Lamma Island 南丫島

(Flags on the pier, as well as fellow tourists.)

(Boats in the harbor near the pier.)

("Creek" between houses and restaurants on the main street through Lamma.)

(Postage on the way towards town from the ferry.)

(The main harbor, yes that is a power plant. I think it is hydro-electric though. Sort of a reminder that you are still in China.)

(Main street.)

(Handwritten menu of the restaurant where we ate.)

(Vege.)

(Fruit.)

(Coke machine near a curio shop.)

(Roadside shrine on the way to the beach.)

(Part of the walk to the beach.)

(No cars are allowed on this island. Only small tractors. 6000 people live on the island.)

(I really love signs like this in Hong Kong. This style of lettering really gets me! This restaurant was on the way to the beach.)

(Big flat leaves, also on the way to the beach.)

(And finally we arrive at the beach. There is an old Francophone with his granddaughter playing in the water. We rode the same ferry.)

(Our cicada friend that frightened us at first. The noise was really loud at first, it startled Baddi and I. Then we got up from the table and looked around only to find it here!)

(A fellow table-sitter.)

(Leaving the beach, a white wall around some one's property.)

(This is what some of the houses look like on Lamma.)

(The main harbor by the ferry.)

All I have to say about this place is wow. Nam'a Doh (means "South Forked Island") is a really interesting, not to mention relaxing place. The weather was wonderful and the water looked so clean! I don't think my Icelandic friend Baddi agreed about the clean water part, but I am used to dark green water so to me the semi-clear blue water was good enough.

The weather that day was warm and humid. After we got off the boat we walked down the main drag of the island, past several seafood restaurants and a small post office. Baddi and I were both starving and on a budget so we settled for a slightly cheaper noodle place off the beach. We had Shanghai noodles, funnily enough the island's specialty is seafood but neither Baddi nor I likes seafood. along with my wonderful Shanghai noodles I had a lemon coke, which I have only had in Hong Kong (and nowhere else in China as that sentence already implies).

After paying the bill we sauntered on down towards the nearest beach (25 minutes away). I was seriously regretting not bringing sun screen. When we arrived I retreated to the coke machine and then on to the shade. The beach was so clean, and the changing facilities, bathrooms, and lifeguard station were really tidy. Baddi and I sat on a bench under a tree and commenced our people watching. The beach was fairly empty. Most of the people there were foreign. Some French and some Americans. The rest were Chinese. In total this may have been 12 people.

Our presence was later graced by a big cicada. Looking back on it we should have named him...but we didn't alas.

On the way to and from the beach we were surrounded by foliage. Green green green foliage! It was lovely. Occasionally we passed a house or two. Maybe even a Filipino maid getting after her mischievous western charge. We passed that sort of thing twice actually. There is an international elementary school on the island, so there are westerners about.

It was a sad thing to leave this place, I think Baddi and I both enjoyed it. Vowing several times that we must move here when we are older. We could be neighbors! I suggested to Baddi that he spread Icelandic by opening an Icelandic International school on the island. He thought that was amusing.

At the end of the day we paid our fare and boarded the ferry to head back to the wonderful hustle and bustle that is the city of Hong Kong.

西貢 Sai Kung (Xi Gong), Hong Kong

(Sai Kung Pier)

(People having tea and chatting next to the little park of us Sai Kung pier.)

(Circle K, the place to get cheap chilled coffee. Oh, and practice your Cantonese. "Yat ga feh, m goi." One coffee, please.)

(Me playing tourist.)

(Fisherman handing off cuttlefish guts to be used as bait. He had just finished gutting and cleaning a cuttlefish before selling it right off the boat.)

(Fisherman's boat off the side of the boardwalk.)

(People fishing [illegally] off the pier.)

(I love these lovely neon signs around Hong Kong.)

(Fisherman selling their catches off the boardwalk.)

(Crabs outside a seafood restaurant in front of a hotel.)

(Fishing boots.)

(Grandma and grandchild passing time out on the pier in Sai Kung.)

(Sam pan boats.)

(A worker taking care of the Urine Shrimp, a local speciality.)

("Aren't those guys up there illegal?")

(This seafood shop was one of the first things we saw in Sai Kung.)

(Shops leading to the boardwalk in Sai Kung.)

On Monday afternoon Baddi and I made a trek to Sai Kung. Sai Kung is in the western part of Hong Kong, and it means Western Tribute in English. I had seen a picture of the harbor in a Hong Kong guide book that I had bought recently. I decided to drag Baddi with me. (Baddi is my friend from Iceland who is living with the Ngan family in Hong Kong. He came here with Hong Kong AFS. The Ngan family took me to Macau. See last post!). Nelson (Baddi's host brother) helped us find the minibus on his way to school.

When we got off the bus in Sai Kung it was already late afternoon. The fisherman were out selling their daily catches for local peoples' dinner. Baddi and I spent more than a half an hour watching people haggle (in Cantonese, so this time I wasn't doing the translating) over cuttlefish. Off Sai Kung Harbor are many different islands, I didn't realize this until I looked at a map afterwords. The islands definitely contribute to the great view that is this harbor.

I really enjoyed resuming on of my hobbies since I was three: catch watching. When I was little my Uncle Rusty used to take me to the local pier (in California) to see what was lurking in the buckets of the fishermen. I did a lot of the here, but it was a bit more convenient. The fish were already displayed in tanks for sale, while other fish were still in the boats of fishermen.
This was mostly a people watching one. I really enjoyed it. Baddi was fascinated by the gutting of the the cuttlefish. He also liked to listen to the haggling of the locals. It helped me with my Cantonese numbers.

(This morning I discovered how horrible my Cantonese is. Cantonese not only has 6 tones. It also has three pitches. High, middle, and low. I tortured Nelson this morning by having him repeat these pitches over and over again. Last time I visited Nelson, and his sister Kathy, couldn't even recall the tones specifically to give me a listen. When I visited this time they had brushed up!)

Macau (O Moon) With the Ngan Family

("Greet Money Cat" in a mango pudding restaurant in Macau)

(Another form of Hot Pot. from the left: Liu Zhuo Rong a friend of the Ngan Family's son Nelson[Yan Jia Feng] who is sitting on the right.)

(Mr. Ngan and I enjoy Macau's best cup of coffee)

(So Japan! So Macau?)

(Veggie-Stall in Macau)

(Afternoon snooze in a Macau bakery.)

(Casino/Hotel Lisboa)

(Late night snack outdoors)

(Shutters in Taipa, Macau)

(Busy night in Macau)

(A lovely shady lane somewhere near Taipa, Macau. We walked along this street for a while before moving on to some Mango ice cream/pudding.)

(Portuguese style architecture in Macau. Macau was a part of Portugal until 1999.)

(Taxi to Taipa, Macau. Taipa is the northern part of the second island in the south of Macau.)

From April 17th to the evening of April 18th I was in Macau with my favorite Hong Kong family: the Ngans. I met them last time I was in Hong Kong when I stayed with them. They are hosting a boy from Reykjavik, Iceland named Baddi Olsen. Baddi was in Beijing while we were in Macau.

The first day in Macau was sunny and beautiful while the next was depressing and rainy (I spoke too soon Jane). Last time I went to Macau it was rainy too, but that time I was too excited about being in a place once owned by Portugal to care.

I really like Macau, and maybe sometime in the future when I have the chance to return, it will be sunny!