Finally we had an opportunity, or so we thought, to make use of free WiFi to phone home, download some books to our Kindle, send emails, post blogs etc. Shops don't open till 10:30 in the mall, and neither does the free WiFi. We sprinted over to the Starbucks and grabbed the 20 minutes free time. Darn it - by now it was close to 10 pm. at home, and all our kids, except Mike, were either in bed with cell phones and computers turned off, or on vacation themselves. Frustrating. At least Barry had a good talk with Mike, who is following us faithfully on the blog.
Barry was stressed about posting the blog and since I delegated picture-taking, editing, choosing and posting to him, he ran back to the cabin. I spent 2 glorious hours feeding my addiction to the internet, standing at a glass counter in the hall of the terminal. The lower level is where I tried first, and I have to tell you that it is entirely dedicated to all the same luxury brands as upstairs, but only for children. Gucci, Dior - you get the idea and the clothes and shoes are gorgeous. A small kid size motorcycle with training wheels was in one window. I took a picture of a pink frothy confection of a dress in Dior, that I dreamed of buying for our granddaughter Anna - but alas I didn't even dare to go in to find out the price tag.
We got a fast lunch then sprinted in another cab to the Canon store on Nathan Rd where Barry bought some more lenses for his new Canon, (which of course resulted in buyers remorse once he was back on the ship). I got a new cheap but nice cover for my iPad, and one for my iPhone. Everyone in Hong Kong deals and hustles. The Canon guy was the epitome of this trait. You start with a price, haggle, struggle with yourself over whether you should spend the money, and then the salesperson offers a new price. This goes on for quite a while. Basically they don't let you leave, unless you want a price with no profit for them. Their motto must be: Any sale is better than no sale. Each salesperson in every store is able to negotiate without having to go to some "higher up". I only wish I had been able to do this in my career. The atmosphere is exciting because everyone likes a deal.
We had to be back onboard by 3 pm. and we had one more errand - a new suitcase. We are not buying gifts for everyone like we did last year, because frankly we don't have room in our car, but even with that we have either been given large gifts by HAL, or bought so much for ourselves that we are going to have to ship some things home. We found a cash only suitcase place run by the currency exchange guy near the ship - (pop up stores are everywhere when our ship arrives), and made another deal.
The mandatory ship board lifeboat drill was held at 4:15, then we quickly changed and managed a 30 minute sail away out of this wonderful wonderful city before dinner. The evening entertainment was one of the best ever - a married couple who were in the top 10 finalists on So You Think You Can Dance, and guests on Dancing With the Stars. Our grand daughter Lara was also on the Canadian version of this show, we were thrilled with the talent of this couple who were flawless in their performance.
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