Tours By A Local

I had arranged for a tour of Hong Kong on our first full day through "Tours By Locals," which is an excellent resource for hiring  local guides.  I had used the website in Cordoba, and we felt we were well-served.

So, a while back, I had hired Bill Seviers as our guide.  Bill is an interesting character who has lived all over the world.  He had spent a great deal of time working in Manhattan as a lawyer.  He also had worked on the Hill and had fond memories of living in Washington, DC.  Born in Japan, his father did a lot of business in Hong Kong, so Bill had been here often.  After working a stint in London and then Central Europe, Bill jumped at the chance to move back to Asia.

During the financial implosion of 2008, Bill got fed up with investment banking, lawyering,and like, and became a guide.  He's an enthusiastic guy, weaving stories about Hong Kong and China from hundreds of years ago with observations on how Hong Kong is changing today.  It's clear to us that the whole China dynamic has Hong Kong a bit on edge. 

Bill walked us down to the Harbor, through the Peninsula Hotel -- the most expensive hotel in the city.  He noted that the Peninsula tries to retain the old British colonial feel, and he pointed out one of a fleet of Rolls Royces that will pick guests up at the airport and whisk them back.  The Peninsula is famous for its High Tea.

Along the Harbor wall, we stopped for a while as Bill talked about the history of Hong Kong, weaving together pirates and Portugal, the British and the Chinese.  Then, we veered off a bit, talking about American politics.  He is clearly a voracious reader of American current events.

Sculpture at the Harbor

The convention center on Hong Kong island

being crossed by a dredging ship.

Alas it was a cloudy day.  We didn't

even try to go up Victoria Peak,

as we couldn't see it.  No views.

After a while, we hopped on a doubledecker bus to get us a tour of Kowloon, including many places most tours do not go.

A Walk In The Park

We were meeting our guide at 10 am at the hotel.  We were up early, had breakfast, and had some time to kill.  I was getting antsy, so we went for a walk through Kowloon Park, which was right outside our 12th story floor.  (The hotel not only skips floor 13, but also 14 -- I wonder what the superstition is involved with that!)

So we walked around the park early Saturday morning, watching various groups of people doing Tai Chi.  The park has fountains, and birds, and a beautiful sculpture garden.  It was a nice relaxing way to start the trip, especially after last night's drama!

Saturday in the park.  It wasn't the Fourth of July.

They don't mess around with their

fountains.  Notice how high the

water goes.

One of the characters on comic book row.

Another, with our hotel in the background.

Well, It Didn't Take Long For This To Become An Adventure

Getting through immigration was relatively quick and painless.  Our bags were on the carousel as we came into baggage claim.  We wheeled our luggage through the airport, groggy and thrown by the cacophony in the arrival hall.

Once inside the cab, we raced off.  I was reading Twitter about the UVA game (and the upcoming Duke-VA Tech game), and checking email.  Carol was texting with her brother Dave and her sister-in-law Benancia, both of whom had been taking care of her ill mother.

As we get close, suddenly an email pops up from our hotel.  Since they had not heard from us, they cancelled our room and gave it to someone else!  I was furious, not realizing that a hotel could just cancel a reservation.

Our friend John Passacantando likes to say, "it's not an adventure until the first thing goes wrong."  Wow -- that didn't take long.  Here we were in this massive city without a hotel.  I was shaken, not stirred.  I called, and they were not that sympathetic.  I think they know they had done wrong, but didn't care.

Some of the screw-up was my fault.  I had booked the room starting on the 28th, which is the day we fly.  I had a brain fart and didn't take into account that we were not landing until the 29th because of the International Date Lane.  Since we didn't show on the 28th, they felt they could give away our room.  Yikes.

As the cabbie idled on a side street on Hong Kong island, Carol took command.  She got on the phone, threaten the hotel (the Mira Moon) with bad Yelp and Trip Adviser reviews.  They booked us a suite on the club level at their sister property, the Mira Hotel, for regular price.

After checking in late on the club floor, greeted with a complimentary glass of wine, we ordered room service and then went to bed.  It was late, and we had lucked out. . .our hotel location in Kowloon put us right in the thick of the city.

