Taking the ferry from Macau to Hong Kong is such a treat. The water is scattered with small uninhabited islands and finally you see the skyscrapers looming over the harbor. We got off on Hong Kong Island which is mostly the business district and is home to some of Hong Kong's most impressive buildings. We stayed in Kowloon, just north of Hong Kong Island. This area is truly the tourist area, probably 85% of the people along Nathan Road are not Chinese. We stayed in the Mirador Mansions, an enormous complex of budget accomodations which are still quite pricy at about $20 t0 $3o a night.
Anneliese was in the Princess Margaret hospital and our visits there were the highlight of the trip. We would spend our time chatting with her and the hours would just fly by! She was marked with an orange badge of courage as we liked to call it. She was always trying to get up on her own so the nurses needed to mark her with the badge so they knew to be on the lookout for her!
The nurses were all very friendly and helpful and showed us all the best local food areas. We had been a bit disappointed with Kowloon because all of the food was anything but Chinese and was really geared towards tourists. We were happy to be brought to the local food stalls once again! The best was definitely the assortments of roasted duck, pork, and chicken served over rice. It was absolutely delicious and very cheap at about $1.67 per serving!
Anneliese's brother Winfried and his wife Hilde arrived a few days later and we were able to take them around. They didn't speak much English and we don't know more than a few phrases in German so it was a lot of fun trying to communicate. Our highlights with them must have been our appetizer at dinner of chicken knee and walking through the fish markets to discover the live frogs for sale.
Anneliese is now back home in California and was discharged from the hospital on the 25th. She was quite the celebrity and all the staff made sure to visit her to say goodbye. We look forward to visiting her sometime in California!
