Great views from The Peak and High West on a super hot but also super high visibility day :)

Clear view from Victoria Peak this afternoon of 

Victoria Harbour and the land on either side of it

 View from High West of the northwestern section of 

Hong Kong Island, all of Lamma Island

and the beautiful blue water in the vicinity

 View from High West that includes the top of Victoria Peak 

along with lower portions of Hong Kong Island and 

the Kowloon Peninsula on the other side of the harbour

As the Dinah Washington song that I was introduced to by Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express goes, "What a difference a day makes". Yesterday, I was feeling so sickly that I decided to spend most of it resting in my apartment.  Today, I felt better as well as felt a need to go out.  So, despite it being a super hot (i.e., around 33 degrees Celsius) day, I decided to take advantage of it being one of those super rare super clear visibility Hong Kong days by going up to The Peak for a stroll around its northern section (the one that looks out to -- and offers up great views of -- Victoria Harbour) with a friend.

While walking along The Peak's Lugard Road and seeing beautiful views that were considerably clearer than I had ever seen them before, I told my friend that it really would be a shame if we didn't truly take advantage of the great visibility we were being afforded and go up to the top of High West.  

It took a bit of cajoling to get her to agree to climb the hundreds of steps up to the 494 meter high hill but I think I can safely surmise that once she saw the amazing panoramic views to be had when we were up there, she was in agreement that our exertion was well worth it!  For my part, even while I've been up to the top of High West several times before, I have to say that I get bowled over by the views from there every time.  And today really was the day that I've been able to see furthest from there -- so much so that not only could I clearly see Lantau (and make out Lantau and Sunset Peaks on it) but also Shek Kwu Chau and the Soko Islands. 

More than incidentally, I find it puzzling that there are no signs pointing people to the trail that goes up to High West from the park at the western end of the popular Peak circuit.  Once you know about its existence though, it's easy enough to find.  Just go to the southwestern end of the park and then down a short flight of steps.  Follow the tree-lined path that it leads to for a few minutes.  It'll lead you to a clearing. Walk across it and you'll find the beginning of a long flight of steps that will lead you up to High West.  (And yes, it's recommended that you go back down the same way that you go up -- as the other trails on High West are on the seriously rugged side!)

Quaggy and Something red (This week's Photo Hunt themes)

I don't know whether it's the case with other participants in Sandi's Photo Hunt (or, for that matter, Gattina's) but I have to say that this week's theme word of quaggy was one whose definition I had to look up in a dictionary.  But once I realized that at least one of its synonyms was marshy, I was set!

This is because Hong Kong -- yes, Asia's World City! -- is home to the Mai Po Marshes, an approximately 393 hectare nature reserve that's part of the roughly 1,500 hectare Inner Deep Bay area in the northwest New Territories officially designated as a RAMSAR site.  And as it just so happens, I paid a visit to the Mai Po Nature Reserve earlier this year, during which I took a number of cool snaps!

The main attraction that day for the two friends I went to Mai Po with and myself were the birds.  And although it may not look it in the first photo (which was taken from one of the bird hides that we spent time in that day), we actually did end up seeing a pretty good number of avian creatures -- including the grey heron walking about in a quaggy area of the nature reserve -in this blog entry's middle photo.

On the other hand, I have to say that the day of our Mai Po excursion was a fairly gray one overall (though it also did yield glimpses of beautiful blue sky).  So much so that when I couldn't find any reds in the photos I took that afternoon!  So for Gattina's part of the meme, I went instead to the collection of photos I have from the nearby Hong Kong Wetland Park that includes a 60 hectare wetland reserve -- and also exhibits on wetland ecology that allow people to see up close what kind of plants and living things are to be found under water in the quaggy marshlands that, yep, turn out to include something(s) red rather than the more expected green and brown! :b

A bargain dinner at No Reservations-featured Long Kee Noodle Shop

Long Kee Noodle Shop -- so old school that

its Chinese characters are read from right to left!

 

 The braised pig knuckles and egg noodles in soup I ordered 

was super tasty -- a true foodie delight! :)

Thank you once more Anthony Bourdain!  Back in 2007, his No Reservations TV show had a Hong Kong episode that gave a really wonderful view of the Big Lychee's food scene.  

 

In the years since, I've gone and eaten at a number of eateries featured in that episode, including Tung Po (the seafood place in the cooked food market), Yat Lok (the roast goose place), Ping Kee (the bamboo noodles place), Lin Heung Tea House (the raucous dim sum place) and Bo Innovation (Alvin the Demon Chef's place).  (One other eatery -- Four Seasons (the claypot rice place) -- my mother and I had discovered on our own years before!)

 

And last month, I finally went to the eatery run by four muscular brothers where Anthony Bourdain had -- and enjoyed -- a bowl of beef brisket noodles in soup.  Rather than have the same thing he had though, I opted instead to have a bowl of braised pig knuckles and egg noodles in soup, and shared a plate of tung choi (morning glory) drizzled with fermented tofu sauce with my dinner companion.

The vegetable was pretty tasty but it was just a side dish.  The main event was definitely the bowl of braised pig knuckles and egg noodles in soup -- and boy, was it all really delicious.  More specifically, the braised pig knuckles were melt in your mouth good, the egg noodles were nicely textured as well as tasted really right, and the soup that I normally look upon as just a liquid to keep things from getting dry was so wonderful that I actually ended up drinking all of what I was given in that bowl!

 

As a bonus, this eatery was actually not all that crowded and busy -- so my dinner companion and I felt free to linger longer than we normally would in this kind of place, and especially one located in Mongkok to boot!  So much so that my friend felt free to order a second portion of noodles to leisurely enjoy... And for the record, all that plus a can of soda and a packet of chrysanthemum tea added up to a less than HK$100 (~US$12.88) bill!! :b

Descending down along the southern side of Cloudy Hill (Photo-essay)

"To be continued! :)" That's what I promised at the end of my photo-essay showing my ascent up Cloudy Hill nine blog entries ago.  But I somehow forgot that I hadn't done so and moved on last week to putting up a photo-essay of the Hong Kong Island hike I went on the week after going up Cloudy Hill instead!

But a promise is a promise.  And I do have some more photos from a hike that I felt a sense of achievement completing to share -- what with Cloudy Hill being a respectable 440 meters high (and thus Hong Kong's 69th highest peak).  So here's finally proceeding to do just that...

A sign confirming that Cloudy Hill does have steep cliffs

-- and that one should take care when descending down it

 The railings along some sections of this trail weren't helpful

that wintry afternoon because they were too cold to touch! :O

As shown in the above photo, however, it's actually

not a straight descent down but a bit of up

in order to get down down along its southern side

Cloudy Hill is the rare Hong Kong hill with more than one 

trigonometrical station -- with one at its 440-meter-high 

peak and another at the 288-meter-high mark

Signs pointing to different locations but not to the large 

urban space in the background of the photo that is Tai Po

Not all of this particular trail is stepped or paved...

Still, it had some creature comforts along it -- such as

this nice looking rest area complete with benches and a pavilion :)

Visibility towards the end of the hike was way better

than up at the top of Cloudy Hill -- just our luck, eh?

Or just Cloudy Hill living up to its name! ;b

Art Basel - Hong Kong musings

The booth at Art Basel - Hong Kong of Grotto Fine Art, 

one of the Hong Kong-based galleries that 

took part in the international art fair this year

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama's brightly colored 

creations remain major crowd favorites 

among Hong Kong art lovers 

I also am a fan of British-born Chinese artist

Gordon Cheung's floral art

 

 Mainland painter Li Tianbing's more somber 

Scene d'Opera was one more work that caught my eye

Years ago when I was undergraduate, I had the good fortune to spend a summer interning at the Museum of Mankind (the Ethnography Department of the British Museum that used to be house separately in premises in Burlington Gardens prior to moving back to the main British Museum in Bloomsbury).  Among the things I learnt during that instructive stint was that museums and art galleries loved rainy days -- because people were (are) more likely to visit them then than on days when it's fine and dry outside!

 

So when I woke up to more dark skies and rain yesterday morning, I got to thinking that it'd be a veritable zoo at Art Basel -- Hong Kong, the mega annual art event that previously was known as Art HK (and which I attended last year as well as in 2011, 2010 and 2009).  Only, as the blogger behind The Fragrant Harbour -- with whom I attended this year's art fair -- wrote in her Art Basel report, the turn out actually appeared to be on the relatively low side.  

 

And with "just" 170 galleries represented this year (compared to 266 last year), this year's premier Hong Kong international art fair really was smaller than last year's final pre-Art Basel-takeover-and-renaming edition. Interestingly too, despite fears to the contrary, I actually noticed more representation -- and greater spatial prominence -- given to some of the smaller local Hong Kong art galleries (including Alisan Fine Arts,Sin Sin Fine Art, and Anna Ning Fine Art -- all of them female-owned in the bargain!) than in previous years.

 

Still, even while local artists like cut paper artist Bovey Lee and  fine-brush (gongbi) painter Wilson Shieh had works on show at this year's Art Basel Hong Kong, the truth of the matter is that the biggest splashes were made by international artists.  It's not just that the likes of Pablo Picasso, Juan Miro, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Opie and Damien Hirst have bigger names and reputations.  Instead, there also were more works by them on display at this year's Art Basel Hong Kong -- this being particularly true with Picasso, Miro and Basquiat, whose works were being exhibited by more than one gallery taking part in this art fair.

 

Among galleries, the ones that had the most impressive collection of works on display were London's Alan Cristea Gallery (which exhibited works by Julian Opie, Miro, Picasso, Gordon Cheung and so many more) Tokyo's Ota Fine Arts and London's Victoria Miro Gallery (which co-presented a solo exhibition of the works of Yayoi Kusama), and New York's Van de Weghe Fine Art (which displayed works by Roy Lichtenstein, Alexander Calder and Rene Magritte, among others). 