Not a strategy I would recommend to anyone, but it all worked out in the end.

Somewhere High Above Russia

Our route to Hong Kong took us up over Greenland, the North Pole, and the then down across the globe above Russia and China. 

Around 2 am EDT, I woke up, got up, and tracked down a flight attendant.  He promised to get me the information, even though he clearly had no idea what I was asking about.

A little while later, he finds me, and shows me a piece of paper -- Virginia had beaten Oregon 53-49!  They were on to the Elite Eight.  From the score, it clearly wasn't the prettiest of games (I correctly surmised that Kyle Guy's cold shooting had continued), but, hey, Virginia won.

For more mundane details, on the 16 hour flight, along with five hours of sleep, I also watched "A Star is Born" and "The Green Book" (recommend both, btw) and read "Bad Blood," which is the WSJ reporter's book on the Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos scandal.

A Good Finish to the Trip

We headed back toward our hotel along Obispo Street, which is one of the three most interesting streets in Havana, along with the Malecon and the Paseo del Prado.  Lots of bars, restaurants and shops, it's always vibrant, but never so crowded you can't get through.

I needed some water, so we stopped at an outdoor cafe.  A couple people hit us up for money, but we waved them off.  It's what New York City will be if Bill de Blasio  gets re-elected.  A couple of guys at the next table heard we were from Virginia.  Turns out while they live in LA now, one grew up in Petersburg.  

Even wilder is that he graduated from Elon University, where our youngest, Torie, will graduate this coming spring.  Anyhow, in between the street music, we talked.  This is their third time to Cuba, and they are as drawn to the vibrancy and energy as we are.  They are gutsier, as they are in country for ten days, plan to travel around, but have no specific plans.  They may rent a car (good luck!) or even hitchhike.

Anyhow, it was neat to run into them, and we wished them good travels as we left.

We relaxed for a little while at the hotel, showering off the grime and heat of the day.  Charlie and Lucy joined us for drinks at the hotel bar on the roof -- and we enjoyed the same sweeping views we enjoyed the night before.

We cabbed over to dinner at a restaurant Charlie requested we eat at again.  Just a few blocks from the Hotel Nacional, the Paladar Cafe Laurent is an open air restaurant on the fifth (top) floor of an apartment building.  We had eaten there in 2016, and were happy to go back.  Like Restaurant Vistamar, do not hesitate to go when you are in Havana.

Not surprisingly, Charlie and Lucy Cook make excellent travelling companions -- we really enjoyed their company the entire trip.  They had stayed for the second panel (sorry, I'm in Havana -- I wanted to do more sightseeing, and be grifted!).  Anyhow, we caught each other up on the day's events, and talked into the night.

Carol and I walked back with the Cooks to the Hotel Nacional, where the two of us caught a convertible back to our Hotel Saratoga. 

As the highly entertaining Brian Setzer would say:

Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a '57 Chevrolet

There are few things better than riding along the Malecon in a convertible from the 1950s, and then up the Paseo del Prado.  You literally feel like King of the World, even if you  don't have to die later in the North Atlantic.

We went up to the rooftop bar again, and capped off the trip with a nice Italian red.  I will spare you, dear readers, the monotony of the trip to the airport, the fun with Cuban immigration, and the inconsequential flights back.

One more vignette I forgot to share early before I wrap this puppy up:

We were in our old Chevy on the way to dinner in Cienfuegos when we stopped at one of the only lights in town.  A local fellow walked by with a NY football Giants t-shirt on.  I rolled down my window, shouting "Go Giants!" (they were in the process of beating the snot out of the Redskins 40-16).  

The gentleman looked befuddled, so I pointed at the shirt and helpfully shouted "Go Giants" even louder (added volume always aids language understanding!).  He grasped what the American fool in the car was saying, popped his shirt, and then we fist bumped.  

I don't want to claim I caused a little more world peace and understanding in that moment, but, looking back on it, I actually did.

The moment was, like Cuba is, magic.  Pure vibrant magic.

Two Shots That Sum Up The Best of Havana

There are plenty of run-down, falling down

buildings.  But, at the same time, there is

plenty of stunning splendor to enjoy.

