Victoria Harbour is a unique sight as it is, with a lot of beauty, but the laser show is a truly original way to showcase the buildings that have mushroomed around the harbour edge. the lasers go for about 20 minutes with the music supposedly synchronised. at the end, the music of course becomes even more stirring with the laser lights quite crowded in the night sky before it all dies away and people can go off to their dinners or other night time activities. Below you can see the Park on Chatham Road south (just across from our hotel) and one of the buildings that is quite spectacular on the Kowloon side of the harbour – the “dark side” as people on HK Island sometimes call it.

Hong Kong does not really open until 11.00 in the morning, so the evenings are generally late and full of activity. People say that Hong Kong never closes, but in reality, it closes in the mornings and stays awake through the night.

I very rarely put in photos of myself here, but this is so grotesque I thought I had to…the latest in fashion trends, direct from Hong Kong…elegant 3D glasses!

We had an examiners’ dinner the other night, as many of us are departing this weekend. Here are most of us with the local staff that look after our timetables etc and part of the feast we had that evening – before the Rock School examiners tore into it!

Also today I had a takeaway lunch ordered for me at my exam centre. Chicken and noodles. Quite a feast for lunch, when you add a few pig’s ears and chicken wings plus the bubble tea that they also ordered for me. More weight to lose when I get home! No, hopefully the gym work has helped with that. It has certainly helped with other things.

Finally…the Christmas decorations are just beginning to go up around the city now. Here are some of those that I have seen. there are larger ones in the Malls, but I have finished spending money – for the moment, so it is better not to go and be tempted by the malls – remember..no self-control!! 

I particularly like the quaint one below here which is at K-11 – through where I walk frequently from the MTR station to the hotel. Such Victorian, British colonial figures!

It make such a change to see these kinds of things as I venture forth in Hong Kong and tread the lights fantastic!

All three of us…out of the eight here….  Here are the other two, Joel and Lindsey (the organiser of this foray into the wilds of Hong Kong Island)

So over to Hong Kong Island and to meet inside the turnstiles at the Wanchai MTR station. Eventually we all arrived and took off to places unknown – well unknown to me! Then it was a ride on a bus – the road was so narrow that I thought we might need to back up if we met a car on a corner. Not quite though on the return our bus did have to stop very hurriedly to avoid being scraped by another bus driving in the other direction!

Arriving at a fairly nondescript sort of bus stop, we hauled ourselves out. We knew when it was the right place because all the Hong Kongese started to jockey for position at the exit about two minutes before we arrived. They were soon to lose their enthusiasm however as the “walk” begins with about 15 minutes of steps uphill. I am sure it would have been easier as a more winding path. However we made it to the upper part, having left a number of people “eating our dust” – hardly breaking into a sweat – despite the 16 degree day.

It was a perfect day for this – a slight breeze and clear blue skies. the view through the haze was pretty good and the path did resemble a dragon’s back – the spine a little like the waves on the heads at Kawhia and the bends like the road on the approach to Kawhia! 

At the top of the walk we stopped to watch some hang-gliders, who were taking advantage of the updrafts up the mountain to entertain and receive the plaudits of the watching visitors – most of whom appeared to then retreat back down the steps, rather than go on as we had chosen to do. I liked the view looking back towards the buildings of the Island with the Hang-glider soaring above

There were still rather a lot of people though and it seemed a little like walking along the Great Wall of China. Most of them moved out of the way as we mowed them down though. 

We looked down on the beaches of Shek O and the slightly MIS-named Big-Wave Bay, before making our way down the slope again to the inevitable concrete path sign of civilisation again. On the way we came to the Hong Kong Trail post number 100 (The Hong Kong Trail begins with number 1 at the Peak (Mt Victoria) and finishes at Shek O with number 100. we started on about number 87 I think was the first one I noticed.

