Good video Don. Of course Linda's fav TST view is of the LG sign. Will try your tailor next time we are in HK as am of the same spherical shape as you describe. Am now ensconsed in the Hyatt Kyoto with all the pampering a diamond is worth,lol and enjoying all of your reports. Encore!

Aloha!

HT: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/oSAFiHxgMGFbnmTUyOo8Bw?feat=directlink

Wonderful photos on the previous report!! Thanks for bringing back some HK memories.

He's cranky at home. No surprise he is cranky abroad. Timely report, no penalty.

Newton Corner! Paramount Theater. The smoke shop around the corner with the guy who ran numbers/football cards.

Begging your pardon O Cranky One...that guy you speak of was none other than my esteemed Uncle Harry ("The Slip")Murgatroyd. He eventually did 5 to 10 at Walpole until he was "shivved" by an unhappy former patron.

Getting back to Hong Kong. No place quite like it. I'm sure you'll bring back fond memories for all of us who have had the joy of visiting. By the way, for something slightly different, there's a Filipino resto called "Cinta J" in Wan Chai that's a nice experience. I went to the original but they have since moved to a Jaffe Street address I've been told.
If you have a chance, take the hydrofoil to Macau for an interesting day..just don't lose your shirt at the slots. Good rendition of Portuguese specialties at the venerable Hotel Lisboa. Telling you to have fun is not necessary...you will!

stu

Gpanda, yes, but Rizz is in the process of exporting crankiness! Shouldn't he at least be taxed for that???

Stu, unless your uncle served time in a facility in Billerica, Rizz would have no acquaintance with him.

BC

why was everyone speaking chinese??

did you see that person watching you from the china bank building.... you may have trouble leaving from the airport..

those holiday lights on the bldgs. never cease to amaze me...

your descpription of HK is right on....i need to get back there...

Oh, rizzuto, now I know who you are on FT.

BC:
facility in Billerica

Rizz's halfway house IS the facility in Billerica.

stu

lol, thanks Don!

Nice video and photos. Hong Kong beckons.

I don't think you're a "cranky" traveler anymore though.

rhk: everyone was speaking chinese because they were tourists from Holland

rkkwan: for a while my Fodor's profile said "I'm wideman on FlyerTalk," but that tag got lost somehow a few years ago. I'd have used the same name, but wideman was taken when I registered here.

stu: everyone has one of those uncles. Mac's was a special place. The guy who ran it (and who was not named Mac) had a cousin named Lovey, who watched the shop when needed. Lovey's permanent address was a Chevrolet Nova that was always -- always -- parked behind Mac's, and all of his (many) belongings were inside. Inside the Nova, that is.

Sun is rising, looks like a beautiful day in Hong Kong. Leaving my Room With a View later today for 2 nights in Causeway Bay. Time to hunt for breakfast.

And some crankiness, for Celeste's benefit: the touchpad on this notebook is starting to drive me bananas. If I so much as graze it with my palm as I type, everything gets screwed up, as the cursor goes into overdrive and starts inserting my typing someplace it doesn't belong. I can disable the touchpad easily on my laptop, but not on this notebook. Bunch of nazi b@stards who made this thing. Helps a little bit if a lay a credit card across the top of the pad, but still.

A joy of modern travel: getting up on Sunday morning, popping out to a local shop to pick up some hot dim sum, making a second stop at Starbucks (there are 4 on every block here), then heading back to my room embarrassingly gaudy suite to down that harvest while listening to a live broadcast of Prairie Home Companion from NYC.

Rizz, in my experiences, most things work better when you lay a credit card across the top of it. Take Bob. But I digress...

BC

The harvest is in. I picked up my new pair of specs (Shanghai Tang frames, I hope you're impressed, though I can't imagine why) yesterday. And when I got back to the room this afternoon, a bagfull of new shirts and slacks were waiting for me. This is one of the odd things about going to Hong Kong toward the end of a trip. For a week and a half I've been wearing more or less the same clothes every 3rd day, and now I've got an absolute glut of things to choose from.

