Hong Kong is an amazing place, mostly because it is so packed with people, cultures (mostly Asian), high rise buildings (there is no space to grow a building outwards, up is the only way), affluence and relative affluence and the Asian culture for bright lights (the Christmas decorations have to be seen to be believed), red and gold (auspicious colours) and cleanliness.
There are signs telling you how often handrails, loos or specific areas are disinfected, when people have colds they wear surgical masks - you don't realise how many people are unwell as you walk about in a crowd, there are advertisements on TV and posters on hygiene and washing hands. I wonder if this went on before SARS in 2003.
When you look closely at the clothes, the styles are quite different to the European designs, women wear Laura Ashley styles in Hong Kong, most are in flat shoes. I'd say 85% of the people I saw people were slim (men and women) and so the clothes always looked elegant.
It seemed to me that people eat to live in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Chinese cuisine doesn't include noodles or rice as a given, it is a small side offering if eaten at all. The reduced starch probably has a positive effect.
Interestingly we felt safe in the city, there were no yobs hanging around. I noticed almost immediately that despite the hum (and there really is a hum) there were no sounds of sirens, we hardly saw a policeman in the whole two weeks. We saw girls out late not prostitutes just girls going home or sitting outside on the promenade chatting on their phones quite late into the evening, so the feeling of safety wasn't just us.
People are much slower, some were dead slow! Goodness me, people walk slowly in Hong Kong. I suppose it is related to the humidity, you really can't hurry for very long so I suppose it becomes embedded in the culture.
The humidity is the biggest draw back, clothes take ages to dry - and we were staying in the least humid season.
With all the high rise buildings there is little outdoor space for drying clothes so the older properties seem to include a rail underneath their windows for hanging clothes - I don't know how many blow away! I don't like heights at all so I wouldn't like to hang out of the window to peg out the washing. Richard's apartment building doesn't have anything like this, you have to dry it indoors on an airer, tumble drier or at the laundry (about £4 for a reasonable sized bag), depends how much space you have and how quickly you want it back, and how much you want to pay. Towels seem to be the biggest problem, in the humidity it's nice to shower morning and evening so the towel never really dries. They quickly stops being fresh and need changing every couple of days.
We saw and heard many birds, I will try to work out sometime the name of the big birds that hovered around the buildings floating on thermals. Smaller birds hopped through the trees twittering away, but I couldn't see them so will probably never know what they were. And of course there were sparrows, I've never been anywhere in the world where there haven't been sparrows. One of my favourite birds, because they are so cheerful and busy getting on with being a sparrow in amongst the chaos of the world around them.
Time to go home.
Richard went off to work about 9am and I saw him off, Tom slept on as his cold had disturbed his sleep.
Writing up the final sections of my journal I watched the boats making their way up and down the water. There is a steady flow of all sorts of boats including sampans with men fishing (actually we saw a number of girls fishing as well so it isn't an all male hobby!).
We wedged everything into our cases - why do clothes never fit back into the case as they do coming out? I feared we would be overweight but in the end we weren't.
We bid a last farewell to Richard's apartment, now de-cluttered, and headed for home. A taxi took us to Kowloon railway station, where we could conveniently check-in our cases before catching the train to the airport.
We didn't really notice Hong Kong airport on our arrival other than to notice that it was efficient. We had more time today and it really is quite nice. It's spacious, clean and modern (it was built in the mid 1990s).
We found a boat to Yim Tin Tsai a tiny island without vehicles about 25 minutes by boat.
There were about 20 other people on the boat back, fortunately we had arrived early at the harbourside (about 4.45pm) and the boat had left as soon everyone was aboard and we were on our way within 5 minutes. We were just about half way across when the pilot's mobile phone rang, there was a little hubbub as the boat started to turn. Then much laughter as the boat straightened up and continued towards the mainland. One of the Chinese visitors explained to us that two people had been left behind and wanted the boat to go back for them but the rest of the passengers and complained that it would prolong the journey (I think they were afraid they would miss their buses) so he turned off his phone and ignored the call. I think there would be one more boat at 6pm. Lucky we had been early! (Not normally associated with the Sayers-Brownes).
