Missing/Missed (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

Yesterday (Friday the 13th, more than incidentally!) and for much of this morning, I was wondering whether I'd be able to take part in this week's Photo Hunt because Blogger went wonky (doing such as not allowing new posts, making me think I had accidentally deleted a recent blog entry and somehow having my first name appear in place of my initials in the "posted by" spaces of my blog!). And this even more so after finding that my post on the Fringe Club as Hong Kong landmark and movie location had been restored as well as an official Blogger is Back announcement but (still) not (yet) the online home of Photo Hunt founder, tnchick.

However a spot of Googling yielded the information that tnchick's online base can now be found here (and, actually, not so old posts still here too). So eureka re not having to miss this week's -- ironically, enough -- missing/missed-themed Photo Hunt!

In the celebratory spirit, here's posting up four photos taken at a parade of "unicorns", "lions", "dragons" and more to commemorate the Birthday of Taoist god, Tam Kung, one of three festive events that are celebrated on the same day each year (on the Chinese lunar calendar's eight day of the fourth moon) here in Hong Kong. And for the record, yes, this day is a public holiday in the Big Lychee.

Unfortunately for me, however, I'm one of those people who has to work on public holidays (unless they fall on weekends -- since I am at least fortunate enough to now be in a job where I have a five day week). So this year, as with last year, I missed being there for the the Birthday of Tam Kung celebrations which I had so enjoyed attending in 2008 and 2009 (when the festivities had taken place on a weekend).

More than incidentally, the Birthday of Tam Kung celebrations (which center in Shau Kei Wan) tend to be overshadowed by the Cheung Chau Bun Festival held to thank fellow Taoist god Pak Tai on the same day in the year. So much so that there are many Hong Kong residents, never mind tourists, who aren't all that familiar with the annual festivities at Shau Kei Wan.

I, on the other hand, have yet to attend to go to Cheung Chau for the bun festival -- even while I also have been to that charming island a few times (including on the Sunday before festival day last year). One of the recent I've been not completely unhappy to have missed attending that festival thus far is because friends who have attended have complained about the super crowded conditions at the bun fest. At the same time though, I do feel that I have to go one year... otherwise, I'll have forever missed some important part of the overall Hong Kong experience that I so love for its variety, general color and helping instill a sense in me of being truly alive. :)

A Hong Kong landmark and movie location

Recognize this brick and stucco striped building
from its appearance in more than one Hong Kong movie?

This stairway within that building has featured in at least
two movies I rate highly (i.e., He's a Woman, She's a Man
and, more recently, Beast Stalker)

This blog entry was inspired by two recent events. One of these was the decision by Hong Kong (& Macau) Stuff's Phil (AKA Oriental Sweetlips) to start a blog dedicated to recording Hong Kong (and Macau) film locations while the other was a conversation with a friend about our favorite Peter Chan Ho Sun films that segued into how we both had recognized with a start about entering certain sections of the Fringe Club that it had had served as the location of many a scene in He's a Woman, She's a Man -- my favorite film of the filmmaker who happens to be one of my favorite interviewees of all time (not least because after I stopped my tape recorder and officially ended our interview, we proceeded to talk amovies for another one and a half hours just for fun!).

For those who are unfamiliar with the establishment: the Fringe Club occupies part of the Grade II heritage-listed Old Dairy Farm Depot (with the other part of the building being home to the expat journalist hangout that is the Foreign Correspondents' Club). And although it has the word "club" in its name, one does not have to be a member to check out the visual and performance arts shows that take place there -- or do such as go get a drink and chill at its rooftop bar (where He's a Woman, She's a Man Wing fell asleep while waiting to go for the fateful audition during which she met Sam and Rose, the man and woman she had thought of as the perfect couple).

