Head-shaking Dolls

Without looking at TV advertisements, I would not have bought Happy Meals from McDonald to earn the head-shaking (up and Down movements) dolls for my grand-daughters.

Recently when buying a happy meal, one can get a doll for free. Yesterday, I bought one meal which included a Filet-O-Fish, small fries and a cup of Coke. It cost HK$23.7. I aimed at getting the Birdie (小飛飛) and I succeeded.

Today, we obtain the Ronald McDonald (麥當奴叔叔) when buying a morning Happy Meal which consists of hot-cakes, corn and a chocolate drink (HK$18 something).

Each of these dolls is made of plastic. The heads jump up and down when pressed. Through Skype, Abby chooses Ronald. There is no question that she will leave Birdie for her little sister, Elly.

We have not yet decided whether or not to buy the remaining two dolls, the Hamburglar (漢堡神偷) and Grimace (滑嘟嘟).

Mourning all over Hong Kong

Last Sunday, different political parties in Hong Kong raised a March to male condolences to our Hong Kong victims in Manila from Victoria Park to Chater Garden in Central. People, mostly in black or white clothes gathered at Victoria Park. Some children joined too because they understood what happened and would like to share the sorrow of the survivors who lost their loved ones in the incident. Some smaller children wondered if it was filming when they saw the horrible scene in TV. They asked their parents for the truth.

It was a march of silence. Everybody carried a heavy heart when he/she walked. Many cried because they could perceive the fear to be killed of the hostages , hated the ex-cop of the Philippine police who slaughtered our citizens and became angry at the slow and stupid rescue operation of the local police.

When the participants of the march reached Chater Garden, they tied the yellow ribbons provided onto the railings to express their sympathy towards the dead and the survivors. Some even brought along their flowers and placed them in the garden.

From recent news, the two wounded survivors at Prince of Wales Hospital are in good conditions after operations and speedy recovery is expected. Jason Leung, the young man who received a heavy injury at the head, had been taken back to Hong Kong by a medical plane and had part of his skull taken off to reduce the pressure to the brain in Tuen Mun Hospital. His fever disappears after medication and was put under an anaesthetic at the moment so that his brain can rest. We all hope that Jason can get out of the state of coma and recover as soon as possible.

Home again

It was August 25. After a short ceremony at the airport, Manila, a Cathay plane took the survivors, those corpses of victims, relatives of the victims, government officials, supporters such as psychiatrists, social workers, medical officers, even a few reporters back to Hong Kong. From TV, I saw a lady limp down the stairs and another man whose hands were seriously wounded by bullets walk to an ambulance which immediately took him to Hospital for further treatment.

After an almost two-hour flight, at around 8 p.m., the plane landed on our airport in Hong Kong. Our Chief Secretary, Henry Tang and Chinese Officials boarded the plane to meet and comfort the survivors.

Meanwhile, the coffins of the dead were lowered and drawn group by group, according to different families before the line of Government and Chinese officials and relatives of the dead in the tragic incident.

“The Amazing Grace” was played by two police bag-pipers. Wreaths were placed by Henry Tang and the relatives of the dead victims onto the top of each coffin. The most touching moments came when the mother of the responsible tourist guide from Hong Tai Travel Agency and Mrs. Fu, whose husband was killed, wept.

Mrs. Fu held her 4 to 5 year-old daughter and asked the latter to place a piece of paper on the coffin of her father. It seemed that there was something the daughter wanted to tell her father.

A seriously wounded lady tourist was taken home later of the night by a special plane which provides medical support. She was taken to QWH by mid-night.

Some residents in Manila, who came from Hong Kong, cried at the scene of tragedy. They did not believe that the Philippine police was so poor in the rescue operation and they shed their tears for the victims.

A Paper Dress

Graduated at University of Middlesex, London, Zoe Bradley becomes famous for her design in paper dress. She was inspired by the Fashion Designer called Alexander McQueen. Her talented creative craftsmanship has been praised and looked up to by different media.

Recently, Zoe makes a dress made of red paper roses and brings it to Hong Kong and has it displayed at New Town Plaza, Shatin. Through the display of this beautiful dress, she would like to pay tribute to the memory of Princess Diana and Alexander McQueen.

It was a large beautiful, but delicate dress. I believe that it is not suitable to be worn in the streets.

This Ruthless Cop kills

Not only this ruthless cop had killed some of the hostages, but the Philippines police was also responsible for killing other hostages during their invasion. Aimless bullets that flew from both sides during shooting could kill. The helpless hostages were nowhere to hide nor they could protect themselves at all.