Street musicians entertaining outside a cafe.

Taken

Were we grifted a second time in the same day, or was it just another case of kidnapping with tribute paid to Havana pirates? 

(Editor's Note: Uh, neither option sounds very pretty.)

Well dear readers (and editor who only exists in my mind), I will tell the story and you decide.

We hung out a bit in the outer courtyard of the Castillo de la Real Fuerza, a UNESCO World Heritage site and widely considered to be the oldest stone fort in the Americas.  It's very cool, with views of the stone fortification walls across the narrow channel of Havana Bay by el Morro and El Christo de La Habana -- the huge statue of Christ. 

(The dedication of the statue of Christ is said to be the last public act of Batista as Fidel Castro's revolutionaries closed in -- Batista fled to the Dominican Republic just days after the dedication.)

There's a cool contemporary sculpture there too, as well as cannons and other ancient weapons of mass destruction.

The fort itself is a great example of wasteful military spending, as the fort's location was deemed a failure.  It was too far into the bay to protect Havana, so eventually two more forts had to be built to protect the harbor.  There are no known reports of $100 hammers or $300 toilet seats, but even still, imagine building a fort to realize upon completion that it is in the wrong place (and too small to boot!).

We entered into the fort, and that's where the trouble began.  The tour guides kept pestering us to give them my camera so they could take our picture.  Flattering us when we were not in the mood to be flattered.  I walked out of that part of the fortress, but somehow three guides took Carol's phone from her.

Then, they wouldn't give it back until she gave them each a dollar.  Carol came and found me.  I had no singles, so I gave her a five.

In my head, I stormed back and said this to the guides:

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my wife's phone go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."

But, that's not what happened.  Carol gave them the money and took her phone back at the same time.

I know what you are thinking.  You are thinking -- hey, this is ridiculous that some tour guides in a government building, a UNESCO World Heritage site at that, could take someone's phone (and attempt to take the camera) and not give it back until a king's ransom (okay, five dollars) was paid. 

Well, you are right.  It is ridiculous. 

(Let's face it, you are also thinking -- "Glen, what special skills would you have developed over your long career as a pollster that would help in this situation?"  Well, hey, it was a phone after all!)

It's also annoying that the people in charge have to know this is going on, and they have not stopped it.  Now, if you've been reading the blog and thinking about going to Cuba -- go, definitely.  We still love Havana and Cuba, and most of the people are good folks.  But do keep your guard up.

The incident spoiled the rest of our visit to the fort, despite amazing views from the top floor of the fort.

So, was this the third time we had been grifted in two trips to Cuba, and twice in the same day?  Probably.  Funny thing is, I've kind of shrugged it off, and I would still recommend you go. 

Keeping some perspective, we had to pay about $15 dollars total for the two grifting incidents that last day in Havana.

Castillo de la Fuerza

Built from 1562-1577, this fort is considered

the oldest stone fort in the Americas.

The famed moat still has water in it.

I'm pretty sure this sculpture

is not part of the original fort.

Freighter going through the channel of

Havana Bay, with walled fortifications

of El Morro on the hill behind it.

El Cristo de La Habana.

It stands 66 feet high.

The crest of the fort above the drawbridge.

The Cuban flag, with the El Morro's

fortress walls behind it.

The lighthouse at the entrance

to the Bay, with El Morro.

Given she had to pay ransome to get her

phone back, Carol's slightly grumpy look

 here is understandable.

The Cuban Navy ship is in the harbor now.

This Might Be The Coolest Building In Havana

Careful readers of the blog noticed I said "this might be the coolest building in Havana"  and wonder why I couched it with "might."  That's easy -- I haven't been in all buildings in Havana.  Of course, reckless readers blew right past that subtle nuance and really don't care about my carefully constructed headline.  That's okay -- "you do you" as the Millennials would say.

(It's okay -- my daughters would tell you I'm an honorary Millennial.  Wait for it. . .)

(There is it. . .that high-pitching howling you hear right now is my daughters screaming like they are on a bridge in Oslo, as painted by Edvard Munch -- in case you didn't catch the analogy.)

