Just doing life in Hong Kong...

Life is pretty full on with three kids and as I look back on my photos I just have so many things I want to put in the blog so you can all see us living here.  So this post is just going to be about some of the things we do, as a family or just some things the kids do.

First up, the shinanigans that go on in our house during the morning time.  Noah doesn't set off for school until 11am so we have that morning period to all hang out together which is great but he then finds it pretty hard to pull himself away and get ready for school.  Anyway, heres a series of shots showing the fun that can be had in  a tiny apartment on the dark side of Hong Kong.

noah as a fairy

india with veil

tobias being doctored

funny faces game

Making a bed under the couch

Whoops, where is my head meant to go?

Tobias head riding in his bouncer

At present myself and another kiwi lady by the name of Fiona are setting up Mainly Music at our church.  It is quite nice to have actual "meetings" to attend, wahoo, something official sounding that you can txt to someone....."sorry, have a meeting at that time, can we meet up a bit later" - makes it sound like I really have a job or something :)  Anyway, no photos from that little endeavour as it doesn't start until this Friday as shame anyway as I am by some cosmic joke, going to be leading the thing from the front!!!  ha ha......if I don't mention it again on the blog then you know for sure that I am dreadful at that role :)  But that aside, what I wanted to show you all were photos taken after one of these said meetings when Fiona and I took in the Hong Kong Flower Show....not exactly Chelsea, but a lot of fun.

Globe trotting

remember the Munch Bunch?

I have said it before, but I say it again - COME AND SEE US HERE!!!  THERE IS SO MUCH TO DO!!!  HONESTLY, IT IS A GREAT PLACE TO VISIT (we are keen for you to live here of course but don't want to be too heavy handed in trying to attract people to our overseas post :)  So just to seduce you here is another one of the Crowhurst trips around town.......Paul probably rues the day our friend Angelene gave me a book about things to do in Hong Kong.  Being a rather detailed individual I have set about trying to complete all the activities in the book, I have a long way to go but it is fun planning something for each Saturday (well fun for me, can't speak for Paul....I don't think he would say fun as the first thing that springs to mind, but he comes around to the idea once we are in a new place!!)

So one of our latest adventures, a walk through Wan Chai markets up the hill to Hong Kong Park.  Great fun and as it isn't too hot here yet I have been banging on about doing as many walks as possible.

You know the song, "It started with a kiss...." well our song is "it started with silence, never thought it would last so long!!"....the new MP3 player is working a charm on the train....aaaahhhh the bliss of no talking, love it.

First stop was Wan Chai markets.  I am such a mean mummy, I didn't even let the kids buy one thing at the market....we just didn't want to lug it up the hill to the park.  But I must come back and let them have a little bit of money to spend as they want because this market is great...not really for the vegetarians among us as they do believe in their meat being freshly cut up which seems to involve alot of dead animals hanging around in the open air, fascinating playing the 'guess what animal that is' game.

I talked about the hill, well it was epic man!!  I only took us up about 100 wrong steps so wasn't in the bad books too much :|  I was jolly glad Paul was carrying Tobias, I mean I did my time, but he tells me he now knows exactly what it would be like to be preggers with a 17 month old baby, oh boys do exageratte don't they...:)

Once we made it to Hong Kong park our first stop was the walk through water feature.  Now I just can't believe they have this in Hong Kong.  It is so out of character for them to actually let us make a decision concerning safety....I mean someone could slip and fall into the ankle deep water....it surely couldn't possibly be within my mental faculties to decide if I am prepared to take this risk....but apparently somehow someone somewhere forgot to abolish this wonderful fountain, so yeah, we leapt at the change for a bit of controlled risk in our cotton wool existence.

To let the kids dry out we stopped off for lunch at a nice Thai restaurant.  Tobias chilled out under Pauls arm, while the other two were totally overcome by the effort of eating some different kinds of food!!!

