What else. Played with a cool moth bigger than my hand yesterday, think it was hiding under the wheelie bins when the quad-bike bin guy came to empty them at midday, so it was a bit confused. Later I was waiting to cross the sreet at a corner in Central when the contents of a fish box beside me really threw me - looked like someone had speyed several male elephants and stored the bits in a big water filled glass tank. I THINK it was some sort of giant clam, held shut by an elastic band, but not the rippled shell type: more like huge versions of the ones you find on UK beaches that make tiny butterflies in cheesey shell-art pictures. Still alive, with the foot of the snail stretching out longer than my arm. umm, not fancying that! Also started seeing a new (to me) species of crab in the stalls, not the bright stripey one, but a biggish one who's shell looks as if it has two eyes painted on it.
Subtle Moon festival decoration, Aberdeen, Hong Kong - goldfish. He's praying the system goes off - WATER, PLEASE
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.
Kids again - I have seen a lot more, but only one pram/ trolley - they ALL get carried! Ok, some new mums have slings but compared to home/ USA hardly anyone - different conceptions of safety? I can understand the no push-chair thing, with the crowds, all the stairs and escalators it would be a nightmare, but surely knocks & bumps whilst carrying a kid could have worse consequences? You never see a parent/ Amah alone with a kid either, always at least 2 adults. Did I say it seems if you want to adopt here you have to get a maid/ nanny to pass the checks???? All the toddlers were dressed up on Friday - I think next week China shuts down for the Moon festival so maybe they are doing it in school. All the little boys had pale yellow silk chinese suits, all the girls were in awful OTT princessy dresses. Cute though!
They have started decorating the streets for the festival, lots of rabbit/ goldfish/ dirigable (horizontal physalis flower ie chinese lantern plant shape) lanterns, dripping gold with red fringes, all in lime gree, pink & orange. Some are decorated like Mexican pinatas with the layers of tissue fringe which threw me a bit. Victoria Park in Central (opposite the library) had massive stages going up, along with huge wierd multicoloured 'lampshade' structures...? In the photos I took Queen Vic's statue looks like she's licking an ice-crea (her sceptre!). I have even now seen 'Garfield' moon cakes - they do them in all sorts of weird colours, with different cartoons moulded on the top instead of the pretty traditional flowers & patterns. I stuck up a few pics of cheaper moon cakes (not allowed to photo the posh ones in the supermarket) and butterfly cakes from our wee bakery. Got excited about what looked like crispy baked cheese bread rols - disappointed again - smelt beautifully of cheese but was once more a ball of gooey chewy sweet bread with sweet read bean bits & not the slightest cheesey flavour.
Posting isn't too bad, I finally found the post office - its all green & purple which is why I missed it - would be easy if I'd been colourblind! Odd to see locals post - stamps in same corner as us, but 1 short vertical string of symbols below it is the address! Again they seem to use double the staff to what they need- 1 guy was reading out where the letters I had were to go, the other guy told him how much I had to pay for each, which the 1st guy scribbled on the envelopes, and a 3rd guy beside them ripped off the correct stamps for me to stick on. Oh yeah and someone else gave me little customs stickers to fill out & stick on, but the 1st guy took the money & gave me airmail stickers!!!!!!!
Subtle Moon festival decoration, Aberdeen, Hong Kong - AIYEEE nobody expects the evil killer bunny! ATTACK (he has laser beam eyes)
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.
Have I said how LOUD locals are? The events guy said it was the way they learnt in school - from a few TV ads I have seen of kindergartens, I think they just shout out answers so lord knows what their classes sound like! Anyway the hordes that descend on us at the weekend climb up the steps & take the path past our flats to do the ridge walk/ go to that beach Pete took me too. Even when theres only 4 of them its like a whole gaggle of geese, they really do gabble away as if they are in the middle of a loud disco. The dog accross the path worries/annoys me too as every time someone passes he 'barks' like a duck with a cough!
