Sunday Brunch at The Pawn - A Little Slice of Britain!

I do feel extremely lucky - everything I end up writing here seems to revolve around me doing something very indulgent usually involving food, friends and chatting! BUT, in my slight defence, I don't write about the boring stuff because, quite frankly, its boring. But do forgive me, if it ends up being a bit repetitive!

On Sunday, the day after the Junk Boat, I went for Sunday brunch at a really nice restaurant called the Pawn in Wan Chai. Now, for those who know me, I have a love of beautiful architecture and buildings and I have been ever so lucky to grow up and live in places with a lot of history and culture and pretty buildings to admire! In the south of France this summer (I miss you ALL SO much!) there were some of the most beautiful villages I have ever seen. I could not think of a better way to spend my graduating summer than in such beautiful surroundings with some of my bestest friends.

Hong Kong itself is sadly lacking in the sort of architecture that you would wander round and admire. The architecture in Hong Kong is incredible for the sheer scale and size of the cityscape, surely some of the best in the world. The harbour in between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island consists of a narrow strip of water that can be crossed by the star ferry in 5 - 10 mins and offers some of the most spectacular views of both sides of the harbour skyline. There are just so many buildings in one space that is really is strangely magnificent, although I never thought I would say that, and in a totally different way to other types of architecture. Indeed, on Friday, as I was headed home from work (on my ritual of taking the Star Ferry across the harbour!), I saw a couple posing for wedding photos with the Hong Kong Island skyline as their backdrop. There was something so incongrous about it, and not something you would traditionally hope to have as your wedding photo background, or maybe it is. Apparantly, if you get married here, it is extremely popular to have such a setting for your wedding. It certainly is amazing to see, and unique! and they both looked incredibly happy so thats all that matters!

Oh wow, what a tangent I have gone off on. How am I to bring this back to Sunday brunch I hear you wonder as you drop off reading this exceedingly dull post! Well, the vague point was The Pawn itself is housed in one of the remaining 'old' buildings in Hong Kong from pre 1900! It is a three story newly restored heritage building in a colonial style with a roof garden right in the centre of Wan Chai, which was a real treat in itself! Inside, it was like stepping back home, it reminded me of a British gastropub with wooden floorboards and tables and a bar and to top it off the waiters were in tartan trousers! It was a lovely setting to treat ourselves to an all day brunch menu! It is not cheap of course, and full of expat types but so lovely and relaxing. They have treats like Heinz baked beans which comes in its own serving jug!, fish and chips and poached eggs on english muffins.

Bit of a luxury, but once in a while, when you need a bit of escapism to remind you of home, it does the job!

Saturday 26th September, 2009 - Chatteris LOVE - Junk Boat!

As part of the plethora of events organised by Chatteris for us, we were all invited on a day on a Hong Kong junk boat for a invaluable bit of rest and relaxation after our first month at school! (I know, I can't believe I have been at school for a month already...!) It was a glorious day as ever, and we met at Sai Kung ferry pier, (for those regular readers, the same place as the kayaking!) Sai Kung is on the eastern part of Kowloon and has some stunning scenery, with a huge amount of tiny islands just off the coast. It is always so refreshing to get out of the city and in to the open and the fresh air - not that you really feel awful when you are in the city, but its probably good to come out and catch your breath a little!

We motored about half an hour and then moored and tied the two boats up (there were too many people for one boat)and let us loose to go banana boating, wake boarding, to the beach, swim, read etc, whatever we wanted really for the day. It was lovely to be able to relax and catch up with everybody and I think exactly what we all felt like doing after a week at school and very much appreciated by everyone I think! It would be such a nice thing to do for an event like a birthday or something.

The only sad thing about the day is the amount of rubbish in the sea and on the beaches here. There are so many bays and beaches to head to, and the water is the most perfect temperature however, you find yourself swimming by plastic bags and wrappers, and then on the beach there are all manner of items from fridges, and metal poles etc to general waste. It is so sad to be in such a beautiful setting and yet be witness to how it is all being spoiled and ruined. The amount of wildlife that must suffer because of this. Fortunately, with increased awareness that this is a growing worldwide problem, the Hong Kong Coastal International Clean Up Challenge has been launched within the framework of the international coastal cleanup (ICC)in order to try and tackle and fight back at the pollution of the seas. From the analysis of the rubbish found, it is clear that any rubbish left on the land travels and finds itself in the sea, polluting the water and harming wildlife. Indeed, the number one item found last year...cigarettes. Last year, in 2008, 443 animals were found entangled, the most common were sharks (all beaches here have shark nets to provide safe swimming although I don't think shark sightings are common close to the shore!), seahorses and stingrays of which only about half were able to be released alive. It is so sad to think of runing such an idyllic haven. In Hong Kong I feel the impact of waste and pollution can be seen so much more acutely because it is a huge and bustling city with a huge amount of coastline and beaches in a small area but it is reflective of what is happening all over.

