Official fruit of this blog

What else but dragonfruit? We tried a couple of them for the first time recently. First, the more tame, and cheaper, version with white flesh. They are quite refreshing, especially if you chill them for a bit first, and taste a little like watermelon but perhaps more bland.

We also tried the dangerously staining red fleshed variety. They are more tasty, and beautiful to look at, but require quite an operation to eat: first cutting them open on a non-stainable surface, then scooping out the flesh and eating them very gingerly, and finally brushing your teeth about four times until you're no longer spitting out pinkish-purple.

Surrogate mothers

Every week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, a team of four cleaners comes through our apartment like a constructive typhoon, doing the washing up, dusting, vacuuming, cleaning the floors and all the surfaces and taking out the rubbish in about 10 minutes flat. No complaints about that of course, except that this tends to make you feel like a total bourgeois layabout if you happen to be in when they come. In that case we usually end up sitting on the sofa trying to look busy and keeping our feet up as they briskly vacuum and mop around us.

The good thing is that it's like having your mother (well, a team of four mothers) around, making sure you're up and about with the curtains open at a reasonable hour. I imagine if they came while we were still in bed, they'd probably tut and yank the covers off us saying "come on, it's so nice out, you can't just mope around here all day"...

Noodling

During our wandering around Soho today we stopped off for a quick early meal at a little noodle shop we happened to go by - Tsim Chai Kee. It's apparently quite famous. They offer 3 choices of noodles, and 3 choices of toppings, in any combination. I had beef with "flat white" (rice) noodles and C had shrimp wonton with "yellow" (like thin Japanese ramen). They were really good - tender meat, very tasty soup and just the right amount of perfectly done noodles. Even better as they were only 13HKD a bowl (that's 88p / 196 yen). This is the stuff dreams are made off!

Downpour

About half way across the harbour on the way back from Kowloon today it started raining very hard. The harbour became a boiling soup, with curtains of rain sweeping across the skyline, and the ferry sailors struggled to pull the plastic curtains across to shield passengers. Noone really minded getting a bit wet though - I suppose it's a common occurrence in late summer Hong Kong. We managed to make our way home from the ferry pier without getting too soaked: hugging the buildings, running madly across streets, and finally sheltering in 7-11 to buy the Sunday papers.
Then we spent an afternoon as we hadn't for well over 4 years - sitting on a sofa, with quality English-language newspapers to read and nothing much else to do. Bliss.

Another circle

Finally up to The Peak (a.k.a. Victoria Peak, a.a.k.a. Mount Austin by some die-hards perhaps) today, by number 15 bus though, as we didn't want to wait in the huge lines for the Peak Tram (and the bus is cheaper too). After looking at the view, we set off to walk the circular path around the peak. For some reason, last time we were up here a couple of years ago we pointlessly stopped halfway round and retraced our steps. Today we did the whole thing. It's only a couple of miles at most, with really good views of the harbour, the city and Kowloon, and then as you make your way around past a large "india rubber" tree and a nice waterfall you get great vistas of the sea to the south of the Island, with lots of smaller islands dotted around and ships going about their business, before suddenly arriving back at the - ever so slightly tacky- complex of buildings at the top of the tramway.
We joined the usual pack of tourists at the Chinese Lions (as in sponsored by the Lions Club!) pavilion for a final view, and then caught the bus back home.

Heat and ice

Our second Sunday here, and we found our way to church at St Andrews in Kowloon. It's a great place right in the middle of the commercial strip that is Nathan Road. The building is about 100 years old, built of red brick in a typical English parish church style, with tiled marble floors and some nice stained glass. It was very hot, humid and sunny this morning, but very cool inside the church - actually too cold after a bit (must remember to bring some warm clothes next time).
We took the Star Ferry home, and after lunch went to Cityplaza for necessary shopping. It was very busy there today, as there was a temporary exhibit of ice sculptures from Harbin, China. A huge queue of excitable people filled the whole area, and racks of warm, padded jackets were set up for visitors to use. We didn't feel like revisiting cold and ice so soon, so passed on that attraction.
Cityplaza has a permanent ice skating rink, so we watched the antics there for a bit. Most there were kids of the predicatbly amateur standard, struggling to stay upright, but one thin, middle-aged man seemed to think himself a pro, sweeping and gliding across the ice and raising his eyebrows coquettishly while striking elegant poses everytime he passed a suitable female.