The hijacker, or better say, the killer has made a bad mistake. If he finds no justice in the government, he should find other ways to appeal. He should not hurt or kill foreigners. He had already broken several Hong Kong families. Some lads had become orphans and a lady a widow having a wounded son and lost her daughters. This slaughter has broken the hearts of the victims and their families and most importantly to the people of Hong Kong. Never will our citizens of Hong Kong set foot on the Philippines because it is so unsafe to be in the country with kidnappers and dangerous and merciless men like the cop here.

The Police in the Philippines are to blame too. Their equipment is backward, just hammers and ropes. They do not have ladders. They are not well-trained and slow in rescue. They took more than an hour in the so called rescue operation. They did not have any tactics or rescue plans at all. Tear gas should be applied at the very beginning, but the police did not. The wrong information given by the escaped driver that all the hostages were killed made the police dare to shoot blindly at the bus. They longed to have missed several golden chances in shooting at the hijacker in the afternoon when the latter appeared at the door.

It was a nightmare to the victims and to us in Hong Kong.

A Tragedy

Yesterday morning a former cop of the Philippines, armed with an M16, hijacked a tourist bus operated by Hong Tai Travel Agency at Manila. In the afternoon he released a lady with her two sons, a young boy and an old couple. He kept the remaining tourists and a male guide, 6 males and 9 females, and a driver as hostages. He demanded to get back his job because he was accused of involvement in a certain criminal case ( he said he did not) and had been fired by the Police force. Negotiations were made all the afternoon and his younger brother (also a cop) joined in.

The hijacker became mad when he learned that police was closed in to take action. His brother was arrested for provoking his brother to start killing some of the sixteen hostages he held.

The police special force took a long time hammering at the windows, striking at the door as well as the windscreen at the front of the bus. The progress was very slow. It was quiet inside. At one time, the police wanted to break in through the emergency door at the back, but a few shots from inside held them back. Ten to fifteen shots was made by the hijackers to warn the Police. The driver was able to run away from the bus in the confusion. Tear gas bomb was thrown in and later it worked. The hijacker was shot dead when he went near the door. Soon the police broke in the bus to save those alive and carry the wounded and dead to hospitals.

In this hijack incident, 8 hostages were killed and the rest 7, some wounded, were still alive.

The lady guide who was earlier released told the press that she explained to the hijacker that her two sons had lost their father already and the hijacker agreed to let her, her two children and another young boy go.

Mrs. Leung was heart-breaking because she lost her brave husband and two daughters while her son was wounded.

A young girl was lucky to survive, but her parents and auntie were all killed in the incident.

Our Chief Executive, Donald Tsang, announced that the HKSAR flag would be lowered on August 24th to condole on the deaths of the victims in this tragedy.

One of young men in Hong Kong said to a TVB reporter that he could not sleep all through the night after seeing the direct broadcast of the horrible slaugter event.

This morning police investigation was made to determine what guns made the bullet holes on the windows of the bus. People wondered how many bullets came from the police side which killed the victims. The bullet heads in the corpses would tell the story.

Two bridges over the Willamette River

Today let us look at two interesting bridges that cross the Willamette River.

Marquam Bridge,1043 feet (318.2 metres) long, is a double deck cantilever bridge that carries Interstate 5 traffic across the Willamette River south of downtown Portland, Oregon. It is the busiest bridge in Oregon, carrying 135,900 vehicles a day as of 2008. The upper deck carries northbound traffic; the lower deck carries southbound traffic. (Look at the photos at Top Left and Bottom Left)

Hawthorn Bridge is the second-oldest bridge that crosses the Willamette River in Portland. Built in 1910, it is also the oldest vertical lift bridge in the entire country, allowing river vessels access up and down the waters . The colour of Hawthorne Bridge is forest green, with red railings and counterweights. Before it was repainted recently, it was beige. The original color of the bridge was black. (Look at the photos at Top Right and Bottom Right)

Hawthorne Bridge normally carries approximately 30,000 motorists across it daily. The bridge, due to its low clearance, must raise the drawbridge quite often, though lifts are not allowed during rush hour.

A Study of the Willamette River

To know more about the Geographical features of Oregon State, we must first learn about the Willamette River.

Wikipedia says:

"The Willamette River is a major tributary of the Columbia River. The river is 187 miles (301 km) long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. In 1997, the river was named as one of ten national American Heritage Rivers.

Flowing northward between the Oregon Coast Range and Cascade Range, the river and its tributaries form a basin called the Willamette Valley, in which live two-thirds of Oregon's population. Portland, Oregon’s largest city, sits along both sides of the Willamette near its mouth on the Columbia. The valley, fed by prolific rainfall on the western side of the Cascades, is one of the most fertile agriculture regions of North America.

