Pete+Rochelle

London has been a little different for both Pete and I. For Pete it’s been a new experience going through similar experiences I had first time I was here. For upon arrival London IS exactly as you expect it to look, all the houses are the same and the weather IS grey. For me it’s been a bit of a nostalgic trip, the smell on the tube took me back 7 years and running from tube to tube seemed natural. So far it has been great seeing old friends, and being the one who isn’t new to it all, I have been showing Pete interesting sights and offering up often useless bits of information.

We started off in London shattered. I slept none of the 13 hour flight to get there and so by the time we made it to Sheree’s place (my best mate from high school whom we haven’t seen for a couple of years) I was knackered. We had a real quiet Thursday night and Friday day, slept in and went for a walk which was lovely. Such a change from HK. No one around, cool, crispy, windy and drizzling, and we could get a real cup of tea!!! Friday night found us at Pete’s old friend Ricky’s for a home-made beef stew. Ricky lives in the smallest flat I have ever seen. It was just one room, no separate bedroom or anything, quite amazing!! Too much wine and too much great conversation made us stay up too late.

Jo Mango playing at Union Chapel

Union Chapel Stained Glass

Saturday we went and saw a musician playing in a church. It was Union Chapel in Angel and Islington, Jo Mango was her name. She had such a beautiful voice, and her music gave me goosebumps all over. The sound from the church was simply amazing. Sat night was a catch up with old faces: Clare an old friend that I haven’t seen since I last lived here over 6 years ago, Bec who we hadn’t seen since almost a year ago in the Bay, Ricky and his girlfriend Anna from the night before, and Sheree who we’re staying with in London. We all met at the local pub had a great catch up. Getting buses home we experienced our first London brawl which is always pretty eventful, I got told off by Pete and Sheree for getting too close yelling at them for being dickheads. Personally I didn’t think I was too close, but I guess it’s a mater of opinion. Same wankers/different city.

Roch, Bec, Pete, Sheree and Clare, Sat night drinks, Fulham

On Sunday Pete and I separated for the first time in over a week. We have done pretty well I think, we hadn’t torn each others hair out….yet!! I went to a jumble sale with Sheree and her flatmate Beth, and considering what was on offer I did pretty well and only bought a little bit of jewellery. Beth bought the coolest little wooden chair which I was so jealous of!! This was followed by beer at a pub then dinner at home, a pretty quite night for me. Pete meet up with an old- old friend for a drink: Patricia Turk, which turned into a bit of sight seeing around London, pie and chips for dinner and a few drinks, a good catch up and some London city scenes to boot. He should’ve taken the camera, but isn’t hindsight great!!!

Pete & Big Ben

An amazing artist, Southbank

Graffiitti and tagging, skateboard area, Southbank

On Monday Sheree had organised the day off work so we went sightseeing. The sights we had decided to see ended up being the same ones Pete had seen the night before! So lucky for him he got to see them in day and night .We went for a walk along the Southbank, starting off where Big Ben and Westminster is, and along past the London eye (the really big wheel for really big views) where there was a lady doing an amazing painting of the eye and Big Ben. We took photos of a skate area under a bridge, where graffiti is all over the walls, everywhere, but the great part about it is that it is the only area that I saw that did have graffiti. The walls are really clean of it. We then stopped at the Tate Modern Museum. We had a look at the impressionist art, which Sheree and I didn’t quite get but Pete loves, so we opted to go to the bar in the top floor and have a glass of wine with some free nuts while we waited for him. We had the best view of St Pauls Cathedral from there too.

Afternoon drinks at the Tate Modern, overlooking St Pauls

Pete doing Hamlet outside the Globe

From there we kept walking along the river to the Globe Theatre and a little shopping village with heaps of wooden carved seats/animals/people and an old pub where we had to stop in for a drink (funnily enough, the same pub Pete had had a drink in the night before). Its too easy to drink in London. Or maybe it’s because we’re on holidays? The rest of the walk was filled with old churches and interesting brick buildings. The thing I love about London is that it doesn’t matter where you are you will always have some history tucked away in the middle of bars and shops and offices that everybody else just walks past on their way home from work. Just by reading a plaque you get the real story of an old building and it’s significants in history and that’s so cool.

