Honkers 09

A long awaited break. I decided a familiar location would be the easiest route, seeing as Our Friend prefers to leave all the planning and control operations to me. Plus, the lure of easy availability of much shopping and eating could not be discounted...heh heh.
Old Hong Kong - Fa Yuen Street. We were in search of sports equipment amongst the grey, packed buildings.
New Hong Kong - en route to Hong Kong Station for our ride to the airport, for the flight home. Busy busy bee...The constant buzzing energy of Hong Kong.
The cityscape, with its edges blurred out by fog and rain. Pity about the constant bad weather there, but it also yielded us some good bargains. Vendors were far more amenable to price negotiation due to the lack of "hardy" (or gullible) tourists like us, out braving the weather!
Didn't get the chance to wander through all the "oldies but goodies" pre-loved (some of it, for decades or centuries) stuff in Cat Street. Shame. Perhaps it was just as well, since the luggage was packed to the brim, even with my excellent packing skills... :) 

And now that Our Friend has discovered the many "wonders" of Hong Kong (chiefly, it's shopability), it ranks pretty high on the list of "Places to Visit Regularly". 

Hai kum seen! Mm hai, mieh ah! :D

Botak!

It's an absolute travesty! It started early this morning with sounds of electric saws busy at work. I came downstairs to see these workers, busy wielding their electric saws against the lush canopy of the trees at the carpark.
By the time I got home, a big portion of the lush canopy I used to look out onto from my kitchen window was gone! Aarrghh! My tree house is no more! More like, house amongst stilts!! BAH!!

I put in a call to the Town Council when I got into the office, to find out what their plans were, and they promised to get back to me by today. Of COURSE they didn't! (BAH) Said something about how some residents must've complained about birds and such, and therefore, they are "bollarding" (whatever. That was the term they used. Thought that was a noun for a little cement pillar-like structure, usually found at spots where they wish to prevent vehicles from entering. But what do I know??) the trees to prevent the birds from roosting or resting there. Huh?? Isn't that one of the purposes of trees?? Are we human beings supposed to have sole "reign" over trees, to the exclusion of other occupants of this planet?? 

BAH!!!

May Day, May Day

In spite of all health warnings to avoid crowds under the "imminent pandemic" conditions, it being the long weekend, we plucked up our courage (and dug deep into our energy reserves), to join the masses in making the long trek from Bukit Timah Nature Reserve to MacRitchie Reservoir. It was a distance of more than 10 kms (somewhere 3/4-ways through, I was too damned wiped out to do the math), which was a killer in the heat and humidity of this tropical island.

We started off chirpy enough, jauntily walking down the path, swinging our bottles of water alongside us and chatting happily away.

We even took time to observe the little critters of nature. This was a giant spider, basking in the morning sun, surrounded by several little spiders (not all that little, up close and personal!), hence the shaky photo taken from a distance...

Like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs, we followed the path marked out by these little posts with a red band.

Over mountains and hill(ock)s...and expressways...

Checking the map halfway through, to ensure we weren't headed to Mandai or somewhere COMPLETELY off the beaten track...

Came upon what appeared to be someone's sanctuary at one time, now abandoned. We wondered who had occupied this idyllic little piece of heaven, tucked away in the forests.

"Why did the tortoise cross the road?"

We startled this little one as we trekked noisily through the forest. I think it was a little stunned and petrified of these noisy giants trying to get up close with a phone camera...

Stopping for a breather, and proof that we DID trek all the way!

Two days after the walk, some folks were still suffering the effects in the form of sore leg muscles...heh heh.