It was the destination of many 19th-century immigrants along the Oregon Trail. The river was an important transportation route during the early history of the state. Part of the Willamette Floodplain was established as a National Natural Landmark in 1987.

The Willamette rises in three separate forks in the mountains south and southeast of Eugene, at the southern end of the Willamette Valley. Formed by the confluence of its Middle and Coast forks near Springfield, the main stem meanders generally north for 187 miles (301 km) to the Columbia. The river's two most significant course deviations occur at Newberg, where it turns sharply east, and about 18 miles (29 km) downriver from Newberg, where it turns north again. Near its mouth north of downtown Portland the river splits into two channels that flow around Sauvie Island. The main channel enters the Columbia about 101 miles (163 km) from the larger stream's mouth on the Pacific Ocean, and the smaller Multnomah Channel, a distributary, enters the Columbia about 14.5 miles (23.3 km) further downstream near St. Helens in Columbia County."

Loch Ness

On June 23, 2009, the documentary TV programme, “Britain From Above” briefly mentioned Loch Ness. Double-click to see better photos.

Wikipedia supplies us the following information about the lake:

The Loch Ness (尼斯湖) is a large, deep, freshwater loch in the Scottish Highlands ( 57°18′N 4°27′W / 57.3°N 4.45°W) extending for approximately 37 km (23 mi) southwest of Inverness. Its surface is 15.8 m (52 ft) above sea level. Loch Ness is best known for the alleged sightings of the legendary Loch Ness Monster, also known as "Nessie". Loch Ness is over twenty miles long and hundreds of feet deep in places. The loch is notorious for its murkiness, as the water is filled with slime, peat, and mud. Some people think caverns under the loch connect to the ocean, but such connections have not been proven.

It is connected at the southern end by the River Oich and a section of the Caledonian Canal to Loch Oich. At the northern end there is the Bona Narrows which opens out into Loch Dochfour, which feeds the River Ness and a further section of canal to Inverness. It is one of a series of interconnected, murky bodies of water in Scotland; its water visibility is exceptionally low due to a high peat content in the surrounding soil.

Loch Ness is the second largest Scottish loch by surface area at 56.4 km2 (21.8 sq mi) after Loch Lomond, but due to its great depth it is the largest by volume. Its deepest point is 230 m (755 ft), deeper than the height of London's BT Tower at 189 m (620 ft) and deeper than any other loch with the exception of Loch Morar. It contains more fresh water than all lakes in England and Wales combined, and is the largest body of water on the Great Glen Fault (大格倫斷層) which runs from Inverness in the north to Fort William in the south.

The Loch Ness Monster (Cartoon Version)

The cartoon-like figure in the photo is supposed to be the monster at Loch Ness, a famous lake in Scotland. It looks very much like a dragon or prehistoric dinosaur that lives in that lake. It was my daughter who bought it to me when she was travelling in Britain. I remember there was a comprehension passage about Loch Ness monster in Form One English text books which our CCSC students were using.

The following materials come from Wikipedia and I have modified them a bit:

The Loch Ness Monster (尼斯水怪) is believed to inhabit in Loch Ness 尼斯湖 (“Loch” means "Lake") in the Scottish Highlands. The creature is most frequently described as“ a line of long-surviving plesiosaurs”. It is similar to other supposed lake monsters in Scotland and elsewhere.

It was first brought to the world's attention in 1933. Evidence of its existence came from much-disputed photographic material and sonar readings. The scientific community regards the Loch Ness Monster as a modern-day myth. People called this legendary monster by the nickname Nessie since the 1950s.

On 2 May 1933, Alex Campbell, the water bailiff for Loch Ness and a part-time journalist, reported seeing the "monster" in the Inverness Courier. On 4 August in the same year, the Courier published as a full news item the claim of a London man, George Spicer, that a few weeks earlier while motoring around the Loch, he and his wife had seen "the nearest approach to a dragon or pre-historic animal that I have ever seen in my life", moving awkwardly across the road toward the Loch carrying "an animal" in its mouth. There were other claims of land or water sightings. These stories soon reached the national press, which talked of a "monster fish", "sea serpent", or "dragon", eventually giving it the name, "Loch Ness Monster". On 6 December 1933 the first photograph of the monster, taken by Hugh Gray, was published. Shortly afterwards, the Secretary of State for Scotland ordered the police to prevent any attacks on it. In 1934, interest was aroused by The Surgeon's Photograph. In the same year R. T. Gould published a book of personal investigation and collected record of additional reports pre-dating the summer of 1933. Other authors have claimed that sightings of the monster go as far back as the 6th century.

