Final day of the visit

Travelling Aunty leaves Hong Kong today, bound for Northumberland.

It sets her off into sorrowful remembrance. Or maybe trepidation. Her facial expression looks remarkably the same when she contrasts the memory of sunshine temperatures in the Philippines with the expectation of snow-locked moors of Northumberland and a central heating system that doesn't work properly.

Tiger is beside herself with envy. Aunty Dee is going home. To England. This fact prompts Tiger to spend a morning growling and muttering at her computer screen, vengefully stabbing the keyboard. Going home can't come soon enough, and she's now counting the days to our own departure in March.

Squirrel watches packing proceedings with her detached air. These events are all happening out of her control. Later she'll be upset and slam doors. That will mark the loss of a precious aunty who can actually knit and seems to enjoy watching dolly fashion shows. But for now, Squirrel quietly assists in the to-ing and fro-ing to the post office, sending the holiday cards back to an office in Prudhoe. Everyone agrees the postal system can sometimes defy time. Magically the cards can arrive at work desks quicker than the person who sent them.

Shark is sparked into a fury of action in the kitchen. She wanted Aunty Dee to squeeze in one last cultural experience of Hong Kong. A journey by sampan. But the only sampan experience we can organise in time is the crossing between Hong Kong Island and the South of Lamma Island. That means crossing the East Lamma Shipping Channel. This route is the passage of the heaviest container vessels in the world, and one of the busiest sea ways in Asia, active every day of the week. A sampan is like a miniature rowing boat. Dig explains the usual terms of travel insurance and remarks how there isn't time to enjoy a hospital experience, so Shark is asked to cook cake instead.

She does that vigorously, bashing flour and beating eggs, clattering about the kitchen and warding off incomers, until she has created chocolate mousse, cinnamon biscuits, spicy cake and bread dough which we don't have time to cook. The time for departure is upon us, so our Travelling Aunty is hurriedly fed cake with a squashed mousse top and bundled out the door with her unfinished Sudoko puzzles and a flurry of farewells. Dig accompanies her to the airport, just to ensure she catches the right plane to the right place.

I put the house back to the pre-visiting order, wrapping laundry and rearranging furniture. Shark looks glumly at her uncooked bread dough, Squirrel sorrowfully slinks up to her room, and Tiger beams. Next month I'll be packing up our bedrolls, too.

Big Buddha

Huzzah! Last day for Travelling Aunty in Hong Kong!

Today we must show her Buddhism! We are escorting her to the mighty tourist attraction that is the Tian Tan Buddha, affectionately known as Big Buddha.

This has to be on everyone's tourist itinerary of Hong Kong, doesn't it? Of course it does. Lantau must offer you something apart from the airport. And when you're fed up with Buddha you can shop at the fantastic themed retail experience that is Ngong Ping village!

The Chinese have this sort of thing organised. Big buses to get you there, large coach parks, directional signs, plenty of dining opportunities, toilets for the disabled.

But la famille Grit is not here simply to take part in the great tourist enterprise! No! Any reader knows that Grit is a half-hearted follower of the Buddhist business. She can even manage a bit of mumbled chanting in exchange for a free dinner.

So you can take it that our tour today also means we can actively demonstrate our Buddhist virtues of zeal, charity, morality, patience, meditation and wisdom. The Travelling Aunty can enjoy them as well, whether she wants to or not.

(She can call it home education, religious studies.)

First we show zeal. I set Shark on shovelling the reluctant aunty out of bed at 9am. Then we can push her on the ferry, force her on the underground to Tung Chung, and prop her up on the Number 2 bus, bumping its way round the hills in Lantau. For it is here the Chinese proudly display the world's biggest bronze Buddha sat outside on a hill, facing north! (V. important.)

To experience the momentous meeting with Buddha close up, Travelling Aunty must then walk up the hill.

We immediately have problems with the hill. Apparently the Travelling Aunty has a blister which she says got worse when I made her wear flippers.

I say a blister is no problem. Stop groaning. (More zeal, double tick). After all, the Chinese have provided steps! Lots of them. Like a runway. (Choose the correct side to ascend! Right side up! Left side down! Do not get these instructions confused if you do not want the tourist guard to beat you with the baton.)

But then Travelling Aunty With The Blister says she must rest half-way up because she is Clapped Out. She attempts to cling to the railings. After waiting a considerate moment I send Squirrel back down to force her to get a move on. Given the length of time she has spent hanging over the railings gasping, I think I show a great deal of patience, so I'm ticking it on my path to nirvana. And morality. I am sure it is in there too.

