Holidays, like all good things must come to an end. It is a bummer.
This bum was in our last coffee shop stop in Hong Kong. Kaktus Koffee in Sheung Wang.
The last coffee of our holiday and the last in Hong Kong it may have been, but I had my first taste of a cloud coffee.
My photo opportunities.
And of course I also took a photo of the beautiful floor.
My normal coffee of choice is a simple two shot, short black. However travel is a great way to open the mind. Giddiness in all things is permitted beyond the confines of the day to day.
Coffee giddiness went to some crazy places. Lemon Coffee. Burnt and Salted popcorn coffee, Cloud coffee. My coffee infidelity was rampant. There are others that have currently slipped my mind. Probably because it has become so delightfully open.
December and our travels in Asia and Australia have been punctuated by coffee stops. My winter blogs will be peppered with holiday anecdotes and sunshine photos during January, but the rest of December will be all about Christmas trees in sunny places.
I have been very lucky and done some great road trips around the world, but I would argue that the most memorable road trips are the mundane ones that we sometimes do every day of our lives. The repetitive unconscious road trips by public transport, or being driven by someone else. The Public Light Bus Service of Hong Kong are perhaps the scariest I have used regularly. They are ramshackle minibuses that are supposed to be speed regulated, but night journeys are done at high-speed with the over-the-speed limit alarm as the constant accompaniment of the journey. Apart from when the bus speeds to a stop to swiftly drop off passengers and their possessions, before hurtling to the next destination. In complete contrast the Number 3 bus from Crystal Palace to Oxford Street hurtles nowhere. But it follows a fabulous 6 mile route from South London through leafy Dulwich and vibrant Brixton to the historic heart of one of the Worlds most diverse cities.
As luck would have it both these memorable road trips coincide in one photograph. Our grand-daughter driving a Number 3 bus in the Dragon Centre. Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong. Sadly we did not catch the Public Light Bus to get there, but we could have.
The last two days of travelling have taken us from the rain of Hong Kong via the crazy temperatures of Bangkok and the cool elegance of Vienna to May sunshine in Cornwall.
Hugo and Lolas holiday destination while we were away.
Given that we have spent much of that time trying to sleep in aircraft we have done a crazy level of steps over those two days. Allowing for time differences there was actually 24 hours of travel. A small amount of walking in Hong Kong on our departure day and a small amount of walking in Windsor after our arrival at Heathrow.
Windsor and Windsor Castle, still in party mood.
25,000 steps over two days when most of the time was spent in the air is remarkable. Some people would describe 12,500 steps a day, as a walking holiday.
Airport transfers are not most peoples idea of an enjoyable hike especially as we only ever travel with hand luggage of about 9 kg each. That’s us excused the gym for a few days. But travel resets the mind, our journey was primarily about meeting our newest family member, Cecily, in Hong Kong and we chose to not take the direct route so as not to overwhelm her parents and sibling with too long a stay.
Something completely unexpected occurred at the very end of our flight into Heathrow. We flew low over South London and our home villages of Crystal Palace and Dulwich. The early morning May sunshine was bright and clear. From my window seat I could photograph London Bridge Station which was my mainline commuter hub when I worked in the City.
St Bartholomews Hospital where I trained and worked.
And The Gherkin and Tower 42 where I celebrated my 60th Birthday.
Then in one final moment of serendipity we flew over Harrow School, 24 hours after leaving Harrow Hong Kong. Touch down at Heathrow and we made a quick exit and off to Windsor for a quick cup of coffee and a cheese straw to fuel the journey home.
‘A city can be many things, it’s people and their stories, urban experiences and how it is represented and seen by others. A place is made up of these qualities and impressions and is larger than the sum of its parts.’
This was the starting point, or inspiration for people leaving an exhibition about architecture and art in Hong Kong in the seventies and eighties. Members of the public were encouraged to use words or pictures to explain their relationship with Hong Kong, and then create a wall of art. It also seemed, to me, a good way to start a blog.
My starting point for Hong Kong was always Victoria Harbour, Chinese Lanterns and The Peak. When I was young I had an Uncle who travelled. Occasionally he would come home with gifts. Notably a night light featuring Victoria Harbour in the 1960’s. 10 years ago when I first travelled here Victoria Harbour was as exciting in real life as it was when I was 5 and the lights on the Pearl River were represented by pinholes in a lampshade.
Victoria Harbour May 2023
Chinese Lanterns because my jewellery box featured a large Pagoda with many doors or lids that had little lanterns as knobs.
The Peak was harder to replicate from my childhood memory. My travelling Uncle gazed wistfully out of a hilltop rainforest, in the black and white photos we had in our house, to remind us of his distant existence on The Peak. I have been to the Peak many times in the past 10 years and failed to quite replicate that feeling. But global warming has changed the weather for May and we found a trail we had not done before, along the Lugard Road. The Rainforest and the rain were suddenly recreated.
Hannah’s story begins with her birth and her parents, who had lived in Hong Kong and Asia for 16 years. Not for them the Peak and its aspirational dwellings but the hourly burly of Sham Shui Po.
And now, for the past 10 years Hong Kong has become the home of our family.
We come here, when there is not a global pandemic as often as we can.
Which ties this blog up as neatly as this aerial root in the Rainforest.
