What a Good Beginning of Today!

I was not aware of the streets below which had been wetted until my wife called out to me. There was no trace of rain on the windows. I guessed it was drizzle that made the streets wet for a few minutes.

Looking up, I spotted in the distance the first rainbow I saw this year. It is rare to see a rainbow because a thin film of rain, sunshine at the right angle and the right time to build are necessary.

The rainbow was not conspicuous nor complete this time, but I could figure it out. How light-hearted I was to see a “welcoming” morning rainbow at seven twenty-one!

Lovely Flowers at Sai Kung

It was May when I set my feet on the roof-top garden of a café at Sai Kung near its bus terminus.

Lovely flowering plants were grown along the edges of this narrow U-shaped garden. I was stunned to see the peach-coloured hibiscus for the first time in my life. The yellow flowers were equally attractive. Their centres were dotted as if they were sprayed with red paint.

Full of life, the flowers stood high above the leaves. Some lined up along the straight edges of a quadrant of a circular grass lawn.

Working under the same roof in the 70’s

Here are some of my old colleagues of CCSC who worked together in teaching some of our younger generation of Hong Kong. Most of our students have grown older, married, have children and have become people of importance working successfully in different parts of the world, serving the communities they are in. Please Double click to see larger pictures.

Yesterday WE met in a restaurant in North Point. Sitting face to face, chatting, we found ourselves still energetic, somehow humorous and still remembered the old days that we were in CCSC.

In those days of the old, besides teaching our students during week days, we took part in many outdoor activities such as picnicking, barbecues, swimming, playing ball games of football or basketball. Afternoon tea was one of our after-school activities During summer time, we sometimes took coffee or tea after lunch at those Tai Pei Dong (大牌檔) at Tai Hang.

Since I was sitting at the back of the Male Staff Room, I could see all the backs of my colleagues and their activities. Although I was always correcting Mathematics exercise books, my eyes could spot out every moment of my colleagues. Some of them read newspapers. Some were sipping coca-cola. A few took a nap on the table when they were really tired. Sometimes jokes and laughter broke the silence of the room. We never found ourselves like teachers in our room because we have no boundaries among us. Games were played secretly inside the staff room, but obviously I shall not talk about them here.

Days passed so quickly that all of us at lunch yesterday have left CCSC. Some of us have retired. Some are still working because they are still young. What we are proud of was our little contribution in educating some of the youngsters of Hong Kong in the years of 70’s, 80’s, and for me 90’s and into the Millennium until September 2005.

ICC

Nowadays, 112 buildings in Hong Kong stand taller than 180 metres (591 ft).

The tallest is the 108-storey International Commerce Centre (ICC 環球貿易廣場), which was completed in 2010. It stands as the 4th-tallest building in the world having 118 storeys, being 484 m (1,588 ft) tall and 2nd-tallest building in the People's Republic of China. The tallest building in the world at the moment is Burj Khalifa at Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).


The second-tallest building in the city is the International Finance Centre (IFC 國際金融中心) at 88 storeys. It is the fourth-tallest building in the Greater China region and the eighth-tallest office building in the world, based on structural heights.

The 78-storey Central Plaza (中環廣場), which is in Wanchai, instead of in Central, contains the Hong Kong City Church, the highest church in the world located inside a skyscraper.

The fourth-tallest building in the city is the 70-storey Bank of China Tower(中銀大廈), which is 367 m (1,204 ft) high and was designed by famous architect I. M. Pei. The skyscraper has the distinction of being the first skyscraper outside the United States to exceed 305 m (1,000 ft) in height.

Harbour Views

Through the lens of Tony’s camera, the harbour views of Central and Wanchai from the Arch are superb. Please click the photo to get a larger view of the shore of Central.

First, looking at Central, the two “sharp-looking” buildings are IFC (International Financial Centre 國際金融中心) and The Center (中環中心).

IFC stands like a “cob” of maize with visible “grains”. Its top looks like the head of an electric razor.

The Center looks like a colourful pencil especially when its colour-changing lights are on at night. Its top is more or less like a pyramid.

The bank buildings are attractive to our eyes in Central. First the chisel-like Bank of China Tower (中銀大廈) is always the centre of interest in Central because of its “sharp” faces.

The “robot-like” Headquarter-building of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation wins a lot of admiration and fame in all these years.

