Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Letter 21 - Chinese Christmas


Christmas is a bit mad here - the locals all celebrate it, at least in getting dressed up, decorations and buying toys for their kids. They get it as holiday/ bank holiday so they might as well I suppose. Most of the huge skyscrapers along the waterfront have massive Christmas light displays, although many have been sponsored by big corporations so count as advertising. All the tiny street stalls are selling santa hats, and the bombardment of carols made 'fun' in jazz, calypso and even cantonese style is sickening. (Chinese versions of carols seem to start with a single male voice singing the words in cantonese to the original tune then bursting into overblown operatic Pavarotti imitation for the chorus - awful!). Funniest/ worst by far was the shop I was in that had done 'Jingle Bells' etc but with recordings of cats meowing making the tune! I bought a load of tinsel, sparkly butterflies & leaves, and a tiny white feather & fibre optic tree that turns & sparkles (my beloved fairy lights were banned by Pete as the boat won't support them...)


I had to paint at a French Market 2 Sundays OK - very bad details given to me by my booker, he texted at midnight where it was & asked me to wear a French costume/ do French faces (?) - thanks for the warning! It was set up outside & in the foyer of 2 huge posh mini malls under sky scrapers, and I was painting outside - luckily it was warm enough! It was a mini french village with stalls really. They wanted me to paint on their stage (!) until I pointed out I wasn't really a performer and would have a big queue.
It was excruciating as they were selling mulled wine, and had cooking displays and workshops (from crepes to those choc & nut things) and crepe flipping competitions etc - it smelt GORGEOUS! Luckily 1 of the chefs I painted gave me some mulled wine when I finally escaped (did an extra 2 hours as they asked me to stay an extra hour & said they would cut off my queue for me but didn't so by the time I noticed the entire french-canadian school choir had joined it!).


The dress rehearsal for the Hogmany pirates party was OK, manager of the restauraunt OK'd the faces & chose the costumes. Bit boring on the girls - she decided she just wanted a rose motif & beauty spot, zzz.

The guy I painted the eye patch & scars on had a panic as it was close to his eyes and took a lot of reassuring that it was just like make-up (not that he appreciated that!) so it was lucky the other blokes saw it came off easily. Apparently they went out on Halloween in cheap face paint they bought and it stained........... Disaster struck when I went back to the shop in Central to buy 30 more pirate costumes - she had said earlier they had enough pirate men outfits but they only had 3 left! Queue massive headache/ panic by me as she then rang the other shops & it turned out the factory had stopped making the cheap ones and they all only had sets that costs 3x the amount! Client not happy; I was fuming & beat the shop down to providing shirts, waistcoats, bandanas & belts and into her factory making 3 more girls outfits in the size I needed. (If I had more time she would have sent examples of what I wanted off to other factories in China to get prices for making more for me - nice to know!). HOPE they will be ready in time. Knew I shouldn't have let the darn Top Deck manager bully me into sorting out costumes as well! The fancy dress shop (in the sreet of fancy dress stalls/ wig/ wing/ feather boas stalls) does have some amazing costumes - loved the caterpillar suit, multi-coloured plush with mine legs attached! All the locals in there kept trying things up against me, think a lot of them were buying for their bosses who must have been as tall as me. (As it is I ordered small for ALL my costumes and half the girls in the Tob Deck were drowned in them.)

On the weird side as I walked home via Aberdeen bus station afterwards, the lady with the massive glass jar of pickled rodent embryos was there again. She syphons off the liquid into small bottles and sells it for a medical cure, I think..look closer if you aren't squeamish!


