Mum and I decided to visit the southern peninsula where I had spewed my guts up sailing past on Sunday, but by bus. Ii involved a trip to the end of the bus line from Central, past amazingly crowded skyscrapers. It was scarey, 30 storeys or higher, all crammed so closely that the laundry hanging outside flat windows to dry in the traffic fumes was almost touching between buildings. You could have conversations with neighbours in 4 other buildings from your window, even shake hands I bet. We got another double decker form the terminus to the remote peninsual of Shek O, and what a change - from overcrowded bustle to deserted valleys & peaks. Bit shades- of- scarey-bus rides in Guatemala, seeming to careen around steep sharp curves overhanging vertical cliffs, but wow!
Shek O was fairly deserted when we FINALLY arrived (after 3 pm) and after a sit on the beach (still hot enough for bikinis if we had been as brave as the 70 year old there wearing one) we managed to find the 'old' quarters, decorated with those cool dragon-back triangular flags as they had just had the ancestors prayer festival. (Pete had 100's of little lanterns & boats wash up at work from the festival goers all around HK). Much nicer than HK's high rises, all little tiny bungalows and shacks. The Country Club golf course looked amazing too.
After getting the only bus back to the city outskirts we did find another one back to Stanley & Pete without having to go via Central - but at one point we were crossing a single lane road accross a dam, with the water on 1 side and a drop on the other - and cars wouldn't stop to let the bus cross! Definitely somewhere to visit when we have a boat/ calm day.
The tiny brown house ants are at it again - even found one in the airtight cereal box. Getting to the stage where we have to check everything for them before we eat it; they seem to ENJOY the new ant traps I have added to the collection already in the flat. And for some reason they have got excited about the mouthwash in the bathroom, no matter how often I rinse off the bottle or where I store it, they are all over it! Drives me nuts - surely mouthwash doesn't have sugar in it????
Tues mum & I 'did' the Peak; got an open-topped bus for a short ride for Central ferry to the Peak tram and got on that.
"Building of 1000 Arseholes" Skyscraper, Hong Kong with George's Barristas cup - so.... 1001?
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.
Quite scary, you are sat at at least 45 degrees without the restraints you get in roller-coaster rides etc, nasty sensation you could fall backwards out of your seat, down the tram.
The floor had sort of scooped steps cut into it so you could actually get off at stops other than the less steep terminals without sliding down the carriage.
The view from the new Peak (yet another 'shopping centre') was great but would have been even better without the pollution clouds.
They actually had a Burger King (the rest of HK is all McD's, a monopoly which is a shame as if I do fancy junk food its BK I like!) so mum let me have that for a treat (not rice!!!!!). I must say I was impressed - more expensive than usual (prob cos its on the super pricey/ posh Peak) but our meal actually LOOKED like the lush ones they always have in their adverts, burger was huge, crispy veg etc, I was stuffed and mum couldn't finish hers - unusual experience in a fast food chain! Best was the view - see pic we took (along with the Barrista's cup George kindly sent out so I could join in his 'world cup' competition).
George's Barrista's cup slumming it in BK on H K's posh Peak - shortly before I dropped my pricey fruit smoothie all over myself in the breeze
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.
Thursday mum helped me to Sok Kwu Wan so I got the ferry to Central with all my painting gear, sweltering in all black as the PR agency asked me to wear that. Nearly another disaster - I KEEP reading the wrong bit of the ferry timetables, and if I had got it really wrong would have had to wait 2 hours for the next 1 - luckily only 30 mins this time!!!! The scandinavian bar hosting the launch was in a 'hip' hotel, very funky. The 4 models (Brazil, Denmark, Chezhk) were as shocked as I was by the 'elegant' dresses specially designed by some fashion designer. Plus as they'd been told ankle length skirts, 2 hadn't shaved their legs, only to find the 'skirt' was thin strips from the waist! See the pics - Abba in dayglo sequins! All the 'elegant' designs I had done went out the window as they had to compete with the 4 brash 'colours' of the dresses to match the 4 'flavours' of Patron Tequila.
Which comes in hand polished crystal limited edition numbered bottles, in violin-grade maple cases signed by the artist, don'tcha know. Dread to think how much it costs! Anyway hampered by the design crew either switching off ALL the lights, or only leaving a tequila- flavour-coloured spotlight on so I couldn't distinguish my paints, the 1st 2 girls faces went ok; last 2 not so good and I had to speed up as PR woman decided she wanted bee logo necklaces painted on them all too.