Jardine House(怡和大廈), formerly called Connaught Centre (康樂大廈), was completed in 1973. It has 52 storeys (178,5 metres tall). At that time, it was the first skyscraper in Hong Kong and the tallest in South-east Asia. Its outlook is nothing special except the big round windows. Its height was quickly beaten by other tall modern buildings.

It is interesting to see eight piers lined evenly at the coastline of Central. Looking at them from left to right (east to west) from Kowloon are:

Pier 8: for Star ferries to Hung Hum
Pier 7: for Star ferries to Tsimshatsui
Pier 6: for ferries to Silver Mine Bay and Peng Chau
Pier 5: for ferries to Cheung Chau
Pier 4: for ferries to Lamma Island
Pier 3: for ferries to Discovery Bay
Pier 2: for ferries to Park Island
Pier 1: for government use

Looking up at Victoria Peak, The Peak Tower (凌霄閣), the cresent-like building is the terminus of Peak Tram at 396 metres. Tourists can overlook at the roof of the tower (at 428 metres) the scenery of the two shores of Victoria Harbour.

The Campus at University of Oregon

This is University of Oregon.It is a coeducational research university (founded in 1876) in Eugene, Oregon, United States. UO is the second oldest public university in the state.

The campus is spread over 295 acres (1.19 square km) and holds sixty major buildings, as well as providing a home for more than 500 varieties of trees. Eugene is located near many outstanding geographic features such as the Willamette River, Cascade Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Portland is within a two-hour drive. Many of the University's buildings are built around several major quadrangles, many of which interact with the famous pedestrian 13th Street.

Gifts of Craftsmanship

My wife received two wedding banquet gifts from a friend. They were supposed to be the gifts or souvenirs to the guests at the banquet.

Two pieces of small Chinese cakes were wrapped and put inside a cubical red paper box. It was so designed that the letters of double delights (雙喜) appeared on its four lateral faces, while the base closed like the shutter leaves in a single-lens reflex camera. The top of the box closed in, crossed and knotted together perfectly. The most interesting part was that one could see butterflies at its very top.

What a wonderful design and craftsmanship the designer has created!

Oregon

It is interesting to see colourful hot-air balloons flying at low altitude when driving along a road through Oregon, a state between California and Washington. The snow-capped mountains in a distance give a visual cooling effect to the driver and passengers on board a car on a highway.

Driving long distances needs stop and rest after two to three hours or so, especially when one feels hungry. Finding suitable restaurants with cheap and tasty food to fill the stomach is a piece of art. It always takes some time in a car circulating round the streets, which are supposed, filled with restaurantsor simply walking about the streets, door by door, looking at the menus or photos on the windows and most important of all the prices and kinds of food, if none, one has to estimate the prices by the look of the restaurants they stand at.

McDonalds are attractions everywhere, but their burgers are not cheap at all in the States. We experienced the cheapest hamburgers at midway to La Vegas. We bought them at one U.S. dollar each. In Canada and Australia, if there is no promotion, the prices of similar burgers are twice or thrice those in Hong Kong.

One particular thing about the trolley-buses in Oregon, they are modern and beautiful, unlike those old ones that run in the old town of San Francisco. The bus-stops are specially designed here with large wing-like shades for passengers to hide from the hot sun.

Some modern buildings made of glass and metal appear in Oregon. They are "assembled" like "Legos", which takes much shorter time.

Double-click if you want larger photos.

An Interesting Dish

Yesterday at JC, my wife and I ordered an appetizer, soup, two main courses and two slices of cakes. It is always our tactics to share different kinds of food between us. “More taste, more enjoyment”.

The appetizer, Mango and Scallop Salad, came before us in a strange white dish which made me chuckle. The salad was buried in a circular hole at the centre. I wondered why the dish should be so big and thick, but contained a small hole to hold the food. With respect to area, the hole is one ninth of that of the whole dish. Such a dish made me feel that the salad is relatively small in amount. I could only say it was “a big dish of tiny salad”.

The chicken soup with sea coconut was tasty, but it seemed to me that the coconut had slipped out of the soup or perhaps the cook had forgotten to put it inside.

The Smoked Pork Loin and Roasted New potatoes suited me because the taste of pork was quite close to ham and the small lovely potatoes are tasty under Port Wine sauce.

