On my last day in Hong Kong I met ELVIS!

The last day of a holiday is always a bit sad because you don’t want it to end but it’s also fun because you know you have to squeeze in as much activity as possible before it all comes to an end.

So here is a recount of my last day in HK…

My wife and I had planned to go to the Crystal Cabin skylifts on the last day but the weather was against us again and it was a foggier day than when we went to the HK Peak so we cancelled those plans and decided to go back and enjoy all the best bits of places we’d found over the past few days.

The day started off slow and well behaved but my wife wanted to go back to the markets (the ones that nearly killed my back walking around them for hours) so we parted ways, the girls went to the markets and my friend and I headed to Soho for more Bacardi 151 and people watching.

We found a great spot in the English Pub named “Yorkshire Pudding” and even ordered Yorksire Pudding as a snack while relaxing and people watching, there are a lot of very fancy expensive cars driving around HK.

After a few drinks we decided to go back to the massage place we found with the girls but we had no idea where it was.  After walking around in circles for an hour we stopped at another pud/bar and got a mixed platter snack that was some of the best pub food I’ve had in years.  we were just about to leave when my friend spotted Elvis walking past the window, he called out and Elvis came in to meet us.

Meeting Elvis was a highlight of my Asian holiday, an unexpected treasure that can only happen while on holiday.  We quickly bought him a beer for being such a friendly megastar and in return he put on a mini concert for us in the bar.

I never dreamed I’d get to sing Blue Suede Shoes with the King!

My Dad named me Aaron because that’s Elvis’s middle name.  I haven’t shown him the photos yet but I’m sure he will be impressed when he sees them.

One Last Massage…

To finish off the night I had my heart set on one last cheap massage but we couldn’t find the place we’d been before.  After some web surfing on the iphone I found the name of a place near the hotel that apparently only asians go to… this sounded perfect to me.

We managed to find the place but my friend chickened out.  it took a bit of negotiating as the staff didn’t speak english and my Mandarin is very limited but I managed to arrange a 3 hour massage for $70 Aussie dollars.  The place was amazing with large steam rooms, spa baths, saunas for guests to use but since all the patrons enjoying thses facilities were completely naked I skipped that part and went straight in for a traditional massage.

A small Chinese woman, about 5 feet tall and 50+ years old entered the room and got me to lie face down on the massage table.  She then climbed up on the table, grabbed hold of some ceiling rails and proceeded to walk all over me for the next coupl of hours.

She cracked areas of my back 4-5 times and it was a constant shift between soothing and sheer pain.  I was wondering if I would be able to stand up when it was all over.  If it wasn’t so painful I think I would have fallen asleep a couple of times (maybe that’s why she kept hurting me).

Eventually the voluntary torture was over and I was releived to find I could stand up and was not paralised as I feared after all the back cracking.

As I walked out onto the street I realised it was now 2:30am and I had a missed call from my wife wondering where I was.

Lost In Translation…

I knew the massage place was close to the hotel but I wasn’t sure in which direction rather than wander in circles again I grabbed a taxi to get home ASAP.

I jumped into the Taxi, gave him the name of the hotel and sat back for a quick ride… a minute later I realize he’s pulling into the harbour tunnel to Kowloon and it was too late to turn around, even at 2:30am the traffic is busy and we had to go though the tunnel before we could do a U-turn and head back to Hong Kong Island.  Luckily taxis are extremely cheap in China and Hong Kong so it still only cost about $9 for the 30 minute trip.

I finally got back to the hotel just after 3am to find my wife packing our suitcases.

I told her everything Ijust told you and she just looked at me and shook her head.  I’m a lucky man to have such a great wife!

The Morning After…

After a couple of hours sleep it was time to jump in another taxi and start the journey home.  i didn’t think we were going to fit in one taxi with all the luggage we had after a week of tavel shopping.

While sitting in the airport waiting for our plane my friend was looking through his collection of photos on his camera when he stops and turns to me and says “When did we meet Elvis? I don’t remember that!”