In Hong Kong, every year, from mid September to mid October, you can sign up for a day or organise for your own beach clean up as different volunteers come together on different stretches of Hong Kong's coastline to attempt to clean up beach debris.

If you are interested, this is the website. http://www.ecovisionasia.com/hkcoastalcleanup

People that give up their time to organise and coordinate such events, keep me feeling positive about the world!

After being in St Andrews, and being lucky enough to be able to get to the sea and the beach whenever I wanted, I always love being by the ocean and being able to have so much space around you. Albeit the beaches and the seas are a little different; it is a tad warmer here and less windy...in fact HUGELY hot and NOT even one bit windy! but it is still the beach!

I am told, by a lovely old man I met in the library yesterday (!) that it gets colder in...december....december, there are days when I dream of putting a coat on here...or I would even settle for a jumper!!! December.

High Tea at The Peninsula!

On Saturday afternoon, six of us went for high tea to relax after a week at work, to celebrate our first pay check, and to treat ourselves to a little bit of England! It was a perfect setting for a perfect afteroon! Stepping inside the Peninsula's foyer (http://www.peninsula.com/hong_kong/en/default.aspx)we knew we were in for a treat. The hotel is arguably Hong Kong's nicest hotel and its saturday afteroon tea is a bit of an institution in the city. Served between 2 and 7pm on the ground floor, locals and tourists all come to queue for this slice of luxury! (they don't take bookings) There was a string quartet playing up in a corner balcony which was lovely while we waited!

After having suffered weeks without proper tea and milk, this was well worth the indulgence! The sandwiches, scones, jam and clotted cream and cakes all came on the traditional three tier stand and we enjoyed a lovely few hours reminising and chatting about home and Hong Kong.

Thank you to Hayley, to Cesca, to Lucy, to Gemma and to Amy for an afternoon I will remember for a while (until the next time, we are already planning our next tea outing although I fear nothing will be quite able to match up to that one!)

As we are left, extremely full of tea and cakes, and headed back in to the real world and madness of Hong Kong city, it did make me rather nostalgic for home and the wonderful WONDERFUL times I have been lucky enough to spend with so many of my friends, whether it be afternoon tea at the amazing Claridges or simply tea and viennesse biscuits (sigh!) or home baking at my house, I am, in somany ways, so lucky to have had the privilage of having you all so close by me. When you all come and visit, it is an afternoon not to be missed! love and miss you all!

Chatteris LOVE - Read and Write with Auntie Grace and Cantonese Cooking!

Chatteris LOVE 16/09

I love Wednesdays...for so many reasons. Lucy and Amy introduced me to humpday wednesdays - I think I am quite late to this concept but in a nutshell, you make it to Wednesdays and you are over the hump of the week and its all downhill until to the weekend I think that its ingenious and quite fitting for how my week seems to go! Another special thing about Wednesdays are that, the evenings are spent at Chatteris for workshops and Chatteris LOVE events. It's a great opportunity to see and catch up with all the other CNETS and to share experiences of the week whilst also trying out and experiencing something of the Hong Kong culture (and also eat copious amounts of biscuits and Chinese tea!). It's kind of our home away from home and a great atmosphere to relax in. This week Chatteris hosted its first Read and Write Chinese with Auntie Grace (the project manager of the charity) and also a Cantonese cooking lesson! Grace, with the invaluable help of a few girls from the Fresh Fish school, where the Chatteris office is and also where we did our first week orientation wnet through some of the Cantonese strokes for learning to write Cantonese (there are 8 if I remember rightly) and then introduced us to a kinergarten sets of picture flash cards for us to learn how to read Cantonese. Our group were given colours and we were subjected to Suki (one of the lovely primary girls) sitting near us and making us repeat and repeat and repeat each sound after her to the familiar refrain of 'no, not zee but ze ee' - what i was saying and what she was saying sounded rather similar to me however rather different to her! Hopefully by the end of the 9 months, I will have mastered the basics in kindergarten reading and writing! we alo have our own notebooks complete with boxes for the chinese characters. Since Chinese is a graphic language as opposed to a phonic langauge like ours. The entire process involves a much different approach to most other subjects and indeed languages and sometimes it is not what you feel like doing after a long day at school but it is an extremely worthwhile thing to aim at. I am making the basic reading and writing my challenge this year as I have no excuses since there are many willing and kind helping hands on offer to help me so expect some interesting and illegible Christmas cards from me..haha!

