A relaxing day by the pool on the 41 st Floor

A brief lay in followed by breakfast and the big decision was to have a nice time by the swimming pool. We had some room sorting to do and after a late breakfast we headed up the the swimming pool which is on the 41st floor of the Hotel with great views over Hong Kong.
The place was quite empty when we arrived just before midday and it did get a bit busier during the day up until we left around 16.30. We brought our water and packet of nuts to sit and nibble at as although they are available  this cost in our view was prohibitive and we are not going to pay £ 3.50 for a small bottle of water no matter where is came from. After a quick shower and change we made contact with Joanne and Katherine and Christopher with Katherine doing non stop talking and poor Christopher looking a bit overpowered but that will change as I had the same experience when I was young with two sisters.
We had booked to go to the Jackson Room in the Hong Kong Club tonight which required a   trip to the MTR just across the road from the Hotel and then a quick 15 minute train ride to Central. The amount of MTR lines and the coverage of Hong Kong has increased significantly since we were living here and also during the years when we made the odd visit like 5 years ago. It is so efficient and possibly rivals the Japan trains for service and all with driver less trains and fully controlled by computers. At one time, and this may still apply, they had a guy sitting in the front just in case somebody fell on the track but now most stations, if not all, have track protection gates which only open in to the door of the train carriage.
We arrived at the Club and had a nice dinner although subsequently it would appear that the NO Garlic was not fully observed as I discovered to my cost later in the evening.

The Hong Kong Club is on Statute Square and every Sunday for many years the Philippines workers of which there are literally thousands descend on the square to meet friends, do business, talk about their families and dance which is what happened as we came up the stairs we heard this music and there were about fifteen ladies doing what might be called a line dance. When this get together first started all those years ago when we lived here has mushroomed in to a good business what with food sellers, sim card sellers offering low costs to the Philippines and even a couple of freight forwarders with their vans collecting stuff that they have bought and ship it back to families at home.

On arriving back Mong Kok there were people everywhere, well it is a Sunday night and Christian Dior were running a lipstick demo and there must have been at least fifty girls lined up waiting there turn.
“Mong Kok (also spelled Mongkok, often abbreviated as MK) is an area in the Yau Tsim Mong District, on the western part of Kowloon Peninsula in Hong Kong. The Prince Edward area occupies the northern part of Mong Kok.
Mong Kok is one of the major shopping areas in Hong Kong. The area is characterized by a mixture of old and new multi-story buildings, with shops and restaurants at street level, and commercial or residential units above. Major industries in Mong Kok are retail, restaurants (including fast food) and entertainment. It has been described^[1] and portrayed in films as an area in which triadsrun bars, nightclubs, and massage parlors. With its extremely high population density of 130,000/km² or 340,000 per square mile, Mong Kok was described as the busiest district in the world by the Guinness World Records.^[2]
Until 1930, the area was called Mong Kok Tsui (芒角嘴).^[3] The current English name is a transliteration of its older Chinese name 望角 (Jyutping: mong⁶ gok³; IPA: [mɔːŋ˨ kɔːk˧]), or 芒角 (Jyutping: mong⁴ gok³; IPA: [mɔːŋ˨˩ kɔːk˧]), which is named for its plentiful supply of ferns in the past when it was a coastal region. Its present Chinese name "旺角" (Jyutping: wong⁶ gok³; IPA: [wɔːŋ˨ kɔːk˧]), means "prosperous corner" or "crowded corner."
For a period, the area was also called Argyle, and this name was used for the MTR station when it opened in 1979. The office building 旺角中心; "Mong Kok Centre", which was named after the area, is known in English as Argyle Centre rather than Mong Kok Centre.”