Tomorrow we have to be at the airport around midnight to catch the 2 am flight to Hong Kong where I will spend a few days with MrD visiting our office there and me the middle aged trophy husband doing what comes naturally in Hong Kong like going to the flower market the day before I fly to load up on cheap orchids to take back home to Manila.
This time we are staying in Kowloon instead of on Hong Kong Island in Central. The Peninsula Hong Kong, the old grand dame of the island, is actually in Kowloon and not on Hong Kong Island.
The hotel has the largest fleet of Rolls Royce's in the real world.
We will take the train from the airport. I am not a Rolls fan although it is fun to sit in back and watch MrD pretend not to wave.
Three nights in Hong Kong we have to rest and regenerate from the long 12 hour flight. Then, the short 1 1/2 hour hop down to Manila to put our feet up at home for a bit.
Our return to Asia coincides with MrD's birthday celebrations and our staff outings for three of our Asian companies. Hong Kong, Thailand and the Philippines companies will all gather in Hanoi, Vietnam. MrD and I will see them off but not attend because I figured out they likely have a better time when we are not there. We have joined them in places like Beijing in other years but we try to keep our distance. They are a great...shall I say...team and I love to support them getting out of their shells. It is not just the executives but every employee including the messengers gets to travel.
Enough about the poor team of minions.
MrD and Me?
Normally we each only travel with a small carry on flight bag but MrD has ordered parties to happen and I am the chef so I have raided the larder of Granville Island farmer's market for true Canadian treats like smoked elk, caribou, bison and reindeer and a good selection of local cheese. I am checking in two bags.
I have to make some pizzas for one of the 3 parties we will organise for MrD's family, our Manila staff and some of our inner pinoy circle.
Only one party will be in our place which I fondly refer to as the Palace because the name of our condo building is "The Palisades".
The staff dinner and the family gathering are at different times on different days but at the same 5 star hotel buffet a block away from where we live and also where our office is located.
Asia knows its buffets. This one at the Makati Shangrila has 3 or 4 food stations featuring Japanese, Western, Indian, (the ones with the dots not the feathers) and the tasty filipino treats.
I personally chose this place many years ago for staff and family dinners simply because the dessert chef's flourless chocolate cake is world famous. Once we arrived with a party of 20 only to find out that the cake was not on the offer.
I had a chat with the chef and he offered to go to the kitchen and make one right away to serve our party but I assured him that if it was there every other night I would let him off that one time.
It has always been there since.
When you are old and not doing the desert table like you used to it is understandably important to only eat what you feel you deserve.
I will also visit the famous "Smokey Mountain" city dump with 5,000 homeless scavengers to open the new school we helped build. Our old one got leveled by the bulldozers. It is illegal for us to build anything in the dump.
But we do.
But more on that another day.
Time to pack.
Tell me more about the school!
ReplyDeleteb
The school is a shelter out of the way of the bulldozers. It is illegal to build in the dump but of course with about 5,ooo people living there building does happen. About 120 preschool kids from 3 to 5 years old come in batches. They get a clean shirt to wear over whatever clothes they may or may not have found in the trash. They get a little lesson in life and reading and writing. Then they get a little food and its back to sorting through the trash and trying to stay out of the path of the bulldozers. About one a month gets maimed or killed in the madness. The owners of the dump sometimes get the bulldozers to level an area of the settlement and that is what happened to our little school. We rebuilt.
ReplyDelete