Thursday, February 27, 2014

Hong Kong


We just had three days in Hong Kong.

Had lunch with Matt Sears. He was Alex's buddy, inseparable, at age three at play school. In spite of his moving to Tokyo at age 5, and then Hong Kong, they have remained good friends. It was wonderful to see him, "all grown up" and such a lovely young man.

We did very little else. Tim was tired. The weather was overcast, the temperature perfect, need a sweater or jacket but not gloves or scarf. Hong Kong is a huge city, with a lively buzz like Manhattan. I love New York and the energy that crackles on the street. Hong Kong too.

The MTR (as opposed to the MRT in Sg) is very easy to handle. They offer a seniors rate on their Octopus card, and I travelled for next to nothing!!

Sign around the city. "Don't Keep Your Eyes Only On Your Mobile Phone". Everyone seems to walk around with eyes down. Particularly on and off the trains. Eyes down.

In at least one MTR, a bank off computers to offer free internet to anyone.

MTR seems to have the same English accent piped on the trains "Please Mind The Gap".

I wondered how Chinese worked their writing on a mobile. Watched a woman on the MTR write the Chinese character with her finger. It manifests as a  red drawing which then brings forth the word in our alphabet.

I did some things on my own, as Tim was napping. I was the only Caucasian on the train car. The Chinese on the train are of a different background than in Singapore. Singapore, their features are finer.

I went to some art galleries. Saw a painter, Shi LiFeng. I loved his work. A 48 year old mainland Chinese, making very strong political statements, using very realistic peach blossoms, and little red people. Worth googling, I think. There was a showing of Salvador Dali, and some of his furniture. the "S" sofa, the table that has an arm as one of the legs, elbow on floor, hand holding glass table top. A chair, the feet of which had high heels, one arm of the chair an arm, with a lovely graceful hand.

I am reading "The Gift of Rain" by a Malaysian author. He says of Malaysia what I could say about Singapore. A country, ruled by the Brits, populated by Chinese, Malay, Indian, Siamese. It is an interesting past, and much of the British heritage is seen in Malaysia,  Singapore and Hong Kong.


This is a pretty typical face of a building in the older part of Hong Kong. No central air conditioning unit. Individual units suspended on the exterior wall of the building.




I will now start putting together a few days in Laos, the one remaining country of Asia we have not visited. Tim will look at Maldives for some diving. This will be the second half of March. I will start photographing our belongings to see about selling our contents. Dreading this project. I know, oh poor me.


No comments:

Post a Comment