Big Wave Bay (the left of the above pictures. Shek O is on the right) is a little village nestled in between two hills and with a small beach with white sand. It was pretty busy when we were there – a beer and a salad to celebrate completing the track. Ironically there were numerous shops selling surfboards here and numerous signs saying “No Surfing”. In fact there were many prohibitions – no dish-throwing being one of them (frisbee?). I did venture to suggest that domestic quarrels could be better worked out away from the beach! It was also interesting to notice  that they advised that people should not swim because the waves were too big – maybe 30 cms high…?   !! Most seemed to be ignoring this warning.

When we left Big Wave Bay, it was to find that the hoped-for bus service did not happen on a  Sunday (probably the busiest day of the week here!) but fortunately one of the private minibus services was doing a great trade shuttling back and forwards between Big Wave Bay and Shek O. I am told they are run by the local triads, but I do not know and paid the $7 for the trip along with the many others doing the same.We could have walked it in about 15 minutes I think.

So we found ourselves back in Shek O, which is a fishing type Village. It was busy with people at restaurants and markets, so we decided to return to the “delights” of Hong Kong Island and took the first bus back – almost eventfully as I said earlier.

So I guess the tramp only took 2 1/2 – 3 hours but importantly it allowed us to clear our heads – hopefully our lungs – and maybe to pick up a few negative ions as well. Thankful for clear skies and the great HK public transport system, this was a very worthwhile Hong Kong adventure.

[3] – Billionaire

Show Choir Concert: “This musical uses classic and modern songs to tell the story of those in need in Hong Kong. It challenges the notion that teenagers are helpless to change circumstances and encourages others to take a stand and make a difference.” Speak up for the people who have no voice for the rights of all the down-and-outers. Proverbs31:8[The Message]

As I have said, Hong Kong is a great place for eating. there are many gastronomic delights to be found here, with all types of food. It may not be the shopping paradise it once was, but the food has improved since I first started coming here.

I have had eaten out of course most of the time while here in Hong
Kong. No cooking facilities at the hotel and the availability of many cheap and wholesome restaurants make this most pleasant

One meal I had was at the Din Tai Fung Restaurant, known for its dumplings and well-cooked but simple Chinese food. This is a large and very popular restaurant. Unfortunately I did not have the presence of mind to photograph the dumplings, so you will have to take my word for it that they were absolutely beautiful – succulent and … “tasty”

On the menu were some very nice Wontons in Garlic Sauce and Steamed Chicken, cold in Chinese Wine sauce. Watch out for this at my next dinner! It was great. Add to this a very nice Shanghai vege dish with quite chewy tofu, for an extraordinary meal for three people with a cost of HKD$356 (about NZ$55).

But it does not finish there of course…..

I was taken out by the shop people at Tsueng Wan, where I have been working most of the time so far. We went to a local restaurant to savour some of their delights. On the menu here were more dumplings – and yes the liquid did spurt out if you ate them incorrectly! We also had beef and noodles in soup, a vegetable noodle soup, Shanghai Vegetable and a vegetable red curry. These were a lovely mixture of foods followed by…

…a great, but simple Red Bean Cake and Glutinous Rice Balls with Osmanthus (or something like that – no I  didn’t know what it was either!) inside in a ginger sauce.(Simply perfect for my sweet and sinful  tooth).

Of course there are plenty of other foods that I could mention. A plethora of styles and tastes. Below here is duck breast and yellow noodles (I think the sauce is yellow, not the noodles), which I ate at a local Taiwan Kitchen shop one long lunchtime (This was my SECOND visit…!).

Also note the decadence of a Yoghurt dessert at a place not far from my hotel in I-Square. Charged out by weight, you simply add the toppings you want to the flavour(s) of yoghurt that you choose. I think this concept would work well in Auckland. Much cheaper than Haagen-Dazs ice-cream, and pretty much as delightful – it puts on just as much weight of course, but I am also doing up to about an hour each day in the gym. I have met my weight-work/resistance training goal already so I am notching it up further.