Our last full day.
The street market and shops were some of the nicest we'd seen and we enjoyed a hour pottering through the streets.
The were many more Europeans in the area, in the cafes and wandering around, as well as couple of wedding photographs with brides and grooms - one dress was a beautiful white with flowers made up of sequins and the other the most lovely deep pink that matched the Singapore lily in her hair.
Murray House, near the pier, was originally in the city in an area referred to as Central. When developers wanted to replace the building with a new development rather than completely demolish it they carefully dismantled it, numbering each part, and reconstructed it at Stanley at the eastern end of the bay. However they unexpectedly had 6 columns left over so they are placed in front of the building. So it's not just me who ends up with bits left over when I take something apart and rebuild it. Bit worrying that it was 6 columns though.
The building now houses a small exhibition and some western style bistros and as it seemed ages since breakfast we went in. Whilst not the most adventurous food, the view from the bistro overlooked the sea and had a real colonial feel to it and it was lovely just to sit and watch the sea, the people and boats as the sun set.
Finally we dragged ourselves away and headed back to Kowloon, I have to say that this bus journey was the most frightening we had all holiday, the drive threw the double decker round corners and seemed to want to race all the other drivers on the road.
Back in Kowloon, about 8.30pm we arranged with Richard who was just finishing up at the office (a rather long day) to meet for a drink at the Cafe Fontaine. It was lovely to sit in the open air durning the evening without a jacket.
We decided to head for a cafe for a final meal, although we'd eaten earlier we needed something and Richard hadn't eaten since lunch so we headed for a Korean cafe.
Not the most inviting venue, but surprisingly nice food. As we sat down the waiting placed 3 glasses of hot tea before us. We then settled on seafood soup, fried rice and spicy noodles. While our meal was being prepared a big tray of nibbles was provided including cold noodle, miniature whitebait (cold) and various other small bowls, altogether about 10 bowls!
The meal was then brought out, we had expected each of us to have our own but the waiter served each menu choice into a small bowl so we all had a bit of each. It was very tasty - especially my choice of the fried rice which had a bit of meat and vegetables in sticky rice.
As I write a huge cruise liner has just sailed passed the apartment, heading for the dock. Very graceful.
After a quick breakfast we headed up to the western side of the New Territories to see a nature reserve.
The first bit of the journey by train worked well, unfortunately somehow we got lost on the tram system and eventually resorted to a taxi. While we were looking for one a college age student handing out leaflets approached us and asked if we were English. Then he asked if we knew the Beatles and whether we'd been to Liverpool, it was an amusing conversation with some insight into how English is taught. A taxi appeared but we couldn't get him to understand that we wanted to go to the wetlands park, fortunately the Beatle loving student was still nearby and he was only too pleased to translate for us - it's not what you know it's who you know!
The wetlands place was fabulous, with a visitor centre, shops, crafts, walks and so on. We settled for just heading out to the reserve. First stop butterflies, wherever you go in Hong Kong there is a butterfly - the day we arrived Tom spotted one fluttering over the wing of the plane while we were waiting to disembark.
The plants in the butterfly garden had been especially selected to be attractive to butterflies. There were identification signs along the side with English translation. It seems that the butterflies that we'd seen out and about were mostly common tiger butterflies - about 3" across and look rather like the British Red Admiral.
We then moved into the bird hides - wow, nothing like the drafty, hides we're used to! These had two floors! Again they had very helpful identification signage and at least one pair of binoculars or a scope on a static display in case you hadn't brought your own.
While we were there we successfully identified great egrets (we see little egrets in the south of England), great cormorants, common spoonbills, shoveller ducks, grey heron and most exciting of all wonderful views of a red backed strike sitting on a post. There were many other birds but they were often too quick or I couldn't see the list and bird long enough to identify it.
