30.7.13 - Why?!

I’m running around the south of the island on trail. It’s getting pretty dark, and I know I have at least 3km more to go before I hit a road with lights. It’s OK though – if I hurry, I’ll make it in plenty of time.

But wait – why’s that small local on the path in front of me hopping nervously from foot to foot and waving her arms at me?

‘Doris’ has come up to the hills to get “some outdoor activities”. And is lost. Even though she’s lived within 5km of that spot all her life. And she has no phone, no torch, no money.

I try to give her directions to Hong Kong University, but before I can finish she pathetically says from behind her tiny round glasses, “I very scare of dark. You go this way? You take me?”

Well, who can resist the knight in shining armour routine? She was terribly frightened by the darkness, convinced she was about to step on a snake and scared she would fall in her ridiculous shoes. In coaxing her along to a lit road, the light went entirely, and I had to go on the light of my phone and my knowledge of the trail. She even rather sickly sweetly said, in deadly seriousness, as I helped her over the umpteenth puddle – “You’re my hero!”

Hahaha.

But! The funniest thing was the awkward conversation. The rescuing her from being lost bit seemed to be separate from our chat, where she was not at all shy about cutting me down…

 

Me: So you’re a student who lives next to Hong Kong U, but you don’t study there. How strange!

Doris: No. It isn’t strange.

Me: Oh. Er. Ok

Doris: So, you like live in Hong Kong?

Me: Oh yes, very much.

Doris [harshly]: You not scare of thiefs?!

Me: Thieves? Well, no, Hong Kong’s much safer than London.

Doris [dismissively]: Huh! No, is wrong, is many thief in Hong Kong.

Doris: So, you visit Ocean Park [a popular theme park here]?

Me: No, not yet, but I hear it’s great! Lots of my friends have been, it’s on my to do list! Have you been?

Doris [scoffingly]: Wah, no! Not for many year! I not a child [laughs harshly].

Me: Oh, erm. Right. But I’m nearly a tourist, so it’s OK if I go even though I’m not a tourist, right?

Doris: No.

And my personal favourite and inspiration for today’s picture and title:

Doris: So – new English baby! You happy?!
[Note – Hkers have gone Royal baby crackers too, and call it the English baby. I think the hype both here and at home is a bit weird, but I am very pleased for them and all in all it’s a happy thing. So I thought I’d play safe]

Me: Oh yes, everyone in England is very happy!

Doris [shocked]: But why?!

Me: ….Wh…Why? Well, it’s, you know, nice…?

Doris: But you pay for them, for their feeding, for their cloth…is like they are children! So why you happy, woh?

Me: Er, well, they only cost each Briton about 6 Hong Kong dollars a year you know. [jokey] Good value, hey?

Doris: Hm. Don’t know.

29.7.13b - ...but it was absolutely the right thing to come to HK

But, then there’s the flipside. Of course.

First of all, as I put it when we were jogging through a breeze-rippled wheat field on a blazing hot, cloudless day in the rolling hills of Bedfordshire – “You’re not conning me, Britain, not for a second!”

If I could have a cast iron guarantee that we would have weather like that week for ¼ of each year, I’d never leave. But you don’t, and never will. The hottest summer for 37 years? I look forward to the next one when I’m just shy of retirement.

Plus, the weather’s not all glorious anyway. When you visit for a week, you can just revel in it; but I know that to live day-to-day, in a country utterly unprepared for any extreme weather (hot, cold, wet, whatever), in this heat is unbearable – sweaty offices, melting roads, broken transport systems.

The running was a joy, yes – but on my return home I took a hard slog up the hill behind our flat and was rewarded with the view I’ve published on here before of Hong Kong harbour. That can’t be bad.

And it’s hard to get too dewy eyed about a country where it is possible to be taken out for a birthday surprise canoeing trip (thank you Nic J) and a) Be assaulted with a barrage of stones by cursing 11-year-olds and b) Be attacked by an arsey swan when simply trying to have a picnic (see below).

But also, on the positive side of things, going home to see our friends, family and big life events should never be seen with too big a twinge of regret.

