Little Girl, Little Car

The tiny yellow toy car fits Abby’s hands perfectly. It has been delivered from Shatin to Ma On Shan for some time. One may despite it because of its little size. Actually it is capable of running very fast with a pull at it a little backward or a press a little downward and then a release.

It is the first time I see Abby play it so happily on a table in a restaurant. Abby knows the skill of pressing it with her little fingers on the ceiling, releasing it and the car goes swiftly forward. She enjoys looking at the movement of the car and laughs heartily. Those looking at her feel happy too because her laughs are so REAL.

A Joke on me

Today when I began to eat my breakfast at a KFC, I noticed a man sitting not far away from me wearing an identical T-shirt which I wore during the school picnic on Lamma Island last November.

This T-shirt reminds me of a page of the “Graduation Book” of the S5 class of CCSC, 2006-2007. It was a shock to me when I found this page on the night I attended their Graduation Dinner.

The students of 5D, some of whom I had taught before, took the advantage of my distinct broad body in the photo and put their class name on my T-shirt as their notice board. I did not faint at that time. Clearly enough, I understood that they could not find a better place to put their class name and they did not want to spoil their specially-designed T-shirts with school ties. What a strange sight to them and to me in the photo!

Central Libraries

Yesterday I took a photo of the Central Library on Hong Kong Island. It looks like a hotel, built opposite to the Victoria Park. I have never been inside, but it can be quite modern when we compare it with our old library inside City Hall in Central. In old days, when we wanted to look for books from public libraries, the first choice was City Hall Library. As years passed, the Central Library in Kowloon was set up near the junction of Waterloo Road and Pui Ching Road.

In Singapore, the Central Library looks rather like a modern commercial building. A lot of materials like glass and metals with less concrete have been used in building it. Our Central Library on Hong Kong Island is different, having more concrete than glass and metals.

APEC

Leaders of the countries around the Pacific assembled at Sydney recently to attend meetings concerning Climate change, Energy security and Clean Development. It is good to have these leaders to sit together to discuss and find out solutions to the problems they face and thus making their countries better.

Each year when meetings of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) are held, the host country of the meeting will invite their guest leaders to wear their national costumes. What we, ordinary people, interested in are the costumes the leaders will wear this year in Australia. This time, the costumes are King-sized or Queen-sized dark overcoats to put on top of the original clothes. These big coats are like those worn by detectives during wet cold days. I believe these leaders must feel very hot under such overcoats and they will take them off once photos are taken.

Chinese Featured Films

In the past, our old Chinese featured films were broadcasted by ATV or HKTVB after mid-night. People often said that they were old torn Cantonese films (粵語殘片) .I suppose the watchers at that time were those old people who slept late or those who could not sleep at night.

Now that ATV broadcasts one Chinese featured film at about six each Sunday morning, it is a nice thing for older people who wake up early to watch such films. Not only these films can bring them memories of their old days, they also arouse the interest of the watchers to predict how the story will go on and what the actors and actress will say next. The watchers will feel very proud of themselves when the story goes on in the same way as they are thinking. You know, they have put themselves into the film already.

The famous actors and actress in the film (shown in the photo) are from left to right, Leung Shing Por (梁醒波), Yam Kim Fai (任劍輝) and Law Kim Long (羅劍郎).

It is unfortunate that Law Yim Hing (羅艷卿) did not act in the film.

Sea corals and Coral fishes at Shatin

How can they land on Shatin? No problem!

They are found inside a glass-aquarium behind the show-window of a clinic inside a commercial centre at Shatin.

The milky-white corals (海葵) wave their tentacles in the water like a fan. With these movements, the corals can feed themselves with micro-organisms.

The coral fishes that come in pairs on the left are called (小丑魚). They often take shelter underneath the corals. Their beautiful colours attract my attention most of the time!

Beautiful Eyes!

Abby is well-trained like a dolphin to perform certain skills. One of them is that when we say “Beautiful eyes”, she will blink her eyes several times. She enjoys doing this which narrows her eyes into two curves and her mouth to a small one.

In the photo, she is sitting in front of her toys. Even an empty box of orange juice can be one of them. The topless paper-cap was one of the handicraft she made at a play group in a kindergarten at Kowloon Tong during summer vacation. Although, to some extent, it was made by herself, she prefers a real one to put on her head.

Earlier she was taught how to stack up blocks. Whenever she was successful in stacking one block on top of the other, she and the onlookers would clap. It was a good training to her so that she could face successes and failures. When she failed to stack up a block or the whole pile of blocks fell, she would not clap. People around her would say, “Never mind! Try again”. This was real encouragement!

Modern Arches

I had a comfortable feeling when standing and looking at the modern arches above me at New Town Plaza, Shatin last Saturday.

These arches have blinds that can be opened to let in more light when the sky is gloomy. On the other hand, when there is strong sunlight, the blinds can shield it off. This light-well really brings in adequate illumination to several floors in the daytime.

This plaza began its renovation a year or two ago and now it is turned into a modern one. The shops doing the same kind of business are arranged on the same floor so that customers need not go up and down floors.

