After a late night at Rice Bar, I was glad that I didn’t have to be at the Aberdeen Marina Club until 10:30 on Sunday morning.  Chris’ company (as with most law firms in Hong Kong) has a junk that employees can make use of as a perk.  Since Chris and Tehlin were going to have several visitors in town this weekend, they reserved the boat and arranged a day trip for us.

Now when I say “junk” you’re probably picturing something like this photo.  A classic Chinese sailing vessel with colourful sails and a family a gnarled-face sea gypsies trading silk, opium, and spices.  Needless to say, that’s a hackneyed stereotype that is best perpetuated by the Hong Kong Tourism Authority. 

Our junk was a much more modern boat, able to seat a few dozen comfortably and perfectly sized for our group of ten or so.  Here’s a photo of a boat similar to ours, that passed us in the harbour.

Instead of cruising around Hong Kong Island, which would have provided a fine view of the skyline but rather a shortage of opportunities to safely swim in the water, we headed east about two hours to along the New Territories’ islands and peninsulas until we reached an inlet near Sai Kung.  We were still in the Hong Kong S.A.R. but were so close to China that our mobile telephones were showing that we had picked up reception on a Chinese network.

The seas were pretty rough as we traveled, especially for the first half of the trip where we were in open waters.  At least a few of our group were a paler shade of green but nobody became ill, thankfully.

When we finally arrived at this particular inlet, we found a nice beach, clean waters, and rugged hills.  We docked for about two hours and about two-thirds of the group went for a swim while the rest of us stayed on the boat.  The original plan was to grill kebabs, which I had spent a few hours assembling on Saturday.  But someone forgot to check if the boat had a grill and, as luck would have it, they don’t.  In fact, the only solution that we had was to remove everything from the skewers and stir-fry it in a large stock pot.

Thankfully, the husband and wife who operate the boat were very helpful and cooked everything up for us. 

After a few hours we headed back home, arriving back about 5:30 in the afternoon, completely exhausted!  Nonetheless, it was a really cool way to see a side of Hong Kong that I think most tourists completely miss.

Here’s a 5.2 mb movie clip with narration that captures the experience.  Take some Dramamine first!

Sunday evening I met up with Big Michael.  Big Michael, who is actually quite skinny, is so named because I met him through Stephanie.  They worked together as managers opening the one AMC Theatre in Hong Kong, where there were two Michaels: Big Michael was the elder of the two, thus the name.

Michael left AMC shortly before I arrived in Hong Kong to begin preparations for the theatre’s opening, so we weren’t introduced until a year later when I was in town during January 2000.

My resource for good local food in Hong Kong, Michael took me to a tasty Shanghainese restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon.  I just love steamed pork dumplings with vinegar sauce.