It's a long way to Hong Kong, well for most of us anyway.
Those players coming from the
Australian Open had a
9 hour plus flight, but with only a two hour time difference at
least the jetlag isn't too much of an issue (assuming they'd
normalised themselves before leaving Oz!).
From Europe it's an 11-hour flight, plus the fiddly bits at
either end, and a bigger time difference - from the UK it's
seven hours, less than usual because the tournament is a little
earlier than in recent years so UK clocks haven't gone back yet.
Wherever
they've come from, players and officials are settling in at
various Hong Kong locations: some players are already at the
fabulous Renaissance Harbour View Hotel, some at the more
central Cosmopolitan. The England girls are at the
WYMCA, just a short walk from the club ("uphill on the way
back though," Jenny Duncalf tells us), Aaron Frankcomb is
enjoying staying as usual with a family towards the top of
Victoria Peak (now that's definitely uphill, you need the
vernicular railway to get there).
On this preparation day I've been eliciting some one-liners
about Hong Kong from the players - "JM Marriott rocks," was
Orla Noom's, while Steve Coppinger's "crowded bunks
in cheap accommodation" suggests the South Africans have
installed themselves in something more downmarket.
For me, I know I've arrived when I take a walk off the tram, up
the escalators through the Pacific Gardens Shopping Mall,
through the delightful Hong Hong Park and into the squash
centre where the tournament team are busy making it all ready.
The usual suspects, Karl Mak, Tony Choi,
Heather Deayton, Emily Mak, Iris Chung and
Rita Tsui were all busy busy busy. I managed to catch some
of them on the little video below, but we'll find some more time
with them as the tournament progresses.
So, after catching a few players unaware with one-liner requests
(they'll be filtered in over the first few days), I went out to
the park to try out the Panorama mode on my little
point-and-shoot camera, which lets you take three shots and
stitches them together. Tip: if it's set to Left to Right mode,
do it left to right ... otherwise it gets very, very confused!
Some
of the shots were taken from the top of the park's observation
tower, which tells you at the bottom that its 105 steps require
considerable physical effort.
Which is true, especially in the Summer heat and humidity, but
they don't mention the 95 steps that you have to climb to even
get to the bottom of the tower!
Still, like Sarah Kippax said in her one-liner: "the jetlag's a
bit ... but Hong Kong's worth it!"
Unashamedly Amateur video tour of HK Squash Centre