Walking in circles

We've always walked to the botanical gardens the hard way up to now - uphill all the way, leaving us totally exhausted by the time we get there. Today we realised that it's better to go all the way through Central, up the escalators, and then wend our way down the network of concrete flyovers and walkways, past a big gothic arch which is the entrance, well exit really, of a tunnel bringing water runoff from the hills, and in to the back entrance of the gardens. Much better!
We paid our usual visit to the various apes and primates, and then went across the road to the Park and back home in a neat circle.

Dog poisoning

Having done the reconnaisance last night, we set off to find the fabled Lover's Rock. We retraced our steps up the hill behind the old post office, and steeled ourself for the long, relentless pull up Wanchai Gap Road. It's an amazing walk, as you walk past the high rise apartment blocks and suddenly are in lush countryside. There's a small playground at the top, and some good views back down to the city.

We continued on along the hillside to the east, and starting noticing strange signs warning of poisoned food. At first we thought this was referring to bait put there by the authorities to kill vermin, but it turned out that dog poisoner had been working there for several years - some one with something against all the toy dachshunds and pomeranians? We kept an eye out for suspicious characters with bags of poisoned meat hoping to collect the reward, but didn't catch anyone.

Eventually we found the steep steps up to the Rock, past red painted grottos full of incense coils, small statues and fruit offerings, and eventually made it to the top which was swarming with dragonflies. The rock itself, which perhaps has some...fertility connections...was also painted and adorned with charms.


After braving the dragonflies for a few minutes we returned (not easy down a slightly damp 1 in 2 slope) and arrived at the market probably looking like we'd been in the Burmese jungles for weeks, to buy some (cheap! and fresh!) fruit and veg.

Smoggy and soggy

For the first time since we arrived, today was very humid and hazy, and we finally got to see and experience the infamous pollution that's been plaguing Hong Kong more and more. We went for our usual walk down to the harbour, convention centre and Golden Bauhinia, and could hardly see the tall buildings around Central, let alone the ones on the other side of the harbour.
(There's a picture here if you want to see what I mean)

After dark we decided to explore Wanchai where we're living at the moment. It's a really interesting area. We walked in the all enveloping damp heat up through the park and found the old Wanchai post office, quite a quaint little old building. Then we ventured up the really really steep hill next to it to find the start the trail up to Wanchai Gap and Lover's Rock....intriguing sounding places that we wanted to find. The dark and humidity got the better of us not too far up the seemingly 45 degree slope and we returned home dripping with sweat (something we're getting quite used to now) but planning to go back up there in the next couple of days.

First excursion

It's not like we've been cooped up until now, but we haven't been very far afield. THere's been plenty to do exploring around our area (Wanchai at the moment), going down to the harbour, shopping...but today we went on our first proper excursion to Shek O, somewhere we'd never been before. It's a small village on the south-east of the island, with a nice beach and plenty of cheap restaurants.
To get there we took a tram (slow but the best way to see things, and dirt cheap) all the way to the east end of the line at Shaukeiwan, where there's a good street market and a few small temples.
From there we took a hair-raising bus to Shek O and found our way to the beach. It's a good beach, and the sand was scalding hot underfoot. We avoided the old ladies offering to rent us umbrellas, and walked back into the village to find somewhere for lunch.

We settled on one of the many open fronted places selling Chinese and Asian dishes, and had some crispy fried noodles and pineapple fried rice - some of the best I've had, and only 70HKD with drinks. After that we went back to the beach, paddled in the water and then found a spot under a tree to while away some time.
We also made our way through the village to have a look at the rocky headlands which are quite wild looking. It's amazing how varied Hong Kong is, with lush countryside, beaches, wild cliffs and of course the unparalleled city itself.

Round 2

We're now in Hong Kong, as anyone coming from what do you see might well know. Sorry for the total dearth of blogging over the last couple of weeks. We've been doing plenty, but I just couldn't get round to posting it. It was mainly procrastinating over what to call this blog. Anyway, I finally got over that hurdle. The next one will be to sort out a suitably pretensious - sorry, minimal and stylish design. This horribly generic one will have to do for a bit longer though, but who cares - content is the most important thing, right? There'll be some of that very soon, I promise!