Part 8 of our June 2009 trip to China with the Speizmans.
Wednesday, June 17 – Bus to Stanley Market, Sunset at Four Seasons
For old times’ sake, we took the #6 bus from the Star Ferry terminal across the island toward Stanley, passing our hold homes and haunts. This was a chance to show Allie our old stomping grounds and relive many memories.
We were able to snag top front seats on the doubledecker #6 bus. The bus was more modern than in our day but the route was pretty much the same. We went through Central, up Queens Road East in Wanchai, up Wongnaichung Gap Road, down Repulse Bay Road and out to Stanley.
In Central, we passed by the Hong Kong Police headquarters which now flew the red flag of the Peoples’ Republic of China. It was one of the few places that overtly flew the Chinese flag at that time, just 12 years after the territory had reverted from British to Chinese control.
As we went up Queens Road East on the edge of Wanchai, I started to recognize more of the old craft shops where we would get furniture, picture frames and other household goods made by hand. In general, on this road trip down memory lane, I started to see more of the old Hong Kong that hadn’t changed since we lived there, rather than the radical new skyscrapers and landfills that grabbed my attention in the first few days.
The bus climbed up Stubbs Road, overlooking Happy Valley, toward Wongnaichung Gap and the location of Barb’s old apartment building. We were shocked to see a pair of monstrous new towers, Highcliff and The Summit, more or less where Barb’s apartment complex stood. We couldn’t get a good photo from the bus, but here is one courtesy of Wikipedia. The pair of pencil-thin tall towers are evidently locally referred to as “the chopsticks.” While Barb’s apartment was gone, the old Adventist Hospital and Villa Monte Rosa, which was next door where Cathy McGown lived were still there.
We passed over Wongnaichung Gap to the south side of Hong Kong Island, now officially on Repulse Bay Road. There were a few new towers but I mostly recognized the familiar view over Deep Water Bay and toward Aberdeen, though interchanges for the Aberdeen Tunnel which had just started construction when I left in 1976 and opened in 1982, were new to me. We passed by the site of our house at 36 Repulse Bay Road — the house was gone in favor of some new low-rise condos, but the entrance looked more or less the same and I was happy to get a quick glimpse and photo of our old view of Deep Water Bay and Middle Island.
We rounded the corner into Repulse Bay itself and again we were first surprised by the number of fancy new apartment towers but then quickly started to recognize a number of our old haunts that still remained. The beach looked much the same, as did the mountains and some of the low-rise buildings near the beach. But most of the high rises were new, most egregiously the massive block of condos on the site of the old Repulse Bay Hotel. The hotel, with its Verandah Restaurant, had been our family’s favorite Sunday evening destination (when Ah Chen was off). We thought for a moment about getting off and walking up the hill to our old Hong Kong International School campus which is now just the primary school but we decided to stay on the bus.
The bus rolled onward to its end of the line in Stanley. We disembarked and headed to Stanley Market, one of my mom’s favorite shopping spots. The stalls and small shops were largely the same as in our day. We spent a happy couple of hours shopping for knick knacks and stopping for some snacks at one of the small restaurants.
Eventually it was back on the bus for the ride home, tracking the same route but without any additional pictures this time. We made it back to Central and the Four Seasons with some time to shop in the upscale IFC mall. At least here the cluster of big foreign brandname stores didn’t seem as out of place as they did in Xian, and the mall had a lot more foot traffic. We even found time for a snack at McDonald’s, helping us feel at home in Hong Kong.
The weather had finally cleared enough to get some nice pictures from our room and from the pool deck.
Allie had a nice swim and we all enjoyed the sunset with the pool deck mostly to ourselves — an especially peaceful evening among all the hubbub and a capstone for our time in Hong Kong.
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