The Clown and the Lemon eater

Yesterday evening Abby became a clown after she finished drinking the cup of hot chocolate at a restaurant at Ma On Shan . The brownish marks left on her face resembled that of the painted lips of a clown.

Elly, the lemon eater, drank a cup of lemon water. She likes to bite slices of lemon and never feels them sour or bitter. The central photo shows her biting at a piece of lemon in another occasion and the right-hand-most one shows her satisfaction after the drink yesterday.

A Night view of San Francisco

The photos taken by Tony on the Cathay plane shortly after it took off from SFO International Airport on the night of March 12, 2011 give me a valuable chance to trace out the areas the plane was flying over.

From my observation, the plane took off and flied north-westward out to the Pacific Ocean. Once it was out to the Ocean edge, it flied along the straight shore.

The bright continuous lines in top-left photo are the main-road systems of San Francisco. Please double-click the collage photo to enlarge it.

The roads in San Francisco on the Pacific side are very straight and parallel to one another. The system is like a Cartesian Plane. The dots are the single houses built orderly along the roads.

The bottom-left photo shows Lake Merced, San Francisco Zoological Gardens and Golden Gate National Recreation Area (in dark patches) near Fort Funston at the Pacific shore.

The photo at the bottom right shows the area around the Golden Gate Park (in darkness). The park itself is rectangular in shape.

The maps attached support my analysis.

South-east meets North-west

It was the first time yesterday that two cousins met at lunch at JC. Hayley and Elly were born in two different continents, the former in S.E. Asia and the latter in North America. Luckily, they both spoke in Cantonese.

Hayley is one year older than Elly. They look very much like each other. Recently Hayley has her hair cut short, while Elly’s remains a little long. To my knowledge, Hayley likes chocolate very much and Elly ice-cream. Soon Hayley will attend lessons in a kindergarten, but Elly will not because she is still too young.

Since it was the first time that Hayley and Elly met and that they had not seen each other before, they did not exchange conversations. Probably they did not know what to talk about. They fed themselves with small bits of food with fingers or spoon or toothpicks, mostly from salad bar or from plates of the adults.

Towards the end of the lunch, they were both taken to the playroom to play. I heard they had a wonderful time inside. It was hard to believe that Elly could take up more challenges than Hayley. Maybe Elly is fearless of anything.

As Hayley and Elly have more chances to meet in Hong Kong from now on, I hope they will talk in the future and share with each other their classroom experiences.

I want to say about the food at this lunch: Apart from the appetizers, we, adults, took three streams of food, long macaronis for Daisy, fish for my wife, LH, Connie and beef (section of meat from the face) for Philip, KS and me. It was an astonishing sight of the yellow stuff that went with the fish. The cakes for desserts did not suit me this time, especially those of coffee and strawberry tastes.

Habitat and Threats to the monarch butterflies

This is an extract from “Miraculous Migration”, written by Carol Crupper.

Monarchs that survive the winter in the fir forests of Mexico fly north to Texas, seeking mates and milkweed plants on which to lay eggs.

More generations follow, breeding through spring and summer and living just two to five weeks before the butterflies reach Canada. In the fall, the fourth generation completes the cycle, flying south at a pace of 25 to 30 miles per day. Some third-generation butterflies join the migration, too, and these long-distance travelers live for up to nine months.

The phenomenon involves masses of butterflies, each behaving individually, confronting the vagaries of weather and ever-changing landscape without parents and leaders to guide them, and processing only rudimentary brains. How they manage this journey remains a mystery to mankind, but anyone who witnesses the mass migration is thankful for a glimpse at the nature’s sustaining rhythms.

In mid-October, monarchs converge in south-central Texas and follow the river bottoms between Eagle Pass and Del Rio. Taylor, a professor of insects ecology at University of Kansas says, “It’s like a river of butterflies as far as you can see, coming right at you. It is the most spectacular phenomenon in the planet.”

The phenomenon is in danger, however.

To survive, the monarchs need milkweed, a native plant that is disappearing from farmland and along highways at the rate of 6000 acres per day. Taylor cites herbicides, rampant development and roadside management policies that destroy food and shelter. “We have lost 147 million acres of habitat since I started in 1992, more than 3 times the size of the state of Illinois,“ he says.
In addition, Taylor attributes the loss of wintering habitat in Mexico to deforestation and changing weather patterns. Severe storms two winters ago claimed at least 50% of the insects, although this year’s mild weather helped the monarch population to begin to rebound.

As a species, the monarch does not face extinction. Populations are healthy west of the Rocky Mountains and on other parts of the planet. Losing this unique North American migration would leave a global void, however. Not only is the cycle breathtakingly beautiful, “ it all feeds into this complex web of life, ” Taylor says.

