The last days in Hong Kong were unusual, the virus was becoming daily discussions, we started getting messages from people back in Haining about closing roads into town. Mark and I started making exit strategies, Hong Kong is lovely but expensive and the idea of spending an extended time in a hotel there had us seeing $$$$. Our flight back to China got cancelled, and then our replacement flight to China got cancelled, and we started to think of where we could go next since we couldn’t get home.
To keep ourselves occupied in this fantastic city, and also to keep Alex from getting anxious, we decided to keep going as planned, and once he was asleep we would start discussing our next options.
As our family does…. we found a cat cafe. The mask actually made my time there a little more enjoyable, I wasn’t so sneezy and like always, I made friends with the derpiest cat there. I don’t know how they find me, or why they like me, but they always do.
At the time it was still kind of funny to be wearing masks, and not everyone was, but most people were. We were still getting used to them and never thought at this point that we would be wearing them for a long time after.
Alex has his dad’s way with cats, and he wants to be friends with all of them (and all dogs too).
This cafe had a wall of post it notes written by customers about the Hong Kong protests. I have thought for a long time what I would write about the protests and I am aware that I need to be careful what I write as certain sentiments could get Mark in trouble. We had a lot of discussions about the protests before we went to Hong Kong, wanting to keep Alex away from violence, knowing that Mark could not be seen or photographed at any protest at the risk of losing his job…. but I had an idea of what I would do if needed. (We had similar discussions recently in our own country about what we would do). We avoided areas that protests were scheduled, we saw a limited amount of graffiti about the protests, and luckily avoided needing to put any plans into action.
All this to say that I photographed the wall, and individual messages on the wall because I felt like that was an important moment in time and documenting it felt right to me.
We don’t know why this cat has a police dog vest on, he seemed to have some mange type skin issues going on, so maybe it was meant to keep him from fussing at it. There were a few cats at this one that wanted nothing to do with anyone and basically had a note in the menu saying leave them alone.
This is my derpy cat friend, he’s got a serious overbite and something wrong with the left side of his face. But he is a nice cat and spent most of the time just hanging out right there by my feet.
Mark the cat whisperer, he just sat back and suddenly there is a cat in his arms….
Alex is more than a little miffed that his dad stole all the cats…. and not for the first time either.
On the way to one of our last Hong Kong adventures, we saw this lady walking along next to us- you may have seen this picture in the news- if they zoomed out, we were walking about two feet to the right of her and saw the guy take this picture (which I then lifted off the news website). This was before things got really crazy in Hong Kong and China, and there were more stories of people making face shields and stuff out of household items. And this picture has her looking so serious but she took another one with thumbs up and smiling. I’ve kept the news caption below the picture as it gives credit to the photographer.
Since Hong Kong Disney was off the table (Mark was willing to go to make me happy, but he was also happy he didn’t have to) this was my one “Thing I Really Want To Do That Will Make Me Happy” I wanted to go on a junk boat ride. Junk Boats are the boats we all think of when you think of Hong Kong (or even South East Asia in General). It’s the black boats with the red sails, that look a bit like a lizard fin. They used to be every where in the harbors, but over the years they’ve become less practial compared to other transports and are mostly just used for tourists now.
The company we went with has a night tour of the area that coordinates with the light show around the city put on twice a night. It’s got a very vinatage vibe to it, it feels like the 1920’s on the boat. Because it was a little chilly, we even got blankets to put over our laps while we cruised the harbor.
My boys on the boat, waiting for everyone to get seated so we could take off. I was so thrilled to be doing this, even if it was a bit cold.
Alex was so thrilled with his blanket, but by the end was complaining of being cold and had Mark’s blanket around his shoulders too.
The boat moved a lot faster than I was expecting so we got a bit of a wind going too, it was a little hard to get some of the pictures that I wanted to as well.
As far as endings go, this was a pretty great way to round out an interesting trip.
Traveling Expat Family 