After an intense Chinese language training session, (!) we moved in to the more relaxed cooking lesson, where Margaret and Irene were teaching us the delights of how to make Chinese wontons and dumplings which you see everywhere around Hong Kong. Chinese dumplings are made by wrapping meat or vegetable fillings in a flat dough (which looks like very thin pastry, almost like rice paper) which is then crimped around the edges (rather fiddly!) Similarly, wontons are made from Chinese wrappers of wheat flour, water and egg, which vary in thickness depending on what they will be used for. You can stuff them with ground meats or tofu and beans -indeed it seems any kind of variation is okay! These can then be boiled or steamed in the wonton soup or fried until crisp The dumplings can then be pan fried, boiled or steamed. In our case, we had a soup going for this purpose which, in true Chinese style, seemed to have all manner of things floating in it, to give it flavour. In Hong Kong, many of the dishes are based around this idea of a soup into which go pretty much everything, noodles, meat, dumplings, egg, vegetables etc. I think it is some kind of wonton soup which again dates back to the 7th century. Apparantly, the long finger like, almost crescent shape for the dumplings symbolise wealth and so are traditionally served and eaten around Chinese New Year for good luck.
However fiddly it proved to be, (Margaret saved most of mine which I think is why they worked so well!) it was also really fun forming them and then plopping them in to the big communal bowl of ever steaming soup and then attempting to work out which shape was yours to eat, when we wanted it again later! We were given a sheet with some other recipes on it so if I am feeling adventurous anytime soon, I may give it a try!

It was such a nice evening and I feel as if the charity continues to provide such a wealth of support and help even when though we have started our schools etc and it feels like we have been here for ages, its like our family away from home! awww! xxxx

Cities of Desire - Hong Kong Arts Centre - Tuesday 15th September

After the excitement of the previous days typhoon, I decided to go and see an exhibition at the Hong Kong Arts Centre called Cities of Desire, recommended in the Time Out Hong Kong guide. Since I had not been to see any exhiibtions yet, I took my opportunity and walked all of 10 minutes to the Arts Centre situated right by the harbour so it has some beautiful views.

It was a really thought provoking exhibition which is why I was especially glad I went because it got you engaged with some of the curent issues facing Hong Kong today, namely the identity and character of the city itself and what and how it is developing in to. It seemed to take a pretty scathing view of the label Asia's world city, a label on many of the tourist sheets on Hong Kong, which seems to depict it as quite one dimensional, quite focused on finance and profit making, a view and an image contemporary Hong Kong Chinese seem to want to diffuse. The exhibitiom sought to show how how a balance should be struck between having its one sepaarate identity from China, whilst bering aware of its mulitplicty of ties which bind it to the mainland. It highlighted issues such as the destruction of cultural sites for city development, notably with the Queens Pier. Indeed, the extreme urbanisation of the city was clearly in view when I walked the so called Wan Chai Green trail. There were scarcely a handful of trees lining the this very steep but short hike along a concrete path up to towards the more verdent peak from Wan Chai. Ironically seeing the trees makes you realise how precious little is left of greenery or diversity of scenery remaining in the centre of Hong Kong.

However, on a more positive note, this exhibition showcased different people's ideas for development of the few remaining unused spaces in the city. They ranged from a zoo to green terracing! Moreover, it was fascinating to see how the public are starting to use their public spaces in new and unique ways in order to express themselves, using it to perform bizarre group acts or just travel repeatedly up and down the escalators making noises and sounds as they do so! It asked questions of the effect of public space of issues like the smoking ban, hypothesising whether the cigarette bins created to cater for it would open up new forums for cross industry communication, as office workers bonded during cigarette breaks.. It questioned the limits of how much public spaces can be used or 'hijacked' for ones own purposes, and was a fascinting insight in to Hong Kong today.

Conversely, it used Vienna to show how it had protected and elevated its cultural hertage at the expense of a much altered social set up due to mass migration faciliatated by the EU and how large swaths of migrant populations were being largerly ignored. In showing these two ways of ordering a city, it threw up the problems with both extremes and posed questions on how to move forward in the next decade facing such issues.