I'm in the Crowne Plaza in Causeway Bay, and I don't think I'd recommend the place. There's nothing seriously wrong with it, it's just a collection of little things that, for me, make it no better than a so-so choice. The location is a bit weird: just a little too removed from the maelstrom of Causeway Bay. That, and too few elevators (3, for 20+ floors), mediocre toiletries, slow internet, and a bunch of other minor annoyances. Maybe if the place were branded as a Holiday Inn instead of Crowne Plaza -- CPs are supposed to be a bit higher quality.

Had a nice dinner last night at Nam Ha across the street. It's a Singapore/Malaysian joint, specializing in Hainanese Chicken. Which I did not get. But I did get a very nice beef satay, and a beef brisket curry with fried noodles. Very casual restaurant, menu in English, and a good value.

I'd wanted to try a char siu joint that Cicerone had recommended, West Villa, which is nearby. But I got intimidated by a line to get in, not much indication of English menus, and a sense that a solo diner would not do well there. But I did get a very nice, very lean (which I prefer), char siu at a street stand. Things do work out.

Today's adventure was a trip to Macau, where I hadn't been before. I wanted to see the city, and I also wanted to lose some money at a casino. The ferry trip over was easy, and I took a taxi to the old town. Macau is eye-opening, unlike anything I might have expected. First off, it struck me as being more European-looking than anywhere else I'd been in Asia -- the look of the shops, of the streets, of the buildings. Wandered over to the ruins of St Paul's (that's the place you always see in pictures) where a million tourists were hanging out, than found a taxi to head over to the Other Side of Town. The side of town that is vulgar beyond words and where most people are headed when they travel from Hong Kong (or elsewhere) to Macau.

The most expensive movie I ever saw was called La Baie des Anges (The Bay of Angels), a French film noir from the early 60s starring Jeanne Moreau. It's about a young accountant from Paris who goes to Nice for a holiday and runs into the cougar-y Moreau at the Nice casino roulette table. Moreau has run out of money and the Paris guy is down to his last franc, and Moreau tells him to play 17. 17 comes up, of course, and the two of them proceed to win leventy-seven times in a row, buy a convertible and go to Monte Carlo, lose everything at the roulette table there, and on and on and on. Well I got hypnotized by the roulette wheel, and it wasn't long before I'd planned a trip to Nice to go to the casino. I was going to win a gazillion dollars, but be smart enough to quit while ahead. Alas, when I got to Nice I found that the casino had been closed -- a few too many people associated with the place had washed up on the beach in Nice. Still, I've always enjoyed a roulette wheel ever since.

Which brings us to Macau. Now I'm not going to bother telling you if I won or lost money, but I will tell you this absolute truth: Never, ever, ever believe someone who tells you how much money they won (or lost) at poker / at the racetrack / at the casino. Never. It will not be the truth. Human beings are hard-wired to not be forthright about gambling. And they aren't necessarily lying -- lying means that they're intentionally being untruthful, and sometimes they just haven't figured it out for themselves correctly. You know, they might recall the $375 that they won, but the $466 in bets that they made to reap the $375 might be overlooked.

So I had a good time there. I did go to Wynn's casino, as they have a so-called smoke-free area (well, it's adjacent to a smoking area, with no wall between the two), but it's still not bad. I won about $50 I think.

Cheers,

Well Macau was under a Portugese flag for eons so that is why the Euro look. And don't know about everyone else but I do know how much I win or loose when at the tables. My theory is if you can't take all the money you have to gamble and be willing to throw it all out the window of the highest floor of the casino into the wind then don't gamble, period. Yes I mostly loose like everyone else but do win every so often and I can tell you to the penny(well maybe the dollar) how much was won or loss that day.

Glad you are having a good time. How much is a shirt from your tailor cost if you don't mind? With the similar spherical shape it sounds like a good idea to use a tailor the next time in HK.

Have you ever tried the baked char siu bao rather than the steamed one? The baked ones are so much better imho. Loving all the detail, keep it rolling.

Aloha!

how much did it cost you to win the $50---$400-500?

Enjoying your report!

Internet connection at the Crowne Plaza is grim: nothing last night, and slower than a whore's funeral this morning. (Am I allowed to say that?)

HT, roughly $HK500 for shirts after he's done giving you the obligatory discount. I'm pleased with the fit, and I'm especially pleased with the fit of the slacks (about $HK800). I'll bargain with about anyone in HK except for tailors.

