Up to my ears in boxes

At last our shipping has arrived. The whole 73 packages, I won't say 73 boxes as some of the things were just odd shaped packages like golf clubs, didgeridoo etc. I was beginning to dread their arrival as I was worried they would not fit in the apartment and also I was beginning to wonder how they were actually going to get it all up to the apartment and unpacked in the small space available. However I need not have worried as this is what we were paying for, efficiency. And boy were they efficient. Whilst someone was bringing it all up from the basement, someone else was letting me know the numbers on the boxes as they arrived so I could check them off on the master list, and someone else was beginning to unpack them. They arrived at 10 am and by midday all the boxes were unpacked, some put away but a lot of it just on top of surfaces, beds, tables, cupboards even piled in the bath. The removalists then left with a nice stack of boxes that had been flat packed. Now the hard work began, trying to find a home for all our things... and did I mention that all this was done on a very, very hot and humid day so by the end of it all there were trails of sweat throughout the house. That very afternoon I received a call from someone in the shipping company to ask if she could come around on Friday to welcome us to Hong Kong. Why not I thought, and so spent the next day frantically trying to get some sense of order in the house before she arrived. Come Friday morning the living room was at least looking livable, as long as you didn't go further down the hall to see the chaos in the other rooms. She arrived armed with a welcome backpack full of all sorts of goodies, from a map book, to other books about living in Hong Kong: the culture and customs, a file already set up with dividers in place containing lots of helpful information about getting set up here, as well as mugs and other bits and pieces. What a lovely thing for the company to do, we will certainly consider using them again, which I assume is the motive behind it all. They even have a junk trip on the harbour for all the recent arrivals, so we are eagerly awaiting the date for that. So here I sit some time after all of this happened, the apartment is definitely looking more like home with all the pictures on the walls, lots of lovely little reminders of our time in Peru scattered around us, Peruvian rugs brightening up the sofa and beds. I suppose I had better take some photos to add to this blog.

Our resident cards have arrived so now we have access to all the facilities of the estate. We took a little tour of one of the sports complexes the other day and to my surprise on the roof we found of all things, a caged golf driving range and practice putting green!! Also there were 6 tennis courts. The rest of the sports complex housed a number of squash courts, badminton courts, basketball courts, activity rooms that you can hire and of course a gym. There is also a club house right near our tower block and it contains a number of restaurants as well as an indoor lap pool, outdoor swimming pool and another gym. This is the gym that I have started going to. It can be pretty busy at times but that is not surprising considering the view. When I am on the treadmill I look out across the East Lamma Channel watching all the myriad of boats go by. Fishing boats of all sizes trawl that waters around here, little fishing boats not much bigger than a kayak bob in the water close to the promenade so they are away from the busy central shipping lane. Some are powered by an outboard, they are prepared to go further from the Promenade as they have the power to get out of trouble quickly, but most of them rely on man power and their occupants, usually two, sit peacefully fishing with their heads protected from the weather with typical Chinese straw hats. Tug boats lead other vessels out to sea, there seem to be a lot of drilling rigs being towed out at the moment. Ferry's scuttle across to Lamma Island, some carrying only trucks and tanks, some with only passengers, but all weaving between the other vessels. And of course there are the huge container ships that are so commonly seen here in the shipping channel. One morning I watched 10 monster container ships either entering the channel coming into port or leaving. There had been a typhoon so I assume that the ships were a little behind schedule and thus backed up, so they were literally steaming in at 5 minute intervals! It is like the Heathrow of the water here! I have been told that Hong Kong has one of the busiest ports in Asia, second only to Singapore, so it is no wonder there is so much activity on the water, however watching all this certainly makes the time go quicker in the gym which is exactly what I need.

I have done the odd early morning session in the gym as well, but have since discovered that it is a lot quieter around lunch time. Early in the morning there is a completely different view to keep me occupied. The promenade becomes a hive of activity, especially amongst the elderly who at this time of the day are doing their Tai Chi - salutations to the sun. No wonder the majority of them look so fit and live for so long, Tai Chi obviously keeps them very supple and in a good emotional place. People of all ages, sizes, nationalities fill the promenade enjoying their morning constitutional, walking, running, Tai Chi or even fishing even though there are signs saying no fishing from the promenade!