Anyhow, the very cool building I refer to is the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales on east side of the Plaza de Armas.  Completed in 1792, it served as the residence of the Spanish governor of Cuba, and then later spent 18 years as the first President's Palace of Cuba, till 1920.

The marble came from Genoa, the grillwork from Bilbao, and the bricks from Malaga.  Built by slaves, it also housed a prison for 40 years.  The first floor has a limestone facade with multiple marine fossils embedded.  Built in a Cuban Baroque style, it's quite the building.

The courtyard is striking, with palm trees, other tropical plants, and a statue of Christopher Columbus occupying it.  We had gone into the courtyard in 2016, but no further.  This time, we paid the four CUCs to go in.  We went upstairs, where every room was interesting.

A tour guide glommed onto us, and gave Carol a tour in Spanish., with some modest English thrown in.  She took us through the rooms that were still preserved with a lot of the original furniture and decoration.  It had collections from everywhere, and gave off a "poor man's Versailles" vibe as it were.  

I would have figured that this sort of thing would have been destroyed by the commies after the revolution, but I would have been wrong.  It's neat the way the history has been preserved.  Other parts of the building were other museums, but after having tipped this guide for the rooms she took us through, we would accelerate past guides in other parts of the museum so we would not have to take their tour and tip them too.

(The first guide was great, and we didn't mind tipping her, but we also didn't want to spread money around in the less interesting portions of the building.  Given our speed getting past the other guides, I won't say how many NFL teams have expressed an interest in me trying out for wide receiver, but let's just say my agent is happy I have choices.)

After going through the palace, we walked back out onto the street bordering the Plaza, just as an Afro-Cuban band and female dancers on stilts came by.  Dressed in stunningly colorful costumes, they put on quite a show.

We walked across the plaza to the Castillo de la Real Fuerza.

In the Palacio de los Capitanes Generales

Wow -- we have one

of these at home too!

(Fact check: False!)

Any building with a courtyard and arches

is very cool, unless the arches are golden.

Not exactly the Stray Dog Strut.

One of the room at the Palace

These porcelain figures were viewed as god-like, and

visitors had to bow to them.  Hence the expression,

"bow to the porcelain god."  Wait a minute, Carol

needs to tell me something. . .oh, ignore that whole

story.  Apparently that's NOT where the expression

comes from.  Sorry.

The Spanish Queen's throne in Cuba.  She never

came to the New World, so it never got used.

Pretty cool.

This is the room where the end of

Spanish rule of Cuba was declared

back in 1899.

All four legs of the table

had a different carved dog.

Carol promises to paint our dining

room in a similar fashion.

Another view of the cool courtyard and arches.

Someone asked me archly, "Don't you have 

enough photos of arches?"  Actually, no

such thing as too many photos of arches.

Christopher Columbus,

looking like a boss.

Very cool Afro-Cuban style entertainment outside

of the Palace on the east side of Plaza de Armas.

Taking Our Minds, And Stomachs, Off Being Grifted

On our way to lunch at Terrazza Gourmet restaurant, we walked past the Capitolio, which was built with mob money and modeled after the US Capitol.  Alas, we still haven't made it there, so it will move to the top of the list next time we go!

We found our way to Terrazza, but not easily.  We walked past it twice, as there was no sign out front.  There were other restaurants, but when we walked in, they took us upstairs on an elevator (a rare thing in Cuba). 

Right on the third floor of at the top of the Paseo del Prado, it was yet another great restaurant in a cool setting.  Carol had the leg of lamb, while I had a skewer of grilled pork.  The lamb fell right off the bone, and the skewer is nearly the length of a Viking broadsword.  (Okay, I exaggerate a bit, but I sure did not get shorted.)  It was a good place to put our grifter troubles behind us.

Post-Grifting Stroll

The building in the foreground

is about to fall apart.  The taller

building in the back is stunning.

On top of the Gran Teatro

Truly a green building, as

a tree is growing out of it.

There are angels among us.

I don't know what this is,

but I think it is cool.

Lion at the top of Paseo del Prado.

Part of the view from our restaurant.