Vacation and Shabbat

The reason I am so bad at planning vacations is that I second guess myself.  Maybe I should fly out this day ... what if my plans change ... what if the hotel isn't good....  One of my vacation days back home -- the entire day -- was spent researching Hong Kong hotels.  It's not like I didn't already have hotel reservations.  But just in case I was unhappy with the fact that I had to pay for wireless or didn't like the neighborhood, I had to research it all.

The hotel I stayed at this week, the Metropark in Wan Chai, was great.  My second hotel, for the vacation phase of the trip, the Jia, was in Causeway Bay, and while I was excited to stay in a Philip Starck hotel (because design is cool), I realized I really don't want to stay in Causeway Bay, which is where I stayed last time.  It's crowded, confusing, and too far from what I planned to do.  I went to visit and found the hotel to be snooty and not homey. 

So two days ago I opened my spreadsheet (generated from all that other research), started googling, and found a place that was not on my original list.

I canceled the Jia (and had to negotiate away the penalty) and made a reservation here.  The Lang Kwai Fong Hotel (not to be confused with the Hotel at Lang Kwai Fong).  A boutique hotel in SoHo (not in LKF, luckily, which is like North Beach).  Walking distance from everything I want to do.

And it's so wonderful!  The room is the size of a postage stamp and beautifully crafted to feel luxurious and cozy at the same time.  I did have to spend 15 minutes figuring out where to put my suitcase once I unpacked it so I wouldn't have to step around it. (It wouldn't fit: behind the bathroom door; under the desk; next to the refrigerator.  I figured out to put it in the closet on top of the safe.  It just fits.)

The service is so gracious.  And after puttering in my room, there was a knock at the door -- a plate of welcome fruit.  More fruit than I eat in a week: a banana, grapes, an apple, a persimmon, and strawberries.

My view from this inexpensive, well-located, high touch service postage stamp is of Victoria Peak, many of the city's skyscrapers, and the harbor.  I am on the 29th floor, which is quite high because we are partway up the mountain.  The skyscrapers' lights are coming on now, and it's glittering outside my window.  It's been cold and foggy, so there have been no good photo opportunities either from here or from the banks' offices.

And then I think, "Thank God for Jews" and, of course, laugh.  I'm going to go to Shabbat services, as I sometimes do when I travel -- it's perfect for meeting people when traveling alone.  I googled the UJC (United Jewish Congregation of Hong Kong), the shul I'm going to, and the rabbi is from San Francisco via Baton Rouge.

To get there, I get to take my favorite form of public transportation here, the Mid-Levels Escalator.  Actually, I don't have to take it because the shul is two exits away -- and that means two blocks.  With having to navigate to and from the escalator, it's probably four blocks away.  But I'll take the escalator anyway with all the commuters.  Since the escalator is one-way, I will walk home afterwards.

The walk will send me through LKF itself, which will make it particularly fun.

Snapshots from Miami

1.
You know you're at a good conference when, after the evening reception, one of your hosts quietly suggests that she'd rather order pizza delivery than find a place to go to dinner; an hour later finds 25 colleagues sitting on the veranda in a row, staring up above the palm trees at the lunar eclipse as it weaves in and out of the cloud cover ("Is it gone?"  "No, it's just behind a cloud.").  We ordered the pizza from a local place at 9:15, chatted joyfully, relaxed, as friendly colleagues and collegial friends.  The pizza arrived at 10:30.  Aside from being really hungry, we didn't even notice the time.

2.
My hotel has a bathroom the size of a postage stamp, but they don't hold back on the towels.  In addition to the towels hanging on the rack, they provide is a stack of three (bath towel, hand towel, and washcloth) on the shelf behind the toilet.   Since I need every surface I can get, when I arrived I took this lovely stack and moved it to the wireframe shelf in the closet.

The next afternoon I returned to my room to find that housekeeping had restocked me -- towel rack, plus a bath towel, hand towel, and washcloth nicely stacked on the shelf behind the toilet.  I took this lovely stack and moved it to the wireframe shelf in the closet next to the first stack.

That evening I returned to my room to find that housekeeping had restocked me again -- I hadn't touched the towel rack, but they gave me a bath towel, hand towel, and washcloth nicely stacked on the shelf behind the toilet.  I took this lovely stack and moved it to the wireframe shelf in the closet, placing it next to the first two stacks.  What did housekeeping think I was doing with all these towels?  I wrote a note and put it on the shelf behind the toilet: "No more towels, please.  (I put them in the closet.)"  I figured that even a Spanish-speaking person would understand "No more towels, please."  

Today I returned to my room at lunchtime to find that housekeeping had restocked me again.  They'd place the stack (not so pretty today) right on top of my note.  So I took this fourth stack and put it in the closet on a new shelf, since the first shelf was full.  I used babelfish to translate my note, and I made it into a little tent so it would be more obvious: "No mas de toalles, por favor. Estan en al armario."  We'll see what happens tomorrow.

3.
Miami Herald headline today: Castro Resigns: WHAT NEXT?"  And the teaser above the masthead: "State board approves teaching of evolution."  A big day for Florida.