A ferry to Lamma Island

The day started out very relaxed with a coffee and muffin whilst reading the papers but then got rather stressful. We had decided to head into town early as we had to meet people at 11.30 to catch the 11.50 ferry to Lamma, therefore not wanting to be late we decided that getting their early and relaxing with coffee was the way to go. We then headed down to the pier to arrive just before 11.30 to discover that we were at the wrong pier!! The one we wanted was some way away, and so we frantically set out by taxi to arrive just on 11.50. Fortunately Bridget had the wrong time and the ferry was not leaving until 12.00. Time for a deep breath to settle my pounding heart, and soon we were aboard the ferry heading around the West of Hong Kong Island, dodging the container ships ploughing their way to post, bouncing around on their bow waves and then down to Lamma which is to the south of the island. Actually we look out over Lamma from our apartment and could have caught a much closer ferry from Aberdeen Harbour. Lamma is one of the many outlying Islands and with an area of 13.6 sq km, it is the third largest Island. It is very popular with visitors as there are no roads or cars, only a small community of around 5000 living in the main town of Yung Shue Wan and surrounded by lots of greenery which make it a perfect place to find space, peace and quiet. These are three commodities that are difficult to find on Hong Kong Island, especially where we live.

We began with a wander through Yung Shue Wan (Banyan Tree Bay), following the main street that basically curves around the bay. There are a lot of little restaurants and shops, many of the more alternative type. We found a great vegetarian restaurant that is suppose to be perfect for breakfast, so next time we go there we will head off a little earlier and catch breakfast first. Then we headed off for the 4km up and down walk to the other side of the island for lunch at the suitably named village, Sok Kwu Wan (picnic Bay). We sure earned our lunch as the path took us the entire length of the island, often up steep inclines, passing by lovely idyllic bays and affording spectacular views. Remember the weather is very hot and steamy at the moment and we were glad that the day was overcast so that we did not have the direct sun pounding down on us. As it was I was beetroot red and very sweaty by the time we arrived at a pavilion on a ridge looking down onto Sok Kwu Wan with its many restaurants and fishing boats and rafts bobbing in the bay.

As we got closer to the bay we discovered that the rafts were in fact fishing farms with cages suspended from them, obviously for the restaurants. A small wooden boat manned by women, pottered around the harbour continually casting their glistening nets in search of fish as we sat down in The Lamma Hilton...a far cry from The Hilton chain of hotels. Simple round tables filled the outdoor covered area, with many fans to support the sea breeze in keeping us cool. We ordered platters of squid, prawns and scallops accompanied by bok choi, broccoli, and spring rolls. There is not a dead fish on the premises. All the fish are still alive and swimming in large fish tanks, if you want you can go and chose the exact fish that you want to eat and they kill it, gut it and cook it for you. So you cannot complain about the freshness, it was melt in your mouth fresh. After a huge feed, we headed down to the pier to catch the ferry back to Hong Kong Island, tired but fully satisfied with a great day out, a combination of exercise, great food and of course good company.

Stepford wife

An Apology before I begin. It has taken me a long time to get around to publishing this one, so it is about a week out of date. Also some of the photos have been taken with a mobile phone so the quality is not good at all. Sorry!

Dare I speak too soon... the weather seems to be changing. It does not seem quite as humid as previous days. My face no longer has that red sheen, and my hair seems to be much more controllable, no longer do I look completely like a wild woman... but nor do I really look like a Stepford wife, all groomed, slim and boutiqued. But having just had a 5 and a half hour spectacular lunch comprising of loads of my favourite sushi, lobster, prawns etc in a swanky hotel, I think I almost qualify. I met up with a friend, Bridget, from my life at Calwell High in Canberra from some 17 years ago. Bridget, like me, is currently between jobs so able to do the long leisurely lunch thing, something that we both decided we could get use to if only we could afford to!!

