Hong Kong – Miriam Drori, Author

Hong Kong Whirl

Despite not having packed my case,
I spent the morning at Esther’s place,
Where, guided by our experienced mentor,
We budding writers, who number four,
Ate, drank, talked and laughed,
Our misunderstandings often quite daft.

Our driver, Ilan, carted luggage and all,
And talked all the way to the terminal,
Where we boarded our El Al 747,
Stomachs full of sushi heaven,
And sat in seats our boarding cards did show
Only to be told we’d got the wrong row!

Eleven hours later we travellers three
Arrived in a thoroughly modern city.
Soon clutching train cards, money and SIMs,
On the Metro we dragged our weary limbs
To our hotel suite with a view that was lacking,
Though we found the inside to be quite cracking.

Son promptly lay down and soon was out,
But the two of us needed to get out and about.
Along one long street we exercised our paws,
Amazed to see so many jewellery stores.
At the end we reached the view we did seek:
Over water to the island and Victoria Peak.

Next day we walked on an island called Lamma
In temperatures that felt almost like summer.
Lamma for us means why, oh why
Do we climb up and up and up so high,
Only to get to the top and descend
Once again to reach the end?

Every day, without fail,
We walked along another trail
Dragon’s Back and Maclehose
And Hong Kong are some of those.
The amazing views from Victoria Peak
And Lantau Island are unique.

Each evening we ate with a new ambience:
From Italy, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and France.
The hotel breakfasts, laid out as buffet,
Gave us plenty of choice every day.
The food on the plane, on the other hand,
Was aeroplane food, okay but bland.

On the last day, we visited Kowloon Park
Before we really had to embark
On a journey that took us all the way back
To the place where our cases we could unpack.
Not London, Paris, Madrid or Rome,
But Jerusalem — home sweet home.

BlossomingPlumTree1Resized — Welcome Back! (From our plum tree)

This was one of the rhymes I used to recite to my children:

Whether the weather be fine
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be hot,
We’ll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not.

So what did those little green messages mean in my posts this past week? And how dare I be only partly present for the last week of the A-Z Challenge?

Well, sorry about that, but it just worked out that D and I spent the week in Hong Kong and we loved every minute of it.

I will write more about this experience, but I’ll start with the weather. We left Jerusalem in unseasonably cold and wet weather and returned to typically hot summer weather. We missed Lag B’Omer, the bonfire-lighting festival, but as our children are now grown up we wouldn’t have participated anyway. Most of the country did, of course, and unfortunately, due to hot weather and strong winds, several fires got out of hand.

Hong Kong, as expected, was hot and humid, although the evenings were quite cool. At the end of our first day, the heavens opened for one of the famous thunderstorms. Fortunately we were just about to exit from an underground station. We waited until the rain subsided and then hurried into a shopping centre. The next day, rain was intermittent, but after that there was no rain to speak of until we were safely back at Hong Kong airport, where we watched the downpour through a glass wall and through a window of the plane.

So we were lucky with the weather, especially considering what we did. Can you guess what that was? I’ll tell you about it tomorrow or the next day. And I haven’t forgotten my A-Z summary post.