Because, sadly, we are against a time limit on our visit to Buddha. We must attend to the Buddha, walk round him anti-clockwise (or clockwise, I forget), look under his seat to visit his display, say a venerating ooh at his ancient relic (v. v. v. tiny slither of bone, possibly from middle finger), and then get to the restaurant by 4.00pm before they close up and the cook goes home. Here we can gaze upon the lovely vegetarian dinner! (Tick meditate.)

That is from Dig. He bought the full dinner set for six people by accident. If you are likewise visiting Big Buddha, be warned! You do not have to buy the full meal set! You do not have to buy the snack set! You do not have to buy any food at all! You can just visit Big Buddha!

The Chinese craftily position the Buy Your Ticket booths at the foot of the steps to Buddha, so in Dig's confusion (not getting to bed until 2am thanks to flight from Philippines) he persuades himself we must acquire curious forms of entry ticket, so buys a full set dinner for six.

Now on that score we have achieved wisdom (tick). And I will say how very kind it is for Dig to provide us all with dinner (tick charity).

Thus, having mostly achieved the objectives for nirvana, we walk briskly about the Buddha, make all the right noises, do not fall out with any security guards, and enjoy a fantastic vegetarian dinner for six!

I think we do it all in the right order. We save the gift shops till last. The directional signs are very good and the entire complex is unmistakably what industrial-scale Chinese tourism is all about.

Now here are the variety of rubbish photographs taken on the day. You'll have to bear in mind that we were here for business! We couldn't hang about to compose shots, or frame anything! Just enjoy all the heads-in-the-way, the over-exposure, and the tilted statues.









PS. I only deliver it to the Buddhists because I know they can take it. And they are unlikely to retaliate by punching me in the face, kneecapping, bombing, or any other non-nirvana-inducing means of retribution. (And I love 'em.)

Life goes on regardless

We leave our visitor Aunty Dee at the Hong Kong tax office, then I take Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to a science workshop.

Here we learn about Leeuwenhoek, cell theory, the power of ten, and cap it all by looking down a microscope.


I invited Aunty Dee to this celebration of the cell, but she said she preferred the sights, sounds and cultural experience of the tax office instead.

I cannot understand her values. What could be more fun than to be locked in a room with a dozen home ed kids and some slices of flea.

A slice of home

Gosh! Visitors are exhausting, aren't they?

What with taking them out-and-about; visiting, transporting, amusing; then providing with cooking, feeding and another cup of coffee. And in the evening it's all singing and dancing, thanks to how we can't shove her in front of a TV, due to the fact we don't possess one.

I think Britain at the time of the Empire felt exactly as I do.

They'd be all 'What? We have to go out again? Do we have to colonise some godforsaken country just because we can? Can't we please stay at home for five minutes and have a cup of tea?'

And this explains museum curators too. The collators of the world's art treasures had clearly had enough.

There they were, traipsing about everyone else's foreign country, simply to goggle at their treasures. Why do that? Far easier to make a few quick strikes into their most prized territory, nick their stuff, dash home with the loot, and stack it up in the parlour, aka the British Museum.

Then we Brits don't have to go a-wandering about the world! We can have the world come to us. We can look at it, go nice treasure, then sit down and have a proper cup of tea in agreeable surroundings, without all those flies and mosquitoes.

Coincidentally, that's what we do today!

The British Museum has brought a slice of Blighty here to us, miserable exiled people in Hong Kong.


Here in their travelling exhibition at the Museum of Art we can see creatures carved of stone, wood, bone; created in sculpture; decorated with gold; portrayed in paint; and mixed with modern day art from around the world (i.e. treasures lifted from Asia, the Americas, anywhere previously colonised).


It is a fantastic display. Just as well, because it's called Fantastic Creatures!

You should go and see it, if you're passing through Hong Kong. You can pretend you're back at home in Blighty.

And then you can sit down to have a nice cup of tea and some Victoria sponge cake.

I have what you're looking for

I have been round the Document of Accusation again, aka the Statcounter. This is an activity I engage in once a week to see how less popular I am than last week. (Plenty, so all is healthy.)

However, these features I note.

