Monday March 7th, 2016 Hong Kong, China

4AM, wide awake – so much for the “sleep of sleeps”!

Breakfast in the clubroom – the scarcity of food offerings has continued from the night before, could this be intentional? In rebranding from Langham to Cordis has some corporate nut-job decided that the food in the club level is not important? Like many other travellers we have come to rely on the club level to provide sufficient sustenance in the morning to get through most of the day and a nice enough selection of food at night that often means we don’t have to find a place for dinner. During the Langham era, the additional cost of a club level room was value for money when considering quality and selection of food. If the selection at this, our first Cordis breakfast, is anything to go by we will be sorely disappointed. 

For many years now I have harbored a desire to have some shirts custom made at one of Hong Kong’s famous gentleman’s tailors. Prior visits have been too short (the process requires several visits to the tailor), but now with 4 days before we have to get on the ship I finally have a chance to fulfill this dream. Sandra had also brought along a dress that she liked and wanted to see if it could be duplicated. In the weeks before leaving I had done a little research on the custom tailoring options and the one thing I learned was to select a reputable tailor and not to be tempted by the quick and cheap establishments. 

Nathan Street is the main north-south thoroughfare of the Kowloon peninsula and at it’s southern end in the Tsim Sha Tsui district there is a cluster of tailors shops – many of them famous for providing suits to the rich and famous from around the world. These establishments are remarkably small and crammed with boules of fabric and plastered with photographs of their most famous clients. I had selected Apsley’s Tailors based on my research and also the recommendation of the hotel concierge.

Apsley’s is located in the Burlington Arcade right on Nathan Street; the shop is very small but somehow there are 4 employees there to greet us as we walk through the door. Wood paneling, lots of fabrics, a few old chairs and the strong smell of moth balls assault the senses and we quickly get down to the business of selected fabrics and shirts style options. I find out that buying 6 shirts is a “much better deal” and succumb to this old sales trick with barely a whimper. I’m lost in the thrill of it all, images of James Bond are flitting through my head as I select a style for the monogramming and stand while a dozen measurements are taken.

 After sealing the deal and agreeing to return later that afternoon for an initial fitting, I find out that Apsley’s also does dresses and so Sandra whipped out the dress she wanted copied and they get down to fabric selection and measurements. Sean also decided to buy a couple of shirts; Apsley’s did well that day.

We took a short walk to the Star Ferry terminal for the short journey across to Hong Kong Island. The Star Ferries are small commuter boats that have been plying the harbor since forever – they run every few minutes and are the best deal in Hong Kong; for a couple of bucks you get to travel across the busy Hong Kong harbor and take in the spectacular waterfront scenery. 

After docking on the Hong Kong side we head for the Mid-Level Escalators; this series of moving stairways transports the locals from the low areas near the waterfront up the hill to the “Mid Levels” and is the longest series of escalators in the world. To facilitate the busy commute, the escalators run up hill in the morning and then are switched to run down hill in the afternoon. Riding from bottom to top takes about 20 minutes; the escalators run practically straight uphill affording great views into the shops and businesses that run along side, also the streets that progress at right angles along the hill side.

The escalator ride is really all about the journey – there really is nothing much to see once you reach the Mid-Levels. We set off for the long walk back down the hill and through the busy Hong Kong streets looking for a suitable lunch spot. By chance we stumbled upon a small Italian restaurant that advertised “Gluten Free” options – a must for Scott who suffers from this allergy. 

Castello restaurant turned out to be a great find; small, family-run with a traditional Italian menu we all enjoyed it immensely – and the gluten free pizza brought a tear to Scott’s eye (literally). Over lunch we planned our afternoon itinerary that hinged around going back to Apsley’s at 5:30 for an initial fitting. We decided to visit the Lin Po Nunnery and Gardens on the east side of Kowloon.

The Lin Po Buddhist nunnery is easily reached via the MTR, Hong Kong’s underground train system. The MTR is very easy to use and incredibly efficient; select your destination by touching it on the map of the ticket machine, select how many tickets you want and then feed in the required amount of money. The machine will then spit out your tickets. The train lines are color coded so it’s easy to follow the signs in the station to your desired platform.

The nunnery is famous for being constructed entirely from wood with no nails or other types of fasteners. Entry to the nunnery and the adjoining gardens is free and access to the temple halls is open to all, though no pictures are allowed to be taken in the actual prayer halls. There are 4 main halls that surround a series of lily ponds; though only constructed in 1997 the place has an ancient feel to it and is still very much an active facility.

The adjoining Nan Lian Gardens are simply stunning; every tree, flower and shrub appear to have been precisely positioned around a central lake and each is perfectly pruned to create a wonderful experience. A large pagoda sits on an island in the center of the lake and a pair of brightly colored bridges connects the lake to the surrounding gardens. We followed a sweeping path for a peaceful stroll around the lake where we found a beautiful waterfall and further on a small teashop run by the nuns.

Back at Apsley’s I stepped into the incredibly small changing “room” to try on the prototype custom shirt; this was followed by the Chinese tailor buzzing around me pulling here and marking there until he was satisfied that he had enough information to complete his task. I was having a hard time seeing how this ill-fitting swath of cloth was going to turn into the beautiful custom shirt of my dreams. Sandra and was also subjected to a similar process for her dress. With a promise that the finished shirts “would be just fine” and available the next afternoon (dresses the following afternoon), we left the shop with more than a little trepidation.

At the Cordis club level later that night the pitiful display of food confirmed our fear; the days of the lavish Langham food spreads were a thing of the past – we feel ripped off.