Sunday, January 28, 2007

Letter 22 - Kung Fu Tea, Baking, Beads & Braids

Did I say that from 2007 HK has similar no-smoking laws to Ireland? As in its illegal in most public places and indoors. Apart from a few clubs, hotels and bars who are exempt for a few more years. (Bribery or what I wonder?). Of course it didn't really have a great start as many people stuffed in all the bars etc celebrating the 2007 countdown were smoking, but now new signs have sprouted everywhere you look. As I don't get to go 'out' often (ever - sniff), it hasn't affected me socialising etc, but I DO notice ciggy butts strewn all over the streets now. And frantic puffers congregating in little huddles near doorways - so I think I'm inhaling more NOW than I did before! Theres also a big hooha as the Asian International Tobacco Conference starts soon, and they had hired the Exhibition Centre near Pete's main club rather than the posh new non-smoking Expo Centre near the airport, as the HK one allowed some smoking spots. Or it DID when the Tobacco lot booked it - it doesn't now! They are rather miffed but have to carry on.

Mum arrived Friday morning, so after dumping her gear back at home we returned to Hong Kong to wait in Petes bar until he finished work. We dropped him off at the Airport Express, and off he trundled with just his usual day-rucksack as carry on luggage only. (The one you gave us each for our wedding Gee). As that means he can't take any liquids (etc) and knowing his willingness NOT to buy/ use shampoo, deodorants, etc, I fell very sorry for Jason & Virian who will be living on the catamaran with him until they emigrate to the USA next week. And even sorrier for the Taiwanese sailor (coming along to learn) and one of Petes sailing students, Christian (did the round the island race with him) on the week they sail it to the Phillippines. So Mum & I will be carting out stuff for him just in case, as well as so that Tim & Heather don't have to lug loads over from the UK.


We had a quiet day on Sunday, down at the lovely Tung O beach again. Talking of which I see Chow Yun Fat the famous actor from there is not only the star of another huge Crouching Tiger style film, he's in the 3rd Pirates of the Caribbean! Anyway we sat in a sheltered spot and sunbathed (well, fully clothed for me!) on his beach.


We want to try all the free stuff the Tourist Board organises - interestingly some is exactly the same as what I was going to have to PAY for if I did it with the YMCA Women's courses!
To start with we went to Hong Kong Park on Monday and had a good look around whilst waiting for our talk to start.
It's actually very nicely done, set around a big, empty pond/ lake (empty as the massive coy carp and little turtles have eaten everything in it).


Sparrows, bird, Hong Kong Park
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.

Lots of trees, plants, wild but fairly tame birds (including white cockateel things), and a big conservatory with a few mini-biomes (desert, wet humidity etc) set out, and a lovely orchid exhibition.

Orchids, Hong Kong Park
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.


Orchids, Hong Kong Park
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.


Orchids, Hong Kong Park
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.

I adored the Chinese New Year decorations they had started to set up, especially the drilled coconut lanterns if that is what they were...
The famous avaiaries are shut indefinitely due to bird flu.

Oddest was all the brides - every corner there was another happy couple surrounded by photographers (but often without any other guests or even bridesmaids) snapping away like slightly better dressed & equipped paparazzi. All the new Mrs's were dressed in hideous white creations, meringues to drown in evidently still in fashion here! One did have the most amazing (diamond?) collar necklace, we were too far away to see her face, but the flashing necklace caught everyones eye, her neck was lit up as if she had on one of those fibre-optic tube christmas light displays. She didn't - I had to go and look to check as it wouldn't have surprised me here!
We sat down to watch herons eyeing up the fish from their perch on lake scupltures, and realised the park has its own registry office - must be a marriage every 10 minutes, we were there less than an hour and saw 8 different (but hideous OTT dresses on all) wedding groups go by. They must have been queuing at the most photogenic spots. Which are all carefully labelled 'photogenic spot' for you by the way. Gods, even art is regimented here!!