My nose is now pressed up against the windows of my apartment trying to read the name of the container ships that are steaming by, as today is the day that the Bahia Laura is due into port with our container in tow. A bit of a catch 22 as I cannot read the names without binoculars and my binoculars are on the ship! So I just watch them go by, praying that one of them contains my precious load, not that I know where on earth I am going to fit everything once it arrives... I seem to be settling into a bit of a regular routine. A bit of house work (yes that is a bit of a shock to the system) then off to Starbucks to get online to check emails etc. We still do not have internet. It seems that the cables coming into our building cannot support the speed of internet that we requested. So rather than actually telling us this in the first place and giving us the option of down grading or waiting an indefinite period until they could upgrade the cables, everyone just kept doing the typical face saving thing of saying "someone will ring you" which they did but with no answer to the problem. This went on for over a week until eventually the sales man who sold us the package admitted the problem and we agreed to downgrade in order to actually get it on in the house. So now we are booked in to have a technician come around on Monday afternoon, fingers crossed that we can then watch cable TV and use the internet at home. I can tell you that there is only so much Starbucks coffee you can drink in a week and as I have at least 1 visit a day sometimes 2 in order to get internet, I can say that I am pretty much over it all. I have also had to resort to a bit of stair running for exercise as we did not have our resident cards for all the facilities available in our estate. We were told they would take about 2 weeks to be processed and we were very excited when we opened our mailbox last night to find them lying waiting expectantly for us. Now the hard work for me begins. With all the gym facilities and swimming pools, internet in the house (I am assuming that all will go well on Monday) there will be no time at all to do any of the more boring tasks like housework!!!
Of course there is also the shopping to be done. Last weekend we found another plaza within walking distance of the estate, this one is 28 floors of shops, mainly furniture shops with both new and antique Chinese furnishings, a wonderful place to spend an afternoon browsing and imagining what fun it would be to furnish a large apartment with all the beautiful Chinese antiques, from ornate cupboards, heavily carved or stunningly lacquered to simple woven food boxes from monasteries in a past era that would make striking storage pieces. Red, black and gold are the prevalent colours and the smell of old wood, with underlying hints of incense fill our nostrils. Today we made the mistake of going to Causeway Bay to try to sort out mobile phones. Take a memo... try to avoid Causeway Bay and Times Square on the weekend as the crowds are unbelievable. Today being Saturday it was still relatively quiet compared with what I have been told it can be like on a Sunday. I suppose I will have to check it out one Sunday just to see how crowded it can get. As you can see from the photos it is not exactly quiet. Here we found 13 stories of shopping heaven!!! Richard has been given an apple mac by the school and he is having a lot of trouble getting it to sync with his phone so we are trying to sort out either how to get it to sync with the phone that he already has or find another phone that will easily sync with his mac, other than the iphone of course. Here we are back in Starbucks for the second time today as he tries to download some software which will sort out his problem. There is a lot of groaning, swearing and throwing hands in the air, so it does not look like it is going that well.

On Friday night we met up with Sujana, Tim and a friend of Sujana's for dinner in Soho. Soho is set high on the slopes of the surrounding hillsides near Central and is a popular place to go to eat as there are many, many bars and restaurants here. We went to the very popular Elgin Street, to the 'Bistro Manchu' which I have since heard is supposed to be one of the best Chinese restaurants that you can eat at, specializing in food from the north of China. So how to get there... we are of course keen on using public transport wherever possible. But the nearest bus and tube station is down the bottom hill, so it looks like being a long walk up. Oh well, we will at least build up an appetite. However that was not to be, can you believe it... there is actually an outdoor escalator here. In the morning it goes down the hill to transport all the workers who live in this area down to the bus and tube station and then from around 10.30am until just after midnight it runs up the hill to bring both the inhabitants home and the diners to their restaurants. There are twenty escalators and 3 moving side walks here running a total length of around 800 metres with a vertical climb of around 135 metres. The total travel time is about twenty minutes from the bottom to the top, but we did walk a bit while the escalators moved to shorten the trip. According to Guinness World Records, these escalators together form the longest outdoor covered escalator system. What fun, riding an escalator high up above the streets to get to your destination. Of course it is covered to provide some protection from the elements and before we knew it we were at Elgin Street and seated in the restaurant. The food was pretty fabulous, Richard said the lamb was to die for, unfortunately the smell of it was enough for me to know it was not going to be my cup of tea...pretty sad considering I am the daughter of a sheep farmer, but lamb is something that I can no longer stomach. After dinner we headed down to a recently opened restaurant called Soho 8 where we had a couple of drinks and did a very good job at sampling their dessert menu.