Sunday was Petes only day off, and was dull & grey, but as the wind was meant to drop after lunch we piled onto an early ferry and got the minibus all the way past his usual stop to Stanley, in the south of the main Hong Kong island. I was going to come anyway as I'd hardly seen Pete all week, but he then announced we could go househunting (mainly to prove we can't afford to live there I think) which added interest. I had my nice camera with me which disgusted Pete as the driver then thought we were tourists and kept trying to make us get off where there were shops etc! But me being privaledged I got dumped at a grotty little beach HEAVING with windsurfers.
I think even Pete was a bit surprised, as he's been there every day for the last few weeks and never seen it like that - but its a bank holiday weekend! He hauled his board etc out from behind the metal lock-up (not tied down/ locked up or anything - how long it will not be nicked I have no idea) which is the w-surfer's 'rentals & shop' & got set up to go out. Chaos - kids on lessons, adults struggling to teach themselves, assorted posers; a few classes learning to kayak/ canoe, lots of boats moored with really long ropes all the way back to the beach, big rocks, some sort of really fast timed windsurf races going on further out........ all the frenetic activity as I think HK's ONLY gold medal is in windsurfing so its a bit popular. I hadn't known we'd be doing this - no english magazines in the local shops & no book with me so I mainly got in the way of people rigging up their gear (the beach was THAT crowded - nowhere to sit) and photographed funky bright dead crab claws. Whee.
At least Petes new board was an unusual & wierd mint green so I could occasionally spot him in the haze. So no looking at flats then - and the few ex-pats around were not smiling/talking so I didn't ask!
When Pete finished we went all the way to the north of the island to get a huge posh catamaran ferry to another island, Lantau. It's about the same size as HK island, lying to the west of it, and has HK International Airport on the North of it. (We tried 'rice rolls' for lunch, yug, the rice was made into slimey sheets like thick lasagne, rolled, and dipped in an odd scarlet sauce that dripped everywhere as you tried to eat it with a massive toothpick.) Allegedly it look likes the Scottish highlands.... well, maybe if you squint a bit - lots of twisting roads up & down deep valleys & high hills. But I don't remember human- sized leaves, massive cheese plants, and enermous water buffalo (still like identicle to Cape Buffalo to me) on scottish mountains! Looked like lots of walks, mountain bike trails & country parks, but we of course went to the other side of the island to a windsurf beach. A guy there has the board Pete is thinking of buying from someone in the UK (as they aren't made any more) and said Pete could try it - as he'd just popped his shoulder, an extremely enthusiastic teenage neighbour of his had bought the board down. This kid was overjoyed when he realised Pete taught him sailing every Thursday! So Pete went off - very slowly as there was no wind - and I sat on the beach again. Far nicer - first non-coarse sand I'd seen, and quite clean, but the sand was a sort of blackish brown, hoping that was due to rock type & not pollution! Seems a very friendly area, loads of ex-pats with kids, massive sandy area and shallow water for miles unlike the other beaches we have seen; and a nice windsurf centre/ cafe! But again, way too pricey & is a longer ferry ride with a bus trip at either end for Pete to get to work. On an even better note, the stalls beside the catamaran ferry terminal sold short in ex-pat sizes! Well, for blokes anyway. We look a bit daft as we got the same pair of baordies in different colours - I know I can fit Petes so we got the same size - but I'm now cheered up a bit as for once his are too small! Still, at £2 not bad.
We ate in an extremely un-atmospheric waterfront cafe (industrial kitchen & washing hoses crashing away beside us, but very fast service): fresh clams with black-bean sauce, prawns with chili, gorgeous fish in ginger (you remove the flesh yourself but aren't allowed to turn the fish over/ remove its head as that means the boat that caught it will sink), bok choi (nice green veg) and octopus,
an entire tureen of soup that was basically stock waiting for flour & bisto to be added to make gravy. I now realise the reason Pete hates shrimp is he was never shown the easy way to peel them, so he's converted now he's nearly got the hang of it! Slight misunderstanding on the rice & noodle front (ie we didn't get given any) but to tell the truth I am fed up of boiled white rice so we decided we'd go look elsewhere for my carb intake.