Anyway we eventually went into the museum there, which had a tea shop underneath, where we had booked in for a free tea course (there are lots of 'interesting' courses available free from the Tourism Office if you are a tourist - I got mum to book it and stood with a camera around my neck looking touristy but pretending I had forgotten my passport). We sat around a beautiful wood table, on the same square wood stools that Gran Fin has as a table, surrounded by gorgeous carvings and tiny teapots. The chinese lady then told us about the 7 different colours or grades of tea, which depends on how they were made. Green & greenish teas were basically 'fresh', not allowed to oxidise at all; yellow, red, black & white teas are all allowed to oxidise to varying degrees (i.e. kept warm & moist). The we had a very long and boring lecture, often repeting itself, on the art of tea making. It wasn't like the ceremonies you see with kneeling geishas whisking bowls; we learnt KUNG FU!!!! Not as exciting as it sounds; if we understood her, Kung Fu can be applied to cooking, decorating, tea making..... and martial arts. Basically I think its having a way of doing things, maybe not a tradition, but your way, and having reasons to back up the way you do them, thinking about sights, smells and all senses including your guests'.
She used a tiny tea pot, a couple of inches accross and about half that high, like a dolls tea set, and stuffed it with loose tea. Boiling water was poured on and all the bubbles that frothed to the top (too active to drink apparently) were swiped off with her special tea-scoop chop-stick thing, to drain through the pierced & carved tea tray to the bowl hidden underneath it. She chose 3 of us (as the pot was too small to serve all at once), and taking our 3 tiny tea bowls (slightly larger than thimbles), she upended the teapot above the 3 cups, circling it so each cup evenly got top, middle and bottom strength of tea mixed into it. (makes sense unless you have some who like the weker/ stronger brew!). Of course due to the constant circling of the spout lots of tea again went all over the tray to drain away.
Then she threw out the tea from the teacups and did it all again. THIS time we were allowed to drink it....... She then showed us 'cakes' of tea, wrapped in paper and stored like you wold store old books, to age like red wine. One batch of tea picked & stored in the 1930s they sold one cake of in 1988 for $700 dollars, and from the same batch, after being tested by a tea-master in 2006 sold another cake for $17,000!!! But if you keep it in your kitchen it can pick up bad smells, or anywhere damp it will start oxidising again, etc, so conditions must be perfect to let your investment grow. We do it all wrong it seems - big pot, big cups, serving everyone at once, filling up each cup in turn so someones is too weak or strong - and only green tea should be stored in a tin! And they gave us a dimsun which turned out to be one of those chokey chewy testicle things I'd tried in the bakery, this time with a crunchy peanut centre which was nice when you managed to get there!


After passing a total photo frenzy with TV crews outside one mall in Central (2 people in giant kids cartoon character costumes launching a credit card with pics of same animals on them. Queues hours long to be photo'd with them but ALL ONLY ADULTS clutching tickets in the queus, no kids!!!), we headed for the minibus home. We finally tried the drippy balls on sticks that have their own distinctive required eating style. Most of the stalls that I get my beloved vanilla waffle-ball sheets from make them; they are scooped out of a seething vat of brown liquid and jammed onto a wooden skewer. You get hold of the skewer end, lean forward from the waist at right angles and take a ball off the skewer with your mouth whilst trying not to drip the liquid onto yourself, your clothes or your shoes. Mum bravely bought some - we had no idea what they were, and she had 1st ball.
After scalding my tongue (mum still bravely chewing at hers but unable to break the skin of it), I ripped off a bit of my ball to actually get INTO it in my mouth, and realised the whole thing is a super elastic lump of omlette. I have occasionally seen expert eggball eaters attempt to move, talk or even walk whilst doing this but they are rare and it isn't advised. OK, not particularly tasty, but fine, strike another local delicacy off the list.
Next we will be trying the toasted, squashed, spread out mini squid which look like stiff angular crisps. I just realised that here I eat anything from anywhere and don't think about bugs/ upsets, whereas everywhere else I have travelled I would not, or at least would think twice about street stall offerings! It struck me after seeing tourists gasp in horror at me & locals stuffing our face at one of the stalls. I wonder if subconsciously I think I'm immune if I have my magical Hong Kong ID card????