Aside from my own, I’m not sure I’ve ever enjoyed a wedding so much having invested so much time and effort to be there, and been looking forward to celebrating with the couples and seeing our friends quite so much. We may miss some in the future, but we’ll bust a gut to make as many as we can, and we know now it’ll be worth it by a country mile.

Not seeing our friends regularly is pants, but we clicked right back into place as if we hadn’t been away; and probably had more genuine conversations and good fun than we’d have when we saw each other every week. Plus, as Claire’s birthday picture showed, it’s not like we haven’t made some great friends here!

And on family, I realised that even when we were in the UK, we didn’t see family more often than every few months anyway; and then for no more than hours or a day at a time. So actually, spending a leisurely couple of days golfing with my dad; a good meal out with mum; and a late evening BBQ with Claire's parents was all a bit of a luxury. Plus, between returning home to the UK and having them come to stay in HK for more than a week  a time, we probably won’t end up seeing much less of them than we did before...

And finally, of course, as this blog has almost universally spelt out here, this move has been a brilliant adventure and fantastic fun...and we are going to have the chance to show many people how great it is, as we are pleasingly inundated with visit requests.

And at the end of the day. When you can spend the first weekend home on a fantastic night out – tapas, wine, a crème brulee-red velvet-chocolate mousse-cheesecake all-in-one cake, dancing to live music till 4am – and still have iPlayer to while away a hangover the next day, it’s pretty hard to feel sad about moving to HK for too long…

29.7.13a - Going back to the UK made me realise moving away had its downsides....

After a long pause…the blog is back.

I’ve been away in the UK, during which time I decided not to blog as it was not really about HK. Since returning last week I have been busy, ill or hungover and hence not got around to writing…

However, when it came to starting up again, I felt that I did need to do a post about returning home. As someone insightfully wrote in an email to me after the trip: It must feel strange to be returning to a foreign place, having 'visited' the UK. Some reflections, then, in 2 parts:

A - It made realise that being away has its down sides…

Our week and a bit at home felt almost as if it was scripted as part of the Government’s Britain is GREAT campaign. It was a week that felt like it was lived through rose tinted glasses. If you want an idea of quite how sickeningly true this is, you need look no further than this jaw-droppingly clichéd picture (descriptions so far have included ‘like the cover of a dodgy folk band album’ and ‘a healthy yoghurt advert’).

We could not have picked a more heartstring-tugging time to go back to the UK. Weather so glorious it’s almost as if mother-nature is playing ‘Jerusalem’ on a loop. An hour after landing, driving in 25+degree heat through rolling green and yellow hills, reading the weekend paper. Attending a beautiful wedding in a stone church, then walking through a quaint village and hay-bale strewn field to a marquee reception with scones. Teeing off on a clear summer’s morning down a lush fairway with a steeple framed by the trees in the background. Running in 40% humidity(!), and feeling like I had wings on my feet and that I could run all day.

It was wonderful to attend two weddings in two days, but that in itself contained a quiet sadness because it reminded us of the other big life events we have missed already, and the others we will inevitably miss in months to come. The same went for time with family, knowing that we will only see them for a day or two and then nothing for months.

Discovering quite what a fantastic bunch of friends we have in the UK, in the very act of reacquainting ourselves with them. The shock of finding out that our breezy judgement that when we come home eventually everything will be as before is wrong – the friendship groups we have are shifting and morphing just a few months on and the slow drift away from London is beginning without us.

09.7.13 a - competition time! The results are in...

I write this in the airport on my journey home to the uk...but sadly this means I cannot post here the photos I had planned for this post due to technical hitches. Will add those later.

But onto the results!

Thanks to all who chucked an entry in - I got 10 entries in the end which isn't half bad:)

Most people got at least 1. A couple did get zero. But two of you got both right.

The answers were:
C) everyone can have a picnic
And (disappointingly, I would love to see it) c) terminator

In a tie for first place we had Louise OkaJie in Hong Kong and Andy McCormick back in the uk. The pictures you cannot see yet show me doing a prize draw from a rice bowl. Which determined that our winner is.

ANDY! *applause*

If Andy can make it to the pub session Claire and I have planned Sunday after next, he can claim his prize:)

Thanks again for entering everyone...think I may do this again from
Time to time so keep an eye out!

09.7.13 - Competition Time!