Yes, it's very much the Portuguese influence and history that sets Macau apart -- definitely fun to see signs in Portuguese. [What are the only flightless European birds? Portuguese.]

And you're 100% right about the $$. For me, the whole fun is the playing, watching the little ball go round and round and round and round and round, thinking about how I'd spend the gazillion dollars. It's probably more fun to lose than to win. If you win, what do you do? If you keep playing, you'll wind up busted. If you quit, you got nothing to do. But if you lose, then you can keep playing till your money runs out.

I am sure that Bob the Banker enjoys that logic.

The streets of Causeway Bay were jam-packed with people last night, as they are pretty much every night. Hong Kong is a place that 97% people, 86% neon, 117% shopping, and 66% food. It's true. Mathematically, the numbers don't seem to add up, but only if you've never been here.

Off to the airport in a few hours, long flight to Heathrow for an overnight before Weds am flight to Lyon.

Cheers,

logic??

So enjoyable to read. Happy travels the rest of the way, Cranky One! Your fans all love you.
stu

Here we go again:
<<slower than a whore's funeral>>

Once again, part of me wants to know how Rizz would know how slow a whore's funeral would be. The other part of me is screaming "Leave well enough alone!". Yet another part of me would like to pre-experience my own funeral, just to see how it might measure up (or down). And yes, Rizz, apparently you are allowed to say it.

BC

Brief greetings from Lyon, France. Yesterday, or some time period that more or less resembled a day on some planet, had me flying from Hong Kong to London; landing in London around 8.15pm (London time); getting off the airplane around 9.15 (London time) after they eventually found a gate for us (I told the pilot he should have phoned ahead and made a reservation); checking into the Heathrow Sofitel and being greeted warmly, almost heatedly, by a surly check-in clerk; taking the 7:45 flight from London to Lyon; and eventually arriving, not totally to my greatest delight, at the Boscolo Grand Hotel.

Lyon is having an amazing festival right now, the Festival of Lights, and I will tell you much, much more about the festival and about the Boscolo NotAtAllGrand Hotel some other time. (It's 2am here.) Cheers for now,

Don...would you like to receive a Care Package from us?....BC has volunteered to make one up. We all know that Lyon has long suffered from a distasteful dearth of decent dining! Suggest you go to the local YMCA for some cold-cut buffets with free gherkins for all!
stu

Don't you just miss that Asian hospitality about now? Gotta love the French,lol
How is the quality of your tailor compared to say Bob's tailor in BKK?
What's the worry,Bob uses that hors word all the time.

Firmly ensconsed in our upgraded Hyatt(your favorite Tokyo neighborhood) Shinjuku suite btw and going to the club for hors and cocktails in a few.....anxiously awaiting your lights report!

Aloha!

Bonjour et salut a tous,

What a night! Each year, Lyon has a Festival of Lights to commemorate something or other. People put little candles in each of their windows on Dec 8th, and for 4 night before or after the 8th, the entire city is filled with installations of light shows (more than 70 of them this year). Best of all, the entire downtown and old city areas are completely turned into people places: pedestrians only, and tens and tens and tens of thousands of people on the streets enjoying themselves and in a wonderful frame of mind. For Bostonians, it's like First Night, 4 nights in a row.

Visuals will have to wait. Impossible to take anything useful with a still camera (shutter speed is too slow at night without a tripod), but could well have something worthwhile from the camcorder, after I'm home next week.

This morning has begun well. Now there are many, many -- MANY -- things at which the French fail to excel (and I am being kind as I possibly can be), but providing decent eating opportunities is not one of those. And breakfast is no exception. So, notwithstanding the always-reliable Starbucks a block away from the shabby 4-star Grand Hotel, I headed in the other direction, to a bar that was filled with locals when I'd passed it last night. Sat down, asked for un café crème et un croissant, s.v.p., and life instantly became divine. A perfect cup of very strong coffee with a froth of milk, and a magnificently flaky croissant that had been mere flour and butter (probably about half a pound of the latter) just a few hours before. A bunch of guys at another table yakking about last night's football game, a bunch of women at another table yakking about whatever it is that they yak about. Of all the breakfasts in all the world, this is my favorite: simple, consistently good, always a great start to a day. (Well, yes, breakfast in New Orleans with 3 very large bloody Marys is not to be sniffed at, nor is a late b'fast of HK dim sum.)

