The main purpose of this trip is to attend the 50th
high school reunion. When I was growing
up the Hong Kong education system followed that of the British: Ordinary Level
was for those who completed Form 5 (Grade 11), and for me that was 1969.
Over the years I have kept in touch with perhaps a
handful of my old classmates. Two of
them also went to Cornell (we all started in Engineering), and recently I have
attended some functions with other classmates from that time. Out of a class of about 160, about 40 would
be attending this reunion.
In the last several months Hong Kong has been in the grip
of ever-escalating violent protests. For
my last trip in early October, I remarked that for a visitor trouble spots were
easy to avoid. Things seem to have
gotten worse, with universities being new battlegrounds. I did entertain cancelling the trip (and my
classmate Howard did), but at the end decided to go.
Monday 11/18. United offers its 1K members free enrollment
in CLEAR, which I accepted. Most of the
application was done on the web about a week ago, but I still had to get my
documents and my biometrics scanned at Newark, a new site for CLEAR. I got to the terminal at about 1 pm, and
after checking in luggage (carrying some wine for Tim) went to the enrollment
center, which consisted of an agent and two terminals. There were a couple of people before me, so I
had to wait about 10 minutes. The
terminal had trouble scanning my fingerprints, but the process was still rather
straightforward. I had pre-check today,
and the line was short, so I could have saved some time walking straight to
security. Let’s hope it proves its worth
on subsequent trips. As it was, that
gave me only a few minutes to get some water at the United Lounge, and I
grabbed a couple of cookies also.
UA 179 (about halfway into flight as I type this) left on
time, and had a light load. The
777-300ER economy has a 3-4-3 configuration and was brutal the one time I was
in it. Today I have the entire row, so
really no complaints. The seats across
the aisle are occupied by a young couple and their young child, who has been
crying loudly quite a bit, so every now and then one of the parents would sit
in my row; I am okay with that. UA 179
leaves at 2:20 pm during the winter, so lunch was served quite early. I didn’t have lunch, so even with eating the
cookies early into the flight, I still appreciated the early meal service.
Simple lunch on UA179 was much appreciated. I was hungry.
I decided to purchase WiFi service. It was working okay until we reached
Greenland, service was sporadic since then (only occasional short periods of
connectivity). Now we are over Russia,
service seems to have come back.
Tuesday 11/19. Tim had a broadcast session until 9 pm, and
my flight arrived early at around 6:30 pm, so I stayed in the airport to have
dinner before heading to Causeway Bay. I
enquired about the Airport Express ticket I couldn’t use last time because the
trains were not running. I was told the
ticket would remain valid for a while.
Taxis were plentiful at the HK station, and traffic was
very light.
Accommodations: CWB Apartment (6 nights).
Wednesday 11/20. The next few days would be simply
meals/coffee with various people. For
today: Breakfast with Alfred at Canteen Admiralty Center; Lunch with Kenneth at
BoA Building Japanese Fast Food; Dinner at SCAC new roast goose restaurant with
Whitney and Tim.
Half a roast goose at the Kamcentre Restaurant at South China Athletic Association. The three of us managed to finish this - and a couple of other dishes - off.
Thursday 11/21. Lunch with Joe T at The Cottage Gastropub in
Sheung Wan; Dinner with Tim in CWB apartment.
Afterwards I wandered the streets of CWB for a little over an hour as
Tim did his broadcast from the apartment.
Friday 11/22. Lunch with Larry at HK Club. Dinner was a reunion event, held at India
Recreation Club, a 5-minute walk from the apartment. Nonetheless Tim wanted to give me a ride in
his (relatively) new car. Quite a few
people showed up at this event, I remembered many of the names but not the
specifics.
The India Recreation Club is a short walk from where I am staying. Never knew it was there until this trip.
Saturday 11/23. Today’s reunion event was held at the
school. A student led us on a one-hour
tour before we had lunch in the new canteen.
This supposedly school lunch was much better than what we used to have
as a student. I was at the school about
five years ago, so things hadn’t changed that much. The notable additions since we graduated were
two new buildings, one for the performing arts with a large auditorium, and one
for the IB program. A classmate drove us
to the HK side, tunnel traffic was slow because the Hunghom Tunnel was still
under repair.
Mongkok was a battleground the last few weeks, and
several traffic lights along Argyle Street were not working, which made driving
difficult at intersections, and crossing the street downright dangerous. Hong Kong people are known to honk readily if
traffic is slow, but there was surprising restraint today.
Because of security concerns, the only way onto school grounds was via the driveway.
The student guide was leading a tour of the school grounds. A couple of new buildings have gone up since I left: Performance Arts Building and the IB Building.
Assemblies were held in the auditorium which seats over 1000.
Our school is also celebrating its 150 anniversary.
The bell that marked the beginning of class every day is still around today.
I was a scout for several years, and spent many Saturday mornings doing what these young people do: setting up tents and building various structures.
Photo with current Scoutmaster Kevin. I was an instructor in the troop.
One of a kind Lego set to celebrate the school's anniversary.
We had a "nostalgic" lunch at school. Lunch wasn't anything like this when we were students.
One of four tables.
Attended the 5 pm Kong Fok Church English Service where
Joe T’s brother James works. His sermon
was on the Holy Spirit. Had a simple
dinner with them and another two couples at a nearby noodle restaurant. After I got back to Causeway Bay I also got a
snack in Hysan Place. Admiralty was
pretty quiet when I left, but CWB was bustling with pedestrians. Either the “calm” (if you call lots of people
calm) before the storm, or people just wanted to get out after being kept
indoors for a while. Tomorrow is
District Council election, and no one seems to know for sure how things would
turn out.
Selfie with Joe T of Hope HK after the Kong Fok service.
Sunday 11/24. Today was election day when district voters
elect 452 councilors. Tim came by to
pick me up to go to Pinecrest, and we walked down from there to the Seaview
Promenade and took the “walla walla” to the ABC Middle Island location. I went this way quite often when I lived in
Hong Kong in the early 1990s. The
clubhouse was entirely rebuilt after the destruction by Typhoon Mangkhut last
year. We had lunch there and then went
to Lamma Island where we walked from Sok Kwu Wan to Yung Shue Wan, a distance
of about 5 km (4.7 per Google Maps).
There we met up with some friends of Tim’s and reboarded the boat to
Deep Water Bay where Tim played with the DJI Spark drone. While the controls were quite
straightforward, the wind conditions made for some tense moments.
Many sailboats on the horizon.
A solar powered boat moored at Deep Water Bay.
We then walked back up to Pinecrest and I was dropped off
at the CWB apartment.
Tonight’s reunion dinner was at Dynasty Club in
Wanchai. A couple of teachers from our
“era” were invited, as was the headmaster.
Neither teacher taught a class I attended. I did catch up with a few more classmates
whom I hadn’t seen for a while. The
streets were quiet. Voting ended at 10
pm, so no one knew what the results were to be.
Of course there were accusations of voter interference from both sides.
Someone brought along an old copy of STEPS magazine. My class.
Group photo at the Dynasty Club.
Monday 11/25. I woke up a bit earlier than usual, and from
all I could tell things were quiet.
There were already hints that the pro-democracy folks were winning big. (They ended up with about 80% of the seats in
this winners-take-all system; the popular vote was around 60%.) I Uber’ed and then took the Airport Express,
getting to the airport at around 9 am.
Both Plaza Premium Lounges had long lines waiting to get in, so I used
the United Club facilities instead.
I had an empty seat next to me, but still didn’t manage
much sleep. The plane landed an hour
early, and I got home before Anne.
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