Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel

Last time in the progamme “世界正美麗”, the lady “鴨子” at the top of a hill was pointing in the direction of a hotel called Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel (城堡飯店) below her.










This hotel is the most magnificent building at Banff, Alberta, Canada. It was built 120 years ago.
This is where the upper class of people lives. It looks like a castle or palace in the Middle Ages and is always the landmark of Banff. Every week, 20 to 30 thousands of people live in their 700 rooms, which have been booked half a year before.











Inside each room, there are usually a large comfortable bed, table-lamps, a coffee-maker, cups, glasses, an ice-box, wine glasses, a small wooden-table and chairs. The most disappointing thing to see is the out-dated TV set.




















The happiest thing to see is the beautiful mountain outside the windows. It seems that the mountain is inside a picture and the window is its frame.

My Car

Today my car has a new life because she has a new owner. I have transferred her to a friend of my old colleague, C. Lun simply because I rarely drive now.

I bought this car in November, 1996, so she ought to be almost 13 years old this year. Strange as I felt when she was first delivered to me, she did not look like “green”as the license says, rather like “dark blue”. There was something wrong with the eye of the salesman or the manufacturer.

In the past I drove her to school every weekday except holidays. On other days, she carried me to Hong Kong Island as far as Shek O in the east and Pokfulam in the west. I have been to Mid-levels and to the Peak too. In the New Territories, she has reached as far as Luk Keng in the north- east, Sai Kung, Tseung Kwan O in the east, Sheung Shui and Yuen Long in the north, and Tuen Mun in the north-west.

She often runs on Waterloo Road and goes to Kowloon Tong, Lok Fu, Kwun Tong, Kwai Chung and later to Shatin. There was one thing that the car was proud of. My colleagues arranged a ribbon-cutting (actually made of paper) ceremony at the garage on her first day to school. Of course, it was my honour to have such a large number of colleagues to celebrate such an event with me.

I was proud of my car which could help me deliver plenty of books, household appliances and odd things many many times from my old home (at Kowloon Tong) to my new one (at Shatin). She could also carry for my relatives and friends a lot of luggage to and from our International Airport.

Unfortunately, in these 12 years or so, she received several bruises on her body because of the carelessness of my relatives and myself. Some of her wheel-caps were shaken off on the roads because they were loosely fixed back to the wheels after regular car-check. I often send my car to Sime Darby for maintenance and repairs, so she is always fit and in good conditions.

Today she goes to a new owner. I believe she has a better life and the owner can treat her well as his daughter.

Banff (班夫)

I saw this town from a programme called (世界正美麗) in J2 network. This very town makes me think of two persons, Peter Fung, my very best friend (classmate actually) in my secondary school and Mr. So, my colleague at CCSC because they both live in Alberta. Mr. So once told me that he could drive to the Rockies easily. After reading some information from the Internet, I agree with him.

Below is some information I collect from the Internet:

Banff is the largest town in Banff National Park, on the Rockies in Alberta, Canada. It is also the first incorporated municipality located within a national park in Canada. It is a Canadian town with the highest elevation at 1,463 m (4,800 ft), surrounded by mountains, notably Mount Rundle, Sulphur Mountain, Mount Norquay, and Cascade Mountain; and situated above Bow Falls near the junction of the Bow and Spray Rivers. Banff is located 126 km (78 mi) west of Calgary and 58 km (36 mi) east of Lake Louise, on the Trans-Canada Highway. The Town is a member of the Calgary Regional Partnership.


Banff is the most popular resort town of Canada, known for its mountainous surroundings and hot springs. It is a major destination for outdoor sports such as hiking, biking, scrambling and skiing within the region. Two ski resorts, Sunshine Village and Ski Norquay, are located in close proximity.


The top photo here shows the cable cars bringing tourists to the top of a hill to take a 360-degree view of the landscapes around Banff.

What does the lady in the last photo want to tell you? The answer will be revealed later this week.

33 Cheerful Faces

The body heat of these 33 "ice-landers" from Hong Kong SAR could have melted a small amount of ice at this very spot on Antarctica. They spread the red flags of HKSAR and China in January, 2009 to show to the world that they have reached this southernmost frozen “treasure” on Earth.