First, grit's day now enjoys a truly global audience. People flung apart - from USA, India, Brazil, Canada, Scotland, the UAE, Australia and Milton Keynes - join here daily, at this insignificant blog, in the hope of satisfaction.

Mostly for brains sucked out, text to write on a tombstone, hot aunties naked, bali men naked, hot bali men with sexy aunty naked, and outdoor survival in rural fenland.

Pigeon grit is no longer a search term. I think the 12 people who needed that information have now excluded me from their visits. Thank you.

For all the rest of you dear earth-wide readers who up my global count, I am pleased to accommodate you. You probably arrive in expectation and depart in disappointment.

The second feature I note is how grit's day remains a continuous source of inspiration, encouragement, discouragement and DO NOT DO IT advice, particularly for home education.

When someone is inquiring about home education from England, they mine this blog. Really, really explore it from all angles. They leave me blinking in the flashbulbs with my hands covering my doodah.

Quick guide to answer your three latest inquiries.

No, home educators do not have to mark a child's work.
Not unless you are high on worksheetery, or your child is enthused by red ink. If you choose to home educate, you do not have to show any inspector, LEA official, or any jobsworth that you mark work. No-one is required to ask you to keep a mark book of your child's work. They shouldn't be asking for test scores, grades, results, or evidence mark books, unless you are on some local provision or flexischool scheme where you have already agreed to supply this. In which case you'll know about it. For all normal home ed days, no marking of anything is required of you.

No, home educators do not have to be teachers, nor show any type of certification.
You do not have to have a degree in education, nor a PGCE, nor any certificate in child wrangling. Nor household management, food hygiene, or keeping yourself clean. It is sort of expected that if you choose to home ed you have thought about it, considered your own capabilities, tolerances, and interest levels. There are no grades you need to demonstrate of yourself to lead your children into life and the community. You do not need certificates to prove you can parent, either.

Yes, we socialise.
Home educators do not lock up their children in airless rooms. We do not avoid social contact with other people. We do not pump our kids foie gras style full of Evangelist Bible Studies. (Okay then, maybe one or two families do that, among 200,000, so probably below the indoctrination levels of your normal school-going population. Anyway, you can bet the situation will correct itself come aged 13 when the kids rebel and cross over the forbidden line into normality or Satan worship.)

I hope that is helpful. I should start a surgery, where I am open to home ed questions you have. (Only probably don't ask me anything that is actually useful to have answered.)

PS. Today, for the ongoing visitor delight of Hong Kong, was the dreaded Coastal Defences Museum. For myself, I managed to throw in the Law Uk Folk Museum and a tram trip. No marking was done, and no certificates required. Being out and about in society while Squirrel tries to extract a packet of biscuits from a Cantonese-speaking cafe owner you can count as social contact.

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

No, not Enjoy your black hairy algae dinner! But, Happy New Year! from Hong Kong China.

Unfortunately, on this most important Chinese calendar evening, Dig made away with my useful camera. Worse, he used it to record the ongoing achievements of his left foot.

His inability to distinguish between record ON and record OFF, means you, lovely reader, cannot enjoy any temple attending, lion dancing, fire crackering, or much joyous kungheifatchoying from grit's day at all.

However, you can have the contents of my clapped out phone camera if you wish.





The deities of the heavens and the earth granted me my first wish almost immediately: cue a big hug from a passing creative (marred only slightly by the fact that it was a she not a he and also worse the wear from six vodka martinis).

But the gods also delivered a compensatory gift in the form of a sister-in-law. She arrived this evening. They have permitted me to tease her mercilessly for the next three weeks to see if I can provoke her normally becalmed disposition to the point where she commits acts of public outrage on the metro.

I will keep you informed as to my progress.

***

Edited to add Important! News! Youtube now has video. Thanks to some one who can tell the difference between ON and OFF. And we were really there! It is true! Tiger's terrified face emerging half-way is evidence. (You won't see me. I was hanging about behind the incinerator.)

Gone, gone, all gone!

Over the last days I have wondered if there is any reason for a reader to linger over this blog. Maybe if you are an expat wandering through Hong Kong with a passing interest in pink dolphins.

It has become a very China/Hong Kong blog, hasn't it?

That, I tell myself sadly, is the impact of house visitors. They come here, force you to take them places, demand that you to explain a culture to them - one you are barely able to figure out for yourself - then they hold you hostage unless you show them a walled village.

