An Island walk

Lamma Island
Sunday was a nicer day than Saturday. Still hazy, but brighter. I decided to take myself to Lamma Island, one of the many that make up Hong Kong. It’s now mainly a day-trip destination for Hong Kongers and tourists, but contained, at one time, a number of thriving fishing villages. There are two villages now - Yung Shue Wan and Sok Kwu Wan, plus a few beaches.

The trip started out ominously. En route to the ferry terminal, a taxi cut in front of my bus, causing a fender bender. Fortunately, we were close to the docks, and another bus stopped and picked up the passengers from my bus to continue our trip.

Lamma is a major day-trip destination. For once in my travels, the ferry seemed to be filled with Hong Kongers, including a lot of westerners who looked like they live here. The local visitors included seniors groups, extended families, a camera club, and a few groups of helpers. Unless you’re heading for one of the beaches, a visit to Lamma consists of ferrying into one village, and walking the path to the other, with a stop at either or both ends to eat at one of the fine seafood restaurants.

Looking out from the ferry, one can really see how HK island is inhabited at the shore line and on reclaimed land. There are high-rises climbing the hills, with the mountains behind them in all directions.

Lamma is also pet and pedestrian friendly. A sign on ferry stated that, "Seats of first two rows are reserved for pet carriers." Cars are not permitted, so the pollution level may be slightly lower, but see below.
I ferried into Yung Shue Wan, a harbour town looking like many in all parts of the world – ferry dock, marinas, one main street, filled with restaurants, souvenir shops and guesthouses, curving around the shore. I made a meal of street food - curried fish balls, beef satay, ice cream drumstick, and some kind of warm mini tart. Cheap, filling and tasty, but not exactly nutritious.

The ferry I took is one of several making the voyage regularly throughout the day, so, on a nice weekend day, the place is crowded with day trippers. Hint - everyone is going in the same direction. Unless you want to feel as if you were downtown heading for the subway, stay in town for an extra 15 minutes. Give your shipmates time to clear out ahead of you.

The “Family Trail” is a well-marked path between the towns, with spurs running off to various sights. Going through Yung Shue Wan and leaving the town you see shops and stalls all along the way. Once out of town, it calms down and there is greenery, filled with birds, and offering shade - just don't look inland where you continue to see houses, pipes, and other signs of civilization.

Just outside Yung Shue Wan you come to Hung Shing Yeh – a pretty, crescent-shaped, sandy beach. Unfortunately, the large power station on the peninsula at the far end spoils the view, and probably, during the week, the sky. To give you an idea of Hong Kong’s perspective on beauty versus utility, one of the advertised highlights of the walk is a side spur up a hill to see the electricity-generating windmill – a Mercedes-Benz hood ornament on a stick. It matches the one at the CNE.

Not to be outdone by its larger neighbour, Sok Kwu Wan boasts its own eyesore – a small cement factory spoils the view when approaching the town from an elevation. Otherwise, it’s a quaint village with clusters of boathouses and fish farms in the harbour, and a renovated temple at one end. Lamma is not far off the southeast tip of Hong Kong. From Sok Kwu Wan on a clear day you can see the high-rise apartments of Ap Lei Chau.

One neat, to me, feature is a series of caves dug out of the hill side by the Japanese during WWII. They were meant to house kamikaze speedboats filled with explosives that could be used to fight off invaders. They never were.

Sok Kwu Wan is much smaller than Yung Shue Wan, but seems to have even more restaurants along its path by the shore. All have numerous tanks filled with live fish, crustaceans and mollusks. You pick your meal, they scoop it out and prepare it to order. You can’t get fresher than that. Some restaurants, including the Rainbow, have their own private shuttles offering a free ride from HK Island or the mainland upon reservation.

I have no observations, but this week's pun is from a little restaurant in Yung Shue Wan - the Deli Lamma Café.

Manila
I went to Manila Monday and Tuesday for a few days of meetings. It’s a huge city, filled with traffic and smog.

Since I had never tried it, I ate Filipino food at dinner Monday and lunch Tuesday. I don’t know how they manage to live past 50 – everything is either fried, sometimes more than once, or sweetened – sometimes both. The food was interesting and unlike other south-Asian cuisines I’ve tried, although the sauce bases are similar – soy, coconut, peanut, chilies.

One of our businesses is in Quezon City, the government office centre and site of some large universities, including the University of the Philippines (UP, as I noticed on a number of T-shirts). The other is in Makati, the upscale neighborhood that includes the local head offices of many major international companies.
Manila seems to be a city of distinct areas, We saw some of the nicer ones, including Makati. Lunch on Tuesday was in the Greenbelt shopping plaza, a beautiful, open area with a shop for every label under the sun.

Traffic here is brutal. Most Canadians, especially Torontonians couldn't even be pedestrians - they'd have to cross a street at some point. Stop signs are optional. So are traffic lights, lane markers and shoulders. Honking is an art and lane switching a science.

The people are very friendly - except for the police and security guards at every intersection and entrance. Oh yeah, and except for the bomb-sniffing German shepherds at the entrance to the hotel. The lady who goes through your briefcase is friendly, but the guy who pats down the locals before letting them in is not.
Manila airport is not one of the wonders of the world. Security is heavy – you have to show your ticket and passport to get in, and the Arrivals lounge is the road outside the terminal building. As we approached, it looked like a tail-gate party with people milling about, eating drinking and chatting, with their car trunks open.
Inside, there are separate security lines for men and women, because the check includes a wanding and a pat-down. Sort of reminds me of Ford Field in Detroit, where we underwent similar scrutiny before NCAA tournament basketball games the past two years. You have to remove your shoes, but they don’t require you to unpack any electronics. Why does every airport seem to run on its own rules?

