Along the edge of High Island Reservoir to hike's end (Photo-essay)

Some hours after starting our hike at Sai Wan Pavilion and then heading over Sai Wan Shan down to Long Ke, where my three friends and I took a short break on the beach before resuming our trek, we finally hit a stretch of more or less level and paved trail.  Still, we couldn't completely relax yet as this portion of the trail -- which officially consists of Section 1 of the Maclehose Trail -- is 10.6 kilometers in length.

As it so happens, we ended up walking in near darkness for the final couple of kilometers or so.  Fortunately, we did have flashlights with us -- or in my case, a mobile phone with a flashlight function!  And yes, before the sun completely set, we were treated to some stunning golden hour scenes along the way... ;b     

One of the more healthy looking feral cows 

found in various parts of Hong Kong photographed 
walking along the East Dam of High Island Reservoir

 Down at sea level, there's a cave near the
East Dam that I could see some people 
getting tempted to go into and explore

To the west of the East Dam lies Po Pin Chau, 
which was separated from the land nearby
by natural forces, including long term erosion

Monument located near the East Dam erected 
in memory of those who lost their lives working on 
the High Island Reservoir project

 A High Island Reservoir view filled
with various shades of blue

 Looking ahead to some of the sections of trail 
we still had to trek along before getting to hike's end

  Golden hour view from the West Dam
of High Island Reservoir

Although it was getting dark, I still couldn't resist
stopping to taking photos at this late stage of the hike ;b

Beautiful skies should not be uncommon sights in Hong Kong

Blue skies over northwest Hong Kong 

yesterday afternoon

Cloudy but still pretty sky over northeast Hong Kong

this afternoon

In recent weeks, the polluted air of Beijing has made headline news all over the world.  Close to a thousand kilometers south of China's capital city, the air quality of Hong Kong also frequently has been quite a bit less than optimal.  So many Hong Kongers, not just city folk over in Mainland China, were looking forward to the Chinese New Year holidays when many generators of much air pollution, including the many factories helping power the Chinese economy, would shut down -- or at least lower their output -- for a few days.  

Sadly though, I don't believe there's been a single fully clear sky day this past week in Hong Kong -- with even the first day of Chinese New Year itself having not been one of great visibility.  And both yesterday and today started off with hazy gray skies that really weren't very attractive at all. 

However, both late yesterday afternoon and also around the same time today, the sky and air looked to have cleared quite a bit compared to earlier in the day.  In particular, on my visit to Mai Po Nature Reserve yesterday (of which I definitely will be separately posting about soon), I was treated to the unfortunately no longer common sight of beautiful blue skies over (at least some part of) Hong Kong.   

More than by the way, both yesterday and today, the sky looked most glorious to me when I was in parts of the Big Lychee that were rural rather than urban; with the bluest sky having been observed in a part of Hong Kong within walking distance of the Frontier Closed Area lying on the Hong Kong side of the border between Hong Kong and Mainland China.  

I'm sure that it's obvious to pretty much everyone that the urban areas of "Asia's World City" generate more air pollution than its rural ones.  And while Hong Kongers used to blame the Mainland Chinese factories across the border for Hong Kong's polluted air not so long ago, I think it's also now become pretty apparent to most people that Hong Kong also generates its fair share of pollution and consequently needs to do its share to ensure the return of more days of beautiful skies and cleaner air in this part of the world.

Miniscule and Food Photos (This week's Photo Hunt themes)

By itself, this week's theme for Sandi's Photo Hunt posed quite a bit of a challenge for me.  This is because, the way I see it, truly miniscule objects are really hard to see, let alone photograph!  So I contemplated concentrating instead solely on Gattina's chosen Photo Hunt theme this week -- except while surveying my hardly miniscule collection of food photos, I got to realizing that I had indeed found some snaps that could fit both of this week's Photo Hunt themes!

First, I decided on a photo of a small plate of tiny fried fish that some restaurants here put on the table for you to munch (like peanuts) as you contemplate what you want to order for your dim sum lunch that day. Then, if that's not miniscule enough, I went for something even smaller. 

For those of you looking at the middle photo above and thinking "no way is that large plate of fried rice miniscule!", I call your attention to the tiny bright orange bits on it that, to me, are actually the best part of the dish.  Known as tobiko in Japanese, flying fish roe were my favorite sushi ingredient as a kid. 