But that is over. Amidst much child wailing, rending of clothes and gnashing of teeth, Travelling Aunty is travelled back to Blighty; her wheelie case crammed with all essentials, like a packet of Fuku instant noodles, two terracotta warriors, and a dead cockroach. (Only joking Aunty Dee! We didn't put Norman in after all!)

I am sad. But every cloud has a silver lining. Now I can turn my mind to the usual ill-informed, opinionated ranting about AOB. Or, matters childish, family and home educational. The sort that's never going to earn me a chocolate medal the size of a dustbin lid, even though I deserve one.

Tour schedule 23

We're so organised with our Travelling Aunty! We've been beating her through the days now quicker than she can walk.

Here we are already at Day Something, taking the Kowloon-market tour! Yes, it may be one of those days when Travelling Aunty wishes she were dead. Either that, or had visited the elderly relative in Bangor instead of the energetic Grit in Hong Kong. Hurry up, Travelling Aunty! You must see Kowloon. Especially the old buttress covered in lichen.

Yes, that's it. And it only took an hour to get here! Heritage 1881! It's what Hong Kong can do. The rest of history is a thematic architectural pleasure enjoyment for your superior retail, leisure and relaxation experience. Cold, soulless, and dead. Enjoy this instead.

Never mind. Over to the flower market. Here you can be bashed about the head by an army of New Year shoppers waving sticks of gladioli and half a dozen pussy willow. Most of these shoppers can't see where they're going which makes those pussy willows as lethal as assault rifles when one pokes you in the eye.



This is some sort of law round here. Everyone must buy fresh flowers to celebrate Chinese New Year. Or else. And mandarin orange trees. You have to buy those too. Seriously, they are everywhere in all public places, often festooned with red envelopes. But I note that no one ever pinches the oranges! In Britain they wouldn't last a second. Those oranges would be off that tree and down the market stall quicker than you could blink. The Chinese must have invented some foul-tasting, off-putting ornamental variety.


Enough about that. Over to the bird market ...


and goldfish street for you-know-who to demonstrate her fantastic knowledge about bubble eyed goldfish. Don't ask for a photo. I have 3,000 of the ruddy things already. Anyway, time for a trawl through the markets of Mong Kok! My favourite stall is round here somewhere. The $5 sparkle stall. Those sparkly rings are real diamonds! That stallholder's an idiot selling real diamonds for $5. Don't tell him. I buy a few more every time I pass. I must be worth a fortune by now.



...time for a curry down the street opposite the refuse centre. I would show you a picture of that, but the only one I have is taken by Shark. It is of me, and I seem to be in a disarranged clothing state and drinking from a large glass of beer. That is how she will remember her dear mama, but I am not sure it is suitable for public display.

Anyway, we drag the Travelling Aunty through the Temple Street Night Market next, where we spend a good hour choosing a new titfer for Squirrel.


Then a long journey home to the island, where I am delighted to see that the man never fell off the ladder putting up the pier decorations for New Year.


Travelling Aunty is very quiet by now and looks a little dented. I'm sure she's looking forward with glee to Tour schedule 89. Either that, or considering that Bangor has quite a good deal going for it.

Return to Cheung Chau

I look at that title and feel a little sad. It would be much more interesting if Return to Cheung Chau brought you a narrative that contained dismembered body parts tied to lumps of rock. The phone would ring, then a sinister voice would say, 'We are returning your Triad overlord. Mr Chang will dispose of his left limbs in Cheung Chau. This is the beginning of the end.' Then the line would go dead. It would be a tale of betrayal, money lust, and revenge.

It's not going to be anything like that, obviously.

We took Travelling Aunty to Cheung Chau and had a perfectly lovely day out on this fishing island a ferry ride away from Hong Kong Central. We toured the lovely temples, ate frozen fruit lollies, and bought handbags shaped like fish.



Well, I say perfectly lovely. I kept fondling myself. All the way round. Dig says that's what it looked like to everyone.

It did not. Dig, if you are going to keep walking ten paces ahead of me, I won't include you in my perfectly lovely day out. As I told him, I can't go up to every surprised Chinese face merely to explain how, in one of my many pockets, I am sure I have a wodge of unused toilet tissue suitable for a dribbling English nose. I just have to find it.

Unfortunately, the only bits I ever locate are the disintegrating fetid fragments which I bundle together with my care-worn fingers to have the fibres explode around me thanks to my detonating hooter. Mind you, you should see those folks run. You want some personal space in Hong Kong? Sneeze into the only emergency lint you can find in your pockets.