The park is in a pretty hilly part of town so it was a trek to get to the playground, but well worth it!  It actually has a sand pit....wow.....so the kids had a grand old time commandeering a couple of diggers of their own to move sand around.  Of course the whole trip ended in tears, it always does, but the rose coloured glasses are on again and I can honestly say - it was a great day :)

On a more parental note, Noah had his first sports day at school.  I have added a couple of obligatory photos to show the physical prowness of our son (actually I was shocked, I mean how hard can it be to throw a wee ball through a basket ball hoop just centimetres from your own nose??  But you know the great thing about Noah, what he doesn't have in physical coordination he makes up for with social skills.  He was the only kid in the whole Reception class who was calling out hi to all sorts of kids.  Most of them didn't answer him back, from shyness I have to infer as we have been told quite a few times that Noah is quite the catch in Reception...a number of marriage proposals have been aimed in his direction.  We are of course taking this very seriously as our financial security could very well be in the hands of our 5 yr old son....if he chooses well we could be retiring in .....hmmmm gee another 15 years....hmmm doesn't sound so good when I say it like that :(

Meanwhile little India has become obsessed with princesses.  We were lucky enough to be in a shopping mall that had erected these massive shrines to Disney.  She happily skipped right up to have an intimate moment with Snow White.

And wee Tobias...he is a monkey....poor guy has ecshma we think, spotty and dotty all over so not the best looker but he has a wonderful laugh and is a very happy baby.  He is rolling around (when he can be bothered), and has two bottom teeth poking through (making chomping on your finger a hazardous task!).  He loves his food and chows down on most things.  He is not interested in a bottle at all, hmmmm lucky mummy!!  He is the worst sleeper our family has encountered what with his eratic wake ups and early morning howling but he is a total joy in our home and the kids love having a little brother.  Paul keeps stirring the pot by asking for votes from the backseats on who wants another brother or sister....they both cry "yes, give us another one", and they both think next time they would like a sister.  Well not out of this tired old body, no siree....this busted tummy is going to spend the rest of its life trying to revert back to its former glory...in vain I feel :)

You know you're in Hong Kong when....

While we were living in Thailand we got used to the saying "T,I,T" which literally means This is Thailand, but translated means "oh that frustrating thing has happened because we live in Thailand and only in Thailand would that be at all acceptable"....like when millions of tiny winged creatures burrowed under the wall into our two bedrooms and took up residence in our guests beds - T,I,T!!, and when we were walking home from watching the rugby one night and about 20 rats ran out from a pile of garbage bags right between our legs - T,I,T!!!  Or when the maids came to clean our bathroom after the toilet had got blocked (they kept suggesting we stop using toilet paper, another T,I,T moment) and when they had left we wondered why the ceiling was dripping wet - T,I,T!!!! - but the best memory was when I tried to hit the fire alarm on our floor of our apartment because the stairwell was filled with smoke and there obviously was a fire in the building, and I discovered that the fire alarm didn't have a button!!!  After smashing my way through the glass I frantically searched for a button, of course when you are searching a 5cm x 5cm area it shouldn't take too long but I was in a panicked state so it took a while to dawn on me that they had forgotten to add a button to actually sound any alarm, so I had to run down the smoke filled staircase to alert the concierge - you see how T,I,T could be used to describe that situation!

So anyway fast forward 5 years and here we are in Hong Kong.  Now they don't have an international saying to describe all the wacky things that happen here, but our family has adopted some sayings that work in frustrating Hong Kong related moments - its the Chinese way, or as Noah puts it "Chinese people just love doing it that way".

So this blog is all about the things that Chinese people do that let me know we are definitely in Hong Kong.....

