Waiting for the slow plane to China

Another week has passed without our "stuff" from home.  We've been camping out in the spare room on the trundle bed with the heat on!  No snow yet (or ever, they assure us).   Our boxes are due to be delivered on Monday.
We spent a touristy day in Stanley last Saturday.  Jeff was anxious to pick up my birthday present from the jeweller located in that town (about an hour's bus ride from central Hong Kong).  As we got off the bus, he started nattering on about buying me a charm bracelet so that I could add to it in all of the countries we plan to visit in Asia.  I was mortified - I already have a charm bracelet that I received on my 12th birthday.  It has charms from all the places my parents travelled to in the 1960s.  I haven't worn it in 40 years!  Of course Jeff just wanted to keep me guessing, and when we walked into Ellis jewellers, the staff were smiling at us (he had phoned ahead) as they handed me my GORGEOUS pearls.

I continued to wear them all day as we moseyed through the flea market.
The busiest stall in the market was the one selling doggy apparel!

We also found the small temples in Stanley very interesting and colourful.  They reminded us of the small shrines we saw by the roadside in Ecuador, however the Ecuadorian shrines are placed at the scenes of fatal accidents (numerous on the Pan American "highway").

Although the restaurants in Stanley are pricey and picturesque (on the waterfront), one doesn't have to walk too far to notice the poor conditions that some locals live in.

When we returned to the city, we wandered through Pottinger Street and some other small, crowded streets in Central.  The colours, especially the prominent reds, are beautiful.  And the contrast between the old market streets and the new high-rise financial centres is remarkable.

Here are a few photos of the Graham Street food market.  If anyone can tell me the name of the vegetable on the left, I would be most grateful!  Susan, the orchids were so cheap and beautiful.  I will buy some once we are more settled in the apartment.

We had a lot of success on Sunday buying furniture at the Horizon Plaza in Ap Lei Chau.  It's like a furniture Chabanel warehouse.  We will post photos when it all arrives.  The stores assured us that everything will be delivered before Chinese New Year, which falls on Valentine's Day this year.  We ordered a custom-made Chinese shoe cabinet - Jeff made sure his size 10s would fit on the shelves.  Sorry,  Andrew and Jeremy, your shoes will never fit!
Other highlights of the week included a Schubert concert with the HK philharmonic.  The concert hall is very much like Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, just a bit smaller.  The only Asian decor in the hall is the modern backdrop behind the stage.  While we were at the concert (on the Kowloon side), there was a terrible acid-throwing attack in the market area, not too far from where we were.  We didn't know about it until we got an email from Bill in Toronto, worrying about us!   The police seem to have rounded up "the usual suspects"...
Jeff spent most of the week in Singapore.  We will blog that city when we visit it as tourists.  Here is an example of how efficient transit is in HK:  his flight arrived at the gate at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, and at 9 p.m. he was already home!  There's a metro that runs from the airport to Central, and it's under 10 minutes by taxi from Central to our apartment.
My "welcome to HK" course began at the YWCA.  Very disorganized and unstructured, but I will stick with it long enough to find the name of a good hairdresser and spa in my neighbourhood!  The course seems to be a forum for exchanging information on where to find services and grocery stores that stock foods from other places.  The other participants were all young moms whose main concerns are schooling for their kids.
Speaking of my neighbourhood (the Mid-Levels and Soho), here's a link to a BBC video about the escalators that transport me all day long (thanks to Gillian for sending me the website):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8441626.stm
(As an aside to my sister, Sandra, who spent four years going up and down the escalators in the Hall Building at  Sir George Williams in the 1970s - yes, the escalators do break down here too, but not as often.)
And I just found out where the Lululemon store is in HK!  (my trainer swears by it, too)
Off to Macau for the weekend for my birthday. Will write again next week with our impressions.