And when I say perfectly lovely, I obviously exclude Travelling Aunty, who stands around looking a little like her spirit has been hit by a truck. I'm not sure why. She is adopting quite a regretful appearance after only a few days en famille. Cheer up aunty! Only three weeks to go!

I also obviously exclude Tiger, who gets out her grumbling gear again, even though it's only a little tourist temple tour. We're only doing three after all. Not so bad she has to go round with that long face threatening to throw herself into the sea. But of course we give in and start souvenir hunting.





At which point, perfectly lovely means Shark disappearing again in her ever increasing wandering-off confidence, sparking family panic just short of an emergency call to the local police station.

Then Squirrel. She cannot choose between a perfectly lovely fishbag in pinkypurple or purplypink.

After an hour of deliberations, opening and closing every bag, and 'Should I? Shouldn't I?', the elderly stallholder can't take any more. She reaches out, grabs a bag from under Squirrel's grasp, and starts dramatically rearranging her entire fishbag stall with much huffing and puffing while shouting in Chinglish something which sounds like It's only a bleeding fishbag! They're all the bloody same. Now sodding well stop opening them. You're messing up the fucking stall.


So there you have it. No dead bodies, Triad gangsters, drug smuggling or tales of madness and revenge. Cheung Chau is a very pretty island with quite a holiday atmosphere. And you can go safe in the knowledge that we don't visit everyday.

Slowing up

Having family stay with you is always very exhausting, isn't it? There are so many sights to take them to see, and so much to tell them, you barely have time to provide three nutritious meals a day, sweep up, attend to the laundry, take out the recycling, engage them in exciting niece-led opportunities, and slam the lumpy custard down over dinner in a temper tantrum before exiting without dignity. I maintain it is the result of a head cold the size of Wales squatting in my forehead, and an Asian mangrove swamp dribbling out of my nose.

I confess that it all makes other lifestyles feel suddenly attractive. Like becoming a recluse, or living as a hermit in a cave for the next twenty years. Either that, or taking up fishing on the island pier. Next week, I might be the one in the middle.

Everything's fine, really.

Travelling Aunty! I have an anxiety. I need to reassure you. I need to show you how well our normal home ed life is proceeding.

If I do that, I might be able to avoid giving you an overwhelming sense of disappointment - the one that I can so easily convey regarding our virtually non-existent educational provision here in Hong Kong.

So let's attend the Home Educators Chinese New Year Party! See, Travelling Aunty? I can show you that we do have friends. People who really speak to us!

I didn't even have to follow them. Not for more than a little bit. I've done only a small amount of pleading too. It shows how generous they are! I hid our horns and tails. Everything went okay from then.


And look at this, Travelling Aunty! We know people who live in decorated upscale Hong Kong apartments like these. That should give you confidence. I didn't really send the kids off to live with the old bloke on the beach. That was just a flippant remark. I didn't mean anyone to take it seriously. Here, you'll find lots of lovely ladies sitting around talking about biscuits while kids run around, traipse in and out of toilets and clutter up the chairs in front of Discovery TV. It'll feel just like our home ed back home. See how you can trust us to make everything feel normal for your little nieces!

Outside there's a craft activity to do. Making lanterns out of red envelopes. What could be more child friendly than that? I'm not scarpering. It's just that I've had experience of one stapler and three kids and I still bear the puncture marks.


Anyway, look over here! Thanks to these lovely ladies in Hong Kong who know what they're buying, we can try smiling mouth pastries. They're deep fried pastry parcels filled with peanut and sesame. Delicious. Three thousand calories each, and counting.


The children can sit over on the craft table and I'll photograph their happy smiles for you. Sorry about the blurring on the lens. My fingers are soaked with deep fried nut grease.


Look at the craft result! Brilliant! Especially as I have escaped it all by hiding behind the cakes and nut selection to work my way through the garlic peanuts. I think I got away with it.


There. I feel better now. My anxieties are laid to rest. I showed you how smoothly our non-existent educational programme is proceeding, reassured you as to our lovely social circle, led you by the hand through the home ed life of normal, and provided you with a set of flat-pack stapled lanterns to take back home. I bet now you're almost thinking of putting away the Social Work Care Plan Clipboard, taking off your shoes, and drinking a glass of wine.