While were watching one of the pools of water we spotted fish jumping, just briefly out of the water, probably only 6 inches but as you watched the water simmered to simmer as the fish jumped. An amazing sight.
A really fabulous afternoon.
We then made our way back to Kowloon for a little window shopping (shopping seems to be a major past time here). We called in to a bar for a drink - iced tea to revive ourselves before a little window shopping as we looked for a restaurant Richard had spotted earlier. The bar was more or less triangular in shape with the longest side being open to the street. On the tables and floor were little bits of peanut shell - the groundnut type. As people sat down at a table apart from their drink they were also given a basket of nuts. The waitress then swept the bits off the table onto the floor once the customer had gone! Still it was quite nice iced tea.
We found the Royal Pot Restaurant a few streets on. You basically cook your own meal at this venue. There is a little electric heater set into the middle of the table and they bring along a soup (we chose crocodile - as you do...) and a selection of beef, chicken, dumplings, vegetables and noodles (we decided afterwards that the waiter had up-sold us a bit).
We had a few ladles of soup (crocodile soup tastes rather like Campbell's chicken soup) from the large casserole that was placed on the heating element and now bubbling away and then we started dropping the various meats and dumplings into the pot to cook - bit like a fondue.
It was really good fun and tasted good. We put the noodles into the little sieve and rested it in the soup so they didn't float away. Each person has two pairs of chopsticks one for handling the raw meat and the other for eating. The meat cooks at different speeds so some is ready quicker than others. I think there is a running order of what to cook but we just put it in as we fancied. The resulting stock was lovely. The staff were very helpful and kept passing the table and guiding us on various bits, a few wandered passed chuckling, so we obviously did some bits wrong!
We finished the evening at Richard's local referred to as The Winchester-on-Sea watching the closing scenes of Raiders of the Lost Ark on the television screen.
Friday, 9th November
This morning we decided to try the pool as we were meeting Richard for lunch at 12.40pm.
So armed with towels we went down to the pool area. The apartments form an E shape facing the sea, the first inlet of the E is car parking, the second is the pool area, this is a good size, but with few deckchairs.
We pottered about the pool for sometime which is at the deepest point is about 4'6" deep.
Whilst we were swimming I heard a deep bang, like a canon, I suddenly remembered that Richard had mentioned that there is a noon day gun each day so it must be noon. Yikes!!
We hastily made our way back to the apartment, showered and changed and then we were whizzing down in a taxi to meet Richard.
He took us to a lovely restaurant, one of many the office use for lunch, and met about 8 of his colleagues including Lindsey from Scotland and Julie.
We sat at a large round table with a lazy susan in the middle. The lazy susan was quickly filled by the staff with various Oriental food - some noodles, dumplings, rice, dips and so on. As we emptied a serving bowl it was replaced by a new offering. Apparently you agree a menu in advance and then the staff bring it out a few items at a time.
The restaurant, which was on the second floor looks out over the water, a lot better than the Old Court House Pub near our office!
The meal was just enough, we weren't left hungry nor over full.
Then it was back to the office for everyone, including us so we could see Richard's workspace and their new refurbishment that is about 75% finished.
The office is on the 13th floor - not an unlucky number in China, they are anxious about numbers with 4s in them.
Richard's desk was inevitably the tidiest in the room, even though he was mid way through his day.
The office is a large open plan space with some 40 people, there is a nice big conference room with a screen for video conferencing.
The reception area, graphics designed by Richard and Julie, was very spacious and they have a lovely kitchen area with plenty of tables.
The whole area is white with sky blue highlights.
We left the office - glad not to be sitting back down to work ourselves and pottered about in the local area, window shopping and then headed down to the Old Maritime Police building. We had hoped to have afternoon tea there but it appears you have to book sometime ahead so we settled for a nearby café and sat outside watching the world.
Richard's friend Alla had booked us all tickets to see Flight of the Jade Bird at the arts centre. It was to be an evening of modern music, dance and song.