With sun-glasses on and in heavy clothes, all of them carried big smiles of satisfaction. They had already marked their foot-prints on this vast, barren and cold land of ice and recorded good memories in their cameras and minds.

East meets West

During vacation in California, Phoebe Fu visited her former teacher, Felix Ching. The latter drove her to the Civic Centre Area to look at various buildings from outside. They went to the Fisherman’s Wharf to look at the boats, Pier 39 to watch the sea lions, watched the exhibits of warships and looked at Alcatraz Island from a distance.

Last time when Roger Chan drove me there, he suggested me and wife to drop in the City Hall of San Francisco for a short while. We could not find much interest inside except we marveled at the Dome over our heads. We went back to Roger’s car and climbed to Telegraph Hill to look at Alcatraz Island and the city, stopped by Chinatown to buy some tarts and up and down the Crookedest Street, then by way to the vista point at the Golden Gate Bridge. On the way through the City, I saw the building I longed to see, the Trans-America Building (it looks like a pyramid).

On another day during my stay in San Francisco, Felix Ching similarly took me and wife to the Fisherman’s Wharf, having lunch at “In and Out”, then to Pier 39 to watch the sea lions resting on the floating platforms and boarded an empty cable-car to have a photo taken.

Phoebe was once a student of Felix and me in the “80”s. I met Phoebe some months or a year ago in Facebook. I remember that this “Ace” of mine was a quiet, shy girl in class. She attended my Mathematics lessons and proved herself one of the attentive students in her class.

An Interesting Answer

One night before Abby went to bed, Connie asked Abby a question:
“What did God create on the Sixth Day?”
“叮噹,”answered Abby.

The reason why Abby answered like this is very simple: Doraemon has deep-rooted in Abby’s heart for a long time. She must have placed it in her top-list.

The following can explain “why?” :
Abby did not know the answer at that time, but she was so clever to pick “叮噹” from her “Dictionary”. Her answer was perfect and nicely selected because it could make a lot of people laugh. She was “humorous” indeed. Some lazy people will just say, “I don’t know”, but Abby did not say this.

We have influenced Abby a lot of since she was little because we own a big family of Doraemons at home. The most impressive one could play the theme song of “叮噹” when its top button is depressed. Very often when we talk with Abby and her family through Skype, we show Abby this Doraemon or she asks us to show it to her. Of course she loves listening to the song played by this Doraemon. Sometimes playing once is not enough for her.

Met Toblerone Today

I love Toblerone chocolate (三角朱古力) as early as a child. The long bar of chocolate is triangular in shape with teeth like hills. The bar of chocolate when rested on a table looks like a big comb for a giant. It looks like a “harmonica” from another angle. When I eat it, I will break each tooth (hill) one by one and push it into my mouth. I like the creamy taste of its milk chocolate. Not as simple as milk chocolate, it contains small bits of chunked almonds, sweet paste of nougat as well as honey.












Let us study Toblerone chocolate closely from Wikipedia:

Toblerone is a chocolate bar made by Kraft Foods Switzerland. It is best known for its triangular chunks (representing the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps), its distinctive packaging, its prism shape (triangular prism or pentahedron) and its ubiquity in airport duty-free shops.

Toblerone was created by Theodor Tobler and Emil Baumann in Bern, Switzerland in 1908. They developed a unique milk chocolate including nougat, almonds and honey with a distinctive triangular shape. The product's name is a portmanteau combining Tobler's name with the Italian word torrone (a type of nougat). The image of a bear is hidden in the Matterhorn mountain symbolizing the town of its origin.

In 1932 Tobler made the first filled bars of chocolate, the Tobler-O-rum.

Since the 1970s, other versions of the Toblerone have been produced. These include:
[A] plain chocolate - (dark chocolate) in a green or black wrapper
[B] white chocolate - in a white wrapper
[C] Snow-Capped - editions with white chocolate peaks (also in a white/silver wrapper)
[D] Filled editions - milk chocolate with a white chocolate centre (blue wrapper)
[E] OneByOne - individually wrapped triangular chunks
[F] Toblerone Pralinés - released in 1997, a single peaked version in the distinctive yellow packaging[5]
[G] Fruit and Nut - in 2007 with a half purple cardboard box
[H] Honeycomb crisp - with a half white box with honeycomb pieces pictured on it
[I] Berner Bär - 500g milk chocolate bar, with a relief portrait of the Bernese Bear and the Coat of arms of Berne on its face. The only non-triangular Toblerone.