Worst was the awful cheap tinsel eyelashes she gave me to use on them - not sticky enough & I have only worn/ used them myself once, learning curve!!!! (The models agent kept asking me to put foundation etc on them & got stroppy when I said I didn't have/ do that as she was convinced I was a makeup artist). Never mind, I did it in time, converted my kit to the new gadget that sits on 1 arm and spent 3 hours wandering around the launch party painting random things as well as the bee/ vine logos on all the guests & bigwigs.
The girls had to perch and primp (and pimp) their bottles to the guests. They & the PR people seemed happy, hope they meant it! Fun bunch; there was a logo-graffitti wall, kinetic art made out of the tequila papers, juggling cocktail tequila guys, amazing ice tables etc. The food (I was offered some but too busy) was served actually on spoons in complicated decorative mini bites, you ate it from the utensil rather than as finger nibbles. I left about on time (even though more wanted painting but PR company didn't want to pay me for longer) and managed to get my last ferry home, thank gods!
Friday we got the early ferry to go see another junk we might buy, this one already converted to a house boat and currently sitting in the posh & expensive Aberdeen marina surrounded by multi-million yauchts even mum had heard of the owners of. It ticked 3 things off mums list - we got a sampan out there, we passed the 'Jumbo' (worlds largest floating chinese restaurant - overpriced, over-decorated & nasty round the back), and she got to see a junk. It was lovely, with a big bedroom (with a proper double bed AND storeage), tiny loo but nicer than ours, big enclosed glass living/ sitting space, open back balcony. Although it was 48 feet, it seemed to have less space than the smaller one on deck, and also was awkward to get onto from the water as it had no boarding platform. At double the price Pete wasn't keen even though it had a massive metal pole in the middle of the room which I am sure Sammy would have been dancing from! Then Pete realised his licence only allows him to drive boats up to 44 feet, and as the engine on this didn't work, and all the electrics were made to run from cabled supplies not battery/ generators, that blew it. So Mum & I went for a 2nd look at the original boat (after accidentally waiting 30 mins at the Aberdeen MARINA club - VERY posh, instead of the BOAT club next door!), 4 ft shorter, with a working engine. It did seem much bigger; older, more knackered, without a shower or proper bed too, but still..... At dinner in the 'Mediteranean Restauraunt' in our bay that night we arranged to see the chefs' flat which is next door to us. He rents it out as a B&B thing - nicer than ours with proper kitchen, loo & double beds, wow! Think if anyone comes to visit us & we have moved onto the boat, we'll rent a flat like that for a few weeks - much nicer out here than in smelly HK. And far cheaper! Petes aunt replies that there are no 4th floors as '4' in Cantonese sounds or looks the same as 'death' which is why it's unlucky. Still, nice out here on Lamma with only up to 3 storey high flats! We found an amazing at & crafts shop, with all sorts of tiny kits to make funky origami or those chinese knots..not that we can work it all out, we will have to go back & try to get the woman to demonstrate.
Sat I had been booked by a doctor for his daughter's party, and despite him spelling out his address i could only really understand the hospital it was near. Realising when I arrived he'd been saying 'senior' staff quarters, ahhh!!! He lived with his wide, 2 daughters shared 1 bedroom, and granny (traditional chinese, no english) had the 3rd bedroom. Lovely polished floors, and me being the clumping great foreign dufus didn't realise I had to take off my shoes before entering. I did when asked and there was a minor panic finding guest house slippers for me (explains why they sell loads of slippers so cheaply in the shops) so there was me poking out of fluffy man's teddybear slippers, in my fairy outfit. Terribly polite kids, again, busy choosing what they would like to be from my website as his PC was in the office nook where I painted. I apparently cannot say 'butterfly' in Cantonese, when I was copying them, much hysterical giggling and apologies but they wouldn't or couldn't tell me what I WAS pronouncing. I said I thought Cantonese was the hardest language ever, and they didn't aggree. Plus they all spoke it, Mandarin, French, English and at least 1 other language fluently! Wow! We got home to find a message asking if I could paint at a kids Rugby tournament in Kowloon on Sunday. A lady from the ferry had asked us to a BBQ on Sunday afternoon, but she said most of those things ended at lunch so we could still visit her, so we left on the early morning ferry. Slight fright when the taxi driver took us to the 'wrong' dock but it turned out we must have been one of the last few loads to get on the Star ferry at it's original pier, last week; despite