Thursday April 21, 2005

Hong Kong

I have been to Hong Kong three times now. I remember the first time very well. It was still then a British colony. HR Wallingford where I worked did a lot of business in Hong Kong. They even had a small office there. HR were selling some of their water modelling software to the Hong Kong government and part of the deal was a set of Sun machines and a AMT DAP used to run the software on. I remember knowing about this and attending a meeting to discuss progress. The project manager went over the schedule and said something like "Paul we have you down for one week in Hong Kong {date}. I was flabbergasted ! So off I went. It was my first long haul flight and first experience of business class in a Cathay Pacific jumbo. At that time Hong Kong was using the old airport Kai Tak . I remember on the approach seeing the building with a X on its roof which was said to be part of the approach guidance !

So I had a week in Hong Kong getting to know the island and spent time being shown around many of the sights. I went up on to the Peak the marketplaces and bars in Wanchai the old red light district. We also took a boat trip to the Cheung Chau island and walked around. My second visit was soon after this, again with HR.

On my last visit the island was now back in the hands of the Chinese and a new airport built away from the centre. There are some amazing bridges that take you back to the centre of Hong Kong. During this visit I walked from the island to the old airport. When I got there it was deserted except for a prefab building with loads of ice sculptures in it. Each celebrated the various Chinese new year symbols , dragon, Chicken etc. Very surreal feeling, a few years ago jets pounded that very place as they screeched to a halt on that narrow ribbon of runway.

One last point if you want a good book to read about the history of Hong Kong read the book by Jan Morris