Got another cool thing - I was voted 3rd place in the International Statue Body Painting competition! Very cool but I feel the other painters in it were hard done by - I entered the pic of my gold tennis man Wilson meditating like a Buddha in his lunch break, and it beat loads of other amazing colourful & creative ones. And a bunch of the marble-effect people which take longer to do and are notoriously difficult as white is the flakiest paint on skin so harder to work with. Still, even if mine was simple & straightforward beginners statue- YAY!!!! It's only other painters that can vote! Have hopes for my Halloween cat face paint though, the voting on the International Halloween Comp ends soon and the standard for that is amazingly high - if I make the top 30 I will be happy! (made the top 15, just heard, yay).

Trying to buy shorts again was maddening. Found some nice ones for Pete - know hes about 2 inches 'fatter' (as if!) than me, so wanted to try them on but the stall owner said no as they were men's shorts. Um, yes I KNOW that, won't stop me buying them if I can try them. Had to bully her into giving me a receipt so I can take them back if they don't fit him...bet she denies it all if they are wrong! Then picked out 4 pairs I wanted to try for me. Followed by a weird sales pitch.
Me - Can I try these on please?(as several were in sizes I couldn't indentify, and anyway they are all screwy here if I can fit a size 10 skirt but not a size 18 trousers..).
Yes missy you can try on those 2 pairs but not those last 2 pairs.
Me - Why?
Because those last 2 are in the sale missy and you can't try them on.
Me - well, do you know what size they are in inches? or in UK sizes?
No missy.
Me - Well, let me try them on as I won't buy them if they don't fit.
No.
Me - But I'll be in there trying on these 2 anyway.
No missy you can't take them I'll hold them here while you fit the others on.
Me - but can I bring them back to swap the size if they are wrong then?
No.
Me - So I can only try on things that aren't in the sale. Even though I still want to buy them, now, if they fit, with the same money, just like the things not in the sale, if THEY fit?
Yes missy.
Me- Why?
Because they are in the sale missy and you can't try them on.

Etcetera. Ok...australian tourist nearby told us which sizes were what in UK so I did get some in the end, to find out when I got home that of course they don't fit, maybe the wrong labels are in them or something. In which case letting people try them on would have made no difference as there were other sizes so they could have chosen what fitted them. Very confusing.

Sat we 'sailed' on the Duck Ling, a restored fishing sampan with (faded) red sails that you can book a free crossing on via the Tourist Board.
We weren't very impressed with their directions though - said, meet at Pier 9. Now I knew that since they had started demolishing the old Star Ferry Pier, Star Ferry had moved to its new home beside all the other new ferry piers, the latest finished, beautiful Piers 7 & 8; but thats all that has been built so far. So we got there and yes, they are still building Pier 9, its off limits. The not brilliant lady on the Tourist helpline was far keener on telling us all about Hong Kongs new no-smoking laws even though I kept saying yes we knew and no I didn't smoke! After trekking back round to the site of the demolished old Pier 9, we finally found it....motoring in, not a great day, bit cold, windy and very murky so you could hardly see Kowloon form the island! Big boat, all wood, big engine, traditional woven (wicker?) fenders etc rather than tires for a change. Seemed half empty despite only being allowed 40 people on it.
Also they kept the sails (just like you see on old chimese paintings, angular with horizontal ribs of bamboo) down, mostly. Still, it dropped us off at Kowloon, and we went off to look at the largest shopping centre in Hong Kong. Over 700 shops it said - I had always thought it was just the bit where cruise liners docked, beside the Star Ferry Terminal, but no, its another Mall. Felt very sorry for the two poor souls in the small dinghy we spotted beside one liner - one was guiding the boat, the other had a normal sized paint roller on a mega pole and was PAINTING THE LINER!!! Every tme he needed to dip the roller in the paint which was in their boat, he had to collapse the pole.must be a punishment, surely!
It would be so NICE to find shops I'm actually interested in, but yet again it was all the name brands from Alia and Gucci to Prada and Chanel. ZZZZZZZZZZ. We did, however (knackered from walking the entire length without going into 1 shop) try a Japanese cake shop. Mum had mashed, hot sweet potato, with ice-cream and pumpkin sauce which was lovely, I'll have that again - filling and warming and slightly sweet! I had Green tea ice cream & sauce - the tea ice-cream was almost like a sorbet. I really can't describe the taste - sort of fresh and almost minty but with more tannin really. Not so keen......
We spent the wait for our minibus home (after we got the tube back to auseway bay) cooing at the tiny puppies in the dog shop. I do hope they let the bigger ones on the lower shelf cages out lots, they can hardly turn round. And ALL the tiny ones are in dog jumper - not sure if they are that cold or she's just advertising her doggy fashions!