After a slightly frustrating drive to the venue with a taxi driver who didn't seem to know his own town (you don't realize how good the London cabbies are until you try using a taxi in another city) we settled in our seats.
We weren't too sure what to expect, but we were pleasantly surprised.
The studio was simple with a balcony ran all the way round. The narrator of the tale sat on the left hand side of the balcony and a dancer in a black cloak with red lining danced periodically on the right.
The orchestra consisted of about 15 of with a percussionist and 4 singers - a soprano, a tenor, a falsetto (I think that's the term) and another soprano.
The whole performance was highly professional and polished
The programme revealed that the whole team of singers, musicians and dancer where actually all highly qualified some having studied at the Royal School of Music in London. So we were vey lucky to see the performance.
We wandered back through the new Christmas decorations - a red and white theme based on Alice in Wonderland (only no Alice!). With red Christmas trees, with white and gold tinsel and balls. Large white rabbits and reindeer were dotted in between the trees and overhead more reindeer were suspended. The whole thing made Selfridges Christmas seem quite feeble.
The evening was finished with a meal at an Italian restaurant on the roof of this very jolly mall.
Thursday, 8th November
The big Buddha beckoned this morning. The weather seemed a bit cloudy and there was a hint of rain in the air as we set off.
The trip involved a train ride from Hung Hom west to Nam Cheong on an underground train, change lines and then to an overline train to Tung Cheng on Lantau island. The trains run as regularly as the London underground and there is little waiting between trains. The main difference between the London Underground and here is the cleanliness, the walls, floors and everywhere on the London underground is grimy, here it is clean, goodness knows who they clean it everyday because nothing here dries because of the humidity.
At Tung Cheng we had a choice of a cable car ride across country or the bus. I really don't like heights and so we took the bus. Tom wondered whether it was less frightening on the bus as the driver thought he was Stirling Moss.
The view on the journey was amazing, tree covered peaks, bridges, steep sided valleys and glimpses of the sea, long sandy beaches and wooded valleys, periodically we passed grazing long horn cattle totally unfazed by the whizzing bus.
Eventually we arrived at the site of the big Buddha. There was the inevitable tourist shopping and eating places one half ramshackle huts and the other half purpose built modern air conditioned shop units (relatively sympathetic architecture).
The ground area is about the size of a football pitch with archways both ends, down the side were large statues of dieties (about 12ft high). Up on the hill viewing the scene was the 112ft tall, Tian tan Buddha.
The whole place is set in a wooded valley, with huge peaks either side. Dramatic as it is the Llanberis pass in North Wales is safe as the most dramatic place place I've seen.
We braved a snack from one of the street food vendors and then headed up the 240 steps to investigate the Buddha.
The statue was only completed about 25 years ago, it was the idea of the Buddhist monks who now have a monastery at the site.
The site reminded me of a larger version of the copper horse at Windsor - except with a lot more tourist activity.
There are terraces at two levels around the statue so you can walk all around and take in the view around the statue as well as see it from all angles. It is jolly windy up there but it affords wonderful views across the valley and the detail on the statue.
There is a small visitor area under the statue, built into the concrete base that gives a background to the building, ideas and even the dedication speeches. It appears that it was cast in sections with no more than 3mm tolerance, each piece was then welded onto a framework - with just over 3 miles of welding.
Having taken plenty of pictures, along with everyone else, and absorbed the magnificence of the place we were drawn back down by the sound of the monks chanting in their monastery below.
Parts of the monastery are open to the public and we were able to watch the service which was amazing, marred only by the microphones that projected the sound out into the valley.
The use of red and gold makes the building very dramatic, totally unlike any Christian monastery I have seen. The whole area is full of incense, sticks, placed much as candles in a Catholic church I think. In addition to the usual size sticks were huge, 6ft high poles 5 inches across, that really put out some incense. - good thing it's outside!
We spent time sitting in their courtyard enjoying their ambiance - despite all the tourists it still has something, and the beautiful red bougainvillea and the celosia in reds and golds.
