Well here we go again on a shorter trip back to our old stomping grounds of south east Asia. first stop is Hong Kong where we’ve not been since the mid 70’s.
Didn’t start off too well. The taxi we ordered turned up at 5 to 1 in the morning rather than 5 to 1 in the afternoon. Is it any wonder nobody answered the phone when he rang to say he was outside. 🤔 still we got to the station and on to the train to St. Pancras on time. A quick walk to the Piccadilly line and a 1 minute wait saw us on the tube out to Heathrow. Now we could have save a few minutes by getting a tube to Paddington and the Heathrow express but rather than £27 something it cost us less than 6 quid per person. Why not I ask.
I had checked in on line and we only had hand luggage so we breezed through security and into the Cathay lounge in no time.
A pleasant stay with a few nibbles before getting on the flight to HK. What to say, it’s an 11+ hour flight so comprises of drink, food, sleep and more food. However I did manage to slip in a quick movie, 2001, still as good as the day it came out although I suspect that Cathay got their copy from the dodgy DVD shop in Bangsar 😂.
Again breezed through immigration, surprisingly no landing card required and eventually find driver to take us to the hotel. Bit posh over on HK island with some great views over the harbour.
Time for a shower and chance to wind down a bit so we head up to the lounge on the 41st floor which really does have some spectacular views.
Relaxing time for a couple of drinks and of course some food.
Prawns wrapped in pork, wrapped in toasted almonds. Whats not to like😁.
Followed by some nibbles which is just what we need. Bit on the pricey side with beer at 8 quid a pint of Tsingtao 🥴. Hopefully a good nights sleep and we are back on track to see what tomorrow brings.
It’s over!!!!!!! Hard to believe that nearly 3 months have passed since we left on our trip. Had a nice last flight on Air Canada but with the flight being just short of 6 hours the chance of any decent sleep is remote. Arrive over the UK around 5:30, now you can’t land at Heathrow until 6:00 so we go round and round for 30 mins before we land. 🥴
I have to say that getting through immigration is now a lot easier than it used to be and we’re cleared and by the baggage carousel by 6:15 and one of our cases is practically the first off. 😁Unfortunately the other case is nowhere to be seen and by 7:45 we, and a surprising number of other folk on the flight, are left staring at an empty carousel and a sign that says baggage delivered. 🤬🤬 This is the second time this has happened to us on this trip.
After 20 mins with the nice lady at the baggage department and we find out that the other bag missed the flight and would be on the next one. Now the question is, how come two cases get checked in together, disappear down the conveyor together then fail to get on the plane together? I guess we will never know.
Finally leaving the arrivals hall Beth and Ritch are there waiting for us and it’s a 2 hour trip back home to a decent cup of coffee and a proper sausage and bacon batch with brown sauce.
A trip of a lifetime or the start of new adventures? We’ll see.
Well this is it. The last day away. Up showered and repacked the bags for the very last time. Malcolm has, despite protestations, said he will take us to the airport so we don’t need to worry about a taxi. As its an early evening flight we need to hang around till 2:00 so we head off down Yonge for a very early lunch or more correctly a very late breakfast. Getting a “standard” breakfast seems to be a challenge so we plump for a little Chinese place where they hand make to dumplings. Some beef and cabbage dumplings, stirfried spicy cauliflower for Chris and shrimp stirfried noodles for me make a good start to the day.
Malcolm picks us up and navigates through the downtown traffic to get us to the airport at the perfect time, we check in get through security etc and into the lounge where I’m writing this post. We’re 30 mins from boarding and this really is the end of the trip. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Would I do it again? If I could. Would I do it tomorrow? No, it’s time to get home and catch up with family and friends……But next year?
Another late start, we seem to be sleeping later and later as the end of the trip gets closer. Leisurely breakfast in the hotel as we simple can’t be bothered to go out to find somewhere to eat. We are definitely winding down. A short stroll to Yonge and Bloor to catch the subway downtown as we are heading to St Lawrence Market. This is another great market with lots and lots of great produce and specialists stalls. The only complaint is that it is WAY TOO HOT and I’m down to my shirtsleeves and carrying my coat and fleece. We manage to finally decide on the Maple Syrup to buy. There are literally dozens and dozens of different ones. Hopefully it will taste OK.