But now just a word or two about The Boscolo Grand Hotel. I begin by explaining that this is a joint effort of the French and the Italians. For some, that will suffice and they will have no need to read the remainder of this screed. In France, hotels are rated from 0 to 4 stars (the very best of the best will get ****L ("L" for "Luxe") by a quasi-governmental hotel rating association. The Grand Hotel Boscolo is rated ****. Those 4 stars, I can assure you, are the very dimmest ones in the sky.

I had a great chat with the taxi driver on the way to the hotel. I was a cabbie in Boston for about a year a while ago (absolutely one of the most enjoyable jobs I ever had, in some respects: work when I want, enjoy combustibles on the job, discover all sorts of places and people I had no idea existed, learn the streets of Boston inside and out. Limiting factor was the pay: work 10-11 hours, and in 1974 netted anywhere from $35-50/day.) Anyway, I've always felt a camaraderie with cab drivers everywhere -- including the little tricks -- and Lucien confirmed that the Festival would not be so good for cabbies. When lots of people are in town, it's a good time for cabbies; when too many people are in town, and nothing moves, it's a disaster. [In Boston, the absolute best of best days are the winter days when it's bright sunny and cold-cold. From inside, it seems like a great day to walk wherever you're going, or to wait for the bus. But after a few minutes, you see a warm cab passing by, and your right arm flies up in a hurry. And have you ever wondered why you see a cabbie driving around on a cold day with his window open? Well it could be that he's airing out the taxi after cutting a dreadful fart, but more likely, if he's good, he keeps the window open so that he can hear when someone yells out "TAXI!!"]

Sorry, I was talking about the Boscolo Grand Hotel and got sidetracked. So Lucien drops me off in front of the **** hotel with my two suitcases, and I would still be standing there had I not hauled them and me up the 2 steps and into the front lobby. My Superior Room is on the Grand Hotel's 5th floor. The Grand Hotel has 2 elevators, of which 1 is permanently out of service. The bellman, who is about 94 years old and has a series of personal hygiene issues, brings up the suitcases. I give him 2 euros to get out of the room as quickly as possible.

The Superior Room has a small entry with a closet, a bedroom with not quite enough room for both its bed and my suitcases, and a bathroom that's thankfully large enough to actually turn around in. The bath/shower, of course, doesn't have a shower curtain, so it will be impossible to shower without inundating the hotel, but that's a feature of France. The most noticeable feature of the room, though, is that it's about 106 degrees (not sure if it's C or F. Maybe tomorrow, when it is supposed to be cold outside, the temp will be -40, and it won't matter if it's C or F). Fortunately, the window can be opened. Unfortunately, the window will not stay open. Various engineering reconfigurations are made, and the window is now open, at the expense of all privacy. If others notice, tant pis pour eux.

The room also features a bedside lamp that constantly blinks on and off, and a total lack of available electrical outlets. So the blinking lamp is sacrificed.

Like all beds in France, this one sags in the middle. That's how marital harmony is maintained here, i suppose, because it's physically impossible to stay on your side of the bed. Turning over is a near Sisyphean challenge, though, as it seems like you're about to make it over the Alp that's the side of the mattress, when gravity and one of Newton's Laws take over and you fall back into the bed's abyss, still on the side you don't want to be on. Ah, the special pleasures of the 4* Boscolo Grand Hotel.

S, today should be a good day. Out soon for a walk around town, possibly a very nice lunch, then another night, this time in a different part of town, for more light shows. If only my tired feet can hold up for 1 more day.

A bientot et Cheers,

Very amusing. Looking forward to more.

welcome to france....a suite at the hyatt in toyko sounds mighty inviting...

I nearly fell off my chair laughing at your description of the bed...I have been on the down hill side of many of those with rhk. Not a comfy place to be and as you say ...no way out! Can't wait to see the video of the lights when you get home.

Yes, I'm positive a self-catering apt in BKK would cost far less.