Ruins of Winchester Palace

Southwark Cathedral, oldest Gothic Church

After having a pint at the pub I worked at about 8 years ago!! Kings Cross

So, back to the novel, Tuesday found us having another rest morning and heading out to see a band that evening. We stopped in to Kings Cross to have a drink at the O’Neils Irish pub there, a pub I worked at and lived in at least 8 years ago. It hasn’t changed at all and that was weird. From there we walked to Angel and Islington to go to Relentless Garage to see the Posies play. We stopped into the Famous Cock for one of the best burgers I have had in ages, before heading to the venue where I just about fell asleep as I was so full! We left after about an hour, half because I was almost asleep, and the other because they had only really played 2 decent songs (I figure if the songs where better they would’ve kept me awake yeah?!?!)

Watching the Posies at Relentless Garage, Angel & Islington

Roch & Tower bridge

Wednesday morning we awoke to rain. We had another lazy morning (we’re on holidays-what can I say!) and by the time we decided to do something the sun was out!! This in itself is pretty rare. So we went on a cruise up the river Thames. It took us past the usual suspects, Big Ben (again), London bridge, the Tower of London, Tower bridge, but we also got to see Canary wharf, the business district, and some pretty impressive houses along the river.

Tower of London

Millinium Dome

We went past the Millennium Dome also, a big eye sore they made to hold huge events. It really is quite ugly. The boat trip ended with taking us past the big river flood gates, these things are high tec. When there is a threat of a flood, there are big hydraulic arms which move around half cylinder walls from resting on the bottom of the machine (which lies so low that boats can still cross over them), to acting like a wall across the water and stopping it all from coming in a flooding the Thames and all the people. My explaining sucks but it really is quite clever. Our day ended with a home made dinner at Bec’s in Elephant and Castle (the name of some of the places here!!) and of course, drinks.

Thames river flood gates

Flood gate mechanics

So that’s been the journey so far. Next stop, Isle of Man and upwards through England!!

Nathan Street, main road down Kowloon

Hong Kong 27 Sep-30 2010

Pete and I were staying in Kowloon which is the main city on the mainland. It was really muggy and hot and there are people everywhere!! The smells were amazing; your nose gets violated in many ways, always something strange. There were a lot of seafood smells (probably due to all the shops that sell all types of dried of seafood on the side of the road), meat aromas, and the smell of cooking coming from the thousand restaurants located in Kowloon. Oh yeah and nicotine clouds- I think most of the population of Hong Kong smoke cigarettes, which they smoke just about anywhere, all of the time-passive smoking at its best. There were people everywhere trying to sell us stuff. The locals were in our face every minute. They were either pushing us to just “take a look inside my tailor shop”, yelling at us from their little stalls on the side of the road, or blocking our path when little old people were pushing big trolleys with rubbish or squashed boxes.

There are approximately 7 million people that live in Hong Kong, 90% of which are Chinese and they’re re about 7000 of them to each sq cubic meter. The people here live on-top of each-other in little apartments, and everywhere you go you will see washing hanging out of windows on little bamboo pull lines. I thought this above all things was amazing. What if you drop your favorite dress! Wealth is measured by the size of your apartment (or house if your extremely rich!!) and 110% tax must be paid for each car on the road, which means there are not a lot of cars per head and all cars are new as it is cheaper to buy new ones then to keep paying taxes on old ones apparently!

Pete and I did a bus tour of Hong Kong Island and the tourist stops. The Man Mo temple where we had to leave because there was so much incense burning it made our eyes cry. Victoria Peak on HK Island which has views to Kowloon and the harbour and you go on a 45 degree angle pretty cool tram ride 373 meters to get up there.