After a brief mozy through the shops (including a chopstick shop!) we headed for the bus and another slightly scary ride to Tai O.
Tai O is known as the Venice of the East.
The bay is quite big with what looked like a reservoir at the back, huge peaks rise up all around in the distance. The harbour itself is well maintained and quite modern with a promenade down one side and a walkway across the wall between the reservoir and the sea leading to some houses about ¼ mile away.
The village is a working fishing village that has become a tourist attraction because of the quality of the dried fish - we didn't buy any because we weren't sure how to eat it or what to do with it, we subsequently found out it is like the South African bilton, except that it's made of fish. Pity, it would have been worth trying a nibble at least.
As you wander through the streets the houses open out into stalls selling the dried fish that looks more like popadoms (small, medium and large) hanging on strings. The street was easily 100 yards long with 75% selling the dried fish so it is easy to see why they have a good reputation with so much competition.
An inlet runs between the backs of the streets with a middle street where homes are on stilts above the water.
As we walked through the streets a school bus must have dropped some local children home after a day at school, emphasizing that this is a real place.
I counted 4 reasonable sized fishing boats in the harbour plus other working boats.
The light was starting to fade, once it starts it quickly gets dark 20-30 minutes from start to finish, so we joined the queue for the local bus and were lucky enough to squeeze on.
We were soon whizzing through the countryside back to the train station - about 25 minutes away. The bus stopped every so often to drop off or pick up people along the route.
Our return journey was straightforward, though as we were travelling in the rush hour (which seems to be more like 7-8pm) we had to stand most of the way.
It is interesting to watch people on the train, it's quite a mix of young and old, workers and local people going about their day. The younger travellers often seemed to be watch television on their smart phones as often as they listen to music.
I made a sort stir fried salmon for the evening meal - Richard arrived in around 9.45pm.
Wednesday, 7th November
An easy morning with a visit to the local department store to buy a few bits for Richard's flat and food for the evening meal.
We returned loaded down with shopping, walking along the promenade next to the sea with the back drop of Hong Kong island just across the water makes a change from the walk back from Waitrose passed the art college and Victorian semi detached houses, it's probably a similar distance.
After a quick lunch we headed off to Nan Lian gardens at Diamond Hill (don't know the reason for the town name). This involved a ride on the underground, the nearest stop is Hung Hom, about 12 minutes walk from the apartment.
Using our Octopus cards is a quick and much easier way to travel without messing around with ticket machines. Tom had worked out which station we were heading for and finding the right platform was relatively easy. There is plenty of space in the station, not like the London underground that is relatively confined.
The journey to Diamond Hill took about 15 minutes. Once out of the station the garden is about 100 yards walk. I had expected a less built up location, it is quite small with a mini spaghetti junction of elevated roads all around it. However it had been designed to reduce the road noise as much as possible and so you quickly forgot the traffic.
The garden is about architecture and design harmony rather than individual plants. Trees and bushes are trimmed quite tightly in the Oriental style of shapes. The bougainvillea is lovely, with pale pinks, dark pinks and white, some with green leaves but quite a few with variegated leaves. The pine trees are clipped to look like giant bonsai.
The garden is about the size of 2 football pitches with paths weaving around features, so you see glimpses before the final impact. The features included a Chinese pagoda about 25ft high, a very large pond with huge gold fish and a small building (apparently a restaurant) with a waterfall cascading from the roof into a pool. There are a lot of pictures on Facebook, I'll try and add them later.
There was a small museum on Chinese building architecture - demonstrating how the roof is constructed, really interesting and demonstrates the ingenuity.
In a final effort to keep the sound of traffic to a minimum they had a Chinese guitarist playing on speakers round the garden, a bit strange and not the best music! Tom reassured me he wouldn't be buying the CD, phewww.
We took our time round the garden and were glad to be there as it got dark because then the lights are turned on and the garden takes on a new glow. It is nice how things don't shut at 5pm here, they simply turn on lights.
Eventually we dragged ourselves away and headed for the underground station which was by now busy with commuters.
