Tuesday 16/11/2010

Our last day of our trip! We walked up Nathan Road to a stall (like a market between 2 buildings) to buy some shoe bags for the girls at work. Stopped on the way back to look at shoes - bought a pair of red patent slip-ons. Mike could not find any he liked.  Back to the hotel at about 11am and showered again and changed into our travel clothes because checkout was 12noon. We sat and read in the lobby area till about 1:30pm (my travel friend had a doze for a while and I had a couple of short ones). We then went in search of somewhere to have lunch - lots of places so it was just a matter or choosing which Chinese restaurant we would settle for. On the way back we collected my slacks from the tailor and sat and read again till about 3:30pm when we took advantage of the "Welcome free drinks" voucher we were issued on arrival. Just after 4:40pm we moved downstairs to wait for the shuttle bus to the airport (pick up scheduled for 5:15pm). Shuttle arrived about 5pm and we travelled in and out of narrow Hong Kong streets for quite a while, arriving at the airport jut after 6pm. Checked in, had dinner and then went for a coffee and to share an apple crumble pie because the Hong Kong dollars we had would only stretch to this. Worked out it would cost $HK126. When I went to pay I was presented with a bill for $HK138.60 and between us we only had $HK136 - we had not calculated in the "service charge" and the fellow said not to worry about this when I enptied my purse and told him I was $HK2.60 short (guess they often get this at the airport with people leaving). I thought we would have some change to put in the Unicef envelope but sorry! While we were having coffee a 3 piece band set up and played some really good easy listening music. A South African businessman sittling at the next table said his flight did not leave till midnight (current time about 8pm) and he had been through HK a few times recently and they were playing so he was happy to just sit and listen while he had a drink. We left and went to find our departure gate (No 70) which meant a walk then an escalator, train trip and then another escalator before we did the long walk to Gate 70 for boarding time scheduled for 9pm. Pretty much on time. Plane was only half full and as the seatbelt sign was turned off the midle rows of 4 seats filled with people stretching out across them. Mike and I didn't sleep a lot (excited to be heading home I think). Mike watched "Predators" and I watched "The Tournament"