So welcome to just a very few of the delights of Gastronomic Hong Kong

Leaving Central pier for a 30 minute trip on the ferry – during which the beauty of Victoria Harbour and the amount of use that is made of it can be seen – it is a total change to arrive at Lamma Island. This is a small fishing village, which in many respects could remind one of Kawhia in New Zealand – including the sign which lets you know where you are. The main street (pictured below) is full of restaurants and tourist trade shops. there is however a significant permanent-residence population here, with many people travelling in to HK for work or school every day. It is a lovely bay to come into.

And a gorgeous photo of Bruce! I saw this on a shop wall. One of your best photos mate!

An immediate change in air quality, with clear skies and a pleasant breeze sending a pall of cloud over the Mainland far away over the sea. So time for a bushwalk. Rather a different experience from that in NZ. Here in Hong Kong there are gentle concrete paved rises, with toilets on the way and lots of signs telling you things you can’t do…:)

However i did manage to spy some plants – A Banana tree, “just like the one that Dad used to grow” – which of course is related to Christmas Bog cake “just like my mother used to make”..yeah I know peculiar sense of humour…if you have read this far without knowing that already, then probably you shouldn’t have bothered!…which reminds me…I bought my mother’s Christmas present today…..and no I am not going to say what it is and nor will she guess it in a million attempts and 21 questions won’t work either…  

I also saw some nice flowers, but I have no idea what they are. I am sure that some deserving person will tell me… I must be in a strange mood this evening. Probably something to do with the meeting this evening between my eye with this man’s elbow at great velocity this evening. I must be concussed…just as well I use soft lenses now…no seriously before I get a huge number of emails asking me if I am ok…LOL…in my dreams…I might have a slight black eye tomorrow but i am fine

Anyway the point of this walk was to get to the only wind generator in Hong Kong. It is a government run (aren’t they all here?) project. It is quite impressive, but well, south Africa has a bigger one!…..  The view from up there back towards the South side of Hong Kong Island was impressive as well – Aberdeen and Stanley figuring here.

Not as impressive however is the sight the other side of the hill – the main Hong Kong Island power station – all nicely hidden away at the end of a beach and dominating the landscape of much of Lamma Island. The photo may not loom large, but it is a lot bigger than the Huntly Power station – which I guess you could say is well hidden away in New Zealand…

The beach below gave an opportunity to remove the offending pommie sneakers and socks and dabble my feet in the water. It was warm, and a whole lot cleaner than the water around Mount Maunganui is at the moment. That situation should give the Greenies something to gripe about. Might even win them a few more votes! Anyway the view was good from this direction. In the other direction all you saw was the power station.

On the walk back to the main street and the wharf for the ferry trip back to Hong Kong Island. I saw this little farm. Apparently they grow the vegetables just for themselves and do not sell them.

There was also time to stop for a Gran’s beancurd pudding. A slightly improved form of Junket (not difficult). still if you lay back and thought of England you could feel it sliding down much the same. It was pretty nice – sweet but not really sinful enough.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed my little expedition and a taste of the Lamma Glamour…     

First to address the pollution part of that statement, look at the two photos below. Both of them are taken from my room around sunrise (thanks jetlag!!)

It is quite simple to see the difference between these two photos – no Photoshop wizardry here! Taken from almost the same position, you can see the haziness here very “unclearly”. The API here in TST is always on moderate to high or higher. On some intersections it is even cloudy looking at buildings on the other side of the road!

Here is a photo taken today out at Tsuen Wan – where I am examining. It is not raining, it is merely hazy with dust and pollution. Tsuen Wan is well away from the centre of HK, so you can imagine how much worse it is in the city

The pollution probably has many causes, but much of it is because of the high density population. Still the number of people here means there are lots of events happening all over HK. Halloween is coming up and it seems to have taken a good hold here with lots of Halloween specials and shop displays. Fortunately they will find it difficult to ‘trick or treat’  me, because they need a key card to get up to the upper floors of my hotel. Besides, do any real HK people live in TST? I doubt it.They probably avoid it like the plague, as it is a tourist place. Below is the Halloween display at the No. 1 Mall round the corner from the hotel, which has quite a good supermarket with ‘fresh’ food. I go there quite often as you might imagine. On another floor of the Mall was the M & M display – they were giving away packets of them the other day. I could not be bothered to wait in the queue…