OK, so here’s a massive gamble. I thought I’d try to make this more interactive by using a competititon (yes, that’s a right – a GAME in which YOU can WIN a REAL, actual THING) to talk about something that tickles me.

So quick note at the top…bearing in mind the regular viewing numbers these days, if you enter you may the only person. And then you will win. But I would be a tiny bit sad to award the prize to a lone entrant…:(

So anyway! It’s a Chinglish competition! I think I wrote about this very early on, but let me first of all get in a very important disclaimer.

This is not intended as a ‘Let’s laugh at the silly foreigners’ post. The linguistic gap between any form of Chinese and English is huge, and I have been a big victim of it myself since trying to learn it, causing much belly laughing on the part of Hong Kongers. People have laughed out loud, with pointing, on hearing either of my Cantonese names (which translate roughly as Mr Clever and Mr Strong-Like-the-Cypress Tree).

In the office, I have variously accidentally

-        Referred to yellow paper as ‘yellow poo’

-        Invited a colleague to punch me, when I meant to ask for a biscuit

-        Shouted ‘traffic, traffic!’ in the presence of my colleagues to a taxi driver, when I meant to say ‘Can I get out?’

So – it cuts both ways. See the picture above that I have pinched from the web. Chinglish T-shirts and astonishing Chinglish names abound here, and I have been collecting them in my phone.

Which of the two sets of options have I not seen since getting here? I will accept answers as comments on the blog, via facebook message and email for those who know it:

1.       Slogans on T-shirts

a.       I’ll be here in the morning heavenly houseboat, don’t wait too long

b.      Do you horrid wretch drop the boy?

c.       Everyone can come and have a picnic

d.      Why can't we all be more like a mermaid?

2.       Name badges of staff who have served me in various places:

a.       Rocky

b.      Rambo

c.       Terminator

d.      Chlorophyll

The winner will receive an “I [heart] Hong Kong T-shirt in a size of their choice…

Entries close at 1.30am BST (just before I go to work) on Friday.

07.7.13 - Clairey's day of birthday fun

Around 1pm, the nature hikers (see yesterday’s entry) caught up with Claire and 7 others who had agreed to come on the Dragon’s back hike as step 1 of Claire’s birthday celebrations. Hats off (or indeed on – it was sodding hot and sunstroke beckoned for the hatless) to all who made it out. Especially Charis. Who came from Singapore.

I worried our motley crew was poorly composed - for over 2km, almost nobody talked. However, when chat began to flow, I realised it was because the a) worst of the climbing was done; b) We were now in the shade; and c) Claire had sparked everyone into life through her perpetually, cheery demeanour.

Step 2: beer and games on the beach.  We elected to play Clairey’s Game of Birthday Fun, with all-new players. The game is, essentially, rounders. With a champagne bottle bat. See above (many thanks to Chris for the rainbow-framed picture I 100% purloined from facebook).

To facilitate this, Charis and I had carried the bottles amongst our hiking gear, and then bought a bucket and spade and some ice. So we had cooling fizz nestled in a gaily-coloured, child’s bucket. Incongruous.

The game took place in a natural rock arena with a rock pool as a natural backstop. Highlights of our pair-based game included: an overexcited player (you know who you are) letting go of the bottle and almost murdering 4^th base; Abi (girlfriend) smacking ball directly at Chris (boyfriend) who over-elaborately dived as if to sportingly drop the ball, only to cling on for dear life; a drinks break consisting of beer carried in via the backstop-cum-rockpool; Claire wining for possibly the first ever year.

Step 3: Assembled yet more people in nearby Stanley to watch the Lions thump the aussies over a meal. 16 of us settled along one long table to watch, and toast Claire’s birthday, for the umpteenth time. Star of the show was 4-year-old Connor, who came armed with a rugby ball. Which, overarm, he could sling at quite a rate of knots. At crotch height. Which, when playing catch, I had not anticipated.

A great day, that ended in the pub with jaeger bombs and juke boxery (whose rowdiness has unhinged other guests – Claire’s mum is in all likelihood barred from the establishment…).