While efforts are underway to implement a government-supported conservation plan among North American nations to restore milkweed and nectar plants for monarchs, people who value the migration have initiated their own preservation efforts.

Since its founding, Monarch Watch has developed a vast network of volunteers and spread awareness of the monarch’s migration and plight. The organization sponsors butterfly tagging programmes in 37 states and 5 Canadian provinces. Participants also plant milkweed and nectar plants in 4500 habitats in 44 states.

The Amazing monarch flight across America

Here is a modified extract from “Miraculous Migration”, written by Carol Crupper.

Each spring, newly-emerged monarchs join several generations of butterflies that advance northward across the central and eastern United States towards Canada, setting the stage for a mass migration of hundreds of millions of monarchs southward each August across the Great Lakes and 37 states. During their full flight, fourth-generation monarchs travel up to 2000 miles in two months, seeking refuge from winter’s cold beneath the canopy of umbrella-like forests of Central Mexico.

The extraordinary journey of the beautiful, but fragile creatures is one of the nature’s most phenomenal cycles. Thousands of people are working to preserve the migration.

Scientists have studied monarchs for more than a century, but didn’t discover until 1975 that the southbound butterflies were destined for winter grounds in Mexico.

Monarch Watch was launched in 1992 by volunteers from Canada to Mexico. From scientists to schoolchildren and from rural residents to city dwellers, they share a love for nature and appreciation for the miraculous migration of monarch butterflies.

Inside – Outside

This photo recorded the moment of two sisters meeting each other separated by a glass door. They wanted to converse, but the thick glass had absorbed part of the intensity of the voices.
At this moment, shouting and gestures would be better for communication. From Elly’s facial expression, it seemed that she wanted to find out why her sister Abby was there and what the next step she had to take.

We instructed Elly to call grandma to take her out of the playroom and join us at the mini-park for children driving.

Through that glass door, we could see how Elly played and on the other hand Elly could see us outside.

楊桃樹與大樹菠蘿

馬鐵第一城車站背面一段花圃幾年來被種下多棵不同的樹，我家的觀樹專家告訴我其中一棵樹最近長出楊桃。今日去看，熟透的楊桃已經早跌到地上，開始腐爛了，我可說是來遲了幾天，否則那時的心情一定會比今天靚。

值得安慰的是旁邊的大樹菠蘿也不約而同的長出又大又硬、像榴槤般的果。它們的味道沒有榴槤那麼強烈，懸掛高度正是垂手可得。不過，這些公眾地方種的果實是摘不得，尤其是我經過這組樹木時都偶而見到牌子寫上「這裡已噴了殺蟲劑，請勿觸摸。」

這裏大圖是楊桃樹，正中橙黃色的是還未掉下來的楊桃一個。
右邊兩幅小圖是大樹菠蘿。

New wave of Advertisements

The new wave of advertisements of Vitasoy is again cartoons. This self-advertised method is rare. Not a single cent is spent on other media such as TV, radios or newspapers, so it is money-saving. Attractions come from the cartoons. People may take a few seconds in seeing what the cartoons are about.

The idea of advertising the products of a company in this way is good, but the messages conveyed or the language used may down-grade the products.

Here I find the language used not appropriate:
[1] 開趴地=開party
[2] 喇喂
[3] 游乾水=打麻雀

The so-called “happy moments” or “studying moments” are not convincing at all.

I believe the designers of these advertisements are not professional. Vitasoy company should employ better designers to advertise its products.

Monarch Butterflies

My old friend, Daisy Mak, deliberately grows a number of Butterfly Weeds in her yard to attract butterflies . Some beautiful Monarch butterflies do come during their N-S migration within North America .

Daisy is so patient as to observe and record the metamorphosis of this kind of butterflies. Like all insects, the Monarch has six legs, however it uses only four of its legs as it carries its two front legs against its body.

Daisy said, “Since the Monarch butterflies pass through Texas, I planted the Butterfly Weed (a kind of milk weed that their caterpillars love to eat) to attract them to my yard. I succeeded. This year, I found 10 caterpillars that turned to pupae. I managed to witness a caterpillar climb up my window and attached itself to the window top beam. It turned into a chrysalis (pupa). I also witnessed 3 pupae metamorphosed into adults and flew away.”

The top-left photo shows a Monarch caterpillar banded with yellow, black, and white stripes. The head is also striped with yellow and black. There are two pairs of black filaments, one pair on each end of the body.

The chrysalis (pupa) in the top-right photo is blue-green with a band of black and gold on the end of the abdomen. There are other gold spots on the thorax, the wing bases, and the eyes.