Lots of people crowd into the plaza on Sundays and Saturdays. They go shopping or eating in its shops. These activities make the whole plaza very busy indeed.

Si Si Sic

What is that? Well, it is an old kind of cream sandwich biscuits (夾心餅) produced by the Garden Company Limited in Hong Kong. In Chinese, it is 時時食. It is a good brand-name because it reminds people that they may eat them at all times.

My family grows up with these biscuits, simply because they are cheap. In the past, these biscuits, in several flavours, were wrapped up in transparent plastic packets, six in each.. They were sold at $0.8 at first, later $0.9 and then $1 per packet. Nowadays they are sold in colourful packets, more attractive than before! They are sold at 6 packets for $10 recently at a “Circle K” shop. It is around $1.66 per packet.

The tastes of these biscuits do not change at all. In the photo, the green packet of biscuits is in lemon-flavour while the orange one in cheese.

“Garden” was a Bread Kingdom in Hong Kong for many years. Although there are new competitors in our Hong Kong market recently, it still takes the leading role. One incident that happened a year or two ago made it famous again. One day its factory at Sham Tseng leaked out a lot of flour. As a result, part of Castle Peak Road near by was covered with a thick layer of snowy-white flour. The road had to be sealed off so that it could be cleaned up. What an interesting sight, but a waste of flour!

A Stunning Flight

Never have we seen passenger planes flying so low and close to the buildings on two sides of the Victoria Harbour in Aviation History of Hong Kong. Normally planes flying in or out of Hong Kong do not fly over the harbour as their routes.

Clearly enough, the flight of an A380 yesterday was a dramatic show to the people of Hong Kong and the World. This might have given very good impressions and advertising effect to the buyers and the future users of these Airbuses.

From TV screen, the cabins of the plane are comfortable and luxurious. The windows of the plane can change its colour as passengers require, unlike those with pull-up or down blinds. The Aisles are wider so people can go past easily. I hope airline companies will use such kind of planes to serve their passengers so that more people can enjoy their flights especially those long ones.

Top photo from Metro Hong Kong
Other photos from AM730

A380 over Victoria Harbour

For the first time, an Airbus A380 flied over the Victoria Harbour at about eight this morning. It was a historic sight of this new giant aircraft taking a parade flight around Hong Kong (see the route map).


This A380 arrived yesterday to take part in Aerospace 2007, an aircraft exhibition, at Chek Lap Kok this week.

Although it was large in size, it flied elegantly. There were many viewers at different parts along the coasts of the Harbour this early morning. To take better photo shots of the plane, aircraft-hot fans and photographers crowded round the peak to wait for this Golden chance.

Even at Shatin where I lived, I could glimpse its immense body across the distant sky.

The last photo seems terrifying! It looks as if the A380 hit our IFC (International Financial Centre) and it reminds me of the tragic incident 911 of two hijacked planes by terrorists hit the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York.


Top photo from Headline Daily
Route map photo from top Oriental Daily News
Other photos from HKTVB and ATV

Smelling!

Abby enters her Wonderful World of Smelling recently. In TV, the people are crazy in tasting curry sports shoes, socks and strange things in different sauces. At home, Abby was curious of smelling different things.

We first witnessed her smelling the small leather bag from Por Por (婆婆). It is the smell of leather that attracted Abby, not the contents inside.

Here is another Guessing Game for ALL.

What are the contents inside the leather bag?

(A) coins

(B) keys

(C) beans

(D) jewels

What is the shape of the leather bag?

(E) a tortoise

(F) a crocodile

(G) a cat

(H) a rat

香港的廣告無處不在

香港的廣告商連一條巴士站柱也不放過, 將廣告放上去!

當我們抬起頭去找巴士站時, 也許不自覺地把廣告們攝進腦袋去.

廣告可算是無孔不入, 把我們團團圍住了!

但願我們見到的廣告是新穎的,有創意的,健康的!

那怕它們是什麼香港腳皮膚膏藥, 肥變瘦之拜拜肉等等可怕廣告,令我們看到眼凸凸!

What languages are these?

Recently on the wrapping paper of a burger for breakfast in a Hong Kong Mc Donald, I find some strange languages of different countries.

Interesting indeed! Since Hong Kong is a multi-cultural country, it is not strange at all to find people of different nationalities visit Mc Donald every day, especially in Central and other commercial districts in Hong Kong. It is a nice thing to educate people like me who only know Chinese and English, but no other languages

It is obvious that the message “I’m loving it” is written in different languages.

If any reader of my blogs knows the languages used on the wrapping paper, please let me know by clicking at the “comment” and writing to me about it!

Where have ten of the potted plants gone?

On August 10^th, there were altogether 18 beautiful potted flowering plants on the footbridge, 9 on each side.

Today, August 30^th, 10 of them disappeared (within one night).

Throughout these 20 days, the flowers dropped off a lot when Typhoon Pabuk visited us twice and heavy rain fell for a few days. Later, the plants began to dry up and turned brown because nobody waters them. Now, few flowers can survive.

There may be three possible reasons for the disappearance of the potted plants:

(1) They are taken away to have new plants replaced and perhaps they will come back some time later.

