Planes, trains and automobiles. There is no other way to describe our day. We had a dinner reservation to make in Hong Kong at 7:00 pm, and we were determined to make it! Rosemarie Kriesel is the sister of Angela Cochrane, Margaret's friend and colleague in Edmonton. Rosemarie and her family have been living in Hong Kong for the past 14 years, and had sent us a standing invitation for dinner. As we were planning to go there anyhow, we had accepted their gracious offer, and that much anticipated dinner date was that night.

We were up by 7:00 am and headed for the airport via our hostel shuttle van by 7:40 am. We got to the Xi'an airport by 8:40 am and were flying to Guangzhou (Canton) by 9:40 am. We landed at 12 pm, and took a shuttle bus into Guangzhou. It took 40 minutes to get to its terminal, from where we caught a cab to the Guangzhou East train station. We missed the 1:36 pm train to Kowloon, because we arrived at the ticket counter at 1:35 pm. DOH! So we had lunch and waited for the 3:35 pm train, which we caught without difficulty. When we got to Kowloon, we went through customs even though it's part of China. Why? As we were told, one country, two systems - if they didn't control access, the entire population of China would try to move there! After clearing customs, we caught the KCR subway for one stop; then transferred to the MTR subway to take us underneath Victoria Harbour to Central Station on Hong Kong Island. From there, we caught a cab to our hostel, which was on the top of Mount Davis. When we arrived after a long, winding drive, we asked the driver to wait, as we realized that it could take a long time to get another cab. We hadn't booked in advance, so we ran in to see if there was room. There was, so we checked in, freshened up (for 2 minutes), ran back to the cab and caught a ride to the Pokfolam neighbourhood, arriving a fashionably half hour late at 7:30 pm.

We felt frazzled, exhausted and gritty to say the least, but when Rosemarie opened the door, it all melted away! She looked like her sister, Angela, and seemed genuinely delighted to see us. We were immediately comfortable and couldn't help but notice what an incredible place we were in. Rosemarie and Andre live on the 15th floor of a complex that overlooks the busiest sea harbour in the world. Their home is beautiful. We sat on their balcony sipping champagne, enjoying appetizers, looking out over the harbour, and feeling totally spoiled. They had no idea how truly delighted we were to be able to talk fast about the things we had in common - people we knew, places we'd been, and so on. As the conversation and champagne flowed, we discussed family, weather, politics, travel, and life in general. It was wonderful. They were down-to-earth, fun people who live high-powered, executive lives. Oh, and their kids were fun and nice, and our kids immediately hit it off with them! As strange as this sounds, it was like seeing family, even though we'd never met before.

They have a live-in cook / housekeeper / nanny / friend named Lita who has been with them for 8 years. She prepared a beautiful meal consisting of Italian sausages, shrimp curry, rice, and Greek salad; followed by a lovely dessert that the kids made Margaret swear to try and make when we get home.

The night flew by and, close to midnight, Rosemarie drove us back to the hostel. We hope to be able to visit them again in the summer when they come to Edmonton.