On a dark day for Japan

Statue of a Buddha in Engyoji on Mount Shosha

My thoughts, condolences and good wishes go to the country and its people who have come up with so much to make me happy. May they weather the major disaster that is the magnitude 8.9 earthquake and its accompanying tsunami and other aftermaths.

Take care, everyone, wherever you are. For those who are out of harm's way: thank your lucky stars and be grateful for having what you normally take for granted -- including physical health and safety.

Eating and strolling about in Macau

Quiet alley just off Lilau Square within the UNESCO
World Heritage listed Historic Centre of Macau

Mother and child (and holy spirit) stained glass window
at Penha Church on the Macau Peninsula's Penha Hill

Puppet Ponyo posing in front of the
temporarily closed-for-renovation
Dom Pedro V Theatre

How now Macau! As much as I love (being in) Hong Kong, I do find it nice to be able to get away for a while to some place that is culturally and physically different from Asia's World City. So it really is a bonus that the former Portuguese enclave of Macau is just one hour by ferry away.

For while it now is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China like the former British colony of Hong Kong, the Portuguese part of Macau's heritage remains very much in evidence in such as its traditional architecture, the surprising number of churches to be found in the territory (and particularly its historic center) and the food served at popular restaurants like A Lorcha, Fernando's and O Manel (all of which I've enjoyed eating at over the years). Additionally, in large part due to the majority of Macau's visitors being intent on frequenting its 33 casinos, its historic urban areas are pleasantly free of crowds for the most part.

What with today being my mother's birthday, I took the day off from work and took her (and Puppet Ponyo!) to Macau for a flying visit. Upon arriving in the territory, we headed straight to A Lorcha for a pretty substantial lunch of beautifully crusty bread, soupy clams spiced with coriander and garlic (yum!) and feijoada served with rice (yummy!). Feeling a need to walk off part of our meal afterwards, we proceeded to stroll along narrow, atmospheric streets that led us variously to historically significant Lilau Square, up Penha Hill to quiet Penha Church, down to picturesque St. Augustine's Square and its conglomeration of historic buildings including the Dom Pedro V Theatre, St. Augustine's Church, Sir Robert Ho Tung Library and St. Joseph's Seminary, and then to beautiful -- even when crowded, as is usually the case -- Senado Square.

Shortly after reaching Senado Square (or the Largo de Senado, as it is known in Portuguese), the eating began again -- even if it only was a double scoop of gelato from Lemoncello Gelato, a place that I discovered while researching a Macau food feature article for bc magazine a few years back and have made a point of revisiting each time I return to Macau. (This time around, I had a scoop of the peach and mango mix gellato and one of the coconut -- both of which were delicious; ditto with the pink guava flavored gellato my mother decided upon.)

Then, after popping into the Lou Kau Mansion next door for a look inside the historic house, a spot of food shopping at a branch of Koi Kei and quiet rest in the pretty back courtyard garden of the Leal Senado that few people seem to know exists, we decided that we were able to eat some more -- but not what would be served at an actual sit-down dinner. (Each time I head over to Macau for the day, I resolve to eat two full meals there but end up not being able to due to the lunch portions I get at my Macanese restaurant of choice being way too large for my comfort!)

So we hopped on a bus and made for the original Lord Stow's Bakery in Coloane where the most delicious creme brule-style egg tarts are to be found. (And yes, they really are worth the 8 Macau patacas per egg tart price and the more than half an hour trip there from the Macau Peninsula!!!)

By now feeling full and also somewhat exhausted, we decided to call it a day as far as our Macau sojourn was concerned. So it was back to the Macau ferry terminal and -- via another of those ferries that sails four times an hour for twenty fours between Macau and Hong Kong -- back to Hong Kong... a place that I found myself glad to be back again -- not least because, however polluted relative to many other places, its air actually feels fresher than that of its fellow SAR! :O

Hiking along the Pat Sin Leng Nature Trail (Photo-essay)

A former colleague of mine once told me a story of how, shortly arriving in Hong Kong from Britain, she was taken along a hike up Pat Sin Leng without realizing that the word pat in Cantonese means eight and the northernmost mountain range in Hong Kong not only is named after the Eight Immortals of Chinese mythology but, also, because it consists of eight peaks (at the minimum). Another friend told about how as she went on a hike up Pat Sin Leng, her pulse rate dramatically heightened in a way that approximated the sharp ascent up to the first of that mountain range's peak.

