In addition to looking forward to visiting a new country and spending time with Derek, I was eager to get away from weather-related problems in Boquete. They seem to have followed me, however, as Derek and I drove from the New Orleans airport to Lafayette in a blinding rainstorm, turning a two-hour trip into a three-hour one. Then we woke up the next morning to snow, the first in recent memory for Lafayette. Derek's dog Scooter was unimpressed, as she had seen snow in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but his other dog, Posie, a native of Louisiana, seemed to be both bewildered and ecstatic simultaneously. She ran through it, rolled in it, ate it, and peed on it. During their walk later that morning, Derek and the dogs (good name for a band?) met up with a photographer for the local newspaper and consequently had their picture featured on the front page the next morning.
The flight to Newark and on to Hong Kong was Business/First Class, which had its advantages. We were served a four or five course excellent dinner, had private televisions with hundreds of movie channels, were offered lots of free booze (which we took advantage of very sparingly so as to ward off dehydration), and enjoyed large seats which reclined almost completely so as to make comfortable beds. Derek gave me a set of noise-cancelling headphones as a birthday present which, when used with ear plugs and an eye mask, afforded a reasonably comfortable night's sleep. So we weren't exhausted upon arrival and got right into the swing of things. The plane on the return trip wasn't quite so nice--no personal t.v. movie library, for example--but the seats and the service were the same.
We stayed in Peninsula hotels in both Hong Kong and Beijing, which were truly first class as well. Their hotel transportation consists of a fleet of Rolls Royces, and both have shopping arcades featuring Armani, Prada, Hermes, Chanel, Dior, etc., etc. The rooms were deluxe, with down comforters, marble baths, the deepest bathtub I've ever seen, loads of bathroom toiletries, two control centers for lights and temperature, flat screen t.v., and the list goes on and on. Breakfast came with the room, an elegant sit-down one with many choices in Hong Kong, and the most extravagant buffet I've ever experienced in Beijing. We woke up every morning talking about breakfast. In fact, the restaurants in both hotels were so good that we rarely went anywhere else to eat. The Hong Kong Peninsula was very British colonial in decor and service, as might be expected, while the one in Beijing was very contemporary. The service in both is unsurpassed. It was like staying at a luxury spa--in fact Derek took full advantage of the hotel spa in Beijing, having two massages during our stay. He also availed himself of the exercise facilities and declared them superb. (I took naps during his exercise runs, having gotten more exercise than I wanted hoofing it around town.) Derek and I had lots of laughs together. One of note was our receipt of a message delivered to our room, in an envelope on hotel stationery, reminding us to schedule a limo for our departure. It was signed "Chief Concierge, Fergus Gu." We later saw someone at the airport who might aptly have been named Fergus Gu and got the giggles all over again.
The weather was beautiful in Hong Kong. We were there only two days, and the highlight of the visit was a trip by ferry to Hong Kong Island where we took a funicular railway, the world's steepest, to Victoria Peak, which overlooks all of Hong Kong. We ignored the couture shops and instead invigorated the economy at the various markets, where you can buy most anything very cheap if you're willing to bargain. In fact, bargaining is expected. It's a way of life in China. We made no major purchases, however, limiting ourselves largely to souvenirs and small gifts.
The weather intervened again in Beijing. It was bitterly cold when we arrived and got colder. Our first day was devoted to the obligatory trip to Tinneman Square and the Forbidden City, both outside venues. And we walked both ways in the cold. I didn't think it was possible to be any colder than I was that day, but then, on our last day, we made the trip to the Great Wall. It was hovering around zero when we left Beijing with our guide and was even colder when we got to the Wall, which is in the mountains. After driving a ways up a mountain and then walking a bit uphill, we were transported to the Wall itself by cable car. We got a few pictures before all our cameras--mine, Derek's, and the guide's--quit because of the cold. I didn't realize cold affected digital cameras, but I thought it was awfully coincidental that our batteries would expire simultaneously, so I looked it up on the Internet.
We ate Peking Duck, of course, which is excellent. We went to markets in Beijing, too, where the haggling is much more intense than in Hong Kong. We also visited a number of regular stores, but the aggressiveness of the sales staff was almost unbearable.
Derek spent most of one day with some university students. He had written ahead upon the advice of a colleague in the States, asking to visit. After we arrived in Beijing and the arrangements were made, he received an e-mail asking what the subject of his seminar would be. So he obligingly gave a seminar the next morning followed by a luncheon with about 12 people which lasted well into the afternoon. He was enthusiastic about the experience and had lots of good stories. At various times during lunch, he reported, each of the participants stood to offer a toast. They also made notes of any idiomatic use of the English language, such as when Derek said, in response to whether he was comfortable with certain of the foods, "When in Rome . . . ." It was interesting to me that most educated Chinese speak virtually flawless English in terms of grammar and syntax. The differences in the languages, however, particulary the tonality of Chinese, I would guess, makes pronunciation very difficult. Without exception, we found the Chinese people to be warm and welcoming.
Everything I had read and had been told emphasized how crowded and smog-ridden Beijing would be, but we experienced neither. I don't know how to account for this. I've felt much more crowded in New York City than I did in either Hong Kong or Beijing. And one would have expected all their coal furnaces to be burning around the clock, given the weather, and yet it was not smoggy. Go figure. Beijing was extraordinarily spiffy, no doubt due to the Olympics, which, I understand, gave rise to a lot of cleaning up. All the taxicabs appeared to be new, the streets were being swept constantly, and we really had to get far off the beaten paths to find any sign of litter or junk.
We got back to Newark and then New Orleans pretty much without incident and spent the night of the 22nd there. Derek left the next morning for Lafayette, and a little later I headed for Atlanta to catch my flight back to Panama. My scheduled Atlanta flight had been pushed back in time so as to make it doubtful that I would make the Panama flight, so I went early and got on standby for an earlier flight. Everything was packed, and I was very tense when they began calling standby passengers for boarding. I was the last name called. Then, of course, the Panama flight was delayed an hour out of Atlanta, so I didn't get back to Panama City until 11:00 p.m. After negotiating immigration and customs, which took forever, I spent another half hour in baggage claim before finally admitting that one of my bags was missing. Another 45 minutes in the lost luggage line and a half hour trip into the city put me in my hotel close to 2:00 a.m. I flew out at 9:30 a.m. the next day, made it to David about 10:30, and was home in Boquete by noon. After a hassle too long and boring to explain, I finally got my bag Monday. I suppose it was asking too much that everything go smoothly.
Doc brought a turkey over Christmas morning to put in the oven, and Charly and Maryellen made the rest of the food. So we had a great Christmas with friends. Larry seems to have fared okay without me, but he reported that Demaris and family showed up unannounced on the Sunday before I came back and swept through the house making sure everything was clean and in order. I had a lot of catching up to do, but things are returning to normal.