Today, I was able to capture an advertisement from a bus on the road near my home. The bus was going to leave from a bus-stop. I was quick enough to take out my camera and just in time to create an image here for everybody to see.

The special message on the advertisement tells us that Toblerone has new products of “OneByOne”, breaking away the old image of a teeth-like bar. The chocolate comes in individuals and tastes.

The five different tastes are:
(1) The Milk One
(2) The Dark One
(3) The White One
(4) The Snow-topped One
(5) The Praline One

The advertisement says: 5 MORE REASONS TO SHARE.

Do you agree?

Terminator Salvation 2018

This afternoon, I watched the film “Terminator Salvation 2018” with a free ticket at Shatin UA Cinema.

The film started with Dr. Serena Kogan of Cyberdyne Systems (in 2003) in a State prison in U.S.A. convincing death row inmate Marcus Wright to sign an agreement to donate his body for medical research after his execution by lethal injection. One year later, the Skynet system was activated, perceived humans as a threat to its own existence, and eradicated much of humanity in the event known as Judgment Day. In 2018, John Connor led an attack by the Resistance on a Skynet base. John discovered human prisoners and the planned for the development of a new type of Terminators incorporating living tissue, but he was the only survivor of the attack after the base was destroyed in a nuclear explosion. At the same time, Marcus emerged from the wreckage of the base and travelled on foot to Los Angeles.

John returned to Resistance headquarters inside a nuclear submarine and reported his discovery. Meanwhile, the Resistance had found a radio frequency capable of shutting down Skynet machines. They planned to destroy the Skynet base in San Francisco in four days’ time in response to an intercepted "kill list" indicating that Skynet planned to kill the Resistance's command staff. John learned that he was second on the list, following Kyle Reese. The Resistance leaders were unaware of Kyle's importance to Skynet, but John knew that Kyle would later become his father. John met with his officer Barnes and wife Kate and sent radio broadcasts to Resistance members and surviving civilians around the world.

Arriving at the ruins of Los Angeles, Marcus was saved from a T-600 Terminator by Kyle Reese and his mute companion, Star. Kyle told Marcus the events of Judgment Day and the ensuing war between humans and machines. Hearing John's radio broadcast, the three left Los Angeles in search of the Resistance. They survived in an attack by machines, but Kyle, Star, and several other humans were taken prisoners. During this time, a pair of Resistance A-10s were shot down. Marcus saved the downed female pilot, Blair Williams and they together went to John's base, but Marcus was wounded by a land mine. Attempting to save his life, the Resistance fighters discovered that he was in fact a cyborg, whose human components sustained by a unique endo-skeleton and circuitry along with a partially artificial cerebral cortex. Marcus believed himself to be human, demanding to be released so that he could save Kyle from Skynet, but John ordered to destroy him. However, Blair released Marcus and helped him escape from the base. During the pursuit, Marcus saved John's life from Skynet hydro-bots, and both of them formed an alliance—Marcus would enter Skynet's headquarter to disable its defenses so that John could rescue Kyle.








John requested Ashdown to delay the attack so that he could rescue Kyle and the other prisoners, but Ashdown refused. However, John's soldiers remained loyal to him and he sent a radio broadcast asking the other Resistance fighters not to attack Skynet. Marcus entered the Skynet base and interfaced with the computer, disabled the defenses and allowed John to infiltrate the cell block and release the human prisoners. Meanwhile, the command submarine with the Resistance leaders aboard was destroyed by a Hunter-Killer.

Marcus discovered that he himself was created by Skynet and his programmed mission was to lure John into the base to be killed. He tore out the hardware linking him to Skynet and went to assist John in battling a T-800 model 101 Terminator. John was seriously wounded during the fight, but succeeded in destroying the Skynet base by rigging several Terminator nuclear power cells to an explosive, detonating them as he, Marcus, Kyle, and Star were airlifted out. Kate attempted to save John's life, but his heart was damaged. Marcus offered his heart for transplant, sacrificing himself to save John. Recovering, John radioed to the other Resistance fighters that though this battle had been won, the war was not over.