Our weekend continued with another night out on Saturday night. Again we met some other friends, this time Bridget and John at the Quarter Deck which overlooks Victoria harbour. The restaraunt was located in Fleet Arcade, facilities developed for visiting naval fleets. The menu of course was predominantly sea food, and the food was good. A gentle breeze kept us cool as we chose to abandon the airconditioning and sit by the water. Salty smells of the sea rode the breeze, providing us with a constant reminder of where we were, the neon lights of Kowloon providing the perfect backdrop. There was one extremely tall building being completed, apparently it is over 900m tall. Can you imagine a building that is almost a kilometer high. Now for all you budding physisists out there, perhaps you can tell me how they are able to get the water to the tanks in the top of the building when water only travels up as far as atmospheric pressure will push it and that is only about 14 meters. Also how on earth do you then flush the toilet on the ground floor without blowing the bowl up because of the water pressure of the water coming from the roof, almost 1 km higher than the toilet!!

The evening ended with an introduction to 'The Wanch'. This is a popular place to listen to live music as it is really one of the only venues that offer live music, and the reason that we have ended up here is because John organises the music side in his free time. It was a great bar with some interesting characters. We arrived just at the end of the first band, but in time to listen to an 'all Japanese' band with the lead singer a throwback from the Japanese glam rock era. His singing was not a lot to write home about but his mannerisms were mesmerising. The band itself were good musicians including an excellent harmonica player. A geat way to end the evening and we eventually rolled into bed at around 2am. Oh my god, two nights in a row of not getting in before 1am... it will be the death of me. Could I really be turning into a Stepford wife.

The Soaring Dragon

Over 100 drums of varying shapes, colours and sizes filled the stage, dragons being the common theme carved into the sides. A further 50 drums clung to the edge of the upper balconies and every one in the audience had a mini hand drum. Suddenly the doors opened and in ran over 60 children, many looking no older than 5. The show had began and oh... what a show it was. The drumming was deafening, the beat reached down into your very core as the children put their body and soul into their performance, a piece entitled Flying Dragons and Jumping Tigers. We were sitting in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Peoples Republic of China with a special concert combining the old and new styles of percussion music and featuring the Eight Mallets and the Red Poppy Ladies Percussion. It was pictures of the Red Poppy Ladies that really attracted us to the concert, but more about them later. All too soon the children had finished and run off stage, what a brilliant performance. Then entered the Eight Mallets, yes you guessed it, four men who obviously can hold eight drum mallets between them. Their first piece was based on traditional Peking Opera percussion music which is not necessarily to every ones taste. It is amazing how you can get such a different unusual sound out of instruments. Their second piece was this time based on the percussion music of the Tujia ethnic minority and did a great job of describing a group of myna birds playing in the water.

Again the stage was cleared and 10 huge heavily carved red drums with gold dragons flying from the sides were rolled on the stage. Then 10 very beautiful, fit and toned young women bounced onto the stage, wearing black spandex trousers and bright red silk sleeveless chinese tops, their hair tied in ponytails to keep out of the way. And the drumming began. Ponytails whipped from side to side as they put their whole bodies into the music, no wonder they are so fit looking. This was not just about the sound of the drums, this was a whole body performance and boy did they know how to perform. The Red Poppy is the first all female professional percussion ensemble in China, based in Beijing. They are all professionally trained in percussion and armed with excellent musicianship and showmanship they certainly know how to excite the audience. Most of their music is specifically written for them and is thus a unique blend of folk and contemporary music styles which along with their youthful confidence has made them the new force in percussion music. The first piece they performed was based on music from all around Asia. The pipa and the zhudi from China set the mood in the opening passage with their Oriental touch. Then the thunderous rhythms of the Chinese dagu (large drums) broke the serenity by injecting vitality and motion before the uniform beats of the Japanese daiko came in, creating an air of magnificence. It was followed by the dance-like Korean samui nori of four instruments - the janggu (hourglass drum) kkwaenggwari (small gong) buk (barrel drum) and jong (medium sized gong) The exotic sound of Indian chanting and the sitar brought back the calm before various drum cadenza passages appeared, piling one on top of the other to push the music to a climatic close. In their second piece they each weilded a set of nunchuku (the joined sticks used in martial arts) which they twirled around hitting octagon shaped drums behind them placed high on stands and the large drums in front, the drumming movements choreographed to include martial arts, all the while not once hitting either themselves or each other! Click on the following link to see a sample of their work.