Petes dad & Judy arrived Friday, luckily making it out of the UK's fog bound airports. As it was they had to sit on the ground in the plane for 2 hours before leaving as the flight plan got lost! We were supposed to be at Petes sailing staff party; waited in his bar for 2 hours with his immediate boss (nice young bloke called Mark) and the other SI Pete shares his office with, Marcus (local with 2 kids). (One of the cleaning ladies hauled in a massive fish from off the sailing dock, no idea what it was but it was over 3 feet long and HUGE! She was very pleased & stuck it in a kitchen freezer to take home.) Turned out the others never made it out of the main club bar in Kellet Island (the posh club base) so we went to meet them in Central in an area/ street called Lang Kwai Fong. Its supposed to be bar & clubbing heaven; we arrived to find their Xmas decorations were life-sized mannequins in feathered bikinis swinging above the streets sat in massive wine glasses! I had my fairy wings with me as I had left them in Petes office, and fed up of carrying them, I put them on - lots of odd looks, is easier when I am painted up too! Of course the other RHKYC staff were still 'stuck' in the club bar and finally arrived for their dinner just before Pete & I had to leave to meet our arrivals in HK train station. We got a taxi back to Aberdeen with them, and bought a takeaway which we munched on the ferry home as they recovered from the shell-shock of HK's skyscrapers in full light show AND christmas light fury.



Sat we took them to the Peak - by taxi as Pete couldn't face the crowds in Central. Just as well, as the queue to get on the Peak Tram up there was at least an hour long! We mainly looked at the view, first from the Gallery which is now fully open (they were still finishing bits of the viewing deck and the EA Games floor when Mum & I visited), and spent an hour or so doing the walk around the peak - all practically flat on a wide concreted path of course.


Leaves. The Peak, Hong Kong
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.

Some nice little signs about plant species but not easy to ID which trees they meant - couldn't miss the massive rubber trees though, but definitely Ents! The weather is supposed to be sunny (WOW!) and fairly clear this week; for a change so you could see quite far for once.
Of course the place was packed, its not really like getting out into the countryside but compared to the rest of the island it was quiet. Though there were a lot of dogs in outfits getting 'walked' (ie short run/ walk on leads then getting carried). Petes delighted to have spotted his favourite doggy outfit yet - a hoodie top! And also large groups of school kids on 'nature walks' - minus the clipboards which any UK school trip would have but clutching tick sheets. Apart from a few plants etc I have no idea what they were looking for - maybe they were spotting the numbered trees, gutters, pipes and concreted slopes which were all neatly labelled.......

Back at the Peak mall we were greeted by 2 (english again - seems its all europeans who do the entertaining here) giant Santas on stilts. The asians seemed fascinated with the size of their outfits backsides and kept patting them......After trying a weird local american style fast-food chain for 'snacks' we ferried to Sok Kwu Wan and had a fishy banquet before walking home.


Sunday we visited Petes Middle Island club with a brief shopping trip around Stanley Market in between. Home of all things girly - pretty scarves, trousers and an amazing range of handbags. I found that pointing at my feet, and saying '42?', hopefully, (in the shoe size sense, not the meaning of the universe) is extremely effective at stopping stall holders pestering me, as most sell gorgeous embroidered pointy shoes. But not over a size 6 of course. Pete lasted nearly an hour before freaking out and we joined him in a locals cafe, trying not to let our eyes water while eating hot & sour prawn soup (very both). We do like the way the minute you sit down (and as long as you stay) they give you free cups of their herbal tea, and keep topping it up - usually even if you are just buying takeaway too. You take off the lid of the teapot when you want frsh water in as it goes too strong (& bitter) quite fast if it sits. Pete actually bought himself a replacement wedding ring, unprompted!!!! We think its plastic (well, it cost about £3) but it looks OK and at least if he loses THAT we won't be too worried! We ended up staying at his club for tea until quite late and playing backgammon. We walked back to it via Repluse Bay and the promenade - bit nippy for Pete & I, we have been wearing jumpers & fleeces - and - shock! - socks (again I can only get mens in my size but I can't say I regret missing out on Hello Kitty ankle motifs) the last few weeks, but the 2 fresh from the UK loved it - still 21 degrees at sunset!
Having finally decided we WOULD like at least 1 western Xmas dinner with all the trimmings, Pete tried to book places at one of his clubs restauaraunts but all of them were full, boo. So, on the way home we got groceries and they finally had durian in the supermarket again (you smell it as SOON as you enter) so we bought a lump to try on Christmas Day. It stank SO much it lasted all of 2 minutes in the flat - I tied it to the balcony outside and we still smelt it for ages after!

One thing I only just noticed - you know how in the 'west' crescent moons nearly always get drawn/ shown vertically? Well, here it is actually horizontal, its freaky, like the Cheshire Cat's smile appearing/ disappearing from Alice in Wonderland. So this week his grin has been getting wider and wider! Odd.