Aberdeen fishing village and surrounding city

We took a Sampan (little boat) around traditional Aberdeen fishing village which is on water (the fishermen and families live on the boats), had lunch at the Jumbo floating restaurant, which was a beautiful building in the middle of the water and had an even better dim sum lunch, and finished off with shopping at the Stanly street markets. We had a look around but I have to say that all the shopping starts to look the same there because there is so much of it. HK Island is huge, and when looking at it from the mainland at night with all the lights you do get a bit in awe of how big it is. Photos really do only give you a fraction of how ominous it is.

Yuen Yuen Institute, one of the Temples

The next day we did a tour of the New Territories, which is the land between Kowloon and China. We started off with visiting the Yuen Yuen institute, with its beautiful temples, monasteries, gardens and ponds in honor of Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist religions (if I remember right the difference between Taoist and Buddhist is that Taoist eat meat and are allowed to drink and smoke where Buddhist cannot. I know which one I like!) We then went up Tai Mo Shan, HK's highest mountain for photos but there wasn't much of a view. I did enjoy it for the greenery and the lack of people tho!

Small strip between houses in Fanling Walled Village

Next was the Fanling Walled Village, which was started by one family and has expanded. This place has the buildings so close together and you walk through these tiny gaps where there are doors to houses and it’s like a maze. The great and weird thing about this village is on one side of a small lake is this walled village where everyone lives in such close quarters, on the other side is a beautiful park with walks and trees and old men out walking their canaries.

Sha Tau Kok, boundary town from Luk Keng Road

A stop on the side of the road showed us the Chinese border, where a small village named Sha Tau Kokis located. The interesting thing about this town is it has the border line running straight through the middle of it, so half belongs to China and the other to HK.

Luk Keng Village houses

Luk Keng Village, surrounding view

My favorite stop was the one to Luk Keng, a tiny village of about 100 people where life is still lived in the old ways. Houses are very dirty on the outside. Religion and tradition imply that if their family home is cleaned or changed in appearance than their dead ancestors won't be able to find their way home, therefore they aim keep the home looking the same. Understandably the villagers are only keeping respect for their ancestors. It was such a small simple place, but everyone we saw was so lovely and happy for us to look through their community.

Sam Mun Tsai Fishing farm

We were then whisked away to a tiny Sam Mun Tsai fish farm, not too different to Aberdeen but what they do here is all the fish they catch that are too small to consume they harvest in nets next to their house-boats and farm until big enough to sell. These people live on the water in very simple living conditions and, overlooking them on the land is a hill covered in houses/apartments called the 'Beverly Hills'; quite a contrast.

HK is quite a dirty place with rubbish all through the water, and when were leaving at 4am this morning to go to the airport, we saw empty streets with rubbish piled up on the sides (we also saw a lot of people still out and restaurants still open with people in them!!) Pete says he will know HK for three things: the random drops of water that hit you when you’re walking down the street when it’s not raining; these poor frogs we saw bagged up, still alive for buying and eating; and old men blatantly staring at my breasts (I missed this part, too busy NOT starting at the old men and their bare chests). I will fondly remember Hong Kong for all the washing hanging out of windows, stalls and markets everywhere- day and night, and the big signs that hang right over the streets. Oh, and the fact that when we were out at 10pm Monday night, shops, stores and restaurants were still open and buzzing with activity! Not in Hervey Bay anymore!!! HK really comes alive at night.

Hong Kong Island from the harbour

All- in-all it was definitely an interesting way to start our adventure. We couldn't have asked for more friendly people, and we had our own bed with a western toilet (thank God I only had to try the squat thing once!) and more than our share of rice and noodles. Maybe not a destination choice for the non-shopper, but a beautiful culture and landscape on the fringes awaits you if you have the time. We had a little look at the art gallery and space museum but to be honest come late afternoon all we wanted was to go have a little lie down in air conditioning and not walk anymore!! Boy are our feet going to get a workout over the next few months!!!! Thanks for checking in- Rochelle x x xx

Take care of yourselves, write soon

Trips:

Shorthand link:

Isle of Man 7th-11th Oct

Castletown, Isle of Man

London 30th Sep-7th Oct

London, United Kingdom

Pete's thoughts

London, United Kingdom

Hong Kong Stop over

Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Heading South?