20 Summer Days In China by Betty Blunden (1974)

4 September

An early start after breakfast. We are driven to the station and say goodbye to Miss Wong and Mr. Li. Miss Chi is now in sole charge. We arrive. at the border a little before midday, Miss Chi put us through the last formalities and hands us our passports. Goodbye to Miss Chi. She had been with us all the time in China and had become everyone’s darling. She has been warm and friendly, tremendously efficient and in spite of her twenty two years and lack of experience with foreign groups a person of authority. We walk across the covered bridge and into British Territory. There is time for a quick lunch at a small railway restaurant and Kay, Arthur and I had sandwiches. Then we are in the train and on the way to Hong Kong.

Someone tells me that as well as supplying the water and electricity China exports 8,000 pigs a week to Hong Kong.

Mr. Chou of the China Travel Service is waiting at the Kowloon station for us. We are ushered into a bus and he looks after the luggage. Then we are back at the Hotel Astor. We have two days in Hong Kong, two days to explore and shop. That night a few of us go on a ferry across to the island of Hong Kong and back. Both the island and Kow Loon on the mainland are lit up as if for a celebration and with the reflections in the water it is a dazzling sight. We decide that next night we will go up a funicular to the top of the island and see the view from there.