Over the years, I've developed an appreciation for various kinds of roe utilized by Chinese and Japanese cooks and chefs. And it's here in Hong Kong that I've discovered a traditional Cantonese dish that features an unlikely combination of pomelo skin (which I previously hadn't realized is edible), broccoli (whose Cantonese name of sai lan fah translates into Western orchid flower!) and shrimp roe that's so miniscule that they appear like mere specks in my photo of this particular dish! ;b

Chinese New Year movie advertising

Hotel Deluxe and I Love Hong Kong 2013 red packets

Hotel Deluxe star Ronald Cheng's image

on a promotional door hanger 

 A passerby checks out the large Journey to the West:

Conquering the Demons poster at a bus stop

Kong Hei Fat Choi once more on the fifth day of Chinese New Year!  And while this Thursday brings a few new releases into Hong Kong cinemas (a few of which are romance themed as befits today also happening to be Valentine's Day), I'm glad to report that the three local Chinese New Year movie offerings still are playing on many screens -- and that advertising for them continues to be on prominent display in various parts of the Big Lychee.

The early reports had Stephen Chow's Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons selling more tickets than the Raymond Wong Pak Ming produced, Vincent Kuk helmed Hotel Deluxe and Eric Tsang produced, Chung Shu Kai-helmed I Love Hong Kong 2013.  (The same reports also, very disappointingly to my mind, had the mediocre A Good Day to Die Hard besting them all at the Hong Kong box office -- and I can but hope that the Hong Kong movies will find a larger audience in the films' second and later weeks of release.)

I have to confess to the trailer for Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons having put me off wanting to watch it though, so it's the one Chinese New Year movie that I've yet to view.  At the same time, a friend has told me that it's actually pretty good... if you don't think of it as a conventional Chinese New Year movie since it's got much more violent action than comedy.  And, also, that Hsu Chi -- an actress who I like far less than many others -- actually doesn't figure as prominently in the film as she does in the Hong Kong posters for the movie.  So maybe I'll catch it some time before its theatrical run ends.

In contrast, the trailer I saw for Hotel Deluxe got me eager to check it out.  And I also appreciate its promotional giveaways -- including decorative red packets, mini packets of tissue paper and novelty door hangers!  All in all, I think that the folks behind this very Hong Kong comedy which I thoroughly enjoyed viewing have worked the hardest at promoting their film -- and come up with creative ways to advertise the movie along with the more conventional posters at bus stops and in the MTR, and advertising on buses and trams. To wit, I was amused to find images of Sandra Ng in her Hotel Deluxe role plastered in the toilets of the President Theatre when I went to view I Love Hong Kong 2013 earlier this week!

I'm not sure if it was planned but I Love Hong Kong 2013's advertising looked to have appeared the latest of this year's three Chinese New Year movies.  And unlike with Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons and Hotel Deluxe, I didn't see any trailer(s) for the TVB film production whose story contains elements plucked from American Christmas favorite, It's a Wonderful Life. Still, in time for Chinese New Year, I found myself in possession not only of I Love Hong Kong 2013 themed red packets but also door decorations -- both of which I have indeed put to use this New Year of the Snake! :)     

From Long Ke to High Island Reservoir (Photo-essay)

Before moving on to the photos taken on the part of the hike following that which took three friends and I from Sai Wan Pavilion towards Long Ke one beautiful November day, here's recounting our having come across -- while descending from Sai Wan -- a party of people on a hiking tour that's part of the Hong Kong Tourism Board's annual Great Outdoors promotion and being shocked to find that a fair few of the participants looked way more exhausted than comfortable, with at least one of them looking like she was clinging to a tree in a bid to prevent herself from collapsing. 

One problem is that many of these people were clad much more warmly than should have been the case on the warm-for-November day.  (As a comparison, while some of them had thick corduroy trousers on, three of my party were wearing cotton shorts and the one who wasn't was wearing thin cotton trousers.)

Since I didn't read any news reports of hikers needing to be rescued that day, I will surmise that those tourists ended up being okay after all.  Still, for people reading this, here's making clear that the trek from Sai Wan Pavilion to Pak Tam Chung -- or the other way around, like those tourists went -- really isn't all that easy!  Put another way: it's one which I really did get a sense of achievement upon completing it!