It was dark when we arrived back in HK harbour, and the light shows a lot of the big office blocks on both side of the water put on every night had begun. Hoardes of people, police, first aid stands etc had already arrived even though it was only just after 7 pm & the China Day stuff wasn't on till 9 pm. We ended up getting a taxi to the main Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club centre on Kellet Island, (as a lot of roads/ buses were stopped & cancelled to help with the eevent) which is incredibly posh! It used to be a proper island but Hong Kong sort of engulfed it so now its a tiny wee promentary with its own marina. After the nice security man let us skip the signing-in queue (& didn't charge Pete for my ticket as he recognised him as staff) I got given a short tour of some bits of the building - as we were windswept & in boardies & Tshirts we didn't quite fit! But they have a pool, gym, assorted restauraunts, kids areas, a HUGE dvd library,......great! We got drink as the main bar where Pete got accosted by the MD who's convinced Petes from Portsmouth & I'm his girlfriend. (Their marguritas were minute & and fairly awful compared to Janets, don't tell Pete but I poured most of it away!). We then spotted all the people sitting out on the breakwaters which project out into the channel from around the marina, so we worked our way round there. Lots of the locals had huge tripods & cameras set up on the flat tops, so we slid down the steep sides & perched on the massive blocks making up the walls. And waited. Police cutters & fire boats cordoned off the far east side of the channel first, and chased all the boats out to the west, then blocked that too. Even though we'd worried about getting stuck on Lantau (as they were stopping all ferries during the show) there was the occasional flurry of action when a ferry DID launch; and they then let a massive crusie ship trough too! I watched the buildings light shows - beautiful neon rainbow ripples, shading through the spectrum; some only have white lights but make it look as if there are things running up them, others project words, patterns, pictures; at one point we confused our neighbours by making Star Wars light sabre sound effects as it looked like two office blocks were fighting with huge spotlights accross the water. Aftr an hour we realised we'd got the time wrong so Pete went for more drinks & I helped lots of people climb down to sit where we were. Then our 'pet' cockroach re-appeared from under one of the rocks & scared away several successive batches of locals, I'm not sure which freaked them more, it running around or me picking it up & chucking it away from them.
Anyway, eventually several massive barges surrounded by more police & fire boats were sailed into the middle of the channel and they started the China Day fireworks with a bang.
It went on for over 30 minutes, and it was THE best display I have ever seen, beat Edinburgh & Germany hands down. Loads of stuff I have never seen before, from ones that made butterfly, heart or star outline shapes, to 'bulls-eyes' of concentric differently coloured circles, ones mimicking the planet Saturn, amazing bubbly ones and others that really made the entire sky sparkle like twinkling sheets of stars (not the sort of golden shimmery rain that used to be my favourite). Also most impressive were red flowered ones like HK's hibiscus flag symbol, and sort of shimmery thick chrysanthamums with further explosions for their stamens.
Lots of the traditional 'ooohs' and 'aaahs' from the Brits, but locals go 'Wahehey' instead. The sound as it was reflected back by all the skyscrapers was mad, and a lot of the buildings got lost in the smoke! I have made an entire album of the pics I took - wierd, but fab! After it ended it took us an hour just to get onto the pavement, only to find a queue several blocks long for our minibus & no taxis in sight. Luckily it was well organised, with about 15 minibuses already waiting for our route. While waiting we bought a gorgeous big round waffle from a stall - they don't cut it into its quarters, but mix peanut butter & evaporated milk, spread that on it and sort of concertina it into a cone shape. Yum! Also finally explaining WHY peanut butter is kept in the pudding section of the supermarket! Please experiment amongst yourselves, was gorgeous. We even made our last ferry home!
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