(2) There may be too many potted plants on the footbridge which may overload it.

(3) They have been transferred to another place.

I learn from a newspaper several days ago that there was a similar case:

It so happened that in Tseung Kwan O, the District Board decided to make the district green with 90 potted trees (木蘭樹). They used half a million Hong Kong dollars for this. Owing to poor management, the plants died in three months’ time. The trees were replaced by a new kind of trees.

What a waste of SAR's money when the plants are neglected – without watering or adding nutrients to the soil!

Queen Mary 2 once parked Here

Queen Mary 2, a giant passenger ship, visited Sydney this year and parked at this very Overseas Passenger Terminal in Sydney Harbour.

The larger photo shows the modern terminal with several floors on which are restaurants and comfortable rooms for passengers to stay and relax.

The smaller photo shows the bridges which could be extended for passengers to board a ocean liner or go on shore. These bridges are supported by strong steel bars as if they were spider legs (I mentioned them in my previous blog).

After Sydney, Queen Mary 2 headed for Hong Kong. It could not park at our Ocean Terminal in Tsimshatsui because it was too big. It could only park at the one of the container piers at Kwai Chung. As a result, passengers from Hong Kong, most of which were rich people, had to go among containers and cranes before they could go on board Queen Mary.

What Hong Kong needs is a big Deep-sea Ocean Terminal for huge passenger ships. It is expected that one such terminal will be built at the side of the Old Kai Tak Airport, but it takes years to build.

Huge Spider legs

In the photo, it looks as if there are 4 huge legs of a Robot Spider standing at the side of an Ocean Terminal in Sydney.

Robots are widely used nowadays. They can be used to deal with dangerous missions by the Police such as treating suspicious bomb or explosives. Some can be used in wars for detection or attack purposes.

In Hong Kong, I learn that there are restaurants having robots serving the customers. They come with menus, receive orders for food and even deliver dishes of food to the customers’ tables.

In recent years, teachers in Hong Kong are receiving endless orders from EMB to carry out new policies. They become robots, teaching tools, report and evaluation writing machines. To enhance professionalism, teachers are forced to spend at least 150 hours on attending courses, seminars, lectures, sharing of experience and services of any kind within 3 years. EMB also lays down bench marks for teachers teaching Languages, gives external reviews to each school and changes the structures of the school boards.

The following are some of the elements added to my school:

1. A certain percentage of IT (Information Technology) Teaching should be applied to the subject taught. This involves a lot of preparation in making PowerPoints or whatever materials useful.

2. Projects should be assigned to the students to do and complete within a certain period of time.

3. Teachers should ask students questions during lessons. They should not ask just a few of them, but everyone so that there is a great involvement in the students. To fulfill this, the teachers have to prepare a lot of questions to ask in each lesson!

4. Students should be praised and encouraged rather than be scolded or punished.

5. Stickers should be given to those students who do their homework well.

6. Online exercises should be given to the students regularly.

7. Continuous Assessment should be given to the students, so teachers have to keep a detailed records of what and how good or bad their students do in their homework and projects.

8. Moral Education should be introduced to the students through the class-teacher of each class. Class teachers are encouraged to meet each and every student and talk with him/her. Some teachers choose the idea of eating lunch with their students.

A380

Recently, Singapore Airlines proudly announced that the first flight of its new fleet of Airbuses A380 will be on October 25^th. The new plane will fly from Singapore to Sydney and back to Singapore on the next day.

The booking of the tickets of these two first flights for the 3 classes, Economy, Business and VIP, will be carried out through e-bay. The tickets will go into the hands of those passengers who bid for higher prices and most of the money earned from ticket sales will be for charity. The money will go to Singapore Community Chest and two Children hospitals in Sydney.

It is really nice to see those passengers enjoy the first flights as well as donate money to organizations that both citizens of Singapore and Sydney benefit. What a nice thought!

There were test flights of such a huge whale-like plane from Europe to Asia. Hong Kong was one of its stopping cities. At that time, the plane was like a new star in the sky and at famous airports in the world. This plane was found to be very comfortable and could carry 471 passengers at a time.These flights were very successful.

I hope, in the near future, that my wife and I can board such kind of plane to Singapore or Sydney.

Can Cats play Music?

Some of these porcelain cats bought from Japan can.

In the hind row on the left, the white cat is playing a saxophone while its neighbour playing a violin.

In the front row on the left, two small, cute and energetic kittens are playing, one on a shallow bath and the other underneath it.

Their neighbouring cat is fat with one of his fore limbs raised in the air. People know that this cat is one that brings fortune (money) to them. They often call it, 招財貓.

Three of these decorative cats can play music. With the base turned several times, the cat at the top can move and at the same time, a short piece of music is played. It is really funny and musical!

A Cartoon Kitten for Abby

This kitten among flowers is to be given to Abby

It has triangular ears and nose, small round eyes, thin but straight whiskers. There are some white spots against its black furry body. Strange enough, colour reverses at its tail, white with black spots.

It stands on legs of equal length among gas-fume-like flowers that will vanish in a moment.