There are people everywhere of course here, with the number of people in a small area very high. I do like the way in which people manage to carry on with their activities, despite all the people around. this painter was working  – very concentratedly – in the middle of Kowloon Park amid lots of families and activity around her

Here is a photo of a typical suburban apartment estate just past Hong Hum. there are any number of these. I could take this type of photo literally thousands of times. Note here the washing  and think how many people must live in such a confined area – some of them only rarely leaving the estate, because there are shops etc at the bottom. where I examine in Tsuen Wan, they have everything – doctor, schools, library – all on site. One of the Hong Kong people I met said they did not like NZ because of all the house and the spread-out nature of the cities.

One evening I went along the waterfront here – in fact several evenings! I want to go and catch the nightly laser show which utilizes the buildings on the harbour. It is quite a display, which attracts thousands every evening. I have of course seen it but would like to go watch it again – see if I can capture some good shots for a future blog.

However this particular evening. I enjoyed looking at this parrot. I am sorry I do not know exactly what kind of bird this is. However, the owner did let me stroke the bird, which was cool – even without asking for any money! However once I did about 20 or 30 (mostly Mainland) Chinese people immediately gathered around wanting to stroke it as well. The bird became a little restive then, so I left 

A little further along the walkway which is a smokefree area by the way – New Zealand could follow this good example. We pride ourselves on our environmentally clean image (So close to an election I simply can’t use the word ‘green’), but we really do very little about it. It mostly happens because the country is so spread out – and now off my soapbox and back to the business at hand…I saw this …”asian – like” playground – beautifully colourful. I remember buying wooden toys for children because they were supposed to like them, when in fact they often the cheap plastic COLOURFUL toys.

And then later in the evening, I took a shot of the buildings on Hong Kong Island. The tall building on the right is the IFC (International Finance Centre) building, which reminds me of a story about Texas-Small size condoms…especially with the Asian size next door….but anyway…  Wandering a little further along is a rather nice former police hotel. when I saw the tree in this photo, my first thought was “ How large do you want your pot to be Madam…?”

So life here may be hectic and sometimes rather dusty and polluted, but there are quite a lot of Hong Kong Happenings.

Of course the highlight of the week would have to be the two rugby matches which the All blacks played. Isn’t it strange how not living in your home country can make you feel more…patriotic….well if not patriotic, then at least proud  I found a nice pub  – almost empty last weekend, but full of strangely quiet Australians today – now THERE’S an oxymoron….! Table is booked for next weekend’s game against the French.

So today has been my first day off. (We work Tuesday – Saturday in HK). I have been working out at Tsuen Wan, which is out in the New Territories. It takes half an hour to get there – cross the road, down the stairs and along the subway until I get to the MTR and then go to the end of the line. Up stairs and through the MTR mall until I get to Parsons Music Store where I lock myself in a padded cell (yes, I know, I am getting in some practice!).

I have had one rather extended lunch at Tsuen Wan, so I went for a walk and found a little garden area. There is not much greenery around in central Hong Kong, so I took the opportunity to spend some time there. Seems a little ironic to use my e-reader in such a place, but it has proven yet again to be invaluable on a trip such as this. Very little truly fluent English this far out from central HK. I have found a couple of places to eat with english menu translations or speakers. I suspect I will spend some time out at Tsuen Wan, so I will probably locate more as I go. There is a whole city centre to explore!

Today was spent around Kowloon. Two green areas – Signal Hill Garden and the Kowloon Park attracted me today – the first really sunny day in a while.