What impresses most here is not the film but the free ticket of the film. Click the photo of the ticket on the left to enlarge it. You will find the details of the aerial view of a city with road systems forming the skull of a terminator. The flames from two burning buildings form the eyes. The designer of this ticket must have spent much time on finding a road system (probably one in Los Angeles) which matches his/ her ideas. I am quite amazed to see such a good design from this ticket.

After watching the film, I agree that terminators are very powerful robots which may kill and wipe out our humans one day. It is scary to see automatic-driven motor-cycle chasing and killing people and terminators shooting at people with their machine guns.

Looking at Cyprus

Without buying the packet of grape juice mentioned earlier, I would not have studied Cyprus, a Eurasian island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece , west of Lebanon, Syria and Israel, north of Egypt and south of Turkey.

Cyprus, shaped like a sea shell, is the Mediterranean's third largest island, and one of its most popular tourist destinations, attracting over 2.4 million tourists per year. It is formerly a British colony. It became an independent republic in 1960 and a member of the Commonwealth in 1961. The Republic of Cyprus is one of the advanced economies in the region and has been a member of the European Union since 1 May 2004.

In 1974, following years of intercommunal violence between ethnic Greeks and Turks and an attempted coup d'état by Greek Cypriot nationalists aimed at annexing the island to Greece and engineered by the military junta then in power in Athens. Turkey invaded and occupied one third of the island. This led to the displacement of thousands of Cypriots and the establishment of a separate Turkish Cypriot political entity in the north. This event and its resulting political situation are matters of ongoing dispute.

The Republic of Cyprus, the internationally recognized state, has de jure sovereignty over the entire island of Cyprus and its surrounding waters except small portions that are allocated by treaty to the United Kingdom as sovereign military bases. The island is partitioned into four main parts:
[1] the area under the effective control of the Republic of Cyprus, comprising about 59% of the island's area in the south;
[2] the Turkish-occupied area in the north is the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, covering about 36% of the island's area and recognized only by Turkey;
[3] the United Nations-controlled Green Line, separating the two, covering about 3% of the island's area;
[4] two British Sovereign Base Areas (Akrotiri and Dhekelia), covering about 3% of the island's area.

More about the City Hall at San Francisco

The City Hall of San Francisco, California, was first opened in 1915 in the city's Civic Center. It is a Beaux-Arts monument during the American Renaissance of the period 1880–1917. The structure's dome is the fifth largest in the world. The present building is actually a replacement for an earlier City Hall that was completely destroyed during the 1906 Earthquake.

The building occupies two full blocks of San Francisco. It is 119 m long on Van Ness Avenue and Polk Street, by 83.25 m on Grove and McAllister Streets. Its dome, which owes much to Mansart's Baroque dome of Les Invalides, Paris, is the fifth largest dome in the world, rising 94 m above the Civic Center Historic District. It is just 35 cm higher than the United States Capitol.

The building contains some 7,900 tons (7,035 metric tons) of structural steel from the American Bridge Company near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is faced with Madera County granite on the exterior, and Indiana sandstone within, together with finish marbles from Alabama, Colorado, Vermont, and Italy. Much of the statuary is by Henri Crenier.

The Rotunda is a spectacular space and the upper levels are opened to the public. Opposite the grand staircase, on the second floor, is the office of the Mayor. Bronze busts of former Mayor George Moscone and his successor, Dianne Feinstein, stand nearby as tacit reminders of the Moscone assassination, which took place just a few yards from that spot in the smaller rotunda of the mayor's office entrance. A bust of former county supervisor Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in the building was unveiled on May 22, 2008. I wonder why there were so many assassinations in the States.

I am glad to show you what Dianne Feinstein looks like.

Good Coffee Vs Weak Milk Tea

The Coffee served in KFC is okay. It is called Beanie Coffee. The taste is right when I add two packets of rocky sugar (special sugar for coffee) into the coffee.

On the contrary, the Milk Tea served in KFC is as bad as that in hotels. Its colour looks like milk tea, but it neither has the taste of milk nor tea. It tastes like tap water with the colour of milk tea. KFC is a genius in “disguise”.

