Ben is a buddy of mine from my university days and thanks to facebook, one of the many connections that I’m able to randomly message and say, hey I’ll be in Hong Kong, let’s meet up :) So in the morning, I walked down to the train station to meet up with Ben. We didn’t really have an agenda other than to meet up and walk around. And that we did. We walked all over Hong Kong island catching up together and finding our way through the streets of Hong Kong while talking about what we’ve been doing since University.
We went over to the Kowloon side for lunch and had an amazing buffet lunch, and then continued walking around the Kowloon side. By early evening, he needed to get back and we parted ways and I wandered around more before heading back to my place to rest from a full day of walking and looking around.
The next day, I went by ferry across to the Kowloon side to meet another old friend from university, Coralie. She was a French exchange student at UT during my senior year and again, thanks to Facebook were able to stay in contact for when an opportunity like this comes up! I got to meet a couple of her friends, and her beautiful family. It was a happy reminder of my niece, Olivia. When her daughter walked up to be introduced to me, I went to shake her little hand, but being French, she was expecting to go for my cheek for a kiss. She was so well mannered, fluent in French and English, and learning Chinese in school. Now that’s the new age of children prepping for a global workforce.
Spending time catching up with Coralie was great as we went through each of our careers. I felt so happy for her success in her career path, as whenever I see truly successful people and see their career paths, I love and automatically become impressed and happy for their work getting recognized. After an amazing lunch looking out to the Hong Kong cityline across the harbor, we headed for a drive to drop me off at a place that isn’t normally seen by tourists to Hong Kong. It was a little fishing village in the New Territories, and it was really fun to walk along the water and see the lively fisherman offering their fish to onlookers above on the piers. Once an order was received, they would use a pole to reach it up to the purchaser. After the rest of the afternoon, I headed back by minibus to Hong Kong, and stopped by the Jordan street markets for some browsing before heading back to Hong Kong.
At night, I used the tram to get all the way up to the top of Victoria’s Peak for another great view of Hong Kong from above. Hong Kong is a great city, with great restaurants, night life, and people!