Whenever we have people in town, I am always torn between going places with them that I have already been or doing things that are new to me. If we go places that I am familiar with, it's more likely that we're going to have a smooth, low-stress experience. But that means I end up doing some Hong Kong activities multiple times. I figured that my sister and my niece would extend me some grace if they had to stand around for ten minutes while I figured out which mini-bus would get us home. So I made plans for us to hike from the Shing Mun reservoir to the Kowloon reservoir even though I had never been on this particular hike before.
I had promised Ellie that we would encounter monkeys on our hike. But I must confess that I had an ulterior motives for wanting to go on this particular hike. I had heard rumors that a person could see World War II bunkers built into the mountainside on this hike. I also have to admit that I didn’t mention this particular fact to the rest of the group before we left. In my opinion, World War II bunkers are cool; but probably not to a sixteen-year-old girl.
We hiked for over two hours and -as promised- we saw lots of monkeys, but there was no sign of those bunkers. When the rest of the group had fallen a few minutes behind me, I used the opportunity to ask a local man I encountered on the path. He confirmed that if we took a smaller path on our right, the bunkers were just a fifteen-minute walk away.
The rest of my crew caught up with me. When I told them that I wanted to take a detour on a smaller path, I had to fess up about the World War II bunkers. “Really, Dad? World War II bunkers?”
“This was part of your plan all along wasn’t it?” my wife accused.
“No…well…maybe…kind of. Come on, it’s just a few minutes up this path here. It’ll be fun.”So off we went.
I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to find the bunkers, but I needn’t have worried.
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