And a timely poke in the eye for my gloomy 05.7.13 blog (I had been drinking a little when I wrote it. Could you tell?) – a sincere thanks to all our lovely new friends below who made the effort to come out and celebrate with us :)

06.7.13 - Nature trail: koi carp, turtles, butterflies...and massive spiders

We chose to nominate this Saturday as the day to celebrate Claire’s birthday. I’ll write a separate blog post on the birthday celebrations, but the plan was to kick off the afternoon/evening with a hike.

The route we chose I’ve already written about – the Dragon’s Back. It makes up the final leg of the Hong Kong trail, a 50km route that meanders from one side of HK island, which I have only dome the first half of.

I learnt midweek that a couple of our party, Rachel and Charlie, were planning to take on the whole second half of the trail, joining our group for the final section. Intrigued to explore this new trail, I decided to join them. And so at 930ish or so we taxi-ed up to the halfway point of the trail, aiming to meet the others around 1pm.

We spent a thoroughly enjoyable 4 hours or so making our across the island. It was at first very challenging, climbing up two fairly sizeable peaks with many steps (which, if you were doing the whole trail, would kick in around 27km in. Ouch), then benignly downhill around a beautiful reservoir, before hitting a long, flat and fairly dull bit.

The opening peaks overlook Wong Ngai Chung Gap, which effectively is a cleft in the hills that slices the island in two. And hence a key strategic place, in military terms, for holding the island. And so, early in the walk, we passed a memorial to the brave Canadian servicemen who bitterly contested the pass against Japanese in December 1941, and were killed almost to a man, the final members herded off a cliff at bayonet point. Sobering.

But the main attraction on the way around was the incredible abundance of beasties and creepy crawlies. The picture above was taken looking into one of the aquamarine-green reservoirs, that were teeming with life – koi crap the size of my torso, turtles, big terrapins and thousands of indeterminate fish lazily swam aimlessly near the surface in the heat. Lizards big and small basking in the sun and flitting into the undergrowth as we approached. Suspicious rustlings in said undergrowth whose provenance we never discovered. Tens of species of butterfly, most huge and vividly coloured in blues, oranges and yellows. Elsewhere, we saw the result of the heat combined with heavy rain of the season – thousands of spiders, from the transparent-legged orange bodied ones, to ones the size of an outstretched hand that brooded threateningly in the middle of webs 3 metres wide. I was disappointed not to see more mountain crabs, which Claire and I spotted the other week (who live in freshwater streams over a thousand feet from sea level!)…it was like living in a nature documentary!

05.7.13 - Pitfalls of a newbie - humbled by HK

[Apologies for the picture, I’ve somehow buggered up the formatting…never mind].

Just over 4 months in, and we both keep saying how it feels like we’ve been here forever. Often people assume we have been here for much longer, so acclimatised are we. But it’s not so long a time after all, and this week has been out to humble us.

First of all, last night we hashed. I’ve got much fitter and faster; able to run up hills;  better used to the heat…and so has Claire, with much joint hill-running recently. But. Most hashes start and end in the same place. So no matter how high you go, you know you’ll get it all back on the way in. This week –as the map shows –we started right down at sea level, then went up to the highest point on HK island. Via another couple of hills. In 30 degree plus heat. In 90+ humidity.

In this hash, I was getting confident and a bit cocky – convinced I was always top 5 material. But this route and these conditions did me in. I tried to keep up with the big boys. And then, when we hit the second massive hill, I just ran out of juice. I had the ignominy of stopping halfway up a hill, stifling the urge to cry or curl up and die, and waiting for the next passing runner to beg some extra water. I crawled in to the end point 20 minutes after the leaders, looking like death. For the record though, Claire did the same height gain via a 2km shorter, less strenuous route in a great time – she’s come on leaps and bounds…and knows her limits. Unlike some.

Lesson number 1 – until you have done a proper hill run in the heat, don’t be a cocky bugger.

Our other newbie humbling this week came in the form of making friends in HK. We have built up enough of a friendship circle to invite over 20 people to Claire’s birthday this weekend. At least 8 of those we see quite regularly, and would consider as pretty close friends. Have we not waxed lyrical on this blog about how relaxed and friendly everyone is here, how easy it is to make friends?