Back to the usual dish of breakfast we order, there are scrambled egg, chicken and a sweet muffin. According to ration, half of the breakfast goes to my wife and the rest goes to me. We are on a “Go slimmer” movement.

A Packet of Grape Juice

This paper-packet of Grape Juice from Wellcome Supermarket looks welcoming to customers like us because of the fresh-look of the grapes on its covers. On one side of the covers is written “GRAPE JUICE”. The letters below are in a different language, “DRUV JUICE”. Turning the pack to the opposite side, I find that the words of language look more or less like a combination of “English” and those “Symbols” I often see in Mathematics.

To find out the answer “Where from?”, I scroll my eyes over the words on every face. Finally I find it.

See if you can guess the country which produces this kind of grape juice. There are five choices here:
1. Egypt
2. Greece
3. Cyprus
4. Turkey
5. Russia

City Planning in San Francisco

In my opinion, the City Planning in San Francisco is far better than that in Hong Kong.

On cultural side, the following buildings in San Francisco can be found close together along Grove Street or in the vicinity.

(1) San Francisco City Hall (It looks like St. Peter’s Cathedral in Vatican City)

(2) Asian Art Museum (It really looks like a museum.)

(3) Davis Symphony Hall (It is round at a corner)










(4) San Francisco Opera House (Its arches on the ground floor look very much like those of our Wanchai and Shamshuipo Police Station.)

(5) War Memorial and Herbst Theatre (They look like modern castles)










(6) Bill Graham Auditorium (To me, it looks more like a railway station.)

(7) New San Francisco City Library (There are so many windows that they allow enough light to illuminate most part of the library.)

Lake Light Mountain Colour (湖光山色)

湖光山色 when translated in English looks awkward. I think the Chinese meaning can best reflect the beautiful scene here at Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown in New Zealand.

A tourist board at the top station of the gondolas describes the view of the lands and lake below in details.

The mountains (from left to right in the photo of the board) are:
1. Double Cone (a funny name to me; an inviting name for ice-cream lovers) is 2343 m (7688 feet) high.
2. The whole range is called The Remarkables.
3. Cecil Peak is 1974 m (6477 feet) high.

Lake Wakatipu: Length (84 km); Greatest Width (5 km); Greatest Depth (399 m); Area 290 sq. km; Average temperature 11.5 C degrees.

The slightly elevated land on the left is called Kelvin Heights.

On the narrow strip of land fringing the lake and heading out from Kelvin heights are densely populated with low houses. Queenstown Golf Club is located at the “big foot” of the peninsula further out to the lake.

The water that separates Kelvin Heights and Queenstown is called Frankton Arm.
Queenstown Garden is built on an arm (headland) stretching out to the lake, thus creating Queenstown Bay for boats to park at their piers and lovely beaches for swimmers.

Ho Keung and Yin Ping took some actual photos of the lake and its neighbouring lands. Let us compare them with those features on the board.

明星與現實兩個板本

照我的看法，KFC厚燒雞腿包有兩個板本，一個是明星，另一個是現實。

明星板本出現在近店鋪門口當眼的廣告牌上，明艷照人，彩色奪目。經化妝師和攝影師包裝及技術搭夠之下，塑造了一個層層疊疊厚到張開口一下子咬不盡的夾心包。看來包面下的芝士開始融化，厚切蕃茄是挺新鮮似的，下面是一大塊薯餅，跟著的是鋪上沙律醬綠得可愛的西生菜，再下面燒到金黃色的主角─雞腿肉，最後是包的底板。你說這樣子吸引的雞包那裏找呢？



我決定嘗試單吃這個包，不要薯格和汽水，於是吩咐Tony替我買一個。他遞到我手裏的是一個用紙裹著現實板本的厚燒雞腿包，其厚度只有宣傳照片中包的一半。食材東歪西倒，像地震後的情景。蕃茄尚算厚，但上面的芝士不見了。我發覺薯餅太軟，菜像中國生菜多一些，雞肉是過熟至啡色，幸好未變成雞肉乾，包的底板有些燶。看著面前的廣告，吃著這個失水準的包，真不是味道呢！

MTR Fare Savers

MTR cooperates with a number of shopping centres over different parts of Hong Kong in setting up Fare Savers to attract more people to visit these centres.