Sunday we headed back to Kowloon, after a MacDonalds 'hotcakes' (american style pancakes with an actually TASTY sausagey flat thing, and syrup) breakfast, the only thing worth going in there for. Shame its only offered till 11 am! Anyway, after sitting a while in a Deli France as we were early, fending off waitresses wanting to give us warm plain croissants filled with ice cream (what? ick), we squeezed into a tiny Wing Wah cake shop, for our next, free Tourist Board thing. These shops are a chain all over HK, and this is the only one that runs lessons, 2 times most Sundays for 10 people. After filing to the cooking tables to wash our hands and be numbered, we met the translator and then the Master Chef (HAI! Sensai!- Jake), a lovely lady. Called Cactus. I kid you not. She demonstrated how to make the 2 different pastries needed for 'Wife Cakes' (whch seem to be coming out more for New Year), which looked similar to short crust.
But she mixed both, including the eggy one, just on the table by swirling her palm on it, looked really odd! We were all shown, step by step, how to then combine the 2 doughs (strict method no kneading allowed, only certain foldings and rollings in the correct order!). Then we stuffed a mix of sticky rice powder & sugar water in the middle, and they went to get baked. Over tea and 'egg rolls' (sweet crunchy tubes sort of like crispy pancake versions of the dough balls I like) we watched a demo on how they make the neat ciggy sized tubes, the egg rolls.
They have an electric heated press a bit like a tortilla press - blob on the liquid batter, squash/ heat; use pallette knife to fold in 2 'vertical' sides of it; take metal rod and roll resulting oblong onto it. I'm pleased to say I was the only one complimented on my technique; but I did get tutted at for getting flour on my side, butt AND chest before I left. We got to make a couple each, and by then our cakes were ready to.
All the time they were snapping pics of us, and we had to have a 'class graduation' pic with the chefs at the end which they will email to us as well.
Then as we left, clutching our hot and very tasty baking efforts, we were given a gorgeous little paper gift bag with the recipies and a plate-sized special cookie! VERY impressed, all free, interesting...does the UK Tourism bunch do stuff like that?
Mum bought a few bits from the shop, but not their 'Husband Cakes'. Wife cakes, yes, sweet, with a variety of fillings (bean or lotus paste etc); husband cakes are salty!

We then wandered over to Kowloon Park to watch people practicing/ demonstrating some sorts of Martial arts - a sort of Tai' Chi, led by a very flexible granny; then routines with long pointed sort of 'knights' swords with attched fringed thing on handle; then my fav, with curved scimitar sword that had silk hankies falling from the handle. They made a great sort of woing-ing ringing sound as they were flicked about.