So that same friend must undoubtedly have felt relieved to find, when I invited her on a hike one misty, humid and nonetheless non-rainy day along the Pat Sin Leng Nature Trail, that said official trail actually doesn't rank all that high on the difficulty scale -- even while actually yielding quite scenic sights, particularly towards trail's end... ;b

Before getting to the scenic sights,
here's first offering up a sign of spring
in the form of this budding plant

As the skies turned blue and clearer,
the vistas got deeper as we got to see
further and further into the distance

The isolated village cluster of Wu Kau Tang
set amidst much greenery and visible from the trail

A view of the rugged -- but oh so
scenically rewarding -- trail

Looking back as we began our gradual
but sure descent downhill

The view ahead close to the tail end of the hike

Yes, this trail really is situated in Hong Kong --
inside of Pat Sin Leng Country Park, to be precise

The kind of sight I love coming across -- and
taking in -- when out hiking here in the Big Lychee :)

Striped beach of Pui O

No, your eyes are not deceiving you...

...rather, the sand at Pui O beach really is
alternately (and naturally) yellow and black!

Strange but true: even though it's not quite optimum beach weather time yet here in Hong Kong, the past two weekends have seen me going on outings that have involved spending some time at the beach. Last Sunday, it was a hike in Sai Kung that led my regular hiking companion and I in and out of Tai Long Wan. Earlier today, it was an afternoon spent further exploring Pui O, an idyllic village in southeastern Lantau whose charms my regular hiking companion and I belatedly "discovered" some months back over the course of hiking Lantau Trail Stage 12 from Mui Wo to Pui O ((i.e., in the reverse order from the official route).

The one and only previous time I had been to Pui O, I had ventured to only a short side stretch of its beach. This time around, I spent some time walking along the bulk of the beach -- which I was surprised to discover not only only had black sand but strips of beach where the black sand alternated with more regular colored yellow sand to produce a series of eye-catching stripes that almost looked too cool to be completely natural!

As far as I can recall, this was the first time I saw a striped beach. On the other hand, although I've not been to beaches that appear to be entirely black sand beaches such as Hawaii's Punaluu Beach, Wainapapa Black Sand Beach and Kehena Beach, I have been to a couple in Asia whose black sand is their claim to fame and have given them their name (in the local language) -- namely, Pulau Langkawi's Pantai Pasir Hitam (whose sands are mixed with burnt rice, according to local legend) and Macau's Hac Sa Beach (which the local government has unfortunately mixed with yellow sand from elsewhere to help compensate for the beach's natural erosion).

If truth be told, although it does have its photogenic charm, I'm not sure that I'll be rushing to visit Pui O Beach again any time soon. To be fair though, I'm sure that it'd be more attractive in sunnier weather and under bright blue skies. So maybe this beach -- which looks to attract its share of clam diggers and birds (including seasonal egrets and swiftly-scurrying sandpipers) even on a cloudy gray day like today largely was -- should be a place that I should mark down to visit when summer finally comes along after all...

Self-portrait (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

Self-portrait taken with the help of a mirror in an abandoned house* deep in the Hong Kong countryside... I think that the fact that this house still contains some furnishings, yet clearly has not been lived in for some time, helps make for an eerie photo -- and if I didn't know that the figure in it was me, I'd have thought that was a ghost there! (And yes, this is the closest that I think I'll ever get to putting up a photo of myself on this blog -- and if not for this week's Photo Hunt theme being what it is, there would not be even this!!) ;D

*Something I was surprised to discover while hiking in Hong Kong is how even while parts of it are super densely populated, there also are whole villages, never mind houses, within the territory that have been abandoned -- some of them apparently in such a great hurry that furnishings including family portraits as well as bulkier items like television sets and chairs have been left behind. But upon delving into its history, I've discovered reasons for this state of affairs -- which, as it turned out, wasn't due to a great plague befalling the area or even people leaving their homes during the second world war when Hong Kong was occupied by Japanese forces but, rather, for more benign reasons including urban development in other parts of the Big Lychee and a British law coming into effect in the then British colony that allowed Hong Kongers to move to Britain.

Colourful Youth at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre

Just a small portion of the audience there at
the Hong Kong Cultural Centre this past Monday
to take in a screening of a restored 1966 film

Some of the film's stars (from left to right --
Nancy Sit Kar Yan, Connie Chan Po Chu and
Woo Fung (aka Wu Fung)) were there to grace the occasion! :)

When I was living in Philadelphia, I used to fantasize about moving to a Movie Mecca where I would not be alone in my Hong Kong movie appreciation. And there's no denying that I certainly have been luckier than many an overseas fan of Hong Kong cinema in having had my dream(s) of moving to Hong Kong and finding people who enjoy watching Hong Kong movies with come true.

Still, it's not all that common for me to get to watch a Hong Kong movie in a 1,734 seater venue like the Hong Kong Cultural Centre's Grand Theatre, never mind watch the movie with over 1,700 rabid fans of -- if not Hong Kong cinema in general, then at least one of its stars. Yet, that was precisely the case this past Monday evening, when the Film Programmes Office held a special screening there of a restored version of a 1966 musical drama starring Connie Chan Po Chu and Josephine Siao Fong Fong.