There is of course a flipside. People arrive often, and meet people fast. But this means, people leave. All the time. So this week, on hearing that a couple in our flowering friendship group are going to up sticks and leave within 2 months, it felt like a huge blow. And we realised that this is one of the pay offs of HK. You make friends, and become close quickly in this extreme place. But almost everyone is transitory. So you will always be rebuilding and remaking that group. And that will be hard – to make close friends fast, but know they could be gone in months.

Lesson number 2 – Hong Kong is transitory. Learn how double-edged, as well as wonderfully exciting, this can be.

01.7.13 - It's like a Chinese laundry in there

More of a ‘life in HK’ post as the second part of today’s double header. This is the cheery owner of the Lavender Laundry at the end of our road, Second Street, at which we have become firm regulars.

Decadent as it may sound to people at home, and maybe even some HK readers, we have a washing machine that has not once seen use since we’ve been here…and it’s establishments like this one that lie behind that. They provide an incredible service, and there is literally one on every street corner in the more residential and un-expat areas, like ours. They take in heaps of washing, and can turn it back into clean, fresh-smelling, dry, neatly folded clothes within the day. And they do it for what is effectively spare change. A little decadent as I said – sure. But it’s so super convenient and cheap, it’s proving quite an easy little luxury to justify keeping up.

It is, however, also something to do with the nature of expatty life in HK, I think.

For a start, we spend astonishingly little time in our flat. We are always out and about doing stuff every evening, and I honestly don’t think it would be all that easy to squeeze in getting the washing done as part of our normal day! Also, I am pretty sceptical about how easy it would be to dry clothes on a clothes horse here, given how humid the air is…

But more crucially, you get through so many clothes as part of day-to-day life here compared with the UK. I go through 3 sets of clothes almost daily – work clothes, clothes to go to/from work in, sports clothes. And for me as a tragically sweat-prone chap, all of these sets of clothes cannot be reworn, due to the effects of the never-ending heat and humidity. I have even gone through up to 5 sets on really hot weekend days when we’ve been busy, having to change every time we’ve gone home. As such, our laundry pile is always massive. If we did not use the laundry, we’d be doing a whole machine’s worth and more daily. Which seems silly. Instead, the lovely Lavender Laundry people don’t bat an eyelid at taking 25 pounds of washing in a couple of bin liners off my hands, and returning it pristine within hours…

30.6.13 - As hot as a supervolcano

It’s a public holiday today – the snappily entitled ‘Establishment Day’ for when HK was handed back to China – meaning we have a lazy day to recover from a pretty epic junk trip yesterday.

It was a cracking trip, great bunch of people (hats off to Rach Morgan, whose birthday junk it was) and an absolute scorcher. Despite wearing loads of sun cream, we ended up pretty sunburnt…

However, I won’t go on about the trip, as I’m aware it’s a bit like my running-related posts – once I’ve described one trip, I’ve described them all: 6 hours on the boat, stop near a beautiful beach, everyone swam to it and played silly games, much diving in, return to town in a bus, out in Wan Chai to dance like idiots for about 3 hours solid. Fantastic fun, not much new to report.

So instead, take a look at the Giants Causeway-esque rocks above. It was so clear and we sailed such a long way out from Sai Kung in the northeast of HK that we had plenty of chance to scrutinise the rocky islands around the bay. Among the many nice new people we met yesterday was a chap called Pierre, who filled us in on why the bay looks the way it does with a spot of geographical history.

He was already winning in the ‘Interesting person’ stakes on the boat. When you do the standard introductions in HK, the response to ‘What do you do?’ 90% of the time is: bank; law firm. Pierre’s response was toy maker. Toy maker! His current project is zombie pens, being manufactured by 3D printer in China… 

But this fact established, what was most interesting was what he told me next - he spoke enthusiastically and at length about why the rocks and the bay look as they do. We were sailing over an ancient Supervlocano crater, it turns out. It was apparently 20 by 30 miles in size, and all the islands arrayed in a broadly circular shape around where the crater was are made up of ancient volcanic ask. Hence why you get fascinating rock formations like this one; and lots of tiny, picturesque islands to sail around and swim to.

I can’t think of a way to conclude this or make a joke/volcano-based pun…just thought that was pretty interesting. So you can just have that tidbit of info, entirely free.

You’re welcome.