much protest they have moved them to lovely new piers beside all the other ferries- made sense to me! The taxi in Kowloon had to dump us at the bottom of the hill we wanted, as the traffic into the rugby area was so bad. Turned out there were 5000 kids just PLAYING matches so you can imagine all the family & friends along to watch! I boiled in the sun, set up beside the bouncy castle, until the rugby club brought the promised gazebo. Which promptly blew away as it was extremely gusty, nearly taking the castle with it, and smashing a bottle of new pricey face paint I had just got - gutted! Mum was brilliant, entertaining the kids in the queue, collecting money & showing them the mirror. Also meant I got a lunch-break (at 2pm after breakfast at 6am!) despite angry parents shoving money at me to paint their kids when we had turned away 20 from the end of the queue telling them to come back after lunch! Got rid of a box & a half of business cards too, wish I'd had more, and loads of praise including the Director of some big american company saying she had never seen anyone as good as me which is all great for the ego/ business too! As I was still painting at 5 pm we had to cancel going to the BBQ, and I felt dead after that & dragging my kit home up the steps, but was good! Must charge more at pay-per-facelike that, as it isn't worthwhile at $30 HKD per face - it's just that I usually go double a bottle of water/ drink at event like that, and as food is so cheap here I seem outrageous already at that price. What I do notice is how the boys/ men are far more colourful in their choices here, AND like glitter - unusual in the Uk! Even did 1 12 year old rugby boy as a pink & purple butterfly with blue swirls, carefully dictated by him - nice change actually, why should girls get all the fun?
I bought a new printer, was pleased as it is the single colour cartridge so more economic as usually its the black that runs out before the colours. But despite the store saying yes they had ink, they don't for that model!!!! So we trawled loads of stationary stalls, with no luck - but did find cute kits for all sorts or origami etc which I will have a go at. Miffed as I needed the pics of practice faces I had tried for the models on Thursday, and wanted to do a proper book of face ideas for the chinese kids to choose at the party I did on Sat. Have since found the 'computer centre' in Wan Chai, several floors below a high-rise, stuffed with tiny booths stuffed with anything & all to do with computers and hi-tech gadgets. Gee & J would probably implode with excitement but we were the only non geeks/ females in it & it was HEAVING. Still, I got my ink!
Tuesday it POURED and was too misty to even see HK from Lamma. Mum & I took 2 ferries then a bus from Lantau island (2 times bigger than HK island but practically empty apart from the airport) which lies to the west of HK. It;s where our supermarket gets its milk from - bizarrely from a Trappist Monastry! The (now all chinese) monks with their vows of slience moved the cows over to China recently though. Lantau's main settlement is the posh 'Discovery Bay' area, mainly what they call a 'bedroom town' as people only sleep there and do all their living & work on HK; sounds a bit twee/ american as ONLY converted golf carts are allowed for transport and they cost more than luxury cars in the UK (no wheelies & drunken rides here, Gee). We landed in the rather dingy spot Pete & I ate at when we came windsurfing here, and hurried around looking for brollies as mine kept collapsing. Mum & I decided not to bother attempting to see the worlds largest seated Buddha through the rain, but went to Tai O, a fisherman's village on stilts, one of the last surviving in HK and allegedly the Venice of Hong Kong. It looked damp but quaint; (tiny shanty houses on stilts with boats moored under them); more worrying was the tiny dwellings out the back of it.
All clad in tin (noisy in rain hot in summer- why?), with their dimensions painted on the outside (for tax purposes??) - most not more than 7 ft x 7 ft!!!!! And again, all the stalls selling unidentifiable dried fish (even a dried skate bigger than me) and puffer fish.....yes with sombreros.
Someone had filled his entire rowing boat with live fish and hadn't noticed an egret perched on his motor eyeing them up which looked a bit ominous.
We also found most of the village stuffed into their hall, watching Chinese opera. Mum got invited in by the ladies but I preferred the slight muffling the rain caused if I stayed outside.....pretty painful stuff, that style of music, and we think the 'girl' was a guy in drag (amazing traditional blue silk dress) but his falsetto wasn't as obvious as most. We stopped in at the Meditteranean Cafe on our beach again, only to order a Baked Alaska as it looked impressive when other diners had it the other night, and I don't think i had ever tasted it. Nice - not too sweet, sat on bread instead of sponge, with different flavours of ice-cream scooped into fresh fruit salad. Yum!