Christmas morning I was woken by the git in the flats opposite continuing drilling up his concrete steps. At 7.30 a.m., really. When everyone got up, I forced christmas hats onto them, and Brian & Judy walked down to the nice beach at Tung O and went swimming. There were a bunch of rangers (they patrol the island now and then) cutting down ripe star fruit from trees along the path, who were so impressed with the hats they still had on (or maybe that they swam in the 'freezing' waters) they they gave them some - Judy now remembers why she never buys them to eat! Many thanks to all who sent cards & gifts - especially Petes' cousin Alistair for the brilliant drawings of us on our boat!! Anyway we all went back to Tung O beach for a picnic lunch, beginning with the durian as by that point the smell/ anti-anticipation was getting to us all. It was a whitish lump wrapped in cling film (peeled and removed from a HUGE fruit). I took a fingerfull- GROSS sensation, a sort of skin covered semi-liquid slime and it looked & felt like congealed pus.
The picture says it all. It was like sour-sweet custardy cream with a strong flavour of stale onions, which even swigs of beer, strong juice and other foods didn't get rid of. Contrary to everything I have read the taste was WORSE than the smell. The most horrible thing was that all of us even after having only a tiny mouthful (apart from Brian who decided to eat half the lump) kept getting really bad durian-scented burps - so much so we spread out and Judy went swimming again! (We were STILL burping at bed-time although by then later meals had diluted the stench thank gods.)
Judy bravely wrapped the remains of the durian up & deposited it in a bin and we hoped the rangers woudn't return to arrest us. We noticed walkers did not linger by it after that and the smell wafted over until we left too. YUK. At this moment I would like to warn any family visiting cousin Lochie in Australia that he says his parents LIKE making icecream out of it - beware. Jackfruit was nice though - sort of like segments of massive pomegranet except the segments/ seeds were half the size of your hand and tasted like melon with mango.
Anyway after Brian did a jungle man dissection of fresh pineapple on the rocks and we all paddled and played backgammon with shells, we wandered back home to get posh, (well, except Pete) and went into Aberdeen for a Thai dinner. The reason the manager had looked so oddly at us when we tried to book a table yesterday, and when we asked if they had space, became clear as we were the ONLY people in there - not exactly busy! Had a lovely feast including baked rice (in a carved melon this time) with mango, and ending with an entire fish fried so it could stand up on a really lush peanut and lemon honey salad. I introduced them to my favourite chinese waffle-ball stall (rounded vanilla dough waffle dried into a curve, looks like one of those car-seat massage ball covers) as we went home. Nice and relaxed day!


Boxing day we were up early to spend 3 hours to catch a ferry then 3 trains and a mini-bus out to the New Territories, which is the mainland on the north-east above Hong Kong, very hilly and full of islands and peninsulas. At one point we actually spotted empty train seats, and as I legged it to them first, just as the doors opened on a flood of new travellors, I plumped my bags down to save a seat for the others either side of me. Only to have strangers on both sides plump my bags back on me and sit down just as Pete & co arrived! We got off the bus at another fishing/ marina town called Sai Kung, with even more stunning displays of pick-your-own-dinner sealife than in HK/ Lamma.
They had the huge elephant willy clams, the amazing lobsters we ate in Palau (as well as several other bright lobster species), strange shrimp/ lobsters stored live each in their own plastic bottle (are they like those shrimp that punch and crack fish tanks?), odd mollusks and even -wow- giant horse shoe crabs!

I had never seen live ones that big, just the tea-cup sized ones in Oban's Sealife Centre (that made me wonder how the species survived so long when 1 fell on its back and was still stuck 2 hours later), and I know they are scarce in HK so I hope theres some sort of protection on them - maybe thats why they only had huge ones, they left the babies to grow? Also the big black sea urchins, which up close have amazing neon blue bits and what looks like giant golden beads on their tops, pretty. We got stuffed on less fishy/ exotic foods in a locals cafe, then copped out and got a taxi to the country park (there is a 5 day long hike along the peaks called the Macclehouse Trail but we didn't fancy that) at the top of the mountain which was HEAVING with people. All the BBQ pits had bookings and were full all day! We wandered off down the usual wide smooth concreted path, fairly busy, which climbed up to a pass just below the highest peak. By then it had turned into a sort of cobbled series of steps surrounded by wild camelias (or tea trees, not sure), ferns and trees.
We rested at the crossroads and watched a man climb towards us with what looked like a giant silver sharks tail sticking out of his rucksack - he was a model glider pilot but there was too little wind! Passing through an area ravaged by fire (probably from careless ancestor-burial-site-visitors) we saw a cow/ buffalo thing, and walking over grassed/ shrubby moor-like hills were stunned by the views over the bays.