Red Poppy Ladies Percussion

After a crescendo of applause they left the stage for intermission and the stage was set for the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. Wow it is amazing how different instruments can sound. During the tune up, if you closed your eyes you could be listening to any orchestra tune up, but once they started to play the sound was a world apart. The instruments in a traditional Chinese orchestra are completely different, yes they do have a string and wind section, but the instruments that they play look completely different. The strings ( violins, Cellos etc) have been replaced by their Chinese equivalent, what look like small cylinders with the neck and strings attached. In the smaller string instruments the bow is inserted inside the strings rather than played on the outside as with the violin. There are 5 different sections of these types of stings, looking somewhat similar except for the shape and size of the cylinder. Then there is a section of guitar/sitar shaped instruments, behind which you can see a mixture of wind instruments all very different from modern orchestras. And finally they are surrounded by the percussion section which did also include timpani (I can only assume that the timpani that we see in orchestras now actually came from China). Their first piece was called the Dance of the Dragon, and I have to admit that I was not so sure I was going to enjoy it but this proved to be so wrong. A new arrangement had been specially written for the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra with a new section featuring the percussions in the lead. The Eight Mallets joined the Orchestra enhancing the sound by adding the congas, bass drums and marimbas. It was the most amazing piece of music with a 6 minute cadenza passage for percussion having an amazing effect on the listeners. Bravo!!

Now for the 'Soaring Dragon', a piece of music written specifically for the Orchestra to play with the Red Poppy percussion group using multiple dragon drums. These dagu drums supplied the underlying rhythm. With crisp pounding rhythms and dynamic choreography, the female drummers struck the image of Chinese heroines. But the final piece was the piece the audience had been excitedly waiting for. Now it was our turn to perform and what a performance it was. 'Let the Thunder of Drums Roll' was the title of the piece, and it was written specifically for the Hong Kong Drum Festival, reflecting the many cross cultural features of Hong Kong. The conductor Yan Huichang spent some time teaching us how he wanted us to play our mini drums, all in Cantonese of course, but music crosses all language barriers so it was not difficult to work out what to do. Let the music begin.... Wow what a show stopper. We were lead by the orchestra, the children, The Eight Mallets and the Red Poppy, the pulsating power of drums almost lifted the roof off, every person in the concert hall giving their best and all held together so well by the conductor. The final applause was almost as deafening as the previous piece but even a standing ovation or two or three failed to drag out another piece from them, so with a pounding in our chests we left the hall.

If you wish to watch and listen to the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra then click on the following link. They are not playing any of the music that we saw but you can get an idea of the different instruments and sounds.

Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra

Now time to navigate back to our apartment. First we needed to catch a ferry across to Hong Kong Island. The night scape, all neon and bright lights was amazing. Unfortunately I only had a little camera and no tripod so the photos are less than impressive, but maybe you will get the idea. Once the weather cools a little we will have to do this trip across the harbour again to Kowloon but this time armed with better equipment to get better photos. What a fitting end to a fantastic evening.

First foray on my own....

(Photos to be added, so stay posted. Sorry)

Today marked the first time that I left the Island of Ap Lei Chau on my own. I was off to Stanley to meet a friend from my earlier days in Peru. Sujana's parents live in Hong Kong and amazingly she attended South Island School, the same school that Richard now works in. She is here visiting her family for a week at the beginning of a new adventure for her, having quit her job to do some travelling around Asia with her partner.

To get to Stanley required the catching of 2 buses. First to Aberdeen where Richard stressed I was to get off as soon as I crossed the harbour bridge. This I dutifully did, then after taking the footbridge overpass, waited on the other side of the road for any bus heading for Stanley. I ended up on a mini bus rather than the double decker buses as this was the first to arrive and it was too hot to stand around waiting in the sun. Stanley is situated on the south eastern coast of Hong Kong Island and has a long history as it was one of the largest indigenous settlements when the British first arrived way back in 1841. Now it is well know for it's market, waterfront promenade lined with bars and restaurants, which is where we had lunch and of course great views out to sea. However it is the trip to Stanley that makes it worth while. For the price of a bus fare (less than $1US) you get the most amazing views, if not a little white knuckling as the bus navigates narrow, twisting mountain roads that cling to the edge of the island. The first beach we came to was Deep Water Bay, a quiet little inlet with a beach flanked by shade trees. Repulse Bay was the next bay and it is obviously home to the rich and famous, as the hills around the beach are strewn with luxury apartment blocks surrounded with trees and with out a doubt some of the most spectacular vistas you could find. Again the beaches here are public and I imagine it would be a great spot to people watch especially if you knew who you were looking for. As I am not so fond of the beach, spending a weekend with thousands of others on this beach is not really my idea of fun. And apparently they even have sharks here, so that has turned me off even though many of the beaches have netting and lifesavers.