Wednesday I had a meeting with a woman whose kids I painted at Rockit, the first festival I did here. She runs the performing arts side of the HK Arts Foundation, a charity that mainly gets big companies to sponsor them to run massive events offering free arty type stuff to kids and the disabled. Corporations seem to use it rather than run even more expensive advertising campaigns - all the posters/ people involved see their name as sponsor, AND it looks good in annual reports I expect. It is all very pro, unlike similar stuff I have seen in the UK: a lot of her events raised millions for the clients charities (or the client donated it to the arts foundation to go into schools etc) as well as being high profile. Big banks etc also get their staff to help kids paint murals or create art which then decorated their schools or the company HQ or public places. Anyway, she was dead keen to get me on their team/ involved - they have a really cool mosaic artist they use a lot, and wants me to help with a proposal to the Rugby 7s for next year. I think I mentioned several clients/ entertainment artists said how AWFUL the painters were at the Rugby 7's the last few years; charging at least £10 per face (!) for a few stripes to represent a flag? Well, many complained they wouldn't mind it so much if it was better OR went to charity (don't think the rugby clubs were impressed with the pittance the painting team gave them for their charities as they must have been raking it in), so I'm perfect for it. She already has a team they use (all theatrical trained) but wants to pay me to run a few training sessions and buy in proper paint etc, then pay me to paint/ lead on the days of the tournament. her clients loved the idea; we are just waiting to hear if their accountants rubber stamp it then I am getting paid really well for those 3 days in March, woohoo! She also wants me involved in other projects so she can hire me, often as project artist, and is interested in any other ideas I have - even looks as if they do environmental art and are starting to get into eco-activities, right up my street! Basically looks as if it could be all the sort of stuff I did at the Suffolk Wildlife Trust but with big companies bankrolling it - she said anything they need and can't buy, its easy to get MADE specially in China, wow. Some of their lantern decoration installations were amazing, and a wild art (Andrew Goldsworthy style) project they did in asstd nature reserves with several schools, they could afford a professional photographer to come and capture the finished works for later displays.
To celebrate we went to our favourite Thai restauraunt and even Pete couldn't finish the feast - ordered all sorts of odd stuff including yummy rice in a whole pineapple.
On mum's last day (dull again) we mainly wandered around Central. As Pete & his mum said, the view from the (boring mainly) 55th floor of IFC 2 (its the highest in HK at 88 floors - see it in Lara Croft Tomb raider 2).
Wierd, watching the birds of prey zoom BELOW us, and seeing all the formerly hidden roof top cafes!Found an amazing roof terrace garden with odd chairs, sculptures and fountains on top of the IFC shopping mall, deserted!
We finally found a Dim Sun cafe (means touch the heart - as its so full of fat i expect!) with soup so spicey we all cried. The dumplings were OK, not amazing, but think next time I'll find a place that does them in animal shapes (meant for kids) as at least that would amuse me! Did a lot of coo-ing at all the cute wee puppies in their transparent boxes in the pet-shop district. (Mainly so i could get the toasted waffle-like cocoa egg-ball things I love). Why do they shave them in funny patterns tho? Not just the poodles, most of them! And if anyone wants a fake Gucci bag specially designed to carry mini dogs in, or designer dog outfits, form PVC police uniforms to Prada scarves and hats, I know the place to buy them.
Pete had totally gone off buying a junk - mainly as he can't sail it and its wood (bad for maintainance costs) but more as only rich idiots seem to have them around here I reckon. Luckily we finally found a decent catamaran (not riddled with bugs like the last one) and as its the only one in 3 months of searching we can remotely afford/ get, have put an offer on it. Only problem is, its parked in remote islands half way to Australia. He's going to inspect it; the gear with it is more than we would ever need, its currently been crusing the Pacific so works fine, is newer than most we have seen, is set up for living on already (beds - 2 doubles 2 singles!!!)etc. I am just not happy about him sailing it back, (if it is OK and he takes it;) for time & danger. He's hoping to get a couple more 'crew' (don't expect me to volunteer) and THINKS it will take less than 2 weeks. So the agent's asking the oner while we scrabble all our savings together and try to get a loan. NOT impressed with how hard it is to access all my accounts that allegedly gave me internet banking - and he can't get a number or reply about why the official number doesn't work for his ISA! Typically we can't get a decent loan rate from the UK as we no longer reside there, ditto in HK because we aren't classed as permanent here! So off to see bank tomorrow, booo.