Richard was with one of his running clubs this evening, they were running from the length of the promenade and back again - we saw them (but not Richard) from the apartment window.
We had our meal early at home - I quite like Richard's little kitchen except I have difficulty reaching some of the cupboards which are quite high.
Back on our feet again we met Richard and Alla (also on the run, but as she said significantly behind Richard) down at the Café Fontaine for a drink whilst they had a meal. It's funny to sit outside in November in the evening - just in shirt sleeves!
Finally back home again with aching feet...
I was woken by the sound of Chinese music, surprised that Richard's music tastes had taken this turn I got up to investigate and realized he'd just left for work and the music was drifting up from the promenade. I looked out of the sitting room window and could see about 8 people dancing in a group, seemed to me to be a sort of country dance but I think it was an exercise to music group.
We decided that the weather was right for a trip to Victoria Peak (on Hong Kong island). There is a tram that goes up the side of the peak, at a most scary angle. It takes about 10 minutes to get up to the top level. The Peak is one of the oldest tourist attractions on the island - there has been a tram for over 100 years.
The view from the top is breathtaking. There are two viewing areas, we tried both and preferred the older one as it was a little quieter.
There is a permanent haziness over the area presumably caused by the humidity, there are no bright blue skies here.
The peaks are covered in trees, every so often there is a swathe of palm trees amongst them, perhaps planted by colonial gardeners?
As you walk around the viewing platforms (basically the top terrace of small shopping malls) you can see across to Lamma island with it's power station (a rather boring affair, nothing like Milford Haven), over the most built up part of Hong Kong, across the water to Kowloon and over to Lantua island which joins the mainland via a spectacular suspension bridge.
The air at the top of the peak is much clearer than down in the town, where there is a steady humidity.
It was lovely to just sit and look at the view, watching the boats and soaring buzzard-like birds - I think they are Black Goshawks.
On a Thursday evening Richard's peak running club run up to the top and round the circular walk (about an hour's walk) twice and then back down again. Loons.
I'm afraid the limit of our exertion was to walk, once, round the circular walk, the signs suggest 1.5 hours but I think that must be at a very slow pace stopping even more often than we did to look at the view. The walking is easy, with just a few mild inclines and all on a tarmac path.
Little paths run up to the houses dotted around the summit, it reminded us a little of Dartmouth walking out to the castle. This area has some of the most expensive property on the island. The colonials made this there home before air conditioning was introduced. Now most flats and apartments have air conditioning units, the newer units blend neatly into the building but where they have been added they are stuck on the walls - the older high rise blocks are a mess!
We decided at around 4.30pm to have a drink and cake in a little Chinese café in one of the viewing malls. We had both spotted what looked like a sweet pie and imagined a jam or almond paste in the centre. We ordered some strange teas (blueberry green tea and iced black tea) and pointed to the little pies, the waitress gave us a puzzled look - chicken pie? Mmm maybe not... Disappointed Tom spotted a rather bright yellow egg custard and I selected a small pastry with a melon paste - both turned out nice, more than could be said for the tea.
The light goes quickly around 6pm but unlike the UK which usually shuts tourist and outdoor leisure locations half an hour before dusk, they simply turn on decorative lighting in Hong Kong and the place takes on a new life.
We had planned to go down the peak around 5.30pm but there was a huge queue for the tram so we decided to go back up to the viewing platform and see Hong Kong and Kowloon by night. It becomes another world at night with lights on all the buildings: Samsung, China Bank, HSBC, Panasonic neon lights all blazing away.
After a while we realized that the queue would never subside and so we joined the throng. We had assumed that the trams would arrive empty and return full - wrong! They arrived as full as they were leaving, the view of Hong Kong by night as much of an attraction by night as by day.
In the end we only had to wait about 20 minutes and we were sliding down the ultra steep incline.
Just outside the tram station St John's Church sits incongruously between huge ultra modern skyscrapers.
We would like to have gone in to see the building from the inside but it was preparing for a concert so we had to settle for peaking in the door.