Signal Hill was where they used to hoist a signal (hence the pragmatic name!) which told the ships in or around the port area, when it was exactly 12.00 – useful information for navigators. Not much of an area left untrammelled by the encroaching concrete and glass edifices that pass for architecture, however a nice oasis in the busy city area. at the top there was a religious gathering – all dressed in white. The thought did occur to me that it was probably an illegal gathering fomenting rebellion in a group of more than twenty, however they are not occupying Wall Street, so can’t be that important…

Then along to Kowloon Park. A few flowers here – hey this is Hong Kong. Not a lot of arboreal splendour here! Lots and lots of people – many muslim women, obviously waiting for their  men to escape from the mosque. Also several groups of people learning and practicing Tai Chi and a walk around the bird aviary (No pictures here as there is wire separating people from the birds – or was that the other way round…? Oh well no matter, it was not good for photos.

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After all that strenuous exercise, it was time to head to a prominent position for the big game!

I will expostulate about the food here another time. Suffice it to say that I have had Japanese, Vietnamese, Chinese, Hong Kongese!, Salads and various other beautiful foods. I keep on forgetting to take photos until after I have destroyed the meal, but I will do that in a future piece of blathering on. For now, farewell from me, settled in Hong Kong

I was feeling very complacent as I wandered in to the boarding area. As a new Marco Polo customer I was able to go through without queuing up with people that don’t know how to queue… After I had gone through the boarding rigmarole, I was halfway down the corridor to the plane when I was called back – along with everybody else that had come through. They had to pause boarding and then shortly after had to DE-board us, as there was a technical problem on the plane and they had to wait for the OK from Hong Kong before they could start the repairs.

So I retreated to the One World Lounge  – which I had not had time to investigate earlier. It is very civilised in there. There is free food and drink – water, tea, coffee, juice, alcohol etc, the seats are comfortable. It is (mostly) peaceful. At the end of our first hour of waiting – juice and a chocolate cookie, the attendant came to give us the news of our plane just before it was announced, so we tucked into more of a meal this time – with a nice glass of wine. We were also warned just before the announcement came over the system that boarding was about to begin. So I walked along again to the boarding counter and wandered on to the plane for the journey here.

I have stopped feeling guilty now when I receive my meal early (because I ask for a low-fat meal when I make the reservation). A nice glass of wine and a film later, I was ready to sleep – which I managed to do in small doses for much of the journey. Towards the end of the journey, I found some Bach and Mozart to play on the audio system and arrived feeling relatively fresh – given that we arrived at 11:00pm (the equivalent of NZ 4:00am the next morning). A quick trip by airport express and taxi to the hotel, so I was able to arrive and fall onto bed before 1:00. Not too bad!

Next morning I woke to the view above out my hotel window. A clear day in Hong Kong  LOL – still a temperature of 27 though. The weekend was spent in a relatively small area of Causeway  Bay – lots of shops of course and interesting food – and  walking around Victoria Park. The bushes in the photo below are actually sitting in pots – I found it quite extraordinary that there was a lot of mass “planting” with the plants sitting in pots, but “landscaped” above ground. Lots of people were using the park, with children’s activities and an exercise group.

Here also is a Church which I noticed from my breakfast restaurant. really interesting to see a Christian church which still likes like a temple from another religious denomination.

So if you are reading this, welcome to my traveller’s tales. I hope to see you again soon! 

I think I am stuck in that part of the film where everything is black – just before it miraculously starts to come right. Don’t they say that it is darkest before dawn? I think my life is in a sort of groundhog pre-dawn.

So now I am doing an equally bad thing and listening to the Schubert “Der Tod und das Mädchen” String Quartet. Such amazing music, with such an emotional message to it. I remember when I was younger, I used to listen to the Tchaikovsky ‘Pathétique’ Symphony. The Schubert is a chamber music form of the same kind of thing. It brings out the ‘ghosts” in my psyche – the ‘might have been’ people…

However life is not black. Exciting times performing lately (both in and out of New Zealand)and off examining in Hong Kong for nearly two months. One never knows. There could be exciting times…just the other side of sunrise 

NB Both these photos were taken here – and they are not photoshopped   – apart from re-sizing to fit here and the reflective border added to the top photo by WordPress.