Youve heard of a flower arrangement. this is a vegetable arrangement.
The Flatiron
Okra and garlic chips. Should be really good.
Malcolm and Emel have kindly offered to feed us this evening and as Emel is Turkish it will be home cooked proper Turkish food. Malcolm picks us up round about 2:00 and takes us a little tour of the lakefront. There are some very nice houses there! We sit and chat, drink and eat as if we did this every week, wonderful. After a super evening it’s another first, Emel orders an Uber for us to get back to the hotel. I have to say it was very comfortable and efficient. I may have to revise my prejudices 🥴
Flight from NO was a long day and we only surfaced around 10:00 so we headed to the little coffee shop in the hotel for a cup of half decent coffee. We had a bit of time to pass before we were due to meet Malcolm in the afternoon so as it was a nice day we wandered into Queens park and sat in the sun watching people and the squirrels to pass the time. I’m always amazed when I’m in Canada, they have more squirrels than we have pigeons!
We met Malcolm and wandered to a little coffee shop just around the block. We spent 3 hours non stop catching up which was fantastic and passed in a flash. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again The sign of a great friendship is not how often you meet but what happens when you do meet and meeting with Malcolm was as easy as if we had last met just a few weeks ago.
Malcolm headed home to Emel and we decided to get a quick meal and an early night. Headed up Yonge to Collier to a little Japanese restaurant. As always a great sign when it is full of Japanese people. Had a very nice meal, Goyoza, Tempura, great Unagi and Sashimi washed down with a few cans of Sapporo. Bonus by UK standards it was quite cheap.
Right it’s late, there is a complete absence of any form of reviver and we have an early start tomorrow to get to the airport so this will be a very short post.
Decided that we would go to the WWII museum today as the weather forcast is dire again and tramping around in the wet is not my idea of fun. Turns out th weather forecast was wrong but there you go……
Headed down to Canal to find some breakfast. Found the Creole house and had a very nice breakfast albeit with a little too much dead pig on the plate. Bacon and sausage OK, bacon sausage and ham a bit over the top. Now just a couple of things about breakfast a: it does not involve cocktails and b: there is no need for a desert much to the dismay of our server. However it is improved with hot sauce 😂
A bit of a walk to the museum but it’s nice to stretch our legs. Now the guides say allow 2 – 3 hours. NO allow 2 days if you really want to see it all. It’s quite interesting to see WWII from the American viewpoint and some parts of the displays are very poignant and exceedingly thought provoking. Given the current state of the world all I can say is will people never learn. No pictures, no more words just a profound hope that it never happens again.
Wandering back we pick a random restaurant quite close to our hotel. It’s actually really good and for once you can have a meal with a complete lack of anything fried. Brilliant. As it’s our last night in NO I splash out on some Oysters to start and shrimp fettuccine and Chris has a great chicken salad.
Back to the hotel to rearrange the cases for the very last time on this trip only to find that Christmas is on its way.
Right this is getting hard. Very late nights listening to Jazz and consuming Corpse Revivers my new favourite cocktail are taking their toll. As far as I can remember this is what happened yesterday.
Grotty weather when we eventually surfaced. Dropped round to Daisy Dukes for breakfast and then wandered down to the CBD to find the Post Office to post a birthday card. Wandering back we stop off at the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception and as mass is about to start stay for a while.
The weather is still crap so we head back to the hotel and hunker down in the bar to catch up with the blog. Now it’s Monday afternoon and the bar is crammed and buzzing. Is it always like this in NO and if it is how do people keep up.
I manage to catch up on the two outstanding blogs and the rain has sort of stopped so we head out to find something to eat. Now as you probably know Chris can’t eat seafood. This in NO poses a problem as everything has some sort of seafood, either as part of the dish or as an accompaniment or flavouring. I think I habe found a restaurant the does just fish quite close to the hotel soo we wander off there. Result for Chris as she has a blackened red fish with veg.