One floor below lies the Rehearsal Room, a space that's not open to the public but which I got to enter a couple of times to do such as interview Peter Jordan, the director of Ho Chi Minh in Hong Kong, a 2008 theatrical work produced by the Fringe Club. And I have to say that I did manage to keep my cool even while I realized with a start midway through my interview with the director who I first interviewed about the Chung Ying Theatre's production of Cyrano de Bergerac that I was in the room where the funny audition scenes of He's A Woman, She's a Man had been filmed!

To get to both the Rehearsal Room and the Rooftop Garden, one has to walk up a series of stairs that includes that in the second photo at the top of this blog entry -- the same one where Leslie Cheung walked up in a scene from He's a Woman, She's a Man and, close to a decade later, Nicholas Tse chased after Nick Cheung after the latter's character had abducted Zhang Yingchu's character's daughter.

And down on the ground floor of the Fringe Club can be found yet another He's a Woman, She's a Man location. More specifically, the Fringe Gallery -- where I've spent evenings doing such as listening to jazz bands play -- was where Sam (Leslie Cheung's character) enjoyed jamming and performing songs including a lively version of Twist and Shout! with his band.

Should you wonder: yes, I do often think of He's a Woman, She's a Man when I'm inside those parts of the Fringe Club I've mentioned above even while it's also true that I've also come to have many good non-movie memories of those spaces over the years. And it's places like these that really do give me the sense that I'm in a giant movie set when wandering around Hong Kong -- and maybe sometimes in a movie too! ;b

Central and northern Lamma Island sights (Photo-essay)

Continuing from two Mondays ago with my account via photo-essay of an easy and/but enjoyable hike I went on Lamma Island with my mother one afternoon close to a year ago now; with today's entry focusing on the central to northern Lamma Island section of our interesting sights-filled afternoon excursion...

Surely it isn't just me who thinks this rock
looks like a clothed ape trying to hard
to hide itself amidst the green foliage? ;O

Can anyone ID the alien-looking bug in this photo? :O

Looking out and back southwards to
Mount Stenhouse in the distance

Flower patch in the foreground, and
the Lamma Island Power Plant in the distance

A small but rocky looking beach that,
even if inviting looking, would be hard
to get to -- from land that is!

A street in the middle of Yung Shue Wan,
the village that is Lamma's main population center

Physical evidence that Lamma remains
home to a hippy element to this day

Not bye, bye, really, but, instead, au revoir! :b

Bugs that visually enthrall more than... bug! ;)

An insect known as a skipper
whose shape looks closer to a fighter plane's
than any other one I've seen before!

One of the most prettiest butterflies I have ever seen
(especially in flight) -- and that I saw for the only the first time
ever this afternoon (and wish I had a better photo of!)

Another Sunday, another hike. This afternoon -- one whose weather was predicted to be fine but hot (with a maximum temperature of 31 degrees Celsius) -- saw my regular hiking companion and I going along the Shek Pik Country Trail that had been announced as having been permanently closed a couple of years ago due to landslide damage caused by a typhoon but ended up being re-opened last month.

One reason for this choice of trail to hike on today was because the route (from Ngong Ping down to the side of Shek Pik Reservoir) promised to offer views of the third largest reservoir in Hong Kong and other parts of Lantau from different angles then I had hitherto seen them. Another was that the path has been described as passing through wooded areas that I imagined would have lots of trees offering up welcome shady covering.

As it turned out though, the sky was actually pretty overcast for much of our outing -- so we didn't need that much tree cover and the views weren't as photogenic as we would have liked. Still, it wasn't as though that wasn't much that was interesting to look at over the course of our hike; only, instead of panoramic vistas, my regular hiking companion and I found our attention frequently turning towards all manner of critters that we saw flying about in the air, crawling, hopping or moving about in other ways near and at ground level, at rest on leaves and such, etc., etc.!

Among the creatures we spotted along the way were praying mantises, spiders, grasshoppers, cicadas, moths and something that scurried across the path so quickly that I couldn't identify it... though I will vouchsafe that I had initially thought it was a large rat, only it had a much longer tail than I'd expect a rat to have! But due to their sheer beauty, some of the more colorful as well as larger of the around 240 species of butterflies that are to be found in Hong Kong were the absolute highlights of our insect spotting-filled outing.