I arrived in plenty of time to enjoy a stroll around the markets. I managed to walk around the entire market and not buy a thing, OK that is not quite true, I did buy a map book from the book shop there, but as that was an essential buy I think I did well. But do not worry, I certainly took note of what I could buy at a later date!!

Hot, Hot, Hot....

Today the clouds are beginning to part and the sun has actually poked its head out to greet me. No rain so far, such a change from the constant downpour of the past 4 days. I was really beginning to wonder if it was every going to stop raining. Now I am curious to see how quickly washing dries. Oh how I do miss an out door area to dry clothes where they catch the gentle breeze and come in all smelling of sunshine (at least that is what happens in Australia..) I now know where the term "looking like a Chinese Laundry"comes from. Everyone hangs their clothes to dry out their apartment windows. I am so worried that they will fall and float down the 34 floors to never be seen again. And who wants my undies fluttering around their head. But with the sun shining I am about to attempt to do the Chinese thing, and hang some things out the window on the outside clothesline. This means opening a window right up and hanging half out 34 floor up to reach the clothes line! I never thought I would be doing this, but here goes..... I did it!!


Horns from the ships pulsate up to the apartment drawing me to the window to watch the scene below. I do not believe you can ever tire of watching the harbour life. From the living room I can see down onto the harbour, out to sea, a couple of estates on the left of the main Island and then nothing but mountains and trees. It is hard to believe that you are actually in one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Everyday container ships make their way past... could that be our shipping arriving? I could easily become the nautical equivalent of a train spotter.

It is now 10pm at night and the temperature is still a sweltering 31 degrees Celsius. I feel like I am wrapped in a hot wet blanket, it is so hard to get your core body temperature down as it is so humid that sweating offers no reprieve. At the moment the temperature only varies a few degrees from lows of 27 to 28 degrees to highs of 33 to 34 degrees. Unlike the locals I still look very much like the import, constantly sweating and flustered looking with hair that refuses to be tamed no matter how much product and hot implements are applied. I imagine that one day I will blend in, one day surely my body will get use to this weather and I will begin to look cool, calm and collected like so many others appear to. The heat, humidity, and the scent of incense rising on the breeze from someone's apartment below leave me in no doubt that I now live in Asia.

Typhoon in Hong Kong

As I write this water is battering against our new apartments windows as a level 3 typhoon warning is hoisted. We have been given the keys to our apartment early so have started moving the luggage across. Shopping in Ikea saw us the proud owners of a bed that will be delivered on Wednesday, and a sofa which will unfortunately not be available until the end of the month, We have to move out of the serviced apartment on Tuesday, so Tuesday night will see us testing out the existing single beds as our bed will not be there. We have checked the length of them to discover that they are just long enough for us to stretch out on. Richard had his dreams come true and has purchased a 42" flat screen TV. It will of course fill the apartment, but it is what he has wanted for so long so we will have to deal with it. It is due to be delivered on Tuesday. I am looking forward to seeing just how easy it is to get things delivered, whether they actually turn up on the day and hour specified unlike Peru where you could be waiting for a couple of days. We also needed to sort out internet, cable TV, and telephone. After checking out a couple of possibilities we finally settled on the one that gave us the fastest Internet and then we had to try to agree on the stations we wanted on cable. Things got a little too techo for us when they started talking about our land line and what telephone we wanted. I had assumed we would have a run of the mill telephone, but no it is the state of the art one with a screen that you can watch TV on or video conference with others with the same type of phone. Video conferencing is completely free with those on the same provider as are all local phone calls. Line rental is around $20 so it is definitely a bargain. Again some confusion set in when looking at possible mobile phone options. Richard wants to get an iPhone to go with his new mac (he insists it will all sync a lot better with his new mac book but I think being gadget boy he just wants to upgrade and pass on his older technology to me). He is going to have fun choosing a plan from the many of offer. I however will just be getting the basic which is around $10 a month and gets me 1800 minutes of calls!!!!!!