As many a neutral viewer is sure to observe, Colourful Youth is no film classic -- what with it being a film that appears to have been shot on quite a tight budget (hence its truly artificial looking outdoor as well as indoor sets whose surfaces emit the kind of noises when stepped on that make clear that they're wooden in nature even when "dressed" up to be tarred roads and such) and being in possession of many a scene where people over-act and a number of others where onlookers can be seen visibly gawking at that era's teen idols in the background.

But as the reactions of many of those attending this past Monday's screening of this movie which largely revolves around a group of college students headed by Josephine Siao Fong Fong's classy character, Connie Chan Po Chu's earnest one and Woo Fung's fun-loving character showed, it does deserve to be described as a restored treasure. For even while pretty much the entire audience could not help but laugh hysterically at the music-filled drama's one death scene, it was with a genuine joy de vivre of the kind that was full of love as well as infectiously shared.

Come to think of it, considering that its story included such melodramatic components as a loving mother forced to be a mistress in order to ensure the financial well-being of her unknowing child, a pair of female college students led astray by professional students out to milk money from them and another female college student who has strained relations with her step-mother, Colourful Youth has a pretty large amount of laughter and comic moments as well as songs and dances.

On a personal note: I got close to hysterical upon hearing Josephine Siao Fong Fong sing an ode to a grandmother to the tune of The Wizard of Oz's Somewhere Over the Rainbow; and found it quite the fun experience to hear the audience members seated around me bursting into song to join Connie Chan Po Chu as she sang a catchy solo midway in the movie! And lest it not yet be realized: I found the experience of viewing this Yu Ho-helmed Hong Kong cinematic adaptation of Taiwanese writer Chu Hak's novel to be a really amazing and wonderful one -- in large part because of the people I watched the film with rather than because of the movie per se.

All in all, the distinct impression I got was that many of the individuals in the audience at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre's Grand Theatre this past Monday had first viewed the film in 1966, back when it was first released in theatres, and had been colorful youth themselves -- who thus easily identified with the movie's protagonists -- back then. Some 45 years on, however, they now were older than the parents of the offering's teenaged main characters -- and consequently could appreciate the movie's actually pretty conservative messages to do such as study hard, aspire to do good for the less fortunate, and obey one's elders!

Yet, at the same time, there was no doubt that these now older folks had not lost their sense of fun and appreciation for life in general and this movie in particular. Consequently, they truly were a close to perfect audience for this movie (in 2011 as well as 1966) -- and it genuinely felt like a major privilege to be able to view the movie alongside them.

My rating for the film by itself: 6. My rating for the experience of viewing the film where and when I did: 9.5!

From Tai Mei Tuk up into Pat Sin Leng Country Park (photo-essay)

One of the great things about going hiking in Hong Kong, observed a friend some time back, is that it can feel like one has gone out of the territory since hiking allows one to visit areas of Hong Kong whose landscape dramatically differs from the stereotypical concrete jungle that many people tend to associate with Asia's World City. And in the case of a hike I went on along the Pat Sin Leng Nature Trail, the holiday mood came over me pretty much as soon as I got off the mini bus at Tai Mei Tuk, an area bordering Plover Cove, the Plover Cove Reservoir and Pat Sin Leng Country Park which Hong Kongers flock to on weekends to indulge in such as Hong Kong-style barbecue, Thai food, leisure bike riding and water sports.

Because I had agreed to meet up with my that day's hiking buddy in Tai Mei Tuk and I arrived there before her, I had a bit of time to enjoy the sights -- and take some photos -- there before we set out to the trail's official start several minutes walk uphill from the area. So this first photo-essay covering that day's hike begins not at the official hike start point but the idyllic spot whose name translates from Cantonese as "the very end" but actually was the de facto beginning of a good day out for me that Sunday... ;b

Looking out into Plover Cove and beyond
from the shore at Tai Mei Tuk

Scenic (even if densely packed) public barbecue area in
Tai Mei Tuk (with the Pat Sin Leng range in the background)

Near the official trail start is the sobering sight of the
Spring Breeze Pavilion built to commemorate
two teachers who perished after being caught
in a deadly wildfire in the area in 1996

Misty view from uphill of Plover Cove Reservoir
on a very humid -- but, thankfully not rainy -- day

View through a break in the thick foliage of the
northern portion and shores of Plover Cove Reservoir

The kind of exotic flora I see on hikes that prompted
me to buy two Hong Kong wildflowers books
-- yet which I still can't identify! ;(

Beautiful buds waiting to bloom?

I don't know what species of butterfly this is (or even if
it may be a moth) but I sure do love its eyes --
and my being able to get so close to photograph it! :b