Dead pot horse to resin willy in one post

It starts off as the sort of air-polluted, miserable, cold day that Travelling Aunty would almost certainly prefer to spend passed out on the sofa under an unread copy of the South China Morning Post.

No such luck for her. She is frogmarched over to the Hong Kong Museum of Art, propped upright on the escalators and taken off to see a two thousand year old funeral horse, a length of old scroll, and a joke map of Canton.

No, I don't like the great snorty beasts but I admit it's beautiful.

This is what you get if you pass over the organisation of the cultural tour to the gritlets. I instructed them to pick one China art item each, tell Travelling Aunty all about it, then test her listening comprehension with pertinent questions about what year the horse was buried in, etc. etc.

Anyway, if she failed to answer correctly, she must have dozed off. Keep her awake and tell her again, louder. Funeral horses were very popular items to bury with the dead, along with houses, guardians and cooking pots.

Grit's choice is Touching Art. This is a fantastic exhibition, because you get to stroke semi naked men in art galleries when you're not normally allowed to. The resin that makes up these exact replicas from the classics of European art is shockingly accurate. Ten minutes in, and I'm half thinking that all the marble statuary we see in the British Museum is probably fake, because unless I tapped those thighs with my knuckles, I wouldn't know. I certainly couldn't tell in dim light.

I take my opportunity, and go round fondling it all, or most of it. Chests are especially thrilling, but that could be just me.

After I pull myself away, I think that the exhibition should properly be called Touching Art but not brave enough to touch the naughty bits, especially on the fighting warrior. It's not the laser-cut resin that puts me off. Neither that everyone else stands round wondering exactly the same thing as me. It is mostly because the poor fellow is sculptured with so much expression - fight or die - that he looks to be in enough effort already without my exploration of his vulnerabilities. Like the last straw of a really bad day. I just couldn't be that ungenerous and bad spirited to him, even if he is resin.

I'm not rambling, really I'm not. I miss filling my eyes full of European art and naked men, that's all. Anyway, touching art is better explained over here. Well worth visiting if it's in a town near you.

Even Travelling Aunty perked up a little and agreed.

Worth travelling several thousand miles

Travelling Aunty has arrived! We introduce her to the excitement of our island life. The island you can't escape from after midnight unless your spleen explodes, you take a machete to your own limbs, or the gas bottle outside the kitchen window blows up. Something like that. They're not getting out the emergency helicopter for a bruised knee. We already told Squirrel that.

We gave Travelling Aunty five minutes to slurp a cup of tea, then we took her on a two hour walk. No matter that it's three o'clock in the morning in her head. This is my cure for everything, whether it's jetlag, too much beer, mild depression, family crisis or contemplation of divorce. A nice long walk.

Anyway, we only have three weeks of her company, and we need to point out the local sights, which I do here for you too, dear reader, if you got this far.

The rock of hazard, doom, general mayhem, painted yellow and black as a precaution. Beware! Danger! You might trip over it. We can't think of any other reason why they painted it yellow and black, unless it is in homage to hornets.

The excitement of village life, en route to the beach. There are so many things we can do here, Aunty Dee, if we avoid being knocked over by a village vehicle, licked by a savage hound, or - unlike the art teacher - miss out on falling into one of the holes in the road while they install the new drainage system. Look, we can kick a stone around the street!

The fish farms, situated between the sluice and the concrete factory. I know the picture makes it all look lovely. That is because you cannot see the litter in the sluice, the concrete factory, or the fish farms.


General ineptitude, while I put my finger over the lens. You'll see a lot of this type of thing Aunty Dee. Ineptitude, bickering, furious staring, rage-filled breathing, Tiger who shouts IT'S ALL POINTLESS. All the characteristics of a happy and normal family enjoying each other's company.


The busy and industrious mainstreet of Sok Kwa Wan. The one with the seafood restaurants where you get to pick your fish, clams and crabs from the tanks, while Shark stares at you with undisguised loathing. People say there is a shop here somewhere. I haven't found it myself.


The ferry to Hong Kong Island. Lucky we made this one! There isn't another for three hours. A ferry ride is a perfect opportunity for us to explore our favourite topic of conversation. How many life jackets there are, how many passengers there can be, and how many of us are going to die, either from immersion in cold polluted harbour water, or by being chopped into pieces from propellers.

Welcome to Hong Kong, Travelling Aunty. Tomorrow we can pass through Yung Shue Wan where we can show you the butchers, the power station and the new sewage pipe.