In using this kind of Fare Savers, one has to go to the designated shopping centre to register his/her octopus card at a machine. Two dollars or one dollar can be saved on one single journey. The privilege only entitles the passenger to board the train at the nearest station to the centre.

Let me show you how I save my money when I take MTR:

When I go to Wanchai or Causeway Bay, first I go to Ngan Shing Shopping Centre (銀城商場) at City One to register my octopus card at the machine and then board a train at City One Station (not applicable with entry at other stations). In this manner, I shall save one dollar in travelling to Wanchai or Causeway Bay (same value can be saved to any other parts of the territory). In the return journey, I shall go to 港鐵特惠站 at C.C. Wu Building (集成中心) in Wanchai to register my octopus card again (this time, with a two-dollar save) before I board a train at Wanchai Station or Causeway Bay Station back to Shatin. In this way of using the Fare Saver, I shall save altogether three dollars in a double journey.

There is one funny thing I want to mention here. Next to the card reader was a message “420 steps to City One Station from here” written by the Hong Kong Medical Association (香港醫學會). My wife says that it is wrong. She takes 720 steps before she reaches the station. Do you know why? It must be that the person who writes this has never walked this distance by himself/herself before. He/She just measures the distance between the station and the shopping centre from a map along a straight line, never to consider the route that winds past the blocks of buildings there, and then calculates the number of steps and that makes 420 steps.

More about City Hall in San Francisco

Valuable information from my dear colleague, Felix, flies like snowflakes to my mail box. I just write a little last time, but Felix writes me thrice as much. Thank you, Felix, for your support.

City Hall in San Francisco has a wealth of history and is where many important events have taken place in the city. It is where Marilyn Monroe was married in 1954, and also, more recently, where over 100 gay and lesbian couples were married by the mayor.

The building itself is impressive and was designed by two leading architects from Paris almost 100 years ago. On the top of the building is a large dome, that was actually based on the dome of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome's Vatican City.

Felix says, “Yes, the gold is real gold. I witnessed their putting gold leaf on the City Hall structures in 1999. Before that happened, the dome had a Copper surface, and the entire dome was blue-green in color due to oxidation.”

The current City Hall was completed in 1915. It's a Beaux Arts-style building that replaced the Old City Hall which had been completed in 1897 but was destroyed just nine years later in the 1906 earthquake and fire. The dome on San Francisco's City Hall is 16 feet higher than the capitol dome in Washington D. C. and yes that's real gold (leaf)—$400,000 worth in 1999.

The typeface on all signs at City hall is called City Hall and was hand drawn by the detail-oriented architect of City Hall – Arthur Brown Jr. Brown designed three other structures at Civic Center as well as Coit Tower and many other buildings in the Bay area and some as far away as Washington DC. Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe were married at San Francisco's City Hall in 1954. Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated there in 1978.

For comparison of the domes I mentioned before, Felix brings me the photo of the famous St. Peter’s Cathedral at Vatican City. Here it is.

波羅蜜

在五月最後的一個早晨，我被第一城港鐵站(即火車站)後面花圃上幾棵樹掛著「流星鎚」似的果實吸引了一小段時間；因為那些綠綠啡啡背囊式的果實實在可愛，要用相機拍下才罷休。我的隨身顧問告訴我這些果是大樹菠蘿。

於是返家之後，我又在網上搜尋一番:

波羅蜜，學名 Artocarpus heterophyllus，常綠喬木，原產印度。隋唐時它被傳入中國，稱為“頻那挲”（梵文 Panasa 對音）。宋代它被改稱波羅蜜，沿用至今。

現在波羅蜜盛產於中國嶺南、雲南和印度、中南半島、南洋群島、孟加拉國和巴西等地。

波羅蜜果實大如西瓜，外皮綠色有稜角，內有幾十個淡黃色果囊，甘甜可口，中有果核，可炒食。新鮮波羅蜜果肉是水果，常被用作烹調材料，或製成波羅蜜果脯和波羅蜜罐頭。波羅蜜木材常用來制造南洋各地的樂器。在香港及鄰近地區，波羅蜜一般被稱為「大樹菠蘿」。