Sunday, July 8, 2012

We didn't wake up until 10am, the first time we slept in past 7 the whole trip. We went across the street to see what we could see for Dragon Boat Races, which we had read about in the airport magazines. Theoretically it's a big deal, so we lucked out in timing. To get across the street, we had to go under the street, which was a subterranean area full of designer clothing and jewelry places. Back above ground, it was very hot outside, with hundreds of people with umbrellas, not cognizant of the fact they had umbrellas. Justin hoped his eyes would make it through the day.

We were walking along Hong Kong's Avenue of the Stars, which had handprints and statues for several people, most notably Jackie Chan. We did see some crew racing, which was nice, but it was excruciatingly hot, so we couldn't take too much more of just standing outside. We decided to head back across the street, then headed up Nathan Street, which supposedly is one of the more famous streets. We saw a ton of jewelry, electronics, and fashion stores. There were lots of people trying to sell stuff on the street, and we really could not have been less interested. So rather than head back the same way, we headed back on Chatham Street, which was much quieter.

We ate lunch at a Hot Pot restaurant, Royal Place Hot Pot. We got some noodles, ostrich, chicken, pork dumplings, and vegetable wontons. Even though we were eating soup, we had no bowls, which was weird. So we just pretended to know what we were doing. The food was very good, particularly the ostrich. While we were eating, we had the annoying, but then comical, situation that "All Out of Love" kept playing on infinite repeat on the stereo. This made us think of best infinite repeat song for a long lunch or dinner. We walked back to the hotel, took the 2 minutes required to pack, and then went to the airport.

At the airport, we got through security quickly (we already had boarding passes from the night before), and so we hung out at the bar for a bit. We gave some more thought to the best infinite repeat song, and Crystal had - to date - the best answer, which was "What's going on?" by Marvin Gaye. The flight back was very boring, but we did manage to get some sleep. At LAX, we eventually got our bags, after several discussions with people from Cathay Pacific and Thai Airways. We caught a cab back to our friend Mike's place, then got in the car and headed home to see our pups.

For once, we unfortunately had some bad news upon our return. We found out our eldest dog, Meth, had been diagnosed with bone cancer while we were on our trip, and she was terminally ill. We make a point of telling our friends and family not to tell us of any bad news while we're on holiday, and they thankfully did so, so that we could be blissfully ignorant on our trip. But it was a bit of a rude awakening upon our return, especially because Meth has always been the rock of our dog pack. She's always been the best behaved, the most obedient, the most healthy - this really came out of nowhere. It's been two weeks since we've been home, and thankfully she's seemed more or less healthy and happy. We had a great trip, but more important than that, we're glad that we'll get to spend the last month or two of Meth's life with her, at home, in Vista.