Flowers that cluster like Tails

Recently my classmate, Daisy Mak, told me that she has grown plants called Love-Lies-Bleeding Amaranth in her garden in Texas. What a strange name it is to me! I found interests in the way these deep-red flowers cluster like tails of animals.

The seeds of the plants are sown directly in the ground when it is thoroughly warm in spring. They take 10 to 15 days to germinate. The plants, which must be spaced out 1 to 2 feet apart, will grow up to 4 to 5 feet. The Amaranth plants are easy to grow, need full sunshine and usually take 60 to 70 days to maturity.

For many centuries, the leaves and seeds of Amaranthus species have been sources of food for native people from North and South America to Asia, India, Africa, the Pacific Islands, the Caribbean region, and Eurasia.

The seeds of Amaranth are one of the most nutritious foods grown. Not only they are richer in protein than the major cereals, but the amino acid balance of their protein comes closer to nutritional perfection for the human diet than that in normal cereal grains. Amaranth may be very useful as a food source for the world’s future.

A Cross

Yesterday I was a little unhappy when I saw the “cross” given to me by the chef of my salmon fillet. The skin of my part of salmon had been peeled off and was put on top of the meat. The feeling was no good. I don’t like “crosses” because they often mean negatively as, “wrong”, “poor’, “bad” or “fail”.

I can’t remember or have never counted the number of “crosses” I have given to my students on their homework books, test papers and examination papers. To me, “Ticks” are only given to those perfect answers. “Crosses” are given to “Definitely wrong” answers. What about those wrong-to-a-certain-extent answers? I usually give a “tick” with a “stroke” across to make it look like a “partly right and partly wrong” signal.

At one time, in some questionnaires, people are asked to draw a “cross” to those boxes where you think it is “right”. How absurd it is to do this kind of thing. I think the designers of the questionnaires have something wrong in their minds.

Back to the dishes of food my wife and I ate yesterday, my wife ordered a meat soup and for myself, a shrimp salad as appetizers. The former was delicious because it tasted like “Lo For Tong” (老火湯).

The shrimps in the latter appetizer reached the “tasteless” level. The salad below was composed of vegetable leaves (western style), rich in olive oil. I felt the vegetables a bit bitter to taste. The piece of salmon, with an extra ten-dollar charge, was not bad to taste. The spaghetti beside the fish are slender, Without the white cheese sauce, they would be too “plain” to taste.

Portland Saturday Market

Portland Saturday Market does not only open on Saturday, but also on Sundays. It is located at SW Ankeny Street and Naito Parkway.
The Market provides opportunities for customers to meet the artist and their art pieces at the artist’s booth. Over 250 small businesses and individual artists from across the NW region gather each week for the Saturday/Sunday event with live music and a wide variety of foods that will satisfy the visitors.
There are beautiful glass hanging-decorations, beautiful pictures of Art, African crafts and drums, interesting human figure-heads made of ceramic and artistic lanterns made of fine pottery and many others.

One of the food stalls in the market sells Chowmein and fried rice at around US$5 to 6, a variety of chicken and spring rolls or salad rolls. Another sells drinks of strawberry, honey dew, peach, mango, red beans, coconut and taro. The third, Mandarin House, sells Chinese food advertised as healthy at around 5 to 6 U.S. dollars. The fourth sells sandwiches of vegetables, tomato, onion and meat-like bean-curd product, all wrapped up like Mexican “tarcos”.

Happy to see a flower of Strelitzia

Strelitzia (天堂鳥), as far as I know, is a perennial plant, native to South Africa. Some thirty or so such plants have been growing healthily in an oval-shaped flower bed in our public garden below. Each of its flowers resemble the look of a bird of paradise. In South Africa, it is commonly known as a crane flower. Today I spotted one fully-grown flower standing rigidly out of the big leaves.

The orange and purple “feathers” spread spirally over the “bird’s" head. The green head is recognizable, but not conspicuous. To me, I welcome such plants so close at hand. They look very much like birds resting on some shrubs.

