
OK this is all about my impressions/ experiences of our 'new' life in Hong Kong, starting August 2006 when I joined my husband Peter there. It started as massive descriptive emails to my friends & family, when I was bored at home, and now after much nagging... well - this is as close as I'll get to publishing it for them!
Apologies in advance for spelling mistakes and errors of any other form; they are all mine due to lack of knowledge/ hearing/ memory/ spell checker. I don't mean to insult people or places - trust me, if I did you'd know about it, I'm not subtle about things like that. I LIKE HK and so far the only country/ people I hated were Italy& Italians in Italy (don't get me started). A lot of stuff I now know/ knew at the time but didn't connect/ correct it as these were just my usual random stream-of-thought letters. If enough people really want to know I'll find out/ fill in the blanks tho............
The photos are linked to my Flikr account, so if you click on them you will see them larger & also any notes/ comments added to them.
BTW Pete wants me to add most of the veiws & opinions in here are totally the opposite to his own! Heh!
Cat/ Trina x
First letter: Long one on 1st impressions of HK! Ignore if u wish!
OK, so after the disastrous trip to Heathrow...for those I didn't ring in a panic, Tim saw me onto the bus at Norwich, big relief they didn't quibble at my 'beast' of an overweight suitcase; ready to go & the bus wouldn't start. Took over an hour for the engineer to turn up with them saying 'in 5 minutes' all the time; engineer started the bus & left at which point the bus wouldn't go into gear! So they called him back but then he started doing the head scratching thing, so I got off, as with all the new security issues I HAD to be at Heathrow early. Luckily Tim turned up again, drove me to Michelle who was my saviour & gave me a lift to Heathrow in her MX5! With my suitcase making about 1/3 of our total weight I was really expecting the car to do a back-end wheelie all the way down the motorway, like those wee matchbox push cars used to do!
So Mum, Dad & Michelle saw me off. I forgot to ask for an aisle seat as I checked in in a panic over by 'beast' suitcase - luckily I was 0.2 grammes under the weight they would have made me unpack it & leave bits behind! Security wasn't too bad, took around an hour, although they took off my brand new laptop to test and didn't like my planned long stay away (had to explain why I was going to a little man with a clipboard who kept saying, "yes I understand your husband lives, there but WHY do you want to go?" (!!!!). Did Heathrow always use to be that nice? Terminal 1 was LOVELY, all new & shining!
Seats much roomier than on the planes to/ in Africa thank god, though the wee personal TV in the back of each seat was annoying as all the programmes started & ended at the same time, so there were large gaps where I was staring at the ceiling or willing the wee chinese lady between me & the aisle to wake up - she slept THE WHOLE way. I was a major fidget, my legs have had enough being still/ traveling to last several months! Would have taken more advantage of all the free drinks (juice!) they kept offering if I had had easier loo access, I think! Still, being able to track our height, groundspeed & progress on the TV screen was cool. Needed an atlas as they didn't label everything - was REALLY rough over the mountains in the middle of Russia - is that the Carpathians?? Urals???
HK airport - hot. The train was a bit sci-fi & terribly polite uniformed ladies tried to help me with my luggage but the beast was bigger than them...............nearly didn't recognise Pete at the other end, he's all blonde & brown! Funnily enough he'd been panicking I'd have changed so much/ got really skinny/ fat that he wouldn't recognise me too.....since March seems ages but doesn't. We'd missed the ferry to our island so I had the option of hanging out in a cafe or whatever till the next one in a few hours, but I was SO hot & tired we decided to head home. We took a taxi to the Aberdeen fishmarket (YUK - not great in the mood my tummy was in) and then got a noisy private sampan over to Lamma island instead.
Those skyscrapers are REALLY tall, all around the bay, and weirdly there was a constant stream of huge container ships with us & lots of waterskiers dodging between them.
We live in Mo Tat WAn, a little sandy bay on Lamma facing Aberdeen Island on HK Island. It has a tiny concrete dock on the left, a few houses/ a dodgy looking cafe and is then more or less vertical from the beach. SO BIG ADVICE FOR ANY VISITORS - bring 2 smaller suitcases or rucksacks INSTEAD of 1 big 1. TO get to our house on the ridge you have to climb 99 concrete steps (I counted - slowly!) up through the brushy forest. My beast nearly killed off Peter, even my little laptop case was awful! So hot & humid I felt like I was breathing water, worse than I remember in the rainforest. Also did not like the spiders hanging alongside the path - bodies only a few inches long but with weird bright yellow & black bobbles on them, but great skinny legs longer than my fingers. Had nightmares about them....

getting to the bottom of the 99 steps (Petes beside the pig pen), Lamma Island, Hong Kong
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.
Our flat is in a small group of buildings at the top of the ridge. We walk into a nice big sitting room, with the leather L shaped sofa and a bunch of stuff Pete inherited from his neighbours, ie a few of those cool Ikea chairs I liked (the sort of s-shaped slightly bouncy padded wood ones), and the same stereo I had for uni/ Dorset. 1st right of the door in is the 'kitchen', about the size of a toilet cubicle, with only a sink & a fridge which has a kettle & a toaster. As Pete says, you don't cook at home!
2nd right is the bathroom which I think I will be having issues with - its smaller than the average toilet cubicle, with a sink on the wall & a loo. The 'shower' is one of those tap attachments, idea being you hold it in 1 hand, soak yourself, switch it off, soap up, then take it up again to rinse off. There is allegedly a drain behind the toilet that lets all the water out, but the floor isn't sloped so the 'wet bathroom' doesn't dry well! Plus as the whole flat is floored in dodgy brown tiles, its dangerous! Oh well....
Facing you as you enter is our bedroom, with 2 more in a row to the left. They are fine, square, just need furniture really - at the moment we are on a single mattress on the floor! Which is very short - even my feet hang off it, so I will be looking into beds. And pillows. And some sort of sheet/ blanket - Pete actually bought a sheet set but over here that apparently gives you 2 pillowcases and a mattress cover, no sheet.....curtains are also high on my list - it's so bright, and people can see in which isn't ideal when its so hot I plan to live in bikinis/ underwear at home!.

View south from our sitting room door/ balcony, Mo Tat Wan , Lamma
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.
At the opposite end of the sitting room, parallel to the bathroom etc but on the other side, there is a door & window out onto a balcony. I haven't gone up to the roof terrace yet, to hot/ tired! One good thing was my laptop picked up about 8 wireless connections we can sneak onto - used 1 illegally just to Skype UK quickly, hoping his neighbour will let us sign up to his if we chuck him a few dollars.
Am now at Petes work - due to him forgetting I need food (he only had water & the chocolate I bought him in his fridge, and the last ferry had left/ cafe was shut when I realised this) I was close to chucking my guts up on the ferry over this a.m., with high sugar rebounds - had a total whitey in the Aberdeen cafe he has sweet runny porridge for breakfast in, then spent 2 hours facedown on his office desk until my sugars settled. Feel better now tho all the staff who have been in must be wondering who/ what I am - shared his massive & very nice lunch, he's off teaching again. Great view from his office over the little stretch of water to the main land, can see mad chairlift thingys whizzing round the headland to the Ocean PArk (live pandas and rollercoasters all together apparently), though it's still really murky/ smoggy - but bright!
So sorry for the long one but I finished my book & the sailing lawbooks on Petes desk will not keep me awake! Not feeling too bad jetlag-wise, just generally knackered!
So could one of you with the technology please print this off & send it to Mum & Gran Fin & Gran Black (very big for Gran Fin or get someone to read it to her? And forward it to anyone I forget? Thanks.
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