Tuesday, July 10, 2007

May 2007 - Ocean Park and Inside HK Hospitals

OK so its been a while since I did this for assorted reasons!



Um, I dyed my hair all over for the 1st time. Mainly as Mr Tact Wilkins my so called husband has made several comments since I came to HK about how much grey/ white I have. This from the guy who doesn’t notice new glasses, coloured contact lenses, multi-coloured hair dye stripes, etc, on me…… As usual the colours I fancied I can’t get as I’m too dark haired. And there was no way I could explain to the poor girl In Aberdeen what colour slices were (the 3 hidden stripes I used to have) and her English speaking manager was really worried when she called him over in a panic. GREAT head & neck massage when she washed it though! So know I have to watch it as I tend to leak a bit of henna-pink-purple onto white head towels and our pillows are changing colour…..

Pete & Domino onboard. Awww
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.



We had Petes mum Sue for a week or so on her way back to the UK from NZ, and we continued to have the amazingly clear skies and hot weather I had been sweating through for the last few weeks. (As she left last month the storm that kept us awake stayed for a day, and Pete was upset to spot a tiny duckling being swept past his sailing class by the wind – he couldn’t spot it so we think it had it, as it was heading alone out to sea….). I had been complaining about the engine on Pingu – its been getting so stiff I could hardly steer it, and was only clamped on at one side. Anyway, after dinner & a shower at Middle Island, Pete was steering us back to the boat when there was a sudden loud ‘clunk’. We couldn’t see anything broken or something we had hit, so continued on. We usually ‘dock’ between the 2 back ends of the hull, so Pete slows down as he steers in and I grab the back edge of the deck to stop us completely so we can tie on. BUT as we approached & I reached up, Pete suddenly seemed to rev the engine and we roared towards the deck at high speed. Sure I’d break my arms I ducked and covered and so did Sue, praying the joists and wires under the decking wouldn’t decapitate us. Luckily Pete caught a rope and the metal dinghy hoist and managed to stop us JUST in time. It turned out the clunk was the steering/ speed ‘arm’ that juts out of the outboard engine snapping off – it had stayed in place until Pete twisted it to stop! So that’s the end of that I think.


I wasn’t around with Sue that much – typically it was the 1st busy week in ages for me! First of all I had a booking at the HK Country Club, an exclusive place at the edge of Deep Water Bay. Great, I thought – no need for a taxi, Pete can drop me off by boat as we moor opposite it! So, as our dinghy Pingu was engineless, he stuffed Sue & I into life jackets and whizzed me and my kit over from Middle Island (where I had changed into a fairy) on one of the big safety boats.

Luckily he had phoned ahead and a gardener came down to unlock the gate for us. But he didn’t help me lug my gear up all the stairs to the garden! Pete couldn’t stay as there were recorded warnings about his boat being on their jetty blaring out from Ocean Park. The party was great, I stayed inside as my paints would have melted in the heat & humidity where the kids were playing. I had to include the photo of the last wee girl I painted. As usual, ALL the others wanted to be butterflies, fairies and princess’s. This one insisted on a dinosaur, despite her mums wishes. Her expression when she saw the mirror was a classic – she did smile afterwards but it made me laugh my backside off when I downloaded the camera! To my surprise, instead of collecting me in Pingu (Pete & his mum went to get a new outboard engine while I was working), I suddenly spotted Pete bringing the entire catamaran over the bay. And he was sailing it not using the engine! So we had a nice relaxing sail back, with the cat either going scatty trying to hide/ stalk the black kites circling above us (depending on how far away they were) or snuggling on laps.





I had an interview with the heads (Linz has an OBE I see from her card!) of the HK Youth Arts Foundation, the charity/ company who used me to win the Rugby 7s Face Painting bid. It was really odd – I had no idea what they wanted to see – they just said ‘show us what you can do’! So I put together a short selection of photos on my laptop – from jobs I have had, hobbies, courses I did, etc. Everything I showed them they were saying, yes, we can sell this!

They help huge companies do their corporate social responsibility ‘aren’t –we nice- and good for the community’ thing, by bringing drama & art to locals, as its an area seriously lacking in schools and HK as a whole. (This saves the companies spending a fortune with a PR firm, as YAF also do massive adverts, brochures, etc). This can be by just sponsoring projects (with up to 800,000 young people a year!). For 1 project they used the companies budget to bus school kids out to Kadoorie Farm (a big nature reserve/ education centre I want to see) and flew out a UK artist who trained with Andrew Goldsworthy (my favourite artist – takes natural objects to make gorgeous photos of ephemeral art) to join them. A professional photographer captured the work in HUGE photos, a proper exhibition, the corporate calendar and postcards, as well as then being kept at the company HQ. A bit of a step up from the Wild Art Days I used to run on or nature reserve or in schools gardens/ car-parks for the Suffolk Wildlife Trust!!!

They also do ‘Art in the Office’. Companies say what they want to decorate their walls, or a park or a calendar, or things can be suggested to them. They decide how much they want to spend, if they want to also be involved, if they want young children or special needs to make it, and YAF organises it all. Again it gives chances for fun and new skills to local kids. Sponsors can join ‘Art Angels’ too, staff volunteering to help special needs and underprivileged kids at one off or regular events.