One day we took the train up north of Kowloon to Sham Shui Po, that place where all the fabric, ribbons, beads, feather boas and haberdashery in general are sold or advertised by their manufacturers.
It was even more impressive than last time as with Mum replacing Pete I was allowed to go in and LOOK and buy some - got stunning ribbon full of amazing peacock or silky cockerel feathers (looking for ideas to make costume for the FAce Painters conference ball this autumn already!); gorgeous braids and hand beaded sequinned trim, etc.
And all under £3 a yard! Also all the material sellers coat their shops & stalls with sample cards, little snips of their materials a few inches wide, about 4 to a card with 1000s of varieties and colours of each variety.
We bought a bit of a 3d plastic holographic fish-reef stuff as it was just so WOW - no idea what for! So we helped ourselves to loads of sample cards for mum to use in her crafts - that art teacher who ran the craft table at one recent party I did said thats where she gets all her bits for free from! Also shops of fossils and semi-precious stones but I avoided them - dangerous for me to go in there with cash/ card! Hungry, we found the regions multi-floor 'market' (they all have one) and wandered through heaving stalls of weird veg and fruit with little old ladies screeching and waving hands/ money/ obscure root products at us. Then we gave up finding the cafe in it and got a bit lost getting out - ended up in the poultry section. Cages stuffed full of chickens stacked on each other (and I could name half the breeds, heh) including the white fluffy feathered black skinned sikies! Again people wandering around with live birds hanging from their waists/ hands......its not Sainsburys!
Coming down from the market I had to take a pic of the hgh-rise flats above every single shop/ cafe/ stall here...HOW many people must be living here? Its scary. We had a brilliant snack in a tiny local cafe where they spent 10 minutes searching for a hand-written menu in english for us (aww!) and we ordered hot Horlicks (YUM its huge out here, in all the cafes!) and 'france toast'. Which was the thickest slice of bread I have ever seen, deep fried in egg - WOW - with runny honey. New favourite food!!!!
We only managed a small slice of the district before it got dark/ shut down/ we were knackered - have to get there earlier I think and find where the glitter and wire is.


We actually got seats on the train home - woo - and I had a chance to take pics of my favourite train signs - I love the 'please give your seat up to these people' icons. I mean it looks like theres a man who's nailed a walking stick though his leg, someone having an alien erupt out of their chests, an obese pot-bellied person, etc..hehe.

I made the mistake of telling another face painter about all the haberdashery stuff and now they all want samples and are sending orders for ribbons, beads, wigs etc!
Could be a new line of business if I work out how much I can charge whilst still making it cheaper than in the Uk - tho the range here isn't available in the Uk anyway. Most wanted animal fabric for the jungle-themed face conference ball, so on Wednesday Mum & I went to visit the Western market in Admiralty. Its the one small old building with about 20 (bit pricey) fabric stalls upstairs. Its mainly for rich people to order clothes from - one guy was choosing material for 6 suits and 20 shirts he had just ordered and, as last time, there were Indian ladies looking for sari material. Still, the silks are cheap even there! I do like the 'new' fur fabrics - not the awful fluffy fake fur but a lovely drapey cloth with a very real fur/ hair like short nap to it, almost like velvet.......We headed into Central and tried for French Toast again in another locals cafe. This time it was a deep fried peanut butter sandwhich with syrup - yum but ALL sweet stuff here seems to have nuts in it, not good for when Lochie visits in a few months, with his nut allergy! Anyway I ended up buying 2 amazing wigs (allegedly for working in, honest - but I love the greeny-blue one - Sammy, you want one??) from the fancy dress stall street. Again, cheap - under £10 when I know even the really cheap tacky short UK wigs START at £10. The rainbow wig needs a bit of sorting tho, bit too fluffy, but will go with new rainbow fairy outfit I'm working on!


Uncle Neil answered when I rang Granny FIn - horrified to hear shes really ill, unconscious and not eating at all, horrible. Think I will fly back to the UK as soon as we return from seeing Pete - shame I'd already booked all the tickets etc for the Phillippines.

I have spent a hectic few nights putting together & pricing my wish kit for each of the painters supposed to be working at the Rugby 7's with me, as I need to give the Youth Arts Foundation a quote to give their sponsors. Problem is I have no idea of the baseline prices they expect to pay for kit, and until I know exactly what/ how much/ how many to order I can't ask my UK supplliers for a quote as postage will be a big factor. So, Thursday we revisited the slightly less astronomically priced of the 2 makeup/ face-paint suppliers in HK, again up in Kowloon. I managed to spill neon pink glitter everywhere, oops. But I did buy one of their own glitter tattoo kits to see how it compares to what I import, as it is far cheaper here. On the way from there to the airport I finally got a brief text from Peter to say they were in sight of the Phillipines and expected to reach the Cebu Marina on Friday, which was a big relief!
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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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