Sweet Lamma Island

Hello Excellent Ones,
This week I journeyed back to one of my favourite spots on earth: Lamma Island.   It takes about a half hour ferry ride to get there from the central piers of Hong Kong, which is just right for a sweet little nap.  I got off at Yung Shue Wan which is a little village of narrow winding streets, and has great restaurants plus some hippie like shops.  No cars are allowed on Lamma, which is the greatest thing.  So people walk or ride bikes.  Perfect.
After taking a walk through Yung Shue Wan  I came to a lovely beach where I plunged in the cooling waters of the South China Sea.  Swimming on November 27 in the ocean.  Great.  It was after all 27 above today.
Then I marched through a jungle and over a small mountain ridge to another village called  Sok Kwa Wan.  There I met up with some friends and we enjoyed a lovely seafood meal and a great conversation.  While it may sound that I am on constant vacation please note that these experiences occur only on the weekend or off days.  But it is nice to feel that summer vacation vibe every weekend here.
Now that the weather has cooled off to 25-27, and the humidity has been killed off, I plan to go hiking every weekend.  Stay tuned.

God bless you and have a great week.

Till next time,

Love adios and peng on,

Dirk

Peng Chau Revisited

Hello Great Ones,
This will be extremely short.  A few months ago I visited Peng Chau Island and gave you a pretty good description of what it was like.  Well I went for another visit and found some more weird stuff for you to wonder about.  Hong Kong is like that.  Every day there is something new to marvel about.

God bless you,

Love Adios and Peng on,

Dirk

Sven Again

Hello Great and Amazing Ones,
Sven left yesterday, much to my dismay, the week with him flew by.  He did a ton of things by himself when I was at school and we did a ton of things together when I wasn't.  Some highlights include trying to meet up with each at a train station.  Through texting we managed to figure out that we had gone up to the train tracks through different entrances.  He was on one end I was on the other.  Despite 100's of Chinese between us I could make out his white face and balding scalp sticking a shoulder and a head above everyone else.  I of course was easy to spot despite the multitudes of people.  Sometimes it is ok to be a VVM.  Very Visible Minority.

I took Sven into "real China," to Shenzen to the greatest "knock off," mall in the world.  We had some fun with a sales person at a purse shop trying to sell Sven an "authentic," knock off watch.  Why this salesperson was selling me DVD's and Sven watches at a purse shop is a question I am still mulling over.  Anyway Sven managed to get the salesperson to drop the price of her "authentic," knock off Bulgaria watch or whatever its called from 400 yuan down to 150 yuan.  Sven though wanted it for 50.  As he strode out of the store, without making a deal I might add, the shopkeeper pitifully in desperation cried out 100.  Sven, the hard man from the middle east, kept going.  Wow.  He did say later he felt a little sorry for her.  Tough as nails, thats my brother.

So to see how tough he really is I took him on a little walk through the jungle.  At first it was clear sailing, gradual slope, lovely scenary, monkeys everywhere checking us out, and Sven rather smugly said that the walk was a piece of cake.  But then came the… steps.  After basically climbing up 1000s of steps and down 1000s of steps my poor brother was pretty wasted at the end.  Yet the view at the top of the mountain ridge, of Kowloon and Hong Kong, was well worth it.

Well Sven made it back safe and sound to Doha and he liked Hong Kong so much that he might consider applying for a job here.  That would be great if he managed to get out here.  Any way have a great week.  Till next time.

God bless you all,

Dirk

Sven

Hello Great Ones,
My brother Sven is with me for the next week.  He arrived on time, Friday evening, and after taking the bus ride from the airport and a small tour of Kowloon City he declared that he was ready to transfer from Doha, Qatar, (otherwise known as the closest thing to the moon on earth,) to one of the greatest places on earth: Hong Kong.

The next day I got him huffing and puffing up the road to the peak.  He wanted to take the tram, but forget it only wimpy tourists do that.   He whined quite a bit, but at the top he said he was happy to have walked up. We stayed up at the peak till it got dark and took some great pictures.  I have a new camera with a panaroma feature so that was cool.

On Sunday I took Sven to the Vine and afterwards we ate lunch with friends at Agave, the best Mexican restaurant this side of Mexico.  Then we headed to Big Wave Bay and rode the waves.  It was great fun.  Sven had to buy some trunks at the beach.  They have nice Hibiscus flowers on them.  Sweet.

Then we headed back on the Kowloon Ferry.  Tomorrow Sven goes to the bird market and Shenzen.  Will be fun.

Love adios and peng on,

Dirk