Stu is right, I'm assembling a care package. Since it's from Michigan it'll have plenty of apples in it, as I "scored" at the cider mill on the day before Thanksgiving, which was the last day they were open for the season.

I had a croissant for breakfast this morning. I buy them at Costco, re-package them "individually", freeze them. To thaw, remove from freezer, put onto a baking tray, put into cold oven, and then turn oven on to 425. When oven reaches 425, the croissant is perfectly thawed and warmed through and ready to eat. And I don't have to deal with anyone getting snooty with me, unless I'm in a rare self-loathing mood!

Your recollections of your cabbie years reminded me of that one year at the Boston GTG when you rose when it was your turn to tell a funny travel story, and you simply announced your name, then said "I used to drive a cab in Boston", smiled at everyone and sat down. WTF??!?!? How did that fulfill the requirement?? I'm still trying to figure out how/why Gpanda didn't penalize you on that!

But your re-naming the Boscolo reminds me of the time I stayed in Paris at the AdequateHotelLeveque. Why is it that commercial beverages and OTC drugs in America are held to truth in advertising standards, and hotels abroad are not?

BC

I'm just catching up with you Rizz, and was thinking as I read about Hong Kong that you didn't seem very cranky to me. Then you got to Lyon, and I thought - well-justified crankiness! We Asia travelers get so spoiled. For the price you paid in Lyon, you could have a suite with butler service in Yangon.

I am back in the arms of Billerica.

The Festival of Lights far exceeded all expectations. I knew that there'd be a bunch of installations with light shows, but I had no idea that the entire city, or at least the downtown area, would be transformed into a feel-good people party. I took a bunch of videos that will take some time to edit and distill, and they came out very, very well.

I did have a fantastic lunch at the Cafe Burf the day before I left. A "Soupe Royl de Gibier" wasn't really a soup at all, but an ultra-rich reduction with slices of squab and some other fowl, with chestnuts and some sweet grape-like fruit. Main course was ris de veau, which is my absolute favorite food on earth. I try to be a reasonably moral eater: I'm not at all a vegetarian, but I do try to show some respect and thanks for those beasts who were dispatched for my dining pleasure. (Not that my feelings are of any particular comfort to the unfortunate beasts.) But I do try to avoid eating young animals, or abused beasts (think foie gras). Except when it comes to ris de veau. Morality is conveniently put aside. I offer no alibi. And the restaurant (actually called Bec something or other, just off the Place de la Republique) did the ris de veau great justice, croustillant on the outside and perfect on the inside, garnished with some truffles (which do nothing for me -- sorry) and some pureed potatoes on the side. My guess is that the potatoes were made with 1 potato, 3/4 pound of butter, a pinch of salt, and 11 egg yolks. An hour later my liver went into cardiac arrest, but it was all mostly worth it.

Flights home were uninteresting. Everything at home is back to normal: housemate Lola spent the night sleeping on my hip and is has not let me out of her sight all day. Suitcases litter the floor, and I'm hoping they'll somehow unpack themselves.

-30-

Rizz, glad to hear your journey was safe.
Also pleased to hear that Lyon did not fail you in The Festival of Light and on the epicurean front.

Hope you adjust to the return home and that your bags will unpack themselves and your laundry will do itself. (Although if that happens, you may want to consult a physician or your rabbi.)

BC

Thanks again, for an off-beat, interesting, detailed report. We followed you all the way, Don. Where to, next?

stu (btw, I drove a cab nights in Bridgewater as a vital adjunct to my teacher's pay (1952-53..washed dishes at Ken's Steakhouse, Natick-Shoppers World, the following year...we could swap stories).

Cafe Burf? Isn't that the hangout of Guy Noir?

Ohaiyo gozaimasu rizzuto-san,

Great writing and have thouroughly enjoyed this report, thank you. Maybe you should think about lcuy's thread regarding writing a story for the North Pole prize. The NP winter couldn't be worse than one in Billerica,lol

Welcome Home and Aloha!

great reporting...how are the lights in billerica?

stu...in the early 50's i once had a dirty plate at ken's... what say you?

A video sampling of the festival in Lyon is now up:

http://vimeo.com/17805567

It's 15 minutes long. Looks best on full screen, which you can get by clicking the flowery-shaped icon in the lower right (just to the right of "HD").