My favourite Fish cutlets came fresh and hot. The steakhouse fries, as they were called here, were tasty, a thousand times better than those match-stick like fries at a McDonald.

The two dessert cakes we shared were completely different in styles. One was home-made. I believed it meant that the cake could be easily made at any home. The other was a thick cheese cake which I guessed it could only be prepared at a kitchen like that at JC. We all agreed that the latter, was the “king” among the cakes displayed behind the show-windows.

Baggy Soap bubbles

It was July 17th, 2010. Little Hayley, a few days before two years old, was filled with curiosity when she first saw her grand uncle illustrate how soap bubbles were created by a circular plastic loop. She observed and learned fast.

Next she picked the loop up, dipped it in soapy water, waved it and soon mastered the skill of creating soap bubbles. No doubt she enjoyed those minutes of creating large baggy bubbles by herself and watching them disappear instantly.

Please double-click to get larger pictures.

My Collection of Coca-cola bottles

Among the five Coca-cola bottles I collected, one glows and changes colours.

As described by the manufacturer, it is a plastic plant-bottle, up to 30% plant-based and 100% recycled. In the limited edition (50,000 in all), this bottle ranks 34,103th. Great fun comes when it is turned on at the base. Its colour changes from red to purple to orange and to green. It is so produced as to arouse the interests of the people at Vancouver and elsewhere in Canada about the Winter Olympics in February. It is naturally enough that no coke is stored inside, but merely a light-changing toy-coke instead.

The other four 250 ml bottles are stylish, made of light, but hard metal, two of which were sold during Winter Olympics, one was made in Slovakia and one in Toronto. They all arrived at my home several months ago or earlier and together they give me a strong spirit of Coke.

Leaves stitched with laces

The photos above show leaves in two different parts of the world stitched with laces:

[A] The leaves on the left-hand side grow in summer Hong Kong at a temperature of around an average of 30 degrees Celcius. The colours are mainly purplish red, but yellowish green near the stalk and fringing the tooth-like edges.

[B] The leaves on the right-hand side grew in winter Vancouver at a temperature around 0 degree Celcius. The colour of the leaves are green, but stitched with a lace of an overnight frost.

Eco Terrace

Eco Terrace (都市梯田) is located at podium at Lok Fu Plaza(樂富中心). Some 10000 plants of seven organic vegetables are planted in boxes placed on the floor of the podium and on the steps leading to the road below. It is a project-based activity which will end in July, 2010. Obviously it is rare to see terraces in the midst of our concrete city.

The seven vegetables that are planted here are:
[1] Red Amaranth (莧菜)
[2] Eggplant (茄子)
[3] Mini tomato (蕃茄仔)
[4] Chinese Cabbage (上海青白菜)
[5] Wheat grass (小麥草)
[6] Water Spinach(通菜)
[7] Malabar Spinach (潺菜)

Have you eaten all of them before?
See if you can find them from the photos here.

Pineapple-bun breakfast

A pineapple-bun is shaped like pineapple, but does not contain any pineapple at all. It recently becomes the "star" of breakfasts of Café de Coral. Customer can’t resist its attraction.

To our disappointment, the bun is small, cold, hard like a shell and stale like yesterday's made. I think the pineapple buns sold in some of our local small restaurants are much bigger, better in taste and served fresh from their ovens. I don’t believe these buns are made by the fast food restaurants themselves, but simply they are ordered from a certain bakery.

Sooner or later, these buns will fade out and never appear in the breakfasts because they are not up to standard.

Scenery around the Lookout of The Arch

The Lookout (瞭望層) of The Arch (凱旋門) is located on its 62nd floor. It provides a 270-degree view of the northern shore of Hong Kong Island and most of Kowloon, except West Kowloon which has been blocked by neighbouring tall buildings.

It is so interesting to be there to observe and take photos of the panorama view of the busiest parts of Hong Kong and Kowloon.

The Arch itself is easily recognizable by its door-like shape from Central and Tsimshatsui. It really looks like L’ Arc de Triomphe (巴黎凱旋門) in Paris, France. Few people know that the clubhouse (with a restaurant and a swimming pool) is launched in mid-air, right at the top of the arch.

Please double-click to get a larger picture.

Chanthu

Chanthu (燦都) is the name given to the recent typhoon that affects the coast of Guangdong. This typhoon does not hit Hong Kong, but brings much rain to us. Yesterday it was fine without rain and strong winds. The typhoon signal Number 3 was put up for quite a number of hours.