An Anglian cathedral, it was built in the 1840s and apart from one year during WWII it has been in continuous use. A classic colonial building with wooden shutters shaped to fit the arched windows. All the wood used in colonial buildings is a mid colour wood not the usual dark stained wood of the UK but a bright varnished wood. I read later that the main door was damaged during the war and had to be replaced, the wood came from a British warship that was sunk at a similar time.
We decided to travel back to the ferry by tram, the reverse of the journey we did on Saturday, except that now it was dark and the tram was completely full and we had to stand much of the way.
We were quite pleased with ourselves when we arrived back at the ferry port, we'd managed to get off at the right tram stop and more or less walk directly to the port. Only problem the ferries stop running at 7.23pm (bizarre time!) and it was now nearly 8pm.
We considered a rather tortuous journey by underground but decided that a cab was the best option. Fortunately the drivers have some basic English so long as you pick a major point, we selected Hong Hom station just 10 minutes walk from the apartments.
There are 2 ways to cross the water between Hong Kong and Kowloon, by ferry or under the sea. The underground system travels under the sea and there is a road underneath as well so we were relatively quickly back near the flat. £8 for a journey that included the tunnel toll of £2 and lasted about 20 minutes - we concluded that fuel is relatively inexpensive.
Another night falling in to bed exhausted.
Monday 5th November
Richard went into work at 8.45am pheww! A chance to rest!
Tom and I sat on the promenade watching the boats, this is quite a busy stretch of water with cargo (we saw cargo marked Hamburg), a junk, launches, fishing boats, a little san pan bobbed about and was positively thrown about in the wake of some of the big boats.
There are a lot of joggers here, very little running skill, I'm no running expert but dragging feet is certainly not the way. That said it is very humid and so walking is tiring, running must be exhausting.
Gardeners and road workers all wear hats, many with sides covering their necks. Despite the warmth, it's been about 26-28c each day and quite humid, the locals are in winter wear with boots and coats. We look very much like English tourists in our teeshirts and summer dresses.
Butterflies abound here, quite big ones with dark wings and white spots as well as what looks like a red admiral.
After lunch we headed out along the promenade again, west down to the railway clock tower and headed towards Kowloon Park.
On the way we passed the old Marine Police building that was built in 1881, a classic colonial building.
The grounds in front of the building have become a site for brides to be photographed and we saw about half a dozen girls some with bridesmaids, some just bride and groom. They all wore western white wedding dresses. Apparently quite a lot of weddings have all the main photography carried out 6 weeks before the event rather than all the photographs on the day.
They all seemed to be having huge fun, posing for photographs in front of the building, on the steps, by the water feature and any attractive feature. We saw one bride lift the very full skirt of her dress to climb the steps and instead of dainty shoes she was wearing pink and white trainers!
The building was in use until 1996, they seemed to be offering tea but we decided to carry on to the park.
The park in the end was pleasant but nothing very exciting. The area is really somewhere green for the apartment dwellers to use as a garden. (7.07 million people live in just 1,108 square kilometers).
People were sitting reading, or chatting, we even saw an older man doing tai chi.
The large pond had a good number of large goldfish, though I was worried about the heron type bird sitting on a small island watching them mentally licking his lips.
Skipping tea at the Marine Police building turned out to be a mistake, the park could only offer a MacCafe but thirst overcame our normal snobbishness and we succumbed to a strawberry milkshake and a lemon tea.
Within a few strides the calm of the park was replaced by the chaos of Nathan Street which reminds me a little of the Tottenham Court Road. Tom was constantly approached by Asian men wanting to sell him a suit or shirt and I wanted me to buy a new handbag or shoes - they drive you mad!!
Finally we found sanctuary in the Sogo shopping mall which is like a small Selfridges.
The walk home along the promenade is always breathtaking with the view of Hong Kong island across the water.