The bottom-left photo shows two adult Monarchs hatching out of the pupae.

The bottom-right photo shows the Monarch ready to fly away from Daisy’s garden.

Let us look at the Monarch closely. The upper side of their wings is tawny-orange. The veins and margins are black, and in the margins are two series of small white spots. The fore wings also have a few orange spots near the tip. The male has black veins on its wing narrower than the female’s. The male is also slightly larger than the female. The one here is female.

3-D Look

I like the 3-dimensional look of this advertisement on the side of one of our modern buses in Hong Kong.

It seems that a young man is carrying two bags, stepping down from a side of the bus. We may see the depth of the room which is actually the bus compartment. Such a design of an advertisement is terrific. I expect to see furthermore other outstanding advertisements on our Hong Kong buses.

An Ice-cream Day

Today, I had to stay home in taking care of Elly for at least four hours because all her family members except me went out for different businesses.

There was no problem for Elly and me for the first two hours because she engaged herself wholly watching videos of her favourite film, “Annie”, her video collection of family life in Canada as well as in Hong Kong and, after lunch, videos of Sesame Street.

I gave Elly her lunch earlier than usual (at eleven fifteen). It was screw-like macaroni with ham in salad dressing. She ate not all the macaroni, but shredded ham. Before this, she had already eaten a lump of bread, some milk and rice rolls as breakfast.

Elly is non-resistant to food, so we never worry about her appetite.

For once, she walked to the front door and shouted to find her mother there. Certainly it was impossible for Connie to appear at that time. To distract her attention and stop her cry, I decided to give her a little ice-cream from the fridge. Probably ice-cream was the best “pacifier” for Elly.

Since she enjoyed eating her macaroni and ice-cream, I took a few snapshots of her eating postures.

Elly used both fingers and spoon at macaroni and ham, and later her left hand to spoon up and jut ice-cream into her mouth. Her “lion” bite at her spoonful of ice-cream was funny. Her look of pink ice-cream marks at her lips were wonderfully lovely. Elly uttered “more ice-cream” not only once because she really loved it. Totally I gave her three times of ice-cream which I estimated, half cupful.

Today was an ice-cream day to Elly.

Misty Hills

Mist creates mystery. These misty hills create perfect mysterious pictures suitable for horrid films.

It is true that photography is a nice and interesting branch of life study to human and nature. I love it. To get a good picture is not easy. It depends wholly on time, site, weather, light source and chance.

Take these pictures as examples.
[1] They require a misty day.
[2] Timing is important because the picture composition varies every second when the mist disperses or accumulates.
[3] Site is also important. You have to wait where the scene appears for some time.
[4] Light source and intensity will change the colour tones and effects of the pictures.
[5] The click of the shutter will freeze the best composition of pictures which satisfy the photographer who takes the pictures.

Do you like to take pictures? Please carry your camera(s) along wherever you go and take good pictures of your own.

Shatin Sky

To me, watching Shatin Sky is always rewarding.

This evening when I was washing my dishes, plates, bowls, chop-sticks and spoons, through the thin curtain in the kitchen, I could see a beautiful sky outside. I hurried to finish washing and quickly grabbed my large camera to take the tele-view of the sky.

I liked the sky at that moment because it was lined with clouds that reflected the light of the setting sun. The sky turned yellow, then to deep red. The hills lost colours and soon turned dark leaving behind just their outlines.

Planes were flying in one by one every two minutes via Sai Kung, over Ma On Shan, Chinese University of Hong Kong, all the way parallel to the Shing Mun River, to Tsuen Wan and landing south-westerly onto our airport. There were hundreds of passengers flying up above us at Shatin most of the time, so the sky was never lonely.

Watching tendrils

This hot June afternoon, I was able to sit down on a bench while supervising Abby riding a four-wheeled bicycle (two small ones are for support). Above me, I found some creepers extending their new territories.

The creepers grow well with green leaves and they send out threadlike tendrils in the air like fingers. Once these tendrils find whatever support and attachment, they twin around them and climb. One strange thing is that tendrils do not have a lamina or blade, but they can photosynthesize. They can be formed from modified shoots, modified leaves, or auxiliary branches. They are “magic hands” in botany.For myself, I like those "spring-like", but "not elastic" curls.

Please double-click the collage photo for closer details.

