Kowloon Cricket Club

On Friday night we had a great time at the Kowloon Cricket Club. My former teaching partner, who was formally known as Prince, but casually called Mr Kennedy, grew up in Hong Kong, and his dad still lives here, so our family had dinner with Mike and his lovely wife Geraldine.

I have to explain the first photos above. We were travelling at about 6pm, and got the bus to Admiralty, from where we took the MTR to Jordan, in Kowloon. It was very busy! There were people, people, everywhere, lining up for the train. They come every couple of minutes on that line, at that time, so we only had to wait for a couple to come through before we could get on. There is also a photo which David took inside the train, of us. I'm sure the other passengers enjoyed this...

Mike suggested the Kowloon Cricket Club, and it was a hoot. It's a large facility, with beautiful grounds (pitches? fields? courts?) of a sporting nature..... There are great facilities, including a variety of places to eat, drink, listen to music, sit about, watch stuff, or even play ten pin bowling, which is what we did, after dinner. I won the first game, but Mike pulled out the pins (HAHA) and beat us soundly the second time around. It was a lovely night, and wonderful to be with someone with whom we had an association, in though we'd never met before. We're going to give them a ring when we're going to the Ladies' Markets, and they're going to join us. They were both so friendly and warm, and keen to share their insights about Hong Kong life.

The 'Club' is big in Hong Kong. Mike explained that some clubs have a waiting list of twenty years, and people book their children in. As you can imagine, they're rather expensive. Rachel and I were thrilled that when we went to play ten pin bowling, we had to get some socks from the Club Shop, with the logo emblazed on the ankle. We tried to pay, but were rescued by Geraldine, as the Club is cashless.

The strangest thing happened when we went into the restaurant. We stood for a couple of minutes looking around, and I saw a couple of men looking at our group. One then said to the older man, "No, Dad. That's Mike, not John. Mike." I couldn't believe my ears. Apparently our Mr K must have been a bit of a legend at the KCC... I took a photo of one of the trophy cases, because I'm sure there's one with his name on it somewhere, and I suspect he may be hidden in the photo of the early members....

I tried to get the real story about Mr K joining the ladies' bowling team to come to Australia, but I suspect we will never really know how that really happened.... Perhaps I should never mention it again....