I decide to have a seafood combo. Now I’ve got used to the portion sized so, cunningly I think, I order a half portion. Great move yes?
You have to be bloody joking, it is a mountain of catfish, prawns, fried oysters, crayfish balls and soft shell crabs. I’m ashamed to say there is simply no way I can finish this. What a full portion is like beggars belief. Note the potatoes in the background. I don’t think I have every been served boiled potatoes as a starter. Weird or what?
It’s only 6:00 and the night beckons so we head back to the Mahogany Hall for a bit more music and perhaps the odd Corpse Reviver (I’m over the Absinthe experiment I think). The first set is a trio, drums Doug Belote, bass guitar Steve Masakowski and piano Brian Quezergue and they are good. The second set is the original New Orleans Tuxedo Jazz band. Actually its the same musicians as last night (Gerald French drums, Dr Roger on sax and clarinet + piano and double bass) and a trumpet player. Now this is the oldest continuous playing band formed in 1910 with new members from the original family still playing. (I will sort out the names soon). It is a magic set and its hard to walk away at the half way point but if we don’t a: the next day may no get going till early afternoon. And b: I may end up with terminal corpse reviver syndrome which as youare aware is a serious condition.
Finally manage to surface around 10:30 having slept like a log. First order of business is to sort out the hotel booking. Now Trailfinders have an Urgent Assistance button on their app which opens up a WhatsApp chat with a Bot. Now for once it seems to be a very sensible Bot asking sensible questions and not getting into the “I don’t know spiral” that so often happens. About 15 mins later I get a WhatsApp from a human saying they are on the case and about half an hour later they come back saying they have spoken to the hotel and it’s all sorted. Wonderful.
We wander out to find some Brunch as its gone 11:00. There is a restaurant, Daisy Dukes, just round the corner which has good Tripadvisor reviews but there is a long queue outside. I guess the reviews are accurate then. Rather than wait we mosey down to Canal Street and go into a random Creole place and get a really nice omelette with grits and biscuit and Chris has pancakes.
Now there are an awful lot of people smoking in NO and judging by the smell there is a fair percentage of “herbal” product being consumed. The van parked outside the restaurant may give a clue to why this is.
We head out into the French Quarter to explore taking great care to avoid Bourbon Street. Heading up Royal, which is where our hotel is we start to see the type of NO that I expected with some wonderful architecture and a complete lack of drunk people 😂.
Then it happens. Right on the street there is a jazz band, Doreen Ketchens. I recorded a complete song but its too big to upload on the hotel wifi but there is a short one which gives and idea of what it was like. This is the NO I wanted to see.
We’re wandering up to Armstrong park just to figure out where we need to be in the evening for our tour when all of a sudden
It just gets better and better.
We retire to a nearby bar for a small libation as there is not really time to get back to the hotel then back to the park for our tour. It has a small balcony which is great for people watching so we sit and have a couple of drinks and watch the world go by although some of the world look a little worse for wear and its only 3:00pm on a sunday.
Wander ing back to the park we notice that they’re a bit careless parking around here.
Oh and Voodoo is alive and well around these here parts.
I’d rather not speculate why this guy is advertising live chickens.
We meet our guide, Cayge, for the Jazz tour outside the park. She is a music major and a: passionate about Jazz and b: local and is a great guide. We start off in Congo square which is where it all started. It seems that Louisiana had for the time some quite liberal legislation called Code Noir for enslaved people compared to other southern states. The Code Noir stated that slaves were to be instructed in the Catholic faith, given food and clothing allowances, and allowed to rest on Sundays and had the right to petition a public prosecutor if they were mistreated. so slaves would congregate on what is now Congo square on a Sunday and play and the beginnings of Jazz was born.
There is an floating lantern event going on in the park. It would have been nice to stop and spend time there but of course we are on a timetable so it’s a couple of hurried shots as we wander through the park.
anyway on we go back into the French Quarter stopping to look at significant things and places in the history of Jazz and then go into a tiny bar called Fritzels. It’s about the same size as our living room and is jam packed, however as we are on a tour we have reserved seats right at the front. Even better still Cayge stands the first round so it’s a whiskey sour for me just to get into the swing of things. It’s a 3 piece banjo, tuba and drums, quite old school as Cayge tells us as the double bass is a relatively new addition to Jazz.
