A hike with rain and spider spottings! :)

Walking towards the mist -- thank goodness we don't

have to worry about gorillas in Hong Kong! ;)

Arachnophobes should take heed though

as the big spiders are baack! :D

It may not look like it but this spider actually is

hanging from a web -- albeit one high above ground! :)

Dark clouds loomed as two friends and I prepared to begin our ascent of Violet Hill earlier today.  But we told one another that, at most, there would just be light showers rather than heavy rain according to the weather forecast, so decided to go ahead with our hike.  

 

About twenty minutes into our ascent, we saw mist ahead but told ourselves it was only mist rather than rain, and walked towards it.  Soon we were in the clouds but after we began descending along the other side of the hill, we left the mist behind.  But just when I was thinking that 'Finally, we'll get some really good views...', the rain clouds finally caught up with us and decided to release some precipitation right in the area where we were!

 

Funnily, this downpour took place close to the same place where two other friends and I got really, really wet last summer!  Rather than try to take shelter under the tiny roof of a nearby information board this time around, my party carried on with our hike -- albeit after deciding to change our choice of trail from one that would have left us pretty exposed to the elements to another that had more tree cover.

 

This particular trail that skirts the eastern slopes of Violet Hill is actually a pretty easy one but for some reason, there are no signs pointing to it and it's marked as a dotted trail on the Hong Kong Island and Neighbouring Islands map produced b the Surey and Mapping Office of the Lands Department.  The result is that we saw few other people along it -- and a number of spiders with large, intricate webs that indicated that they've not been disturbed for quite some time!

 

Some of these spiders were on the small side but a few were female Golden Orb Weavers that can be pretty big indeed.  I know there are people who don't care of them -- and get repulsed even by photos of them! -- but I honestly look forward to seeing these beautiful as well as big spiders (and reckon that raindrops and dew on their webs make for a really photogenic sight).  I haven't seen them for months (I'm not sure about their life span or habits but they seem to hibernate in the colder months), so I really was happy to catch sight of them again on this hike -- and, yes, I have the rain to thank for doing so! :)

Grin and How is your sky today? (This week's Photo Hunt themes)

The photo at the very top of this blog entry is a real Photo Hunt rarity: one that I expressly took just a few minutes ago in direct response to Gattina's query of How is your sky today? Looking at it, I want to smile -- if not grin -- because I think it really captures the weather forecast for today in Hong Kong: i.e., very hot, and mainly fine apart from a few showers (This from the Hong Kong Observatory).  Because even while you can see nice blue skies in part of the picture, dark clouds full of rain are also threatening...

Moving on to images that really make me smile and grin: like last year, I went to the Hong Kong Flower Show this year but didn't put up a Hong Kong Flower Show-specific entry on this blog, content instead to wait for an opportunity to use them for a Photo Hunt entry (or more). Sandi's choice of theme this week presents me with just that.

More specifically, among the more imaginative entries at this year's show was one featuring a pair of gentlemanly individuals made out of flowers, one bearing a basket of cheery vegetable produce, with other sets of equally cheery looking vegetable produce assembled near them!  And yes, when I see such things, they serve to reconfirm my strong sense that Hong Kongers -- who often can look so serious, sullen even, when going about their daily business and routines -- really do have a whimsy- and kawaii-loving to them. :b

Rain and remembrance

Before the deluge - a sea of lit candles 

in Victoria Park this evening

During the deluge - people struggled to keep 

their candles lit as well as stay dry 

but at least one candle remains burning bright

After the deluge and event - volunteers 

scrape up the candle wax that had melted 

and stuck to the ground at Victoria Park

As I walked into Victoria Park earlier this evening, I looked at the crowd around me and worried aloud to the friend I was with that there were going to be fewer people at the event to commemorate the tragedy that occurred in the summer of 1989 than on previous June 4ths.  Indeed, so small was the crowd at around 6.30pm that we were able to find space to park ourselves on the second football pitch away from the main stage.

But one hour later, all the football pitches were filled with people -- young and old, male and female, many of them wearing black or white.  And just before the heavens opened and poured its tears on us, an announcement had been made that one half of the grassy area in the park also had been filled with people there to declare to the world that Hong Kong remembers the events that happened in Beijing and elsewhere in China 24 years ago.