Home Again, Home Again, Tweeldlee-dee
I’m returning home on Friday, but who’s counting the two days, three hours and 3 minutes until then. I’ll see some of you over the next two weeks, and be in touch with the rest.

Dale and I will be in Hong Kong on January 3.

Have a pleasant holiday season.

A Pleasant Weekend

Too Much Choice

We need living room and dining room furniture and storage pieces for clothes and other stuff, so that we can put you all up in style when you come to visit.

To that end, I went to the Horizon Plaza in Ap Lei Chau Saturday. Twenty-eight floors of upscale furniture and home furnishings, interspersed with designer outlets and various odds and sods. Actually, excluding the left-out floor numbers, it was only 23 floors. Did I just say, “only”? Talk about too much choice. The furniture was sufficient, I didn’t need the touch of Chabanel thrown in.

You could tell it’s an upscale joint by the modern Toto fixtures in the common area washrooms on each floor. I’ve been in million-dollar (Canadian) homes with worse amenities.

The stores ran the gamut from Euromodern to antique Chinese and everything in between. There was even a patio furniture store with BBQ grills to make Bobby Flay envious. The juxtaposition of stores filled with Chinese antiques and playing Christmas carols struck me as odd. I’m working on it; it’s not like I have a choice.

I saw a few things that Dale can look at when she gets here. The antique Chinese armoires and chests were beautiful, and the modern furniture with Chinese touches also looked nice.

Ap Lei Chau is an island off the southwest corner of Hong Kong Island, across from Aberdeen. It is a residential area consisting mainly of large apartment complexes, and, I believe, is one of the most crowded sections of the city.

The Hong Kong School of Motoring (government operation) is across the street from the plaza, and there is a Ferrari dealer in the plaza. I guess the student drivers and driving test takers can go across the street to drool before and/or after their lessons.

After what I went through (literally and figuratively), I gave myself permission to splurge on a steak dinner. I went down to Soho (South of Hollywood Road) and ate at an Argentinean restaurant that had received some good reviews. It wasn’t expensive, but it wasn’t wonderful. The meat was good, but it lacked something. I don’t think it was charcoal grilled. They also served the baked potato wrapped in foil – another no-no. The wine was pretty good though.

The East Asia Games

Hong Kong is hosting the 5th East Asia Games. It’s the largest sporting event ever held here and the largest of these games so far. Saturday night at 9:00, I was jolted by explosions. I looked out the living room window and saw fireworks going off down by the harbour. I realized it was for the official opening of the Games. That was just a short hors d’ouevre. At 9:15 it started up again and lasted for 15 minutes. Spectacular! They even had some set off from the roofs of the tallest buildings in town. The fireworks reflected off the high-rise towers, adding to the effect. There were dozens of local tour boats in the harbour, all lit up. I took some pictures with my phone, but they didn’t come out well. Every day I stare out the window – it’s worth the rent just for the view.



Sunday at the Museums

I went off exploring on Sunday, walked down to and around Central, looked at some of the office towers a little more closely, then hit two very good museums.

The Bank of China building is one of Dale’s favourites. It starts out as a rectangular block, then loses a quarter every ten or fifteen stories until it is one quarter its original size. Interesting, but apparently has bad fung shui. It is an I.M. Pei building.




The HSBC tower is like the CIBC towers in Toronto. The new one next to the old, except the old one here is nowhere as tall as the old Commerce Court. The new one has been dubbed “The Robot”; from one side it looks eerily like a Transformer, complete with huge cannon-like protuberances on the roof.



I looked at the Lippo Centre closely for the first time. I like it. It’s new and not in the guidebooks I have.

While touring the skyscrapers, I visited the Museum of Tea Ware in Hong Kong Park. I had missed it during my first visit (see Oct. 19). It is housed in a Victorian-era heritage home (Flagstaff House) and includes rooms dedicated to the history of tea, the different types of tea and the method or ceremony for preparing each to drink. The highlight is a history and beautiful collection of tea pots and assorted tea wares from a thousand years ago to contemporary designs. Guess what? I found a tea in their gift shop that I had not tasted before. I think Dale is going to have to keep me on a short leash. I could easily start a new hobby – collecting tea pots and wares.

After Central I walked to the ferry dock and went over to Kowloon, where I walked through Tsim Sha Tsui East and visited the HK Museum of History, a museum dedicated to the natural and human history of the city and area. It’s a great museum. I got there for the free, English-language tour. It was advertised as lasting 1½-2 hours, but our docent ran us through in an hour and a quarter – not enough time to really look at any of the exhibits. I knew enough and got enough more to provide me with a basic understanding that will be helpful in future visits.

The only problem with going over to Tsim Sha Tsui is the hawkers on the street who accost you constantly. Walking the mile or so from the Ferry dock to the museum and then back again I was offered watches, suits, handbags, saunas, massages, meals and things I didn’t understand (and I’m not sure I wanted to) at least 50 times each way. Why anyone would think a guy with a three-day growth, wearing grubby jeans and plugged into an iPod, would want a Rolex or a custom-made suit is a mystery to me.



Only a few observations this week:

• Saw a number of Buddhist monks today. I hadn’t seen any before today.

• Hong Kongers love puns. Many of the stores have names based on puns. Three from this week:

o Discount household accessories store – Homeless

o Store selling lacquered Chinese plates and gifts – Good Laque

o State-Of-The-Arts Gallery