Update 11 - Waterside walks

Last week we decided to visit Lamma Island, which has a reputation for being a hippie haven. It’s also known for it’s many walks. Although it’s probably only 15 minutes by boat from here, the only way to get from Mui Wo, is via Central (HK Island) and then a boat back out to Yung Shue Wan (Banyan Tree Bay) 25 minutes away in the north of the island. Yes ‘Wan’ means bay and ‘kok’ means point – Cantonese it’s a slow progress for us. Boarding the boat we instantly regretted choosing a Sunday to go there and upon arrival realised that it wasn’t for any special event other than the weekend. We hung back once the boat landed on the pier and let the hordes disappear before walking through the narrow streets packed with seafood restaurants, local shops and bars. This link will tell you a whole lot more.. www.lamma.com.hk

 

We walked from 'you are here' to 'lookout pavilion'

Last of the hordes at Yung Shue Wan

 

Typical exterior to all seafood restaurants in and around HK

 

The island is lush like us!

Hung Shing Yeh beach a.k.a Power Station beach

 

Love the 'don't' signs they have in HK, puts ideas into your head!

from Pavilion Lookout over looking...well guess?

After our 90-minute walk we had a great lunch back at a restaurant in the harbour (no not IN the harbour!). Lamma isn’t everyone’s cup of herbal tea, but we liked it and would go back there for walks and restaurants.
The following day we had lunch at our favourite cheap restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui/Kowloon in the Ocean Terminal with great views across Victoria Harbour to HK – 'The Quarterdeck' – for HK$88 (£6.50) you can have the following: - soup/roll, buffet starters of sushi/salads/salmon/etc.. choice of 3 main courses (pasta, steak or other meat dish), buffet desert with chocolate fountain, fruit, Jasmin tea, soft drinks – we normally double the bill by having a large glass of red wine each though ;o)
After lunch we got the star ferry to Central (HK) and the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) to Chai Wan – the end of the blue line – furthest point on the tube, HK side. The first MTR tube line was opened in 1979, it's clean, efficient and there are rarely problems.

It was clean and very suburban, we crossed the park to the waterfront walk.

 

Chai Wan Park

Chai Wan Waterfront a.k.a Heng Fa Chun

 

Some more suggestions

View from waterfront to The New Territories

We walked as far as we could, but had to get back on the MTR to get around the point or Kok (just testing your comprehension).

More ideas..

We walked from the MTR to Aldrich bay promenade and down to Quarry Bay. It was a great area, clean, good sea air and views across the New Territories, wealthy suburban, reminded me a bit of California with it’s open fronted restaurants along the waterside. I saw a black Lamborghini coming out of ‘The Grand Promenade residence’, which didn't seem out of place.

 

Sampan in the harbour

Some history on Shau Kei Wan

 

The dockyard in the 1920s

Cosmopolitan Shau Kei Wan

 

California - OK you've got to use your imagination

The promenade

 

Fireboat Alexander Grantham Exhibition Gallery

Walking towards Tai Koo shopping galeries

We’ll definitely come back to this areas for Sunday walks when we start work, not sure we’ll be able to afford to live there though - mind you the lottery is 3 days a week here, Tues, Thurs and Saturdays..
Wednesday 27th January we again ate at the 'Quarterdeck' before taking the MTR up to the end of the red line to Tseun Wan, Kowloon side, to complete our 3rd seaside walk of the week. Before we moved to HK we were considering living in a service flat in Tseun Wan so we were keen to see what we would have let ourselves in for.

Typical MTR station albeit not in the rush hour!

Getting off the MTR Tsuen Wan felt clean, but quite alien – lots of shopping centres linked with elevated walkways (a bit like Central but no Harvey Nicks). We picked our way through the streets and market to the harbour front and walked along the sea front in the 21c sunshine.

 

Wet market in Tseun Wan

Parks everywhere in HK and Kowloon

 

  

  

  

View from Tseun Wan towards Lantau island and the Tsing Yi bridge

Abandon all hope ye who enter here..

 

  

  

We spend a reasonable amount of time in Tung Chung on Lantau near the airport and not far from the other end of this bridge - for cinema, shopping and lunching with my brother and his family. 

  

Plaza at Tung Chung from the food hall

  

My Korean beef noodles - £3 

The Tung Chung food court is brilliant - free seating everywhere and outlets selling dishes from Asian cities and countries - you have Vietnamese, Korean, Indian, Shanghainese, Thai, Japanese, Malaysian and many more and the food is excellent quality.  