For the past few days, my friend and I had worried about whether there'd be rain as forecast for this evening.  At the beginning of the candlelight vigil, we were hopeful that all the rain for the day had already poured down this morning.  Alas, it was not to be.  Worse, we aren't talking about a shower or even ordinary downpour but a veritable deluge that turned the very ground we had been sitting on into a stream and was so  loud that we had problems hearing each other speak, never mind the event organizers.

For what seemed like an eternity, we stood along with thousands of other increasingly drenched people in the pouring rain.  At some point, we followed the lead of others in deciding that we had better move on to someplace dry.  This, of course, meant leaving Victoria Park and the candlelight vigil.  And it was with a sense of guilt that I did so.

After a quick dinner at a nearby restaurant, I ventured out to find that the rain was now just a drizzle -- so decided that I might as well go back to Victoria Park.  There I found some hardy souls who appeared to have stayed throughout -- and the loudspeakers working again (but not the video, so the big screen that had been temporarily erected for the event was now blank).  

What with music blaring, there seemed an almost festive air to the place -- an optimism that "We shall overcome", if you will.  Shortly afterwards, the organizers thanked the people who had participated this evening and brought tonight's vigil officially to a close.  

Thus it was that an event that had begun promisingly and looked like it had been disastrously brought to a premature halt seemed to have been brought to a surprisingly good-natured conclusion for the year -- with the likes of me resolving that, come rain or shine, we will be back again next year to ensure that the message is sent that We Do Remember what happened on June 4, 1989 and that we are determined to make sure that people who don't remember it still will know what happened on that day.

From Bride's Pool to Siu Tan in the far northeast of the New Territories (Photo-essay)

As regular visitors to this blog know, I love hiking in Hong Kong -- and I strongly prefer to not go hiking alone.  What even they may not realize though is that the vast majority of my Hong Kong hikes have been undertaken with two hiking buddies -- one of whom has been my regular hiking friend since September 2011, the other of whom I met first fairly early along my hiking 'career' on an 18 kilometer trek organized by Roz's Group that took us from Shek Pik Reservoir to Tai O (see here, here, here and here for photo-essays of that long and wonderful hike).

Without the latter's entrance into my life, whom I tended to refer to as "my regular hiking companion" on this blog, I don't think I would have become as much of a hiking enthusiast as I've become.  This is because she and I proved incredibly compatible in terms of our hiking style and preferences -- and she also encouraged me to try harder hikes than I previously would have dared to attempt by sharing with me the idea that, "it's okay, we'll go slowly, and we'll make it...".

So you can imagine the devastation I felt when she told me some three years into our friendship that she was going to be moving back to Canada (for professional reasons).  Fortunately, all was not lost hiking wise because, by that point, the fellow that has become my second regular hiking companion had been hiking with us for some time.  

Still, I resolved to give my original regular hiking companion a nice send off by way of choosing a particularly nice hiking route for one of her last hikes in Hong Kong.  Thus it was that one Sunday afternoon saw my two regular hiking buddies, another friend and I going on a half day hike in Plover Cove Country Park that would take us through some of what I consider to be among the more interesting parts of Hong Kong...

 We began our hike in the watery vicinity 

of the legendary Bride's Pool

Not the famous Bride's Pool but Chiu Keng Tam 

(Mirror Pool) -- so named because some people saw 

the spirit of the drowned bride using the calm water 

in the area as a mirror as she combed her hair! :O

One of the more interesting looking 
village houses to be found at Wu Kau Tang

 Then it was past Kau Tam Tso -- 

where it can feel like time has stopped

Vibrant flowers but dead moth at Kau Tam Tso?

A long stretch of trail along which I didn't see 

any other people bar for my hiking buddies!

People -- and some nice food -- were to be found

at Fook Lee Tea House in Sam A Tsuen though :)

After lunch, we headed north and it was not long before 

we encountered another abandoned dwelling -- this one

a veritable mansion at Siu Tan

To be continued! :)

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