Who could guess how long ago someone tied this root in a knot. Many years ago when it was soft and pliable. Now it is rock hard and helps to hold a high tree on the rocky edge of a precipice.
Ten, tired, travelling toes, took a trip to Shueng Wan for some pampering. They went in slightly blistered and care worn and emerged one hour later rather glossier than I had anticipated. My toes are brilliantly embellished with chrome! Like millionaire supercars in London during the summer. Despite being decidedly glam they still have to carry me on my travels. Although last night they went to a glam toe appropriate setting. Hutong, Hong Kong for a belated Mothers Day meal.
A postprandial walk by the Walk of Stars gave the toes their final outing of the day.
And so we are in Hong Kong and wall art presents us with two quotes. One, possibly more useful than the other. The one above is the more useful. Below is one that is not quite so immediately thought provoking.
Beyond quotes we plunged immediately into authentic Hong Kong life. Authentic because we were in Sham Shui Po, Hannahs’s birthplace, authentic because much of the architecture is protected and the area is unlikely to become over-developed, and authentic in an @theoldmortuary way because it is the home of independent and intriguing coffee shops.
Colour Brown, Sham Shui Po
Even Tatler talks about Sham Shui Po and that’s fairly rare for genuinely working-class areas.
Accompanying us on our daytime adventure were our growing family, one of whom danced with delight last night when we touched down at Hong Kong airport just after 7:30.
There is also the promise of a trip to an exhibition by Yayoi Kusama. Expect dots later in the week.
Last night we went to some Cuban contemporary ballet. Just mind blowing and we were in the front row so the sweating and the heavy breathing of the dancers was very very real. In truth the raw energy of the performers made our evening.
The picture below is another blue example of raw energy and huge joy.
A rogue kite wrapping up our grand daughter in Honk Kong.
Waking up in the dark to start the day is becoming our autumn/ winter normal. My phone woke me up this morning with a blast of sunshine, with the photograph above. Bright sunshine on 25th October at Rock in Cornwall 5 years ago.
This morning there is very little gap between bed and a swim in the sea. I can already tell there will be no sunshine to stroll to the beach in. I suppose that is part of the charm of October. It is never entirely certain what shape any particular day will take, weather wise. Our evening walk last night revealed beaches overwhelmed with seaweed after the storms of last week which is also in stark contrast to that beautiful beach of five years ago. There is an upside to this, we plan to start making our own compost again and it would make sense to gather seaweed to mix with our teabags and coffee grounds. So today may be the day to make our first harvest. Moving house and garden is, as is always said, a big thing. We’ve moved from somewhere that every square inch of the property and garden was lovingly designed and planned by us to somewhere that was someone elses home for longer than I have been alive. In this regard planning a new compost bin is almost the first new plan we have put in place, as we promised ourselves we would give the house some time to reveal its quirks and charms to us before doing anything major. I realise a compost bin is not major! We also need to learn to live in this location before we make too many changes that we may come to regret.
Luckily for this blog one of the other 25th October pictures, that I was woken up with, suggests calm contemplation. Something that is needed along with Google to make seaweed into compost. A cup of tea on Wembury beach, 4 years ago, is a lovely way to suggest time spent researching the rotting properties of seaweed.
I wonder how today is going to shape up?
The final of the three wake up pictures is also beach related. Sai Kung in Hong Kong, 6 years ago. I think I can say with some certainty that today is not going to be a day for vivid crabs. But this is October, anything could happen.
On reflection. True to many British holidays, we’ve taken the van away for a couple of days and the weather has turned to persistent precipitation. So small tasks in the van have filled some of the time. Fitting a usable mirror has long been a project. Today we achieved with Superglue something that we are both happy with.
We are on a campsite with shared WiFi so connection to the internet is sketchy due to the number of people stuck in tents, caravans and campervans. So research for this blog is not so easy. But I vowed to use the first photos that came out of my cloud using the search, reflection.
I’m sure I could have waffled on about anything that appeared but the two pictures of Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong give me huge pleasure. Victoria Harbour has been in my life all my life. My nightlight as a small person showed the twinkling lights of Victoria Harbour, now it is the home of treasured but distant family members.
These pictures were taken in June 2019 long before we had ever considered a life with such unimaginable restrictions and deprivations as those we live with now. 2019 a year when we thought humans had control! Little did we know.
Maybe it is best to reflect on the little things in life. The small achievements , the things we do still have control over. Hanging a mirror perhaps.
The Art Group prompt word takes @theoldmortuary to some interesting places. Who doesn’t love a landscape?
My thing for years has been abstract landscapes. For this blog I plunged into my ideas and inspiration file.
I am intrigued and galvanized by nature’s ability to always overwhelm the constructs that man creates or just change the way things look. In doing so there is often unexpected beauty.
The dunes suffocating a beach hut at Wells-next-the-sea, Norfolk.
Here is an urban reclamation. Tarmac in Dulwich Park being broken up by tree roots and covered by autumn leaves and other natural detritus.
Nature is not exactly reclaiming this wall, but the Landscape Street Art is so famous as a site for Instagrammers that it is being worn away by sweaty hands and carefully posed leaning. This picture was taken some time after it was painted but before it became insanely popular as an Instagram background.
Alex Croft painted this as a commission for Goods of Desire. Countless Instagram photos feature this slowly fading wall.
theoldmortuary.design 