 As we approached Long Ke, we came across a sign 

that I strongly suspect was actually meant to read "beach" :D

The Maclehose Trail closely skirts the beautiful beach at Long Ke 

that I could easily have spent an afternoon hanging out at

I find it amusing the lengths some people will go

to make sure they have cool graduation photos :)

A photo that gives a better idea of how few people

were actually on the beach at Long Ke that afternoon! :)

It was hard to tear myself away from Long Ke

and the spendid views of it one gets along the trail

 I found the rocky edges of Long Ke Wan

to be interesting to look at too

The columnar geology of High Island Reservoir 

also yields eye-catching sights

The East Dam of High Island Reservoir and nearby

natural scenery makes for a glorious view

To be continued... because I really do reckon I took a whole bunch of pretty good photos on this 14 kilometer hike through a truly beautiful part of Hong Kong! :)

Chinese New Year Flowers on Sunset Peak :)

Pretty flowers with delicate dew (mist?) drops

hanging from some of them

This clump of Chinese New Year flowers added welcome color 

to the generally dark green, beige and grey mountain landscape

Yesterday, my hiking buddy and I commemorated its being the first day of Chinese New Year by trekking up -- and then down -- Sunset Peak.  Ideally, I'd like for there to have been greater visibility on one of the most challenging hikes I've been on to date -- especially when we were at the misty top of Hong Kong's third highest mountain. At the very least, it'd have been nice for the mist to dramatically clear for a bit like when we were atop Cloudy Hill around this time last year.

But I'll content myself with having spotted some pretty -- as well as pretty rugged, considering where they grow -- flowers along the way.  For the most part, the ones that attracted my attention were small and purple in nature.  But near the top of Sunset Peak, I came across a clump of one of my favorite flowers to spot out in the wilds of Hong Kong. 

Its Latin name of Enkianthus quinqueflorus is quite the mouthful and its Chinese name (which translates into English as "hanging bell(s)"), while descriptive, doesn't quite do this dainty, elegant looking flower aesthetic justice, I feel.  Instead, I prefer this pink flower's English name of Chinese New Year Flower -- not least because the first time I spotted it was on the 12th day of Chinese New Year 2008 and it's a sight I find myself looking forward to seeing while hiking around this festive time of the year.

Almost wiped out by deforestation at one point in Hong Kong's history, the Chinese New Year Flower now grows in various parts of the Hong Kong countryside.  (I've caught sight of it on Hong Kong Island, more than one country park in the New Territories and now also on Lantau Island). 

I've read in one of my Hong Kong flower books that the Chinese New Year Flower is one source of nectar for hummingbirds.  Maybe one Chinese New Year day in the future, I'll spot hummingbirds as well as this flower. Should that ever happen, I'd truly feel blessed indeed by Mother Nature. :)

Goodbye Dragon, Enter the Snake

Why is this woman happily posing with a snake hat

on her head?

Short answer: because it's now the Year of the Snake

according to the Chinese lunar calendar

Most of the time though, people in Hong Kong are 

more likely to be eating snake or wearing snake skin 

belts, etc. than wearing cute snake themed items!

 

Kung Hei Fat Choi!  Congratulations and may you be prosperous -- for it's time once again to celebrate the start of a new Chinese year!

Because this year is the year of the snake, snakes prominently feature on a number of Chinese New Year ornaments and decorations.  Some people just cannot subscribe to the idea of snakes being cute or looking good though.  So alternative festive symbols and/or characters can be seen around town -- including pandas, and a boy-girl pair dressed up in traditional Chinese garb.

For my part, I find the boy-girl pair (too) old school and dislike the pandas because they look to me like a part of the "Mainlandisation" of Hong Kong.  But it's also true enough that I do find it hard to look upon  snakes as cute, benign and/or auspicious creatures -- though a number of stalls at this year's Chinese New Year Flower Market (which, despite its name, is about more than just flowers) did try manfully to get me and many others thinking otherwise.

 

At the same time, I do realize that snakes generally have an undeservedly bad reputation.  After all, as I was reminded when I passed by a snake shop in Sham Shui Po this past Friday, it's humans that are more likely to eat snakes than for snakes to eat humans!  In addition, humans not only eat snakes but also do such as skin them and make belts, shoes and other items out of them -- and proceed to sell all of this within the same locale, as is the case at the shop in that part of Hong Kong which still has some very traditional pockets!

 

Something else I've gotten to realize in the past year or so is that snakes can actually be good looking -- I think particularly here of the sea snakes I saw through the glass bottom of a boat I was on in Okinawa early last year  and also the red-necked keelback that two friends and I saw up close while hiking in Tai Lam Country Park this past January.

 

In any event, I hope this new snake year will be a good one for us all -- this not least since the most recent year of the dragon is now but a memory! :)