The music is great, the atmosphere fabulous. This is exactly what I imagined it would be like. Unfortunately we need to move on as we have one more bar to go to. However we can take our drinks with us and I feel quite American wandering down the street with a cocktail in my hands.
Next bar is Mahogany Hall. It’s know for its great selection of Absinthe and the fact it has Burlesque as well as Jazz. Again best seats in the house literally right next to centre stage. Drinks are essential, you can’t just wander in and listen to the music. You either buy drinks or pay a cover charge. Well it’s obvious you buy drinks. Chris has a Bees Knees and I have to try Absinthe, after all Ewan McGregor drank it in Moulin Rouge. Now here is a hint, if you are drinking cocktails in America drink those that come in a small glass, otherwise they come in a tumbler and they are NOT small measures. My Absinthe arrives and the waitress warns that you need to spend at least 30 mins drinking it. Why you may ask. Well for a start it’s 68% ABV, its easy to drink and there is a lot of it. We’re catching the end of a set with a pianist and its really good as not only can he really play but he has a great voice. He also has a guest singer come on for a song as well.
Cayge has to go at the end of the set but Chris and I decide to stay as a: we want to hear some more music and b: I’m still slowly chugging down the Absinthe. The next set is a quartet. Gerard French the drummer is the leader and is a massive man. These guys are really really good and we stay there for the first half of their set. It’s brilliant. Another drink is required but rather than Absinthe (I think it may be an acquired taste which I have yet to acquire) I plumb for a Corpse Reviver and it really does work as by the end of the evening both Chris and I are wide awake and still bopping away.
Dr Roger on the clarinet and saxes. I’ll try and upload Chris’ video but I’m not sure if it will be successful
Flight to New Orleans today. Short drive to the airport, check the car in, get the little train to the terminal, find AA checkin desk, check two bags in, through security (both carry on bags hand searched) all in less than 30 mins. Magic!!
Plane takes off on time, lands on time and our luggage also arrives. A first ever for AA 😂. Subsequent inspection however shows that both checked bags have been opened by TSA and our toothpaste, moisturiser and sun cream are all missing. Bummer!!
Taxi to the hotel is great. It’s a fixed price of $36 which must be the cheapest transfer we have had and it’s also quite a long way. Get to the Hotel and there is a bit of a problem. We think we are booked in for 4 nights, the hotel thinks we are booked in for 3 and they can’t change it as it was booked by a third party. Well thats a problem for tomorrow.
Ditch the bags in the room and head down to the bar to find Joe and Erika. The bar is packed and hoppin but Joe is easy to spot and an emotional reunion happens right in the middle of the bar.
It’s so noisy in the bar that it’s difficult to hear what people are saying so we head off to the restaurant Joe has booked. We wander out of the hotel and end up on Bourbon Street. Now imagine the Las Vegas strip, condense it to 1/10th its size, line it with bars selling cheap drinks and pumping out music at a decibel level that constitutes a health hazard and populate it with females that make a Liverpool Hen party look like a Woman’s Institute meeting and guys who make a Geordie stag night in Prague look like a temperance meeting and you have a pretty good idea of what it’s like, and it’s only 7:00pm 😮. I’m quite worried that it might be a mistake coming to NO as this is not what I expected.
Now Joe is renown for finding great places to eat and as Erika is from NO the restaurant, R’evolution, is amazing, the service is exceptional and well, the food sublime. Three hours pass in a flash As one recollection triggers another and another. Joe and Erika have a 40min drive back to Erika’s family where they are staying so we head back to the hotel and they get an Uber. Seeing Joe again and meeting Erika was VERY VERY special and I am so grateful that they took the time to fly to NO and then come to meet us. Three hours was nowhere near enough to catch up on 15+ years but if there is anyway I can manage to get to Atlanta I will do it in a flash.
XX🌳🧚🌳XX