Wikipedia describes the leaves and flowers in detail as follows:

“The leaves of Strelitzia are large, 30–200 cm long and 10–80 cm broad, similar to a banana leaf in appearance but with a longer petiole, and arranged strictly in two ranks to form a fan-like crown of evergreen foliage. The flowers are produced in a horizontal inflorescence emerging from a stout spathe. They are pollinated by sunbirds, which use the spathe as a perch when visiting the flowers; the weight of the bird on the spathe opens it to release the pollen onto the bird's feet, which is then deposited on the next flower it visits.“

Portland International Rose Test Garden

Inside Washington Park in Portland, Oregon, United States, there is a rose garden called The International Rose Test Garden. There are over 7,000 rose plants of around 550 varieties. The roses bloom from April through October at their peak in June, depending on the weather. From many parts of the world, new rose cultivars are continually sent to the garden and are tested for color, fragrance, disease resistance and other attributes. It is the oldest existing public rose test garden in the United States. Portland thus wins the nickname of the City of Roses.

The International Rose Test Garden covers 4.5 acres (18,000 m2) in several tiers facing downtown Portland, the Willamette River and East Portland. On clear days there are views ofthe Cascade Mountains, with prominently Mount Hood.

There is an amphitheater which hosts many events throughout the year, for example, classical music concerts. During good weather the amphitheater is popular with picnickers and people throwing the disc around. It is interesting to find is a brick walkway at the side of the garden called The Queens Walk with a bronze star honoring each Rose Festival queen since 1907.

To mention here, in particular, the Royal Rosarian Garden has paid tribute since 1924 to the goodwill ambassadors and official greeters who serve in the many Rose Festival events. As each rosarian is knighted, they adopt a rose variety as their namesake. A rose is planted in this garden for each of the highest ranking Rosarian Prime Ministers. This garden-within-a-garden contains many roses which are no longer available in the market.

The central photo shows a small brick house with rest-rooms surrounded by fragrance of roses. Do you like it?

Father-in-law’s Birthday Dinner

One, two, three, four, five, six dishes of food were served on the table on Father-in-law’s birthday this year.

The dishes are as follows:
[1] 苦瓜菜脯蛋角
[2] 青瓜炒牛仔粒
[3] 酸甜咕嚕肉
[4] 雜菇炒白菜仔
[5] 欖角肉鬆炒肉豆
[6] 西芹腰果肉丁

In addition, we ordered a dish of noodles. The dishes of food fed seven of us full to the neck. At last, we were given red bean congee as dessert, free of charge.

Lok Fu Plaza

The old Lok Fu Shopping Centre has been renovated phase by phase into a new one called Lok Fu Plaza (樂富廣場). Please double-click to see better pictures.

Shops, no matter big or small, banks and eateries are shuffled during these few years. It is a big surprise to find that the Park-in and Wellcome supermarkets disappear; the long-life "Jusco" vanishes and is replaced by a new UNY; banks such as Chartered Bank and Bank of China, Heng Sang Bank accumulate round the shuttle-bus (to and from Kowloon Tong and Broadcast Drive), taxi and minibus terminus. The branches of Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank and Bank of East Asia are located in better sites in the shopping centre.

After renovation, the shopping centre, in my opinion, looks newer, cleaner, better organized, fresher and modernized. This will mean that rents will go up and customers have to pay more when they buy and eat here.

Let us look at the nine photos here:
[1] Top left – the red plate showing “Lok Fu Plaza” on one of its walls is relatively too small. It is partly hidden by the tall trees in front of it.
[2] Top centre – UNY occupies the second floor and third floor while new restaurants and fast food shops line on the ground floor facing the large courtyard.
[3] Top right – the hanging coloured plates seem to hide the monotonous look of the walls
[4] Middle left – A few decorative squares of lights have been added to the large roof cover of the courtyard.
[5] Middle centre – The fruit store has been replaced by a fast food shop and its top formerly the Bank of East Asia (Lok Fu Branch) now becomes "Fortress".
[6] Middle right – The tiles of the courtyard have been replaced. The courtyard will still be used for activities and exhibitions.
[7] Bottom left – The McDonald is still there, but has been modernized and provides twenty-four hour service.
[8] Bottom centre – A corner of the former “Dry” market is now “Tai Hing” (太興) Restaurant.
[9] Bottom right – Here we can glimpse of the floors of UNY Department Store and eateries with all-weathered escalators wrapped up by glass towers.

Elly making a Phone call

To make a phone call, Elly picks up the TV remote control and speaks into it. Who is on the other line, we never know. Perhaps she uses the phone to talk with the one she is looking at. In one of the photos, she looks into her mother’s face. I believe she has a lot to tell her mother from the bottom of her heart.

With one eye hidden by her long hair at her forehead, she plays games of her age. Besides making phone calls, Elly is able to turn round and descend safely by herself down the sofa, pushes and walks with the “Baby-walker” training unit with a handle, toys and wheels. Crawling is another choice. Well, she wriggles fast like a worm room to room. Eyes should be on her closely, otherwise she may bump into her obstacles on her track.

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.