  

Ben, Steve, Isabella, Stef and Olivia at Taste supermarket

  

Clouds rolling over one of Lantau's peaks

Luk Tei Tong (our village) is home to a Buddhist temple and in the run up to the Chinese New Year on 14th February, they have been constantly banging drums, clashing symbols and letting off fire crackers. I suspect to ward off the evil spirits of the year. And I mean constantly – sometimes finishing after midnight – it’s hard to drown out with your own music! So we’ll be pleased to spend 9 days in China from Wednesday returning for only 48 more hours of it.
Our final walk of the week was another local one around Mui Wo's villages:-

 

  

 

 

  

Silvermine Bay our home beach

  

  

Ok that's it for now, we're off to China, then it's Chinese new Year, so the next update is likely to be around 20th February

Update 10 - from Discovery Bay to Mui Wo

It’s been a good second week back, starting with a splash of redundancy money spent on a new 42” Philips LCD screen (Dutch redundancy money, spent on Dutch technology – seemed fair – eh Meint?), double sofa bed for the spare room ready for the impending visit of Carlo and Vee for 17 days from 2nd Feb and finally a wardrobe for ourselves – the work suits, shirts and ties are making me feel uneasy – so I need to shut them away…

We’ve seen a couple of good films this week, the Guy Richie directed Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson – they engage in a battle of wits and brawn with a nemesis whose plot is a threat to all of England, it’s a brilliant dark alternative Holmes film. Secondly we saw Avatar in 3D on an Imax screen – WOW, for the 1st 5-10 minutes I felt sick watching it given that you feel like you’re almost in the film yourself which has a gigantic scale, as far as your periphery vision can see and also that for the opening sequences you are floating in space. Anyway that subsided after a short while and it was a big rollercoaster from there on in. Local papers in HK have reported that people felt suicidal coming out of the film as their expectations of life after this could never be the same or realised. We wouldn’t go that far, but thought it was an outstanding film and a great idea and were buzzing as we left the cinema for Ikea in Causeway Bay (HMV first ;o)) – oh what a life we lead!

We last visited Discovery Bay in 2005 and it's changed for the better

Scrubbed up nicely, but a lot more flats have been built

Clear instructions for our walk back home

On the exercise front we took the boat from Mui Wo to Discovery Bay and walked back along the coast, up the hills and past the Trappist monastery being careful not to make any noise. From the top of the hills you have a great view over Disco Bay, Peng Chau, Disneyland (HK$4.4B losses over last 3 years – as reported this week), Hong Kong Island and a bunch of other islands we don’t have names for yet on one side. On the other side glorious views of Mui Wo prison, Silvermine Bay, Mui Wo, Luk Tei Tong and Tai Tei Tong. The walk took 2 hours as stated in my ‘The Leisurely Hiker’s Guide to Hong Kong’ book. There is a ‘The Serious Hiker’s Guide to Hong Kong’ book also from the same author, but as we walk in shorts and trainers as opposed to plus fours and hiking boots and only carry a small rucksack with a bottle of water and a newspaper in it as opposed to a full back pack life support system – we don’t have the right to full ‘serious’ status – thank God for that!

Is Stef suitably dressed for 'serious' hiking?

This awning is built over the path of the walk - so you walk through it!

You can't park there mate!

The Trappist Monsastary - the only one left in China sshhh...

Bridge to the church built in the year of my birth - yes 1987

The church at the monastary - no pictures please.. 

Bamboo forest - we love 'em! 

           Corr i'm kn@ackered Stef..view of Peng Chau island

The islands currently unknown to us..lets say A and B

    Thinks..pity they're not covered in snow and we have our ski gear on..

Centre Silver river leading towards Luk tei Tong and Silvermine Bay

Mui Wo ferry pier (boats to HK Central 30mins) with prison on hill above

Bad news today, my brother texted me from the Mui Wo ferry pier, he read in this morning’s South China Morning Post that The Killers have cancelled their Friday gig at the Asia Arena due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’ – big shame, we’ll get our redundancy money back, but that’s not the point, it’s there to be frittered on live bands, entertainment and travel – big set-back! On the 3^rd Feb we start our next excursion, 9 days in China with Carlo and Vee. We’ve booked the flights, from here to Beijing (5 days in the capital), flight down to Xian (2 days with the Terracotta Army – we won’t count them, we’ll take their word for it that there are 9,500+), flight from Xian to Guilin (Li River and Yulong river cruises and the Yangshou countryside) and finally flights back to Honkers on 12^th Feb. The 13^th Feb is Chinese New Year’s Eve and the 14^th marks our wedding anniversary, oh and the beginning of the year of the Tiger!  Next week we'll do some more walks and shimmy around Hong Kong..   

 *Island A is Chau Kung To (Sunshine Island) and Island B is Hei Ling Chau