The need for very specific signage is a favourite pastime of bureaucrats over here.  They must have such fun (although I am sure sense of humour is not part of this job description) coming up with the most pedantic, impossible, contradictory and confusing signs ever.  Here is a photo of one I saw today:

This is just one of the many signs that I think is great

It always makes me think, who will tell me off if I break this rule?  The police?  Is it their jurisdiction to apprehend fence leaners???  Will a Chinese person nark on me if  I lean on the fence, or do they secretly want to do it to?  Do the Chinese admire our blatant ignoring of their signs or are they offended that we like to analyze whether the sign suits our purposes, and if it doesn't then we figure it doesn't apply to our family.  Its kind of a challenge trying to teach Noah about sign reading when we say things like "oh yeah don't worry about that sign, that one and that one, those are just special Chinese signs, but obey this one, this one, and this one"...not very consistent.  Anyway to coin a phrase - T,I,H,K!

I made this list the other day when I was in the supermarket, its when I got the idea for this blog report....here I was buying our family groceries when some hilarious things happened and I just chuckled to myself and thought, yep you know you live in Hong Kong when that happens...so here they are:  revelations from the supermarket.

When you start to view Made in the USA as the safe and healthy food choice you definitely know you live in China!!!  When American bacon is considered by my family to be a better option than eating Chinese bacon you know there is some really horrible options because quite frankly American meat wouldn't even make it to a NZ supermarket much less be chosen over NZ meat.  So it cracks me up (in a sort of manic, freak out, way) when I talk to Row, who lives in Texas, and she tells me why she just won't eat American food because of all the stuff in it....well, I say, you should try the Chinese stuff and your perspective could change.

Just a small thing, but you know you're in Hong Kong when people can just fart in public and its no problem...you know, just bending down to get your can of tomatoes and whoops out pops a big old fart, but never mind, no shame here because apparently that is totally ok!

You know you're in a Chinese supermarket when there is a whole aisle dedicated to soya sauce options...so hard for someone as uninitiated as myself....I don't know, umm can I just have soya sauce please....

And my final laugh on that trip was the fact that no one else thought bottles of Clam juice was a joke, I should have taken a photo - is that a yummy drink you have there?  Oh I see, the latest bottle of Clam juice, yeah have you tried their carbonated one???  Ohhh so gross!!!

So anyway out of the supermarket and onto the footpath....while out power walking the other day it occurred to me that Hong Kong is brilliant for singing out loud when you have your ipod going full blast...the traffic is so loud that you can't hear yourself, and no one else can either!!!  I loved it, I was singing my heart out really badly, and no one was any the wiser.  Had to take a happy photo to prove it really happened...

What a geek, singing away at the top of her voice, very freeing!

Also while on this power walk I happened upon another T,I,H,K moment - you see we live in this new area, it used to be called Junk Bay because 15 yrs ago it was all rural with junks moored in the harbour, now it is full of high rise apartments and dredgers parked in the harbour.  Well anyway, one great thing about this area known as Tseung Kwan O is the amount of paths they have put in so people can walk everywhere.  They go under roads, around stadiums, through parks and up sides of hills.  It is really lovely that you can walk for 2 hours with only small bits of traffic (important if you have a great song you want to do karaoke to!).  So I am trying to walk as many of these paths as possible and just basically allow myself to get lost in Tseung Kwan O knowing that I can grab a taxi home really easily.  It is great fun, not quite Venice, but a similar feeling if not a similar environment. 

Well I was out on one of these pilgrimages and I found this great path that was hugging the hill.  It was amazing, the views were lovely - right out to our apartment block actually.

View of Lohas Park where we live

I was storming up the hill, the only whitey among lots of Chinese families.  Slowly it dawned on me that they were all carrying bags of stuff.  I wasn't sure what they were carrying but I was thinking it was kind of weird to be going up such a steep cliff side walk carrying shopping bags....until I rounded a corner and realised that this wonderful scenic path had been purpose built to lead them to the cemetery!  ha ha....I was chuckling to myself about how I must have looked to them, power walking along to their family cemetery.