 

Something else that was very noticeable this year is that, whereas in previous years, the best art appeared to have been spread out over the two different floors that the art fair took up in the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, this year, the art on display on the third floor was distinctly more eye-catching -- and, I'd venture to say, higher priced -- than the works on show on the first floor.  (And for the record: all the galleries I mentioned that had the most impressive collection of works on display in the previous paragraph had their booths on the third floor...)

 

If I had known this, I'd have started my tour of the art fair on the third floor rather than the first one.  As it was, I felt a bit rushed for time -- and also like I was prone to "art overload -- when going through the third floor.  Still, it's a measure of the greater overall quality of the art on the third floor, to my mind, that I still got more out of touring the third floor than the first floor -- which did have some gems but also a lot of works that, frankly, left me unimpressed and even downright cold.

 

Ah well, one lives and learns.  And next year, I definitely will pay far more attention the names of galleries when deciding which floor of the show to head over to first!

Copper and A special texture (This week's Photo Hunt themes)

In my previous blog entry, I wrote about the unusual weather we've been having this week.   (I woke up this morning to find heavy rain once more after two beautiful days of clear sky and air days.)  What with the unusually heavy downpours we've been having, I guess it's inevitable that I'd get to thinking about when Typhoon Vicente came over to pay a visit last July.

On the night of that Severe Typhoon Vicente (to give it its full name!) roared into town, the Hong Kong Weather Observatory raised signals to tell people to take care, stay indoors, etc.  While I did stay indoors for the most part as the strong rain lashed and winds blew, I couldn't resist venturing out for a few minutes to better see and feel the effects of the strongest typhoon to hit Hong Kong since Typhoon York 13 years previously. And yes, I took a few photos for the record too!

What I saw (as well as felt) was a neighborhood transformed.  Visually, the overall color was black but there were also interesting effects caused by the lights that were on in the streets.  Directly under a street lamp, a big yellow blob appeared on the surface of the road.  Drawing back to take a larger view, it seemed like things turned more copper colored.  And at a crossroads, the orange and red colors of the traffic and car lights combined to create glowy copper orange-red streaks on the wet surfaces of road and sidewalk that made for quite the artistic sight.

All in all, I think Typhoon Vicente conferred a special texture to the Hong Kong landscape that night -- one that I'm glad that to showcase for Sandi's and Gattina's Photo Hunts this week. :)

Hiking a couple of days after a super rainy day in Hong Kong

Hong Kong waterfall

A waterfall encountered while hiking along 

Wilson Trail Stage 7 this afternoon

Parts of Wilson Trail Stage 7 itself looked like 

it was turning into a stream, if not quite waterfall!

This has been an unusual week for Hong Kong weather wise.  For while it's accepted that May is generally a month that's generally rainy as well as humid and hot, it's still not all that usual to have the kind of rain that we had on Wednesday, where the Black Rainstorm Warning Signal was issued for the first time since July 2010. Put another way: it rained so much this past Wednesday morning that schools were closed for the day and the opening of the Hong Kong Stock Market was delayed!

Adding to the extreme weather was there being over 18,000 lightning strikes reported in the territory on Wednesday morning alone.  On a personal note, I was woken up by how much light there was outside my bedroom windows at around 4am -- light that was caused by what seemed like an almost continuous lighting up of the sky by lightning strike upon lightning strike.

In contrast, it hardly rained yesterday.  Instead, what was unusual weather wise was how beautiful the day was -- with bright blue skies, puffy white clouds and visibility gauged by the Hong Kong Observatory as being as far as 45 kilometers in some parts of the Big Lychee!

Believe you me when I say that it was pretty frustrating to be at work indoors yesterday.  So I was really happy when I had a day off from work today -- and found that it still was a pretty clear day in terms of not much rain and good visibility predicted.  And this especially since, after seeing that showers and squally thunderstorms are predicted for this Sunday, I got two friends to agree to go hiking with me today rather than this Sunday!

Suffice at this point to say that we had a good afternoon of hiking today -- one that involved going up 647 meter high Grassy Hill, Hong Kong's 14th highest peak.  Among the sights on view today were grand vistas (especially from the top of Grassy Hill) but also lots of earthworms (dead and alive!), a small brown snake (that I initially mistook for a large earthworm, until I looked closer and saw its triangular head and then also the way it moved), a couple of skinks, a number of butterflies (most of which did not want to pose for pics), some caterpillars, a whole tree full of slimy looking butterfly cocoons, and a number of waterfalls and streams that aren't visible -- or simply don't exist! -- in drier weather!

In particular, people thinking of hiking Wilson Trail Stage 7 in the next few days should be aware that at least three parts of the trail have turned into streams, if aren't super waterlogged.  And while they are not super difficult to pass over, one still has to be careful that one doesn't slip and twist one's knee or ankle, if not fall and get wetter than one might like to be on a fun day out in Hong Kong!