啤梨迷

艾莉除了橙之外，特別喜歡啤梨。記得以前她在加拿大與我們 Skype 時，我們只要拿著一個啤梨給她看看，她一聲不響便轉了身往廚房找。若是她無氣力開冰箱的話，她會嚷著叫爸爸或媽媽幫忙拿到手裏，然後跑回電腦面前給我們看。她的表現像告訴我們她家也有這麼樣子的生果，我們一致認為艾莉觀察力及反應很強及快，將來她讀書時一定勝過很多同學仔。

這輯照片正好見到艾莉在香港與心愛的啤梨重逢，可幸她手中的啤梨未熟，否則以她的指力，是可以替啤梨開幾個洞。單單看她對這「老朋友」愛不釋手，著了迷似的，就知道她是那麼愛吃啤梨了。

在我們家裏，艾莉也找到了玩具叮噹。以前她只可以在電腦顯示器上面見到，但現在她可以親手拿著玩，比起以前影像式的叮噹，相差很遠呢！

Eating ice-cream in the cold

It was March 4, 2011. The photos were taken by Tony at Fisherman’s Wharf, Vancouver. Tony had just stepped down from a plane that arrived earlier at Vancouver and Philip drove him there as the first stop.

That day was quite cold for Cheng’s family, but it did not spoil their joy of eating an ice-cream cone. Philip bought Abby an ice-cream cone. I guess it was again low-fat Italian “Gelato”.

When Elly saw her sister holding ice-cream cone, she was eager to have a bite. Abby was willing to spoon-feed her little sister with only a hundredth of her share. Mother Connie had to save the spilling of ice-cream from Elly’s mouth several times, so Connie might have tasted one thousandth of the ice-cream when she licked the drops of ice-cream on her fingers.

It comes to a conclusion here: Children eating ice-cream in the cold is great fun.

Artistic Cats in Display

These cats are displayed at one of our Ma On Shan Rail stations.

Let us look at them carefully:
[1] They are of different sizes, one big, one small.
[2] Their genders are unknown.
[3] They are both white.
[4] They look like those Japanese cats with hands raised for money (招財貓)
[5] On their white bodies, realistic animals are drawn. One of them shows a fierce eagle that cuddles to a dragon.
[6] These cats do not have claws.

Postscript:

A pamphlet reveals the following about the artwork at City One Station:
Please read and see how much I am correct from my perception.

Cast aluminium dogs bring good fortune to City One Station

Two friendly neighbourhood guardians have been positioned in the concourse of City One Station since 4 March. "Inu Hariko - Carp & Dragon", made up of two cast aluminium dogs, takes its name from Inu Hariko, a character in the form of a dog which, according to Japanese folklore, acts as a protector and loyal friend of children. Painted in elaborate detail on the bodies of the dogs are images of an eagle, carp, crane and dragon, symbolising bravery, strength, longevity and benevolence. Created by Japanese artist Akira Yoshida, this is the 39th original artwork installed under the MTR Corporation"s "art in station architecture" (AiSA) programme.

A small hill-fire

The nose and eyes of my wife detected the outbreak of a hill-fire on the hill opposite our windows at 19:05 on June 7, 2011.

I remember the widespread of hill-fires on nearby hills several years ago, but this time the scale of the fire was small.

From my estimation, only a small number of trees were burning along the spur of a slope. The fire seemed to extend a little with two stronger “burning-heads”, but it was soon put out by incoming firemen.

Human Swings

Recently, Abby and Elly swing themselves on a cross-bar of a low slide for children at a public park below.

It is too easy to Abby because she is five years old already. It is the first time that Elly plays at this slide. I wonder if Elly can hold on to the bar and swings herself about.

It ccomes out that Elly does swing well. I suppose she has strong muscles at her arms and is filled with confidence in herself. She enjoys such a playful trick with big smiles. Satisfaction comes first to Elly during play.

Flame of the Forest

I came across this name of a tree in Biology lessons during my old days of schooling. I knew very little about it at that time except its compound leaves that impressed me most. In this very June, the red blossoms of flowers of this kind of trees in Shatin and Kwun Tong attract my eyes most of the time.

It is a medium-sized deciduous tree, growing to 15 m tall in tropical and sub-tropical regions around India and Southeast Asia.

It is a slow growing tree. Their young trees have a growth rate of only a few feet a year. The leaves are pinnate, with an 8–16 cm petiole and three leaflets, each leaflet 10–20 cm long. The bright orange-red flowers are 2.5 cm long, and produced in racemes up to 15 cm long. The fruit is a 15–20 cm long and 4–5 cm wide pod.

It is a very useful tree, good for timber, resin, fodder, medicine, and dye.

Please note:

[1] The gum from the tree is used in certain food dishes and also valuable by druggists because of its astringent qualities, and by leather workers because of its tannin.

[2] The wood is dirty white and soft and, being durable under water, is used for well-curbs and water scoops.

[3] Good charcoal can be made from it. The leaves are usually very leathery and not eaten by cattle.

[4] The flowers are used to prepare traditional Holi colour.