We arranged to meet Richard in the Metropolis Centre at his pot and plate café. We arrived early (allowing extra time because we get so lost most of the time!) but we were a little underwhelmed (wrongly it appears) and met him outside and went to a nearby Thai café and shared hot bowls of noodles with crispy chicken (Tom), minced pork (Richard) and beef (me). Another interesting experience. We'll try the pot and plate café another day.
Back to bed - tired again!
A slower start today after yesterday's adventures.
Tom and I walked down to our favorite supermarket - where I'm very tall! Loaded with some more essentials of bread, milk, orange juice, Tsing Tao beer (Tom says this is an essential) and eggs we set off back to the apartment.
It may not be the closest supermarket (Richard says there is a closer shop which stocks some Waitrose items!) it is the most dramatic walk along the waters edge watching the boats and looking across at Hong Kong island.
After lunch we set off on another adventure. This time to the flower market and bird market.
This trip involved a journey on the underground, none of the tat and grime of the London underground, it is unbelievably clean. The locals seem very health aware, wearing surgical masks when they have a cold (you see quite a few people just walking around wearing masks). I've also seen antiseptic hand cleansing points, normally seen in hospitals, in all sorts of places. Little hand wipes are common in restaurants and even Richard seems to carry some! So for once my little bottle of handwash didn't seem neurotic.
The trains are wider here and very quiet. As it was Sunday there weren't too many travellers, I imagine there is barely breathing room in the rush hour, despite the extra space.
We were quickly at Mong Kok station and out into the mayhem of the flower market. This isn't so much a street market but about 300 yards of little flower shops that spill out onto the pavement. We wandered through admiring the ideas and array of plants, although they were mostly houseplants I realize here the outdoor gardening uses what we would grow as houseplants! And they look so much more healthy than mine, which in comparison are leggy and not at all lush and bushy.
The bird market was not a success, it was as the title suggested a market of pretty wild birds in little cages some desperately trying to escape. We left within a few minutes by silent consensus.
Richard's friend Alla joined and we went into a café for what can be best described as the worst lemon tea I've ever had. Oh well.
Richard had booked tickets for us to see the latest James Bond film so we took a taxi back to Kowloon. Taxis are very affordable here although because of the huge amount of traffic they aren't terribly efficient. They are rather like US taxi cabs with doors that swing open automatically.
We had a quick meal at a Vietnamese/Thai restaurant in a plush shopping mall.
Richard had booked vibrating seats in the cinema, but forgot to tell us! With every explosion we shook, and there are a lot of explosions in James Bond. It was very strange to see London and made me feel sad not to be there. It's funny how they always depict London in the rain or cold.
We made our way home along the waterfront that was as busy as ever - not like that in London at 10.30pm on a Sunday!
We are now proud owners of Octopus cards which like the Oyster cards in London are a a prepaid system of travel using a card that looks like a credit card, you add funds and it saves a lot of time finding change for buses, trams and ferries - you just lie the card on the special pad on the turn style.Then we stepped on to a wooden tram. A wonderful way to travel from a busy local superb of Hong Kong with markets, small shops and street traders through to the sophisticated business area with it's designer label shop Armani, Dolci & Gabbana and Louis Vuiton.
Walked along the promenade pass the Walk of Stars where various Chinese film stars have printed their hands in the pavement including Jackie Chan. It's an amusing tourist spot with spectacular views over the harbour, a real magnet for visitors - we saw coaches parked at the side and tour guides trying to organise groups. 
The railway clock tower at the end of the promenade was interesting, the huge bell displayed in the tower (doesn't ring now) was cast in Loughborough in 1921 and was in use until the outbreak of WWII. This means Granny and Grandad and Uncle Graham heard it ring.
We arrived in time for Happy Hour and so lined up a beer for Richard - he arrived withhis assistant Julie. It was nice to meet her after hearing about her for so long. She declined joining us for a meal and headed off home as we headed off to a Japanese bistro called Samuri Yakatori (off the Granville Circuit) with Richard.
>the high rise buildings are a mix of old and new. with washing hanging out of the old.