So this is where everyone was heading....the cemetery

Well I didn't let that put me off, I went right up to the top and it was very interesting watching what they did at the cemetery.  For one thing it is a real family affair, you would have at least 3 generations usually traipsing up this really steep hill to pay their respects to their dead relatives.  In the infamous bags were a variety of items.  Some things to burn (hope they were light to carry up), food for themselves and to leave at the grave and other mysterious things that looked like bedspreads but just couldn't have been.  There were a couple of old ladies hiding under umbrellas who obviously had some sort of job but I couldn't work out what it was - security???  Anyway it was a great walk as I love to see new things and I wouldn't have normally headed off to a cemetery as a tourist thing to do....and boy they sure give their dead prime real estate!!!  Sea views galore....

So there you have it - hope you got to laugh at all that, you see you have to laugh because there are a number of things that just drive you nuts (like you can't ride your bike in any park, you can't kick a ball in any park, lifeguards must all eat lunch at the same time in the whole of Hong Kong so you can't swim between 12-1pm or 5-6pm, you must not park your car on the street unless it specifically allows you to pay for the privilege etc etc....)

......and laughing is good for the stomach muscles and laugh lines are attractive, so hope I helped you out :)

He's just turned 5, but already he is saying he is nearly 6!!!

I feel so sorry for Noah and myself, we both have big important birthdays this year.  February marks his 5th birthday, and April will see me join the next category on all the surveys - the over 40's group!!!  So sad for both of us that we can't be at home in NZ to share our ageing with our best friends and family - BUT never fear, we both plan on milking the situation and are having Hong Kong birthdays + NZ birthdays - so maybe I don't feel so sorry for us after all :)

 not feeling too sorry for myself....

Noah likes to call these extra birthday experiences "spare birthdays" - I really like this concept, I wish we could have spare weekends, spare sleep-ins, spare holidays!!!  Well this is the second year Noah has managed to get 3 spare birthday parties - he got one in January while the grandparents were here.

the Christmas gingerbread cake that 

doubled as one of Noah's spare birthday cakes

Then he had a cake and pressies at our playcentre in Hong Kong....

                                                                  Treasure Island cake

Then he had a birthday party for the actual weekend.....lets just say I am glad I spaced my kids out because I am over making cakes right at the moment!!!!  I keep suggesting that Paul can take over next year but I am just too much of a control freak to actually let him do it (I know he would either just buy some Countdown sponge cake, or just do without it - he knows I know this so it is a moot argument, but I keep trying it).

His actual birthday was great fun - pancakes for breakkie, then off to Bumble Tots (an indoor playground) with 2 of his best friends, Jesse and Alliana.  The mums loved it as the kids played from 10.30 - 2.30 - just fantastic!!!!  We got to chat and look after Tobias.  Once Paul got home Noah got to open his pressies.  He had already got a bike, so the rest weren't that impressive, mainly games (but he did get an MP3 player so he can listen to stories and songs in the car without having to contend with his lip-syncing sister!!!)

the new wheels  

(we got rid of the trainers as soon as we got home, he is flying around now)

I had to think long and hard about his party as he only literally has about 3 friends, plus their siblings, here in Hong Kong.  Finally I settled on a bike party at Paul's school.  I sort of figured if only one other kid showed up they would still have fun zooming bikes around.

Noah and his two lovely friends Jana and Jesse

Actually it was a fantastic day.  I was a bit tired after completing yet another cake making marathon the night before (he had suggested a lego fire station - I totally vetoed that one!!), but quickly came around as the socialising bug hit me.  It was the easiest party around, no games, no food except Pizza Hut and fizzy drinks and cake - everyone bought a bike, or borrowed them from the school so we had to drag them away at the end kicking and screaming (one way to tell it was a good party, they didn't want to leave) - and we tidied up in 15 mins - brilliant!!!!

Noah and Archie (his one male friend)

Pirate cake

So there you have it, my darling wee boy is 5 years old.  He is so tall now, and lanky, you can kind of narrow your eyes and see what he will be like at 15 yrs old (way taller than me!!!).  He is one fun person to be around that is for sure, full of excitement and laughter, and brilliant one liners that leave us cracking up.

