Surprise and Lights (This week's Photo Hunt themes)

To those Photo Hunters (be you taking part in Sandi's or Gattina's memes): surprise, I have indeed taken up the challenge of putting up a two-in-one entry that fits both the memes' themes for this week! In order to do so, I had to go back almost a year in my photo archive -- and with that, here's what may come as another surprise: in that these not particularly festive-looking photographs actually were taken on Christmas Day last year!

This time last year, my mother was here visiting. Now I'm not sure that I've mentioned it before but my mother likes going on long bus rides when she's here in Hong Kong. (The way she puts it, it's akin to touring Hong Kong -- only at a much more bargain price, especially since she's entitled to senior citizen discounts on buses, among other things, here!) Thus it was that on Christmas Day last year, my present to her involved taking her on buses from where I live all the way to the Chek Lap Kok Airport area, then from there on another route across the territory to Tseung Kwan O, from where we caught another bus that took us to Sai Kung town.

Upon reaching Sai Kung, we decided to go for a wander around town and then have dinner. Considering it was a public holiday, we were surprised to find the place relatively uncrowded and unadorned by festive lights. This is not to say that our mood was dimmed by this state of affairs though -- in fact, it was actually nice to not have to wade through crowds, especially when it came time to sit down for a meal!

At the waterfront, my mother and I had enjoyed looking at the variety of sea creatures -- displayed in tanks in front of the seafood restaurants lining the waterfront promenade and, also, in shallow plastic containers on boats floating in the water near the pier --being offered up as food options. Not surprisingly, the shutterbug part of me also couldn't resist taking photos that I reckon turn out pretty cool when the lights (and their reflections) combine with the water along with the creatures themselves to form interesting patterns!

Rather than follow this up by eating some of these creatures, however, my mother and I ended up going for vegetarian options that evening! Some people may be surprised but we found ourselves more attracted to the wares being hawked on the promenade by a seller of chestnuts. (There's something about the smell as well as taste of chestnuts outdoors on a cold day...) Then, to top of the evening, we went over to the original branch of Honeymoon Dessert (now an international chain with outlets in Singapore and Indonesia as well as Mainland China and other parts of Hong Kong) to have some of the fruit and nut concoctions that these dessert specialists are famous for.

And yes, although it may not have been a conventional way to spend Christmas... but I think I can safely say that we both had a good time that day. And the fact that I remember the day so clearly one year on bears testimony that it actually was a pretty memorable one even though it may seem like we did nothing absolutely special at any point throughout! :)