Christmas

We had a low-key christmas at home.

First presents from Santa.    Hannah was excited (and perhaps releived) to find that Santa has visited and filled her stocking.   She received a music box, play doh and a play doh accessory that makes 'ice-cream'.

Video:  christmas stocking

Then exchanging presents from the family.   We gave Hannah a set of Harry Potter DVDs.  (with the unexpected consequence that we had to buy a new DVD player in January after one of the disks mysteriously got stuck in the DVD player)

For christmas lunch we went to the teahouse.  This was a lavish buffet

with lots of decorations

 silly hats

a visit from Santa

and face-painting for the kids

After Christmas we went briefly to Japan for new year.   We stayed briefly in Tokyo again then went down to Izu for New Year with Baba and the family.   For some reason I didn't take any photos at all in that trip.

Wuhan Acrobatic Troupe

As a special treat for  Christmas Eve we went to see the Wuhan Acrobatic Troupe.  

I'd left it late to book so we could only get tickets for a show in Yuen Long in the New Territories near the border, which was an adventure in itsself.  

There were only a few single seats left but luckily near the front so we had an excellent view.

The show was terrific display of skill with acrobatics, traipse, plate spinning...

hat juggling...

...and my favourite, the bendy ladies.   One thing that surprised me, but perhaps shouldn't, was how chunky the female acrobats were.

Here is a link to a video of the show (here).

We also had a interesting trip home.  Since the theatre was some distance from the station, we walked through the new town which was very lively with diners and shoppers.

We eventually took a night bus back into Hong Kong along route 3 which goes through Tai Lam tunnel through the mountain then past my work, and under the harbour.   The lights looked lovely and Hannah snuggled up and went to sleep in my arms.

Ice Skating

There are 4 ice skating rinks in Hong Kong, including one in the ICC mall just under my work.  

We took Hannah skating there on Sunday morning.  Hannah had a lot of fun and did pretty well for a first time.

And then Hannah took Minimi for a neco sampo in the park in the afternoon

Feng Shui

Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese practice of positioning objects and buildings in harmony with nature to bring about good fortune, is taken seriously in Hong Kong.  (link)

I've wanted to blog about this for some time but couldn't get a clear story.  Nevertheless there we a couple of stories from December.

Firstly there was recent office gossip about a senior trader who had been doing badly and put it down to bad feng shui.  So he summoned a consultant in December to reorganize his office.  My colleagues followed his trading performance closely and were amused to note it improved immediately (although subsequently dipped again), and were tempted to write "good performance due to favourable feng shui" in our weekly PL commentary.  

Shortly after that I met a manager responsible for our premises at a social event and was able to ask him about it.   He said that since many staff care about feng shui the management employ consultants to periodically check out the office for feng shui problems and deal with specific issues like our trader's office (link).

When my company first moved into the ICC building, the initial floor-plan was radically changed after feng shui experts pointed out inauspicious orientation of the desks.   Also in a recent review hanging objects put up by staff were removed because they created a 'feng shui' hazard.

He also said the ICC building was designed to reflect positive energy on the neighborhood.  Shortly afterwards I took this photo of the ICC at dawn from Wong Nai Chung gap near Parkview.

Apparently the ICC "building employs the metaphor of the dragon, an auspicious animal in traditional feng shui. The facade is composed of angled glass tiles, which suggest scales."

On our trading floor we have a dragon gong, which I think is for feng shui.  The trading floor in Tokyo also had one.

We also have golden lions guarding the south-east side facing the water.   I saw similar lions facing the water in the dance studio where I sometimes do tango classes.

Next to the ICC is a building called 'The Arch' which has a hole in the middle. One colleague told me this is auspicious as it 'lets the dragons to fly through from mountain to the water'.  Ive not seen this principle written in any feng shui summaries but there are certainly many buildings with holes in them in Hong Kong.

Rika once told me about a 'feng shui war' between the HSBC and its nearby rival the Bank of China.  The HSBC building is well known to have good feng shui (link, link) due to its location with its back to mountains, facing the harbour across a public square where good energy can accumulate, at junction of major roads coming down from the mountains ('dragon veins'), and a focal point between 5 major peaks ('dragons').   And of course it has 2 famous lions guarding its entrance.

BOC on left, HSBC on right

The story goes that the Bank of China building was constructed higher than HSBC with aerials to monopolize good energy from above and uses triangles project bad energy down to the HSBC (and the British government house).   Apparently HSBC took defensive steps to reflect this bad luck back on the BOC using things like mirrors and metal rods (link,  link).   But I've also read that BOC was unusual in being designed without consulting feng shui experts at all and as a result has terrible feng shui.

Where is the Ideal Feng Shui place to live in Hong Kong?  According to one expert, its Parkview! due to its location in a focus between mountains :   "Hong Kong Park View is the best place to live. This is rather significant since Jardine Lookout, Violet Hill and Wong Nai Chung Gap provide a good support for Hong Kong Park View! Such site is able to harness kind energy permeated".   (link)

Festive Season

At the beginning of December the festive season got underway as Christmas decorations began to appear.

Hong Kong is pretty impressive at Christmas.    Many of the buildings in Hong Kong were illuminated by Christmas lights, especially those on the harbour front.   

The ICC has a LED display across the whole building which was programmed to show snowflakes falling and reindeer pulling santa's sleigh across the sky

Parkview was also heavily decorated with lights around the entrance and the clubhouse

Video:  Parkview lights

Gingerbread Houses.  Hannah and Rika made this one.  (from a kit)

And Parkview made this one housing a shop selling christmas gifts.  Tiled with real gingerbread.

Christmas Parties.  This is me and my colleague Emma at the office christmas party.   Our department had a nice but low-key party held upstairs in a pub in Wan Chai.   Unfortunately the festive mood was  marred by the sacking earlier the same day of one of our senior traders who I had worked with for several years and was liked and respected by many of us.

Santