Rainy Days and Mondays

For three weeks after my return from the US, everyday seemed to be a rainy day or a Monday, or a rainy Monday. Can you tell that I revived my Carpenters playlist last week? Anyways, for three whole weeks it looked a little something like this:

I think this picture was actually taken during the Typhoon 8 we had.

For a few days it's exciting and moody. And then it's depressing. I appreciated the cooler temperatures but hated the idea of wet feet any time I had to walk to the bus stop.

On the plus side, our waterfall overfloweth(ed). It was awesome. As was the mist that clung to the hillside. Gorillas, where are you?

 Three weeks of grey endured and we have finally started my favorite time of year in Hong Kong. Autumn/Fall. We are out of the horrible, humid heat of the summer, moving past the depressing wet, rainy season and are ready to enter the nice, mild, sunshiney, blue sky, wind off the sea, never had a Christmas day without sun, pleasant season.

To help you understand the kind of blissful weather I am talking about, I'll share with you a few pictures of what has now become a very familiar scene three mornings a week for us. The HKUST running track. This is about 7:30am. The lady in the first picture is doing Tai Chi. Today she was wielding a sword.

Looking left: see that little group of white houses on the hill, just above the fence and below the big mountain? I used to live there. I've hiked the mountain behind many times.

Looking center. Palm trees! We love it.

Looking right. Into the sun. The most wonderful breeze comes in over the ocean right where that gap is between the trees.

Welcome back sunshine! You energize us :)

Fragile

We're pretty much all moved into our HK apartment now. I mean sure, there's still some "decorating" to do but the boxes are all gone. We've found a home for almost everything and if we haven't, it's been stored (read: chucked in the maid's room where it's out of sight) until we find the right space. I took a couple quick snaps of the boxes when they first got here and after reviewing the state of our well-traveled items, I was rather elated at the low percentage of casualties we suffered. I think we only lost about 3 plates. Not bad considering it looked like they had played football with our china set all the way over to HK!! For your amusement, I've added some visuals:

Can you see the black container that we couldn't find a lid for? Our solution = a few bin liners, some cardboard and a bunch of duct tape. We = hobos. No wonder these people thought they could throw our stuff around.

I love how all our worldly possessions, everything we owned in the world, fit snugly into one third of our living room area. To be fair, I came to North Carolina with naught but a lap top and a fistful of cash, so I've accumulated (hoarders beware!).

A close up of one of our porcelain filled boxes.

From this angle you can really get the idea of what a miracle it was we didn't just have a boxful of shards.

The first casualty.

The second casualty was ME!! 

At this point I decided to concentrate on what I was doing and got lost in the whole "Christmas morning" feel of opening my wrapped parcels to reveal much beloved and long lost items. My heart still hurts when I think of the one box they failed to deliver. Yes. We did lose a whole box. Now I have several lids to which there are no pots. The saddest part is that the pots were wedding gifts from my sisters-in-law. It's hard for me to even mention it now. It has taken me months (and about 200 pep talks) to get over it, and the mystery items I will never see again. Obviously, the only thing I really cared about were the pots. They were all I could think about when waiting for the shipment to arrive because I love to cook and we love to eat, let's face it, pots are a kitchen essential. Not to mention, I get very sentimentally attached to stuff. I have offered up at least 20 of our other boxes (mostly full of books) that I would gladly hurl off a ship into the ocean if you would just give me that ONE box with my pots. On my last trip back to the States, I swallowed my sadness and went shopping for new pots ( gotta LOVE Home Goods)  but I still have the lids to the old ones. I will have to let them go soon. If only from fear of what becomes of a "hoarder"... 

Cheung Yeung Monkey Business

Cheung Yeung or Double Ninth Festival is a public holiday in Hong Kong. This year it fell on a Wednesday and delighted everyone with a mid-week break. Apparently, it's tradition to climb a mountain or go hiking, as well as drink chrysanthemum tea. Always ready to try out new traditions we happily accepted an invitation to go hiking with Swallow and John, and their band of merry hikers.

Here we all are:

One of my favorite things about hiking in Hong Kong is the wonderment that comes with what contrast we live in. Walking through forest and not seeing a building, but being able to hear the hubbub of traffic. Bumping into wildlife and feeling like you're in the middle of nowhere and then crossing a hill to see high-rises, home to millions of people. Incredible. 

 Our Wednesday hike was up to Lion Rock (can you see how it got it's name?). It started in the city, Wong Tai Sin (right out of the MTR) and we had the perfect day for it. Overcast. Thankfully, temperatures are cooling in HK right now, although we were still sweating buckets and I still get requests for the "sweat cloth". Yuck.

This is exactly what I'm talking about when I am referring to contrasts. 

Closing in on our target. 495 meters.

The next two photos were taken by another one of the hikers, Rencheng. Beautiful.

 

Atop those rocks is where we ate our lunch...and also where we ran into some monkey business... well, it ran into us. Monkey King. Snatched that packet of bread right out of one of the hikers hands. Greedy monkey.

This was not the first or the last time we would be dealing with the apes.

 Another one of Rencheng's beautiful pictures. The fallen blossoms.