The trek down killed and the path was worse until we hit a zone of 1001 mini steps which was really annoying. We went back to ex-pat-land by going to marvel at all the posh boats in Pete's clubs 3rd and 'smallest' centre, Shelter Cove, which is mainly a marina and had kids trying out new bikes & roller blades all over it. Even on the pontoons which seemed like a very dangerous idea. There was an impressive cigar speed boat type thing that one of the staff washed and polished for several hours, while we sat up in the clubhouse (which I prefer to Petes Middle Island place actually - nicer layout) eating and playing backgammon.

Brian & Judy took off to Macau for a couple of days, jammily getting a luxury suite free at no extra charge as the hotel had lost their online booking, but that seemed to have been one of the nicer things about the trip. Sounds like most of Macau was slums, random museums, casinos or tarted up bits for tour groups. They arrived back on Friday, and I met them and Pete at the posh Kellet Island main club, carrying gladrags for them all. Petes 'main' boss, the sailing manager Alex, was having a pre-wedding drinks evening (he got married on New Years Eve) for club staff, so we all chatted to his nearly inlaws/ his family before staggering next door to the posh Compass Room to have our wedding anniversary (2nd! I forgot & thought it was 1st!) dinner. Very nice, and lovely staff, with a fantastic view over the harbour to all the lights of Kowloon.



While they were away I turned up at the doctors on Lamma at 9.30 as requested only to be handed a letter saying I was meant to be at a hospital in HK instead - thanks, helpful, it had my address, why wasn't it posted or mentioned in the phone message they left??? So mad dash to ferry then taxi to the hospital. First queue sent me to a 2nd on the other side of the hospital which sent me to a 3rd round the corner who shouted at me for being nearly 2 hours late (had arrived only an hour late but long queues!). I had to pay to register & then pay more for my 1st visit, then queued & got all the usual tests etc done by nurses. Best was the nurse getting a chair to stand on to read my height, and having to find someone to explain the eye tests to me - I kept saying 'E' when she pointed at them not realising it was the DIRECTION the increasingly smaller 'E's' faced I was meant to be indicating, doh! After filling my eyes with the stingy stuff I hate the diabetic nurse saw me and was lovely as well as more thorough than in the uk - even checked my blood test metre was accurate. By that time the pupil widening thing was working so I had trouble seeing to do a blood test for her (luckily as I'd planned to eat on Lamma after seeing the doc there my sugars had dropped from dreadful to perfect!) but she had her own machine for photographing my retinas. In the UK thats a long waiting list and trip to a specialist! The hospital waiting room in that section was split into coloured zones, and you waited with your payment ticket in the coloured zone you were told to, for the number on your ticket to be displayed on a screen. You then sat beside the doctors door it told you to, and each doctor had at least 1 nurse constantly in& out doing stuff, and red or green lights above the doors telling you when to go in. However they kept calling me to other things as I was 'so late' but each caller used a different bit of my name and even though I was the only gweilo I saw in the 4 hours I was there, I didn't always realise it was me or even in English! So several times nurses just came, picked me out easily and towed me off. I kept finding tiny ants in my book, and finally thought this was odd as maybe 1 or 2 hitch into my bag from home, but 10?? I opened up my bag and noticed the pack of medical stuff I had bought from the UK was FULL of them, ICK! Pulling out the last item added, the tiny cardboard wallet given to me by the Lamma doctor, I realised ants had built nests in the 2 corners of the wallets which had my printouts stuck into them. As I was attempting to pull the sheets out asI figured this, the sheets finally broke loose and showered me & the luckily spare chairs either side with ants! I nipped to the loos and spent a while ripping out the niches in the card wallet and shaking ants down the loo. YUK. No idea why they chose there unless the glue in the wallet corners attracted them, but Petes was clear when I checked!!!! At which point a nurse spotted me and hauled me off again. I finally saw a very nice doctor who spent a long time trying to pronounce my name as she was interested (I gave up & said 'thats it!' in the end) and told me that actually yes HK DID have the insulin I was on and there was no need for the Lamma doctor to panic me. Unlike in the UK she wanted to discuss types & brands of insulin with me which I have never heard of being done, she wanted me to choose! I had to say I had always just been told to take what I was given in the Uk, and had no idea of which brand was better or did what. I suppose if you are paying for it here you get a choice? After telling me I was fat (and I've lost weight since arriving, pants...)and that in HK they still use portion size as a control (Uk its more relative percents of carb to protein to veg etc) so I was only allowed 4 spoonfuls of rice a meal (aargh! I didn't ask what portion of chocolate I was allowwed think I would have been shot), she sent me off to pay for my prescription. Fab - $10 (under £1) for 2 & 1/2 packs of insulin. I have no idea what it costs in the UK now but I ran out once in London in 1998 just after I got diabetes, and 1 pack of far smaller tubes of insulin cost over £30 then!!!!! Again I got glares as after waiting an hour to collect it the pharmacist called me to a different window from the main queues to explain what it was & how much I was supposed to take - obviously after daring to be late I was pegged as dumb at the very least. I have to go back next month for a bunch of other tests but having enough insulin is a relief! They even put stuff in my eyes as I left to decrease my pupils to normal which they never did in the Uk; but actually it made my sight/ head worse and I got so dizzy/ blind (as in I could see better without my specs which is BAD) that I spent most of the afternoon head down on Petes desk after I got a taxi there!


Sat Pete was working again and invited the others to join in a round his little island race that was going on. I went into Central and THANK GODS the woman had got all my costumes; so after they finished their race they all came to Jumbo floating restauraunt to drop them off. Seeing as we were there we decided to eat there too; private party on Top Deck where I would be working, and huge queues at the middle Jumbo deck, so we went to the 1st floor where there was no waiting. May have been a bad idea.......very posh but terribly 'buy-this-to-show-how-much-money-you-have' type of place - the entire menu was birds nest soup, obscure sea food and assorted slimey things. Nothing that looked actually edible and all very nouvelle cuisine style. We didn't actually fancy any of it but were so hungry by then we ordered a selection of starters. Which were all cold, sadly. And only supplied with chopsticks, after we had waited a while just with beers as their tea was not good.....recipie for disaster and much undignified giggling from us.
The slices of pinkish lotus root, with the (natural tubing?) holes stuffed with glutinous rice was OK but a bit sickly sweet; the speciality braised cabbage rolls were best but tasted like sauerkraut. Brian's sea bass was lovely but came on salted solidified cold custard (YUK), and the yellow drunken chicken was foul (hur hur), so salty your mouth pursed up & drowned in a not very edible 'wine'. Worst was the sliced marinated sea slug (that knobbly warty animal Gee & I used to squirt at each other - see them all over the world in warm waters), very chewy and not a great taste. Worst looking was the 'sea bubbler' or 'sea blubber' which turned out to be jellyfish tentacles, the ones that are all frilled and a bit cauliflower looking at the ends. There wasn't much flavour but the texture was lovely and surprised us - a very crunchy cucumber sensation really. After which we escaped and ended up eating in an Indian as all the local cafes were full and we were starving! And slightly drunk if the quality of Petes photographs is anything to go by......I suppose there isn't too much carb for soaking up beer in sea invertebrates.


Sunday Pete took them up & around the hills on our island, then they packed as Judy's plane left so early on New Year that the ferries wouldn't be running from ours yet. Brian had booked an airport hotel room rather than stay up all night in departures. We all struggled down to the ferry, me in my pirate oufit minus boats attracting some odd looks - I blame the flipflops!
They saw me onto the Jumbo shuttle ferry and I was setting up on the Top Deck before 6 pm. Sadly the staff were still decorating the 2 halves of the restaurant, and were not even starting to get dressed into the costumes that had caused me so much stress! Luckily I managed to get them all dressed & decorated before guests arrived, and put on my boots to complete my outfit.
I only have my black stiletto boots here and painting in high heels was neither easy nor comfy! Still, a nice bunch, a mix of local & asstd nationalities, half booked into tables in the 'public' bit, half the guests of a hysterical lady (who wanted me to paint her cleavage) hosting a private party in the other side. I would have liked to stay longer and was offered overtime, but the last ferry was at 10.50, there was no guarantee I could find a sampan after that, I needed more cash if I did get one & I had too much gear to lug it to a bank easily so I said no. Plus I hate getting sampans back to Lamma, they are slow, smelly and often scary. I made it just as the ferry beeped to leave, panic!!!!


Judy having safely boarded her UK flight in the early hours, Pete & I met Brian on New Years Morning at Tung Chung station on Lantau, the huge island (double the size of HK) to the east of HK. The boys decided to climb the peak there, but having an infected toe and a bad bag (perils of face-painting on Hogmany in a high-heeled pirate costume) I declined and went to look around the massive 'outlet' shopping mall. It was heaving and could have been a good bargain-hunt place except that all the shoe/ clothes factory outlets were brand names like Addidas I wouldn't be seen dead in, and the Body Shop store only had a few lines mainly of stuff I don't like. I got excited when I saw the massive Esprit wherehouse as I knew Sammy likes them & thought I could get her stuff or maybe find a pair of those trousers I like borrowing off her, but of course it is not near ex-pat haunts and only stocked local sizes. As in a size 12 is the XXL size the lady struggled to search out for me & its really is hard to find anything over 10. I didn't know that UK sizes went down to a 4 or lower, never seen them in the UK! I amused myself watching locals get soaked/ be amazed by one of those surprise 'dancing water' pavement fountains like they have in Bristol & Lowestoft - where there are random spouts of water from a seemingly empty stretch of concrete. Then I went & watched the new James Bond which had a bit too much card-playing but was good - much as I loved Pierce Brosnan he was too pretty & suave, the new guy fits better & is lovely. Pete and Brian arrived back around 5 pm having nearly killed themselves climbing the 934 m peak - the good thing being that once past the easy lower touristy slopes near the giant buddha/ cable car, the crowds and kids disappeared. Though locals kept giggling at Pete - firstly as he did most of it bare foot, and secondly because they were either smelly or showing their tan-lines (Pete was actually wearing shorts not boardies so displaying white bits for once). Picking up Brians luggage from the airport hotel we were amazed at 1000's of taxis queued in triple rows as far as we could see - the reason Brian met us late was he could only find red (HK) or green (new territories) taxis this morning, and only pale blue ones (Lantau Island) were allowed to take him from there to where we were so he had to wait! His hotel lobby had fantastic gingerbread houses which had house Santa and shops, and looked so real that I went up & tapped them. To find it was coated with REAL gingerbread - baked dry & hard in thing rectangles like Ryvita and stuck onto the structures!!!!! We do LOVE HK airport - was biggest & most expensive in the world, size of Londons and JFKs combined I think but so big it always looks half empty. Brian had a choice of 8 check-in desks without a single queue!!! Even when we got our budget flight to Manilla there were so many desks open we had 2 people only in front of us, fab. Downing a very quick rice & beer we managed to steer Brian into immigrations before he missed his flight, and sent him off to Kate in NZ for a few weeks.

After not being able to get online for ages despite full wifi reception on my laptop, the papers finally reported there had been a massive earthquake underwater near Thailand, where 5 of the 6 internet & phone cables connecting Hong Kong to the rest of the world had broken. Bit too late for many people who thought it was their computers malfunctioning and have mucked them up trying to fix them! Several ships were sent to fix it but one ship broke, so we were told to expect bad phone/ slow internet for several weeks as they are trying to transfer all users through smaller, older lines if they want to contact anyone or anything outside Asia. They weren't joking - going slowly mad as everything I want to do ISN'T on asian websites which are OK but slow, and some phonecalls have been totally unintelligible, boo!!!!!!

So a Merry Christmas & a Happy Hogmany to all!
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Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Bison cow thing, Mah O Shan Country Park, Sai Kung, New Territories, Hong Kong.


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Jumbo floating restaurant, Aberdeen, Hong Kong


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