One of the more surprising things about hiking in Hong Kong is how diverse can be the wildlife on view. As an example, I observed to my regular hiking companion at one point in the afternoon that we had caught sight today of at least five types of butterflies for the first time ever -- and this despite my coming close now to completing hike number 100 in Hong Kong and her having lived and hiked in Hong Kong for even longer than me.

To sum it all up: when hiking in Hong Kong, it frequently can be visually rewarding to not only gaze out at the distant scenery but, also, check out what interesting sights may be closer at hand. At the same time, it also is highly recommended that one does pay attention and look down to see where one is walking on -- especially on the trickier bits of paths that sometimes skirt pretty close to mountain edges, like was the case for stretches of the Shek Pik Country Trail that, overall, we decided may be easy in terms of exertion but nonetheless is somewhat more demanding of a hiker's care and attention than some might think!

Digital (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

When I saw this Photo Hunt theme on the tnchick's list a few weeks back, my reaction was along the lines of "Oh, an easy one". After all, every single snap in the photo archive on my computer was taken on a digital camera. However, when I decided to restrict myself to shots showing digital items, I discovered that I actually didn't have that great a choice of photos!

To be sure, I could have made things easier for myself by proceeding to take fresh shots of such as some of my digital video discs (DVDs) or digital audio compact discs (CDs). But that just seemed too obvious a thing to do. So on I proceeded with my hunt through my photo archive -- and finally came up with a pair of photos that fit this week's theme... though it's true enough that I had to go back some three years for one of them!!

For the record: that photo -- showing a digital countdown clock for the 2008 Beijing Olympics on prominent display in Hong Kong's Chek Lap Kok Airport -- dates back to a time when China, including Hong Kong, was in the throes of Olympics fever. (Wow, was it that long ago now? How time really can fly...)

And while the photo below it in this post is taken in more mundane surroundings (i.e., the inside of a green minibus), it actually is the more digital item-filled -- with two digital displays rather than just one. More specifically, the larger of the two displays in it shows the speed of the vehicle -- and yes, I happened to take a photo when the minibus was travelling at only 9 kilometers per hour! -- while the smaller one indicates the fare price (HK$7.40) to be paid to the driver -- either electronically using an Octopus card or in cash form.

On the subject of minibuses: they are a form of public transportation that somehow seem more local than the bigger double-decker and other buses and the MTR. So for me, it was a sign that I had truly "arrived" in the Big Lychee when I took to regularly riding them. Also, the Hong Kong film fanatic part of me often does think of Lost in Time, Derek Yee's touching romantic drama whose main characters are minibus drivers... so yes, riding in a minibus can often make me feel like I'm in a Hong Kong movie even after all these years (four plus now) that I've been a resident in this part of the world. :)

Visa-free vs -required travel musings

Himeji Castle -- located in a country (Japan)

which I need a visa to enter

View of Heidelberg -- a picturesque town in country (Germany)
which I can enter without applying in advance for a travel visa

"Where in the world do you want to holiday next?" This is a question I've been asked more than once in recent weeks -- partly because the past couple of weekends have been long weekends for many in the Big Lychee -- courtesy of Hong Kong's public holidays this year including Good Friday (April 22nd this year), the following Saturday, Easter Sunday (April 24th), and the Monday after Easter, May Day (May 1st) and the day after May Day (May 2nd) -- during which many a person I known has flown off for a short vacation.

My reply has honestly been: "I don't know yet". But I'll also admit that I've been considering going on a Scandinavian cruise for the first time ever this year or visiting Venice (not least because of the beautiful photos of the place that can be found in blogs such as Churches in Venice and Trekcapri's) or Vietnam... or returning for another visit to Japan -- only with the latter there remains the bureaucratic hurdle of applying for a visa; something which I won't have to do should I wish to travel to the other destinations I've been thinking of doing.

