Dan and Phyllis in Hong Kong!

Dan (a teammate of mine in the University of Michigan Medical School) and his wife Phyllis spent two days and nights in Hong Kong this week as part of a touring vacation. Katherine and I whisked them around portions of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island during that time...


You might have to click the picture to get a good look at Dan and Phyllis, but I composed the shot in this way so as to incorporate the fog. This was taken at Victoria Peak and would have normally been backgrounded by tree-covered mountains, but the fog was incredibly dense. Normally you expect to gaze down upon Victoria Harbor from The Peak, but instead we gazed into nothingness. Perhaps not the most desirable outcome, but still unique (and a bit creepy ;>).

The full list of districts we visited during their time here...

• Tsim Sha Tsui (Star Ferry, the Cultural Centre, the Victoria Harbor vista, shopping on Nathan Road, Kowloon Park, a dry cleaner, a dim sum restaurant, and a hot pot restaurant)
• Mong Kok (Woman's Street)
• Central (Star Ferry, the Legislative Council, looking at lots of big buildings, Pedder Street, Lan Kwai Fong, Soho, the Mid-levels Escalator, a newly-discovered Krispy Kreme!)
  
• Wan Chai (during the bus ride up to The Peak)
• Morrison Hill (during the bus ride up to The Peak)
• Happy Valley (during the bus ride up to The Peak)
• The Peak (looking at fog, eating at a Thai-Chinese fusion restaurant)
  
• Admiralty (the Peak Tram, Hong Kong Park, a Tramways trolley, Pacific Place mall)
• The Mid-Levels (Caine Road, Bonham Road, Centre Street, High Street, the building where we had our first apartment, the University of Hong Kong)
  
• Shek Tong Tsui (our new apartment, dinner at a Shanghainese restaurant)

Quite a lot for two days, really. On the way, they were also able to experience nearly all the forms of transportation in Hong Kong: airplane, feet, taxi, harbor ferry, double-decker bus, subway (MTR), trolley, mid-levels escalator, and Peak tram. The only thing they really missed was the mini-bus system.

Dan and Phyllis also helped me experience a major milestone in my life: About 80% of the tour list above was led by me alone, and it was the first time I had ever traveled any real distance in Hong Kong without Katherine. (Before, I might have ventured about a half mile from home - something easily walkable. This time I needed to use all those forms of transportation to cover about 30 miles and accurately hit many stops along the way.) Katherine needed to get some work done, and I felt like my time here thus far had given me the tools I needed to go out on my own, so we talked about it and I decided to throw myself in the deep-end. I presented the utmost confidence to Dan and Phyllis, we didn't experience a single problem, and they never knew it was my first time traveling without Katherine - at least, not until I told them just before we parted ways. ;>

It was a really great time and one that I will forever remember!