry, and a couple from the subway as I made my way back to the airport. Throughout my trip in the Philippines the 9mm F2.8 APS-C prime lens by Viltrox prove to be a lot of fun, well worth the 200 beans it cost.
Pictures from Cebu Airport, Philippines