If the information on Wikipedia is to be believed, a Malaysian passport is ranked pretty high (i.e., number 13 in the world) in terms of travel freedom and visa-free access. And it's true enough that there have been times and places in the world where I've been happy to have had a Malaysian passport -- including when living and travelling in Africa, where I found that Malaysia being a part of the British Commonwealth made it so that I did not need a visa to visit Tanzania (except that I also successfully applied to be a resident of Tanzania proper and also Zanzibar in order to work and live there for two years), Kenya, Zimbabwe and Zambia (on account of those African countries being fellow members of the British Commonwealth).

Incidentally, I have often recounted the -- in retrospect -- funny experience of how it was that I literally walked across the Zimbabwean-Zambian border by way of the bridge that crosses the Zambezi River close to Victoria Falls because I wanted to see the amazing natural phenomenon from both countries -- and, at the border, when asked by the Zambian immigration official how long I intended to stay in his country, miffed him somewhat by honestly telling him that I just wanted to stay long enough to view Victoria Falls from the Zambian as well as Zimbabwean sides! (Fortunately, the guy wasn't upset enough to deny me entry into his country -- and I spent only a few hours in Zambia before walking back to Zimbabwe later that same day!!)

In contrast, I would not be able to walk across the border between Hong Kong and Mainland China without first acquiring a China visa -- something which I actually don't possess at the current time -- and, in fact, only have applied for once... years ago when I went on holiday to Beijing with my mother! (And for the record: for all of my having now lived in Hong Kong for more than four years, I still have paid a single visit to neighboring Shenzhen...)

On another ironic note: I also require a visa to visit the U.S.A., a country where I lived, studied and worked for close to one and half decades of my life. (Again for the record: I never did apply for a green card, never mind citizenship -- not least because, as I told many a (then) disbelieving American friend, I actually didn't think I would want to spend the rest of my life in that country and would want to leave it one day...)

All this I actually don't mind too much. On the other hand, it's true enough that I wish that Malaysians didn't require a visa to visit Japan. And if that were the case, I definitely would travel to the Land of the Rising Sun more often -- to sample its food and other attractions that I really wish I could conveniently avail myself of... though even with the visa requirements, I do plan to pay visits to such places as Nikko, Kamakura and Shikoku some day soon (as well as already have had the pleasure of visiting such destinations as Mount Aso, Dazaifu and Himeji along with the cities of Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Sapporo, etc., etc.!)

An easy but still scenic Lamma Island hike (Photo-essay)

Close to a year ago, my mother came over to Hong Kong for her first post triple bypass-surgery visit -- and I discovered that she actually was able to complete the Lamma Family Walk. Granted that the easy hike we went on that took us from Sok Kwu Wan to Yung Shue Wan didn't see us going to the top of such as the 353 meter high Mount Stenhouse which is the highest peak on Lamma Island but it nonetheless yielded some nice scenic views.

Also for the record, some years ago, I went on this same hike with Pictures, Thoughts and Comments's sbk and sometime blog visitor "eliza bennet" -- and I reckon that it's a good measure of my fitter condition these days that it felt much easier for me to complete this second time around. So, despite Hong Kong's air pollution record and such, I actually do reckon that I'm in better health post moving to the Big Lychee than in the few years leading up to my move (when I was living in Malaysia and traveling about by car than foot)!

View of Sok Kwu Wan and beyond from its pier

The front of Sok Kwu Wan's modest sized Tin Hau temple

The opening of the Kamikaze Cave from where
the Japanese planned to launch suicide boats
during the Second World War

Fresh vegetables for sale along the way

Sok Kwu Wan left in the distance
not even half way into the hike

Looking northwards towards a pavilion in the foreground
which partly obscures the cement works on Lamma

A more pristine view from near another pavilion
further along the hike

They may pale when compared to those at Po Toi
but I still think these rock formations on Lamma are
quite interesting to look at and fun to photograph!

To be continued... :)