Anyway, I left YAF with instructions to come up with projects that could be offered to companies, that ran for 1 day, several time a year, or several time a year over 3 years – they have a waiting list of people wanting to give them money I think!!!! Basically I was asked how busy I wanted to be…. I got home to find an email waiting from the director, asking if I knew how to make dream-catchers. I replied, yes, and sent a photo of the intricate ones I make as christening gifts, and the simple ones we made with kids on a Native American Activity Day at my old reserve. Wendy immediately replied – could I write a teacher information pack on them, source materials for them in Sham Shui Po (where all those 1000s of fabric/ bead/ metal/ ribbon sample shops are) and then head a project helping 20,000 kids make them? Ulp. I was overjoyed if we got funding for a project with 2000 kids at S. W. Trust! Anyway we met again a few days later; its for the Charity Orbis (help treat/ prevent eye disease in poor nations) – I forget which company is funding it, but for the last 4 years, they send out these packs to all HK schools. The end result of the pack is always an eye-themed object; 1 year it was decorated eye shaped Perspex shapes, another year they all did spin paintings on paper plates that looked a bit like iris’s. Every kid that joins in pays a token amount to the charity fund; the company provides most of the materials (even paying YAF to build plate-spinning machines!) as well as the training etc. And at the end a professional event artist or whatever you call them sets up a display in the middle of one of HKs top MASSIVE posh shopping cntres. All with ‘sponsored by’ on it of course. Anyway this year it will be me teaching the teachers and all that……..! I’m really hoping I can come up with projects they fancy, as they are all lovely. And the office fridge had chocolates in it!



I painted at the 1st Fair Trade fair in HK, in church hall near St Johns Catherdal. Lovley, I spent more on Fair Trade jewellery than I made. Good to see its all getting started here though, not seen a lot and recycling is a joke!

Wednesday we finally gave in and went to Ocean Park – our main view on the catamaran is of its cable car and hot air ballon ride! I ended up buying a season ticket as it’s the same as 2 visits – an I love jellyfish so thought I’d be back!
We skirted the themed stalls (Disney style tat and games) and got in a tiny round cable car which soared up over the edge of deep water bay and along the side of the mountain. Hot but pretty, if hazy – and we could see our boat!
The jellyfish displays were stunning – not as scientific as UK Sea Life Centres, or as informative, but WOW. As I always dreamt of after seeing the jellyfish breeding tanks in Weymouth, they turned all their displays into living lava lamps.

Coloured lights or UV shone into each tank, making the creatures look even weirder than ever. Some had shifts in colour and mirrors reflecting them so it was like being in a freaky blizzard. Stunning!
Funnily the posh ‘cafĂ©’ we had lunch in (getting a discount with my season pass!) offered jelly fish on the menu – imported to the park, culls ot yesterdays casualties?



The shark tunnel was fairly cool, and that whole exhibit actually had a few bits of educational information, but the baby dogfish embryos, dissected out of their egg ‘purses’ and happily developing in artificial see-through egg sacs were amazing! The much vaunted reef display was a bit of a disappointment but probably only as I have sent he real thing so often, in Belize, etc. The main tank is 3 STORIES deep, and surrounded by smaller tanks set into the walls. So you have a massive circular deep round tank in front of you, with 100s of species of smaller reef fish (separated form the really big predators by a barrier with holes in it) and the rarer stuff at your back. I finally saw a live (if captive) sea dragon, and the garden eels were just too comical and odd to be real! But the main reef tank….they were all oohing and ahhing at the amazing coral.
Which was blatently cast in concrete and spray painted in neon colours. As were the anemones – though the small wall tanks had some real ones. Its such a shame, the rest was stunning – being down on the bottom storey watching an 80 year old grouper the size of a small boat circle 3 floors above you was freaky!


We then went on a wander and tried the log flume, and found the spot where the photo of Pete and his siblings as kids on their way to/ from living In Papua New Guinea was taken on his 1st visit about 22 years ago!
Then we walked miles in scorchingly hot sun to the oddly American-themed sea lion feeding display, then squeezed onto the back of the last row of seats in the dolphin amphitheatre. Not something I agree with but it was shaded and allegedly entertainment! Usual stuff, jumping, pushing their trainer through the water, etc.
We headed home totally exhausted having onl seen a tiny segment of the park – no ideas where the birds & butterflies displays are! We ate at the main club so Sue could leave her cases at the baggage claim.

Friday morning IU dropped Pete & Sue off onshore about 5am so she could catch her plane. Back on the boat I started feeling really odd, and lay down in the shade until I started throwing up. I spent the rest of the day with 1 end glued to the loo and the other t a bucket, with the cat being very annoyed as she was having to keep me company INSIDE the hot boat instead of on the marginally cooler and far more interesting deck. Pete slept on the other hull that night, but as I was still unable to keep even water down/ in, and my sugars were going mad, I agreed to go to A&E around 10 the next day. We reasoned that even if we could find a doctor they probably send me to a diabetic specialist at the hospital anyway, and frankly I couldn’t stay away from a bathroom for the time it would take to register with a doctor! I felt so crap when we got to A&E they gave me a wheelchair, but after a while I asked for a bed, as I just wanted to lie on the floor. And they kept giving me thick clear plastic bags to throw up in which was odd and a bit messy. By the time they put my 1st drip into my left elbow I was a bit out of it, and typically totally forgot to mention Pete was with me as they whisked me off to an acute care ward just after he left looking for his lunch! Later I kept mumbling “Sin saang….” (Mr/ husband) to the nurses who just ignored me. By the time he caught up I had been put into a pair of checked pyjamas that only reached my knees much to the nurses horror. They chucked him out and he came back at visiting time to find me still throwing up but being put on the old ‘nil by mouth’ regime. In Cantonese. At this point I realised I probably wasn’t going to get out in a day and had Pete cancel all my facepaint bookings.

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