Tobias cracking up

So just to let you know, there will be a spare 5 year old party to end all parties in July, in NZ - be there or be square!!!

Chinese New Year....

....or as they refer to it here as the Lunar New Year (politically correct and all).....sort of like the printed words you find in Christmas cards these days - happy holidays or some such thing, just so noone will be offended!

Anyway, I still called it Chinese New Year, and I realised pretty quickly that I wasn't really prepared for this momentous event.  Next year I will be ready with my cash filled envelopes - slightly embarassing to have several given to our kids and we had nothing to give in return (I suppose I could have made them a marmite sandwich and had a cultural exchange of sorts - but alas I was so ashamed at having nothing in my hands that I sort of slunk away after they gave the envelopes to the kids, and changed the subject).  Next year I will also force my husband to buy the most wonderful mini daffodils - ohhhh they smelt glorious!  They might even block out the odours coming from our smelly toilet!!! (gotta love asian plumbing, not!).  And next year I will look up the timetable of the dragon dance (rather than take my helpers word on it) so I don't drag my family to a freezing ghost town again!

So, enough about next year, what did we do this year?  One whole week off for Paul but don't think you're resting darling, oh no, we have a whole city to see :) 
Naturally I booked it up heavily....Friday afternoon we shot off to Bumble Tots over in Ma On Shan to try out their indoor playground. 
What a great way to use up many hours in the day.
Kids were happy as larry, Mum and Dad were able
to just sit there, not talking just sleeping with our
eyes open - BLISS!!!

Next day we were out early to tramp the Aberdeen Reservoir walk (refer last post).  We started off with a look at the Police Museum.  If only we didn't have 2 pre-schoolers with us we would have found out heaps about crime in Hong Kong.  They had an opium lab set up, and triad information, boats that refugees used as well as the best selection of police uniforms through the ages - very funny!!!  We had our own personal Chinese security guard flanking us the whole time - just incase we needed to ask where the exit was, or was he worried we might enjoy ourselves a bit too much and he would need to intervene ;)

Future policeman?

All over Hong Kong they had these amazing decorations which must cost the goverment a bomb - (don't worry, they won't be out of pocket, we are keeping them with a nice passive income through our parking ticket addiction!) - the temples are decocrated, the streets have lanterns everywhere, the supermarkets get into the act and play cute chinese music, and basically it is very festive and wonderful.

The decorations at our apartment

One place you can see all of these wonderful decorations and New Year celebrations is at the week long market they set up in Victoria Park.  We shot off there one night to check it out.  Fantastic fun!!  Like the Easter Show within Meadowlands.  There were flowers and flowers and flowers.....

Mini Daffodils

And all sorts of fruit trees that were meant to bring prosperity and good luck (fruit that is round or golden in colour is meant to be good luck).  There was this really weird looking tree which we saw everywhere.  I have no idea if it actually grows like this but here is a picture of it - if you know what it is let me know cause I am still none the wiser.

weird fruit tree

There was so much food at the market, and yet I was too scared to try most of it because if it wasn't black, or wobbly, or stinky, or fishy, or dried, or fried then it was in a packet and considered not very authentic by myself.  Eventually I recognised something from our fruit and vege shop in Highland Park (pretty funny huh, come all the way over here to eat something you can buy for $3.00 back in NZ).  Fried sesame crescents, bet they have a way flasher Chinese name but thats my description for them - yummmmm - so neally ate the whole lot!

me at Victoria park

Because this was our date night, and most of the time we walked around with our mouths open just gawking at everyone, we decided to go have a wine.  Check out the photo below to see the car that was parked outside the wine bar we went in!!!  When Noah saw the photo he asked Paul if that was one of the cars he had looked at when looking for our family car!  Ha ha, kids are great aren't they, like you could fit even one kid in that car, doubt it.

