Interfering insects

It's been a long time. Now that I've started working full-time again (for the first time in...well, quite a long time anyway) I've had to let the blog slide. I think I'm ready to restart it now, having got used to the new routine.

We've done quite a bit since the last post, including a trip across to Lamma island. It's a nice island with a very laid-back atmosphere. It's trafficless, as most of the outlying islands are, and quite rural once you're away from the main town and the ferry pier. A lot of people live an "alternative" lifestyle here (presumably returning to the standard lifestyle between 9 and 5 when they commute across to their international bank in Central!). As you walk around you occasionally come to almost abandoned villages, surrounded by disused banana plantations and fields. These villages have only a few elderly residents left, who potter around with dogs and incense. As we walked alongside some of those banana plantations we were unfortunate enough to see a huge black banana spider sitting in its web in the shade of a tree. No photo - I'm ashamed to admit that neither of us dared to get close enough to take one.

The island also has some pleasant beaches; the largest is nicknamed Powerstation Beach - as you sit there watching the sunset you in turn are watched over by the 3 chimneys of a huge, modern generating complex at one end of the bay. I was skeptical too, but it's really not as bad as it sounds!

We've done some other short walks on long-abandoned footpaths on the hillside near us too - one of these was cut short after encountering a mysterious swarm of hovering insects, some of which were beating their wings apparently in some kind of rhythm... We're still arguing about whether they were deadly hornets or just harmless hoverflies.

Thursday was (American) Thanksgiving, so we duly celebrated with a turkey dinner at California, one of the first restaurants to open in Lan Kwai Fong. Afterwards, we walked down to see the new Christmas village being set up in the centre of town, and the huge Christmas tree outside the Mandarin Oriental (pictures to come, I promise!). There was suddenly a huge downpour, but we managed to make it back up the escalator to a small branch of XTC, where we got some really good gelato, eaten sheltering under the awning outside.

I had a nice relaxing end to the week last night: there was live music on a small stage just outside my office, featuring Takeda Kazuo, a Japanese jazz guitarist of some note. Nice.