On Monday I spent the entire day cleaning the apartment before beginning to unpack. I also had some time to begin to check out what is available in our estate. We are living in South Horizons on the island of Ap Lei Chau which is to the south of Hong Kong Island and connected by a bridge. Apparently this is the largest estate in Hong Kong, trust us to pick the most populated place. The population density of Australia is around 2 people per square kilometer, the average world population density is around 47 people per square kilometer, the population density of China is around 120 people per square kilometer so can you guess what the population density of Hong Kong is? No one I have presented this problem to has even got close. It is close to 7000 people per square kilometer. Now keep in mind that around 75% of Hong Kong is wooded with the entire population of around 7 000 000 living on the remaining 35% of land which is situated basically around the edges of the island and you soon realise that in reality there are a lot more than 7000 people per square kilometer of livable space. Our estate has 33 tower blocks, each tower is 42 stories high. There are 8 apartments per floor. Now you do the maths. If there are an average of 3 people living in each apartment (as they are 3 bedroom apartments then this is likely), then that means there are around 1000 people living in each tower. Multiply this by 33 and you get 33 000 people living in an area that Richard insists is around 1/4 of a square kilometer. Sounds horrific doesn't it, but so far it does not seem nearly as busy as it should. Most people use public transport so there is not a lot of traffic going around the ring road, just a lot of buses that are clean, air conditioned and extremely regular and on time. In the centre of the estate there is a 4 storied shopping centre with a large supermarket, food hall, restaurants, speciality shops, beauticians and hairdressers, a couple of coffee shops including a Starbucks (yes we are already well known here!!) medical centre etc. There is even a market with lots of cheap stalls, and also a wet market where you can buy your fresh meat, fish and vegetables. The fish is so fresh that it is still alive. They store all the different fish in plastic buckets, still swimming around. You can apparently get them to kill and gut it for you if you want. I will look into this a little later on. The estate also has numerous out door swimming pools and one indoor pool with spa and sauna, a couple of fitness gymnasiums, tennis courts, badminton courts, table tennis facilities, a golf driving cage and a golf putting green, (Richard is very excited!!) basketball courts and a foot ball pitch. You hardly even need to leave the place!! And we get a lovely view of the entrance to Aberdeen harbour and the South China sea from all the bedrooms and living room windows.

Monday night 6pm and everyone had begun to baton down the hatches, locking up shop and securing whatever possible as typhoon warning 8 was hoisted. Now it is time to stay inside in safety. All day there has been a steady flow of boats returning to their moorings in preparation. The harbour is full. Typhoon Koppu is spinning around the ocean south of Hong Kong collecting velocity on a steady path towards land. If the wind direction stays the same we will not receive a direct hit. The sky has opened up and it is literally bucketing down. And this is still not what they would call black alert rain. I cannot imagine how much rain must fall to qualify a black rating. The wind has definitely picked up, you can feel movement in the building as it is buffeted by the force of the wind or is this just my imagination. By morning there is plenty of evidence that a typhoon has passed by. The harbour is full of litter, trees have been uprooted. Friends who live in Stanley report that the pier has been destroyed, whole granite slabs uplifted. By 10am Tuesday morning the warning has been lowered to 3 meaning that now we are free to leave our buildings and head off to work. School has been cancelled for the kids, but if the staff can make it in they should try to do so. It is a good opportunity to get some planning done without the distraction of children. So by late morning Richard heads off to work. Whilst the typhoon has passed the wind is still very strong especially around our apartment where it is obviously being funneled and on leaving the building I was nearly blown off my feet. Our lovely door man struggled to hold the door open for me as I set off to the shops to get necessary supplies, with hair blown in every direction and tightly grasping my top to actually keep it from flapping around my face.

As I finish the final touches of this, Mr Internet man has arrived. I am about to go on line!!! Yeah!!!! Connected with the world once more, oh what a wonderful feeling.

Oh no, the news is not good. There is a problem with the cabling. They have had to leave with only the phone connected and a promise that someone will phone later!! I need Internet!! After some investigation it seems that they have run out of cable connections in the building and will be sending someone to try to fix this within the week! Another week without Internet will be almost unbearable, but of course there is wi-fi at Starbucks, so looks like I have every excuse to go there on a daily basis!

Now for some good news. I am sitting here watching 2 men put together not just my new bed, but the new sofa that we were told would not be arriving until the end of the month. So now we have something to sit on to watch our new TV even if we still do not have cable!!