flash as car

On the actual night of the real Chinese New Year (they celebrate it for a whole week) they have these awesome fireworks.  It was really cold on this particular night and we had told Noah as a special treat he could come out with us to watch the fireworks.  We went to Pauls school to watch them and it was brilliant.  Noah had a blast even though he was freezing!!  They went on for over 20 minutes and apparently had all these meanings that were lost on someone as nieve as myself....I just loved the pretty colours :)

Freezing while watching the fireworks

Fireworks

Chinese New Year is notorious for bad weather.  It is a good sign for the coming year apparently (what a conundrum.....for the Chinese to be happy it has to get really cold, for me to be happy it has to be as warm as possible, how does this get solved?  I know, we go to Thailand next Chinese New Year :)  So anyway, they got there wish, it was freezing all week.  We had decided to visit Discovery Bay on Saturday and yeh, it was the first warm day we had had all week.  We caught the train then the ferry over there.

Ferry photo

What a great place!!  We ate at this restaurant which had a big wooden boat that kids could play on.  What a brilliant solution for parents with kids....it was the first meal we have had out that I actually enjoyed!!  (it could have been the sangria taken on an empty stomach as well).  We lazed around there as long as we could, then finally when the whinges became too hard to ignore we shot off to the beach.

The best restaurant!!!

In Discovery Bay you walk everywhere as no cars are allowed in (only buses and mini vans).  If you are uber wealthy you drive these dinky little golf carts, but the rest of us just walk.  Its so nice to see everyone out strolling around.  The kids had a blast at the playground on the beach.  I had to feed and change Tobias while they played, and poor fellow, the sun was shining, so I popped my glasses on him so he didn't have to squint - he looked so adorable!!!

Tobias with glasses on

Well after strolling around pretending we lived in amazing beach front apartments with golf carts parked outside we cruised back to the ferry for the trip back to reality.  Back to work, back to being mummy of 3 kids all at home....but we got to remember our great week of being tourists here in Hong Kong.

Tramping, hiking, ambling in Hong Kong

Can you believe it.....we who have been brought up to hate winter and to moan about the weather incessantly, (its all part of being an Aucklander), actually are enjoying the fact it is cold.  We are relishing the mist that hangs over the towering buildings and hills, loving the chilly air and the fact it forces us to wear all of our polypro undies.  How could this transformation occur in only 6 months of living in Hong Kong????  How did this asian city drive out our deep hatred of winter!!!!  Just the sheer fact that we can do something outside without sweating, oh yes folks, when you have a far greater thing to hate (ie the humidity) then suddenly the lesser evil (a wee bit of cold) is a thing to be rejoiced in, complimented even.


It all began in the middle of last year when I was toting around this trendy thing called a 'bun in the oven'.  I found if I stepped outside our air conditioned apartment for a millisecond I was bathed in sweat.  And it was during this very uncomfortable season that people mentioned to me about the wonderful hiking in Hong Kong.  I have to say I thought they were insane, or just plain cruel to make me imagine walking outside somewhere (it made me sweat to just think about it, called for a full blown air conditioning face blast!).  But you know what!!!  They were right!!!  The hiking is really great....they just forgot to mention that you have to wait until January to do any.

Clearwater Bay Country Park

Our first hike was with bated breath as we had no idea how Noah or India would do walking along trails (not to mention the slightly freaky issue of snakes over here - with of course the worst part being the smaller they are the more lethal their bite :(  We were also a bit worried about Tobias and whether he would freeze his little toes off, or need to feed and then I would freeze (probably noone else was worried about this one).  But all of our fears came to naught - Noah loved it.  He was a real little Bear Grills, looking out for any monkeys or snakes (these were the two things we mentioned to get his appetite for tramping up and running, of course he wasn't going to forget those words so we had to endure a LOT of questions about when those animals were going to make an appearance).

