Page 49 - Clarion February 2018

Clarion Clippings - The Far Eastern News
THE EDITOR TOOK A HOLIDAY than the first experience suggests and practice
shows it’s not hard at all. In fact, when I make a
My older son lives in Hong Kong, working in
the reinsurance industry and keeping in touch stir fry at home, I eat it with chopsticks. Later in
via Skype and email. He’s very generous to his the holiday I tried century egg, a traditional dish
old chap and once a year flies me out to see the of a quail’s egg buried so that it doesn’t rot, then
most distant branch of the tribe. The recent unearthed and served with a sliced vegetable. I
journey to cover the New Year. took a second helping……
Catching a cold that went to my asthmatic The weather was not warm, but one Sunday
chest had me coughing and wheezing before I was spent on Lammas Island and we covered
left and a call to the Medical Centre had me seen some miles around the tourist walk. Halfway
by a doctor and issued with a penicillin course round there was a very basic roadside stall
within an hour. Great service. Then off to offering pineapple slices, chopped smaller to suit
Heathrow and the welcoming arms of Cathay the children. On a welcoming beach was a sign
Pacific for an eleven hour flight. A reasonably telling swimmers to stay away from the shark
roomy seat, films galore and very little sleep. prevention net that kept them safe.
Iain and his older daughter Sophie, coming up
for four years old, met me at the airport and
soon we were in their apartment on Prince of
Wales Road in Kowloon. Elena and two year old
Holly were waiting; they share Christmas Day as
their birthdays and there was some unloading of
presents to do.
Moving around this group of islands is easy. I
was handed a swipe card for the MTR system, so
could travel on metro, bus or ferry without
parting with cash. A lot of the time was spent in
line with domestic life, as Iain was working and
I don’t know the city well enough to travel far
on my own, though the metro station signs are
in both Chinese and English, a throwback to the
time when it was a British colony. One journey
to visit a recommended tailor was fine, and I Holly, Iain, Sophie and Elena. Kowloon behind.
found myself the only westerner in the carriage In such a busy, cosmopolitan place as this you
more than once. can eat food from most countries and Mexican
The tailor was very welcoming and I now own takeaways were an evening favourite, with local
a made to measure green blazer for business or Japanese beer. The cool weather was a
wear, but the days of cheap clothes made in HK surprise and one night I had trouble getting off
are long gone. The blazer cost several times what to sleep because it was so cold. The final meal
I paid for a cashmere overcoat, also made to was Chinese, the next table occupied by eight
measure, in Shanghai eight years ago. men, with three bottles of red wine lined up and
Breakfast with two active young ladies can be a bottle of Glenlivet produced early in the
a slow process among the diversions at home. So evening. I was at the airport at 8.00 next
we got into a brunch habit at a traditional morning for a 9.40 flight home, sad to leave such
Chinese restaurant in the nearby Moko shopping good people.
mall, where there were the usual selection of big We landed at Heathrow at 1.15, which meant a
name brands to damage your wallet. The normal civilised arrival home until the signs on M25
drink is tea or warm water - cold drinks are announced the M40 was closed at Oxford. With
regarded as unhealthy - and the food is served a diversion up the crowded A40, it took six
on dishes with a spoon to transfer to your own hours to reach Cleobury. The irony was turning
small bowl, from which you delicately pick out off M40 in a long jam and after 20 minutes
with chopsticks. They are much easier to use hearing on the radio that M40 was open again.

Cleobury Clarion - Page !49 - February 2018