It was only a small exhibition but it was fascinating and I think extremely necessary to be aware of and to engage with the issues of the hour, since I am living here! I am going to try and come to more as and when I hear about them!

Monday 15th September 2009 - Typhoon signal no 8

Despite being here for over 5 weeks, in the so called typhoon season, and arriving in the rain, my time here has seen precious little by way of stromy or even rainy weather ever since! My umbrella has been used solely for the purpsose of keeping the sun away from myself (yes, just like a true local!) and to that end it has served me well! However, on Monday, Jonathan, my incredible mentor at school, came to inform me it a typhoon was coming and to be in my house by 5pm, to which I did not know what to say. I had to draw a fine balance between being mature and sensible and being mildly concerned, thanking him for letting me know, but also being like an excited child about the expectation of a proper incoming storm!! I went with the sensible approach which i thought more appropriate for the staff room. When the typhoon signal reaches 8, (they say the typhoon singal no 8 has been hoisted which I love!)you must not leave the house. The signals are issued when a tropical cyclone is centred withink 800 km of the city and range from T1, which 1 is a standby signal, T3, when there are strong winds registered, and then T8,which is gale or storm force winds, whre everyone is required to secure everything in their homes, like windows (!) and you are advised not to stand near the exposed sides of your home! Luckily enough for us, our flat faces inwardly in to a square of flats and so we were very protected and felt very little of the storm. Apparantly after that there is even signals T9 and T10, 10 being a hurricane! The signals are all very well advised on MTRs, TV channels and in shops etc so even newbies like me can be aware of what is going on!

Well, the typhoon did come although we were all stuck inside and so did not get to see nor witness that much of it although the following day, the education bureau announced that there would be no school! so at 6.15am i went back to sleep for a few hours until a lesisurely 9am! Amazing! By midday, it was back down to a T3 so we could leave the house etc. It was quite a treat to be given a day off in the middle of the week, an entire day to do with what I chose. it was great to get on top of emails and have an explore around the Wan Chai area in which I am living, which surprisingly I ahve not yet had a chance to do so it was was so nice!

Also, being from the UK I actually quite enjoyed the weather being a bit eventful and exciting with the wind and the rain varying the usual hot, humidity of the days and nights here! Aside from that, it made everything much cooler which was such a welcome break! I felt quite at home wandering around in the puddles, and being splashed by buses at the side of the road! haha! the strange things you appreciate and miss!

Sunday 13th September - Kayaking in Sai Kung

Kristy, our amazing deputy project manager, took a group of us kayaking to Sai Kung, which is on the east coast of Hong Kong. It was a super hot day, and there was very little wind, so ideal for us amateur kayakers and less ideal for the windsurfers out in the water! Sai Kung is beautiful, very peaceful as we took our kayaks out on a beach away from the main waterfront, which was quite busy. There are so many islands about a 15 minute kayak away that you can just head to and get out and explore or just sunbathe on, it was an amazing way to spend a Sunday afternoon and would be great to spend a whole day there and get out much further where I imagine it would be completely deserted. We all had a really lovely afternoon, and, as ever, we were but a short bus and mtr ride away from home. We all looked a little sleepy on our way back in our towels and flip flops and sand on the mtr! You feel really refreshed and good though, having got out of the city and in to the beautiful scenery and landscapes of Hong Kong.

Thank you, Kristy for introducing us to this wonderful place. I am already planning a return trip, complete with picnics, cameras and books!

Satursday 12th September - My Very First Visitor!

My lovely cousin Maria and her friend Livvy came through Hong Kong en route from Thailand to Australia this week for a few days and I was lucky enough to be able to spend the day with them on Saturday which was lovely since they were my first visitor!

After having left their HUGE backpacks with me at the flat, we headed off to Stanley Market, on the south of the Island. The weather was lovely, and we wandered around the labrinth of stalls and shops there and then went to an amazing cafe where we had fresh juice and cakes which was such a treat! The waterfront was lovely, full of restaurants (pizza express! - little bit too excited!) and bars and cafes, which looked out over the waterfront and a really pretty covered pier too. It was very peaceul and a really nice way to spend a saturday afternoon. We also went to visit Tin Hau temple which was nearby who is, if I remember rightly the goddess of the seas and who in her lifetime, saved many lives out at sea and so there are many temples and shrines made to her around Hong Kong.

I wish Maria and Livvy a wonderful rest of trip around the world as they depart on the next chapter of their adventure! Thank you both for a lovely day!