However my house is almost unrecognizable if you have not been here for about a year. Almost every room has been changed significantly and I have plans now for further improvements. I might as well use the money, as it won’t do anything sitting in a bank or other account at the moment, thanks to the fun and games in USA and Europe…

However  one of the best improvements is one that I have only completed lately and appreciated even more when returning from being away performing.

I bought myself a digital hifi system. At the centre of this little beauty is a NAIM Unitiqut Amplifier Not much bigger than a large book, this machine is absolutely amazing. I owned a NAIM pre-power amplifier in the days when I had more money than sense. Now, while  I have a little more sense (debatable?), I do not mind having less money!!  So expensive, yes. Worth it? YES

I have burnt nearly all my CDs in lossless format to a central drive, which contains all my media files. I have spent a lot of time now cataloguing the files so that I am able to find them on the drive.

I also bought lately some REGA R7 speakers. Rega became known first as a manufacturer of turntables. The speakers replaced some quite capable Wharfedale speakers that I bought early this year. I am using the spikes on the bottom of these to improve the sound even more. Suffice it to say that this is simply the best system I have ever owned. The sound us transparent, but weighty when it needs to be. At low volume, there is still a good balance in the sound.

An extra bonus is the fact that I can run the system from my computer home network and also my phone. I can find tracks and albums on any of these from anywhere in the house and play them – or pause/stop them as I wish. Very handy when I want to turn off the music and go to sleep

:):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):)

Life in the digital age can be very cool. This is a great system with a very CUTE amplifier at its centre – it is easily able to live up to the Naim! 

On another level we have had the England riots – the “misunderstood” youth attempting to show that they “can do anything they want”. Which other countries in the world will follow this example? New Zealand is not that far away from such an event. We have pandered to the young people of this world to such an extent that leading a life on a benefit is seen as a cool thing to do. Imagine not having to work for a living! The attitude among a significant part of our society appears to be “Leave work to those that can pay for us to live on handouts…” What will happen when those that do pay suddenly begin to realise what is happening?

Yesterday I fought my way through the Auckland traffic to Newmarket to see the film “Mrs Carey’s Concert”. I almost turned back  – as the traffic was so bad. However once inside the theatre I sat back to be completely overwhelmed by this film. Hardly a cinematic experience, however it laid open so many aspects of trying to teach in the classroom today. It brought back so many things about why I loved teaching, but also why I left.

This film is about the preparations for a concert which happens every two years, given in the Sydney Opera House by all the members of one school. I ended up with tears of both sadness and joy – even sometimes almost at the same time. What do I remember most? I remember the way in which all the students grew through the experiences they had – even the rebellious student. This was no slick film showing everything in rose-coloured glasses. This was a film showing a team of dedicated teachers, PROVING that their students could go beyond what they and everybody else thought they could do in the aim for perfection. But the scene where Mrs Carey was rebuked quietly when she quite lightly spanked a student on the knee – what PC nonsense is this!!!?? This was virtually an affectionate slap. This was a film about a teacher determined to make her students grow.

I don’t apologise to anybody for the way in which I managed to persuade people into producing so much more than they thought they were able to produce when I was teaching. I fought for musical perfection for many years. So many of these ex-students have become so much…“more”…because of the department where I worked for most of my teaching life, in tandem with David Hamilton (with whom I shared so much in teaching philosophy). Some of our students were also  “at risk” students, who managed to realise their own worth and value, partly because of what we were able to help them to achieve. As Mrs Carey said in her film, “I was not rude, I was firm…!”  Oh yes I loved that line!!! I can imagine the fallout over that at the schools where I taught. Would I get away with it in New Zealand now ? I doubt it. I would be told that I needed to pander to the students and their SPOILT PARENTS!

We in New Zealand are breeding a generation of students, who do not know what it means to fail and do not know how to cope when they fail in society and because of this we can expect many more tumultuous times!