Today, the Observatory changes the typhoon signal from 3 to 1 because the typhoon no longer threats Hong Kong.

To our surprise, in an hour’s time in the afternoon between four thirty and five thirty, the sky turns dark. Heavy rain pours down and thunder roars with lightning. The amber, red and black rain warning signals are issued one after another. The northern district suffers flooding because most rain falls there. Under the black rain signal, office workers can go home, so the streets and traffic become busy towards evening.

Singapore Flyer

Recently I was fascinated by the TV programme called “Planet Food”, not only by the food it introduces, but also by the beautiful scenery.

This time, the programme was about Singapore and its local food. It seems as if I were back to this small island at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula. I first visited it in January, 2007.

At the start of the programme, the scene of a team of men rowing a dragon boat showed up. I just wondered where the dragon boat was heading. The camera man then zoomed out and I saw the new landmark of Singapore, the Singapore Flyer, in a distance.

The Singapore Flyer is considered the tallest observation wheel on Earth, rising 165 metres into the sky. It can carry 1,260 passengers around hourly to see a stunning 45-kilometre panorama view of Indonesian Island of Batan and Bintan as well as Johore, Malaysia. The wheel stands twice the height of the Statue of Liberty. The observation whee,l which looks like a bicycle whee, rotates 28 large capsules through the sky, each carrying 28 passengers. By construction, the wheel stands firmly against monsoon rains, thunderstorms and dangerous Sumatra winds.

Happy Birthday, Hayley!

Today is Hayley’s Birthday.

How old is Hayley? Two years old or three years old? In one of the photos, Hayley raised three figures while her parents did two each.

It was so nice to pre-celebrate Hayley and Jasmine’s birthday last Saturday at “the Arch” clubhouse restaurant.

We supposed that the two cousins would celebrate their birthdays together. The birthday cake was first placed on a square table. Hayley was brought up onto the sofa and she sat there. It was natural that Jasmine was the next girl to join in. To our amazement, Jasmine did not want to come close to the birthday cake, but turned away from it. Later we learned that she was afraid of the flames of the two little candles on the cake. Several photos were taken with Hayley alone with the cake. She showed her smiling face in some of the photos.

Soon Hayley was to blow the candles with the help of her mother, Daisy. The candles were next re-lit because group photos had to be taken . Hayley’s family members flocked together at the table. They included Hayley’s parents, grandparents and Uncle Lit. Then grand-uncles and grand aunts joined in for photo-taking with Hayley.

Next the birthday fruit-cake was cut and shared around us at the long table.

Two cousins playing Hula Hoop

Last Saturday, Hayley eyed on one of the plastic hula hoops at Grand uncle and aunt’s home and soon she picked it up from the heap of toys with the help of Grandma Au Yeung.

Normally, Hula hoops for children generally measure approximately 28 inches in diameter, and those for adults around 40 inches. Hayley picked the right one.

Hayley must have seen hula hoops before, otherwise she would not choose it to play. She knew very well that she had to put the hoop over her head and held it at the waist. We saw that her pose of holding the hoop was correct. She began to twirl the hoop around her waist, but the hoop fell down. She might be too young to master the skill of swinging the hoop round the waist and twisting the latter at all times. Anyway, she had a nice try.

A moment later, Jasmine came out after taking her bath. She did not miss her chance of playing the hoop. As expected, she was willing to try, like Hayley she failed to turn the hoop at her waist. Perhaps, these two little cousins could play well in a few years’ time.

An Extraordinary Benz

At Elements, an extraordinary Benz is displayed. This Benz sparkles when light shines on it. From a distance away, it looks as if it were coated with beads of jewels. The badge of Benz can easily be seen at its front. Lower down, the registration plate bears the name of the shopping centre, “ELEMENTS”. Its headlights and wheels are stylish. Following the recent trend, the side-mirrors also serve as blinker-lights to show to other cars the intention of the drivers to turn left or right.

The twin seaters do not look as high-class and comfortable as I expect because they are thin and the red colour does not match with the white colour of the car.

Since it is so different from other Benzes, it will certainly attract people’s attention in the streets. I don’t know how much it costs. Maybe it is a “Concept” car (概念車) which is priceless and will not be sold to the public.