 The only animal we saw were these prayer flags (we called them animals just so Noah would get off our backs)  We also found an abandoned sock in a tree which we called a Sock Animal.  All this made up animal stuff just to show him how varied the native animals are here :)

India was pretty good, she sort of thinks she is more coordinated than she is (this means she falls over more, means I have to carry her on my back a bit more...but hey, with 3 kids you take any outing with a grain of salt in the ratio of tears to happiness).

Here is a photo of the family before we left the carpark.  All smiles.  I didn't take a photo at the other end when 2 grim faced adults were dragging one hungry boy, and carrying 2 crying kids - it just wouldn't look as appealing.

The following weekend I suggested we go out again, and as Clearwater Bay Country park is only 5 mins drive, we opted to go and do a different walk in the same park.  Noah chose this one (why oh why did we let the 4 year old choose, he thinks a hill is a fun place to play!!)  and it was very steep.  I was concerned about coming down (didn't want our descent to be airborn) so after our chocolate stop we headed back down.


The steep steps

 The wonderful views at Clearwater Bay Country Park (second walk)

At the bottom of the hill we were able to enter the area of the park where you can have BBQ's and fly kites (I told you about this in an earlier post) and it also has a tree walk.  We decided to do this one to finish up our Sunday afternoon stroll.  No photos of this walk, but just wanted to prove that we aren't total babies for coming down the hill before really doing a good hike.

Then during Chinese New Year I convinced Paul that we should try a slightly longer hike.  I told him about one that was from The Peak down to Aberdeen.  It said it should take 2 hours, but as it wasn't hot, and it was all in the bush, and I had lots of chocolate with me, I figured the worst that could happen was me freezing while feeding Tobias.








Well the first challenge was actually finding the start of the track.  I was following some written instructions (ie no map) and Paul and I were having one of those adult conversations you have in front of your kids where you don't want to openly come out and blame the other person for not knowing what they are doing, but you just say things like "so don't you know where to go?" or "well I have the same instructions as you, so you read them and tell me where to go" - you know the kind of conversations I am talking about right.  The tension was rising as we wandered around and around.  I was so happy when Noah and I found the rather well signposted hike.

This hike was the best yet.  I could not believe I was in central Hong Kong.  You could not see anything except trees (ahem, maybe the odd electrical pylon was lurking around but I could block that out the odd time I saw them).  The tramp led us down a valley, over both the upper and lower reservoir bridges.  It was so picturesque.  That description should let you know that this entire walk was down hill which was just fantastic....except my legs were killing me the next day as going down hill is actually really hard on your thigh muscles (especially as I had India on my back for a lot of the tramp - our fault for having her out late the night before).

It is really interesting that the people in charge of all public areas over here cannot let you just have a nice experience, you must also either learn something, or physically benefit in some way.  You know in the park the playgrounds all have the alphabet all over them, and numbers stuck everywhere, and stupid games that no kids plays but makes the adults feel better about letting them play for a bit.  Well, on this hike they had exercise stations, can you believe it!  I mean it wasn't enough to just do 2 hours hiking, oh no, you might have some extra energy lurking around and well, they had to get rid of it quick fast to make you totally satisfied with your hiking experience.  So I noticed these exercise stations and wondered what sort of people would use them - no idea there as I didn't see anyone on them.....until we came to one station that we convinced Noah to do.  The foot massage area.  It was brilliant!!!  The best Hong Kong thing I have seen so far.  Here is a picture of it.

Basically they just put a whole lot of smooth stones in the concrete and you take your shoes off and wander around on them.  What a lovely idea to have part of the way through a walk - imagine that at the end of the Tongariro Crossing, bliss!

The end of the tramp hurried up to meet us and I have to say it was a bit of shock to the system to pop out of the bush onto a busy Hong Kong road with whining mini buses and smelly exhaust fumes....but there you have it, even though you can't see the city it is still there, brimming with life.  Of course a big tramp calls for some sort of treat so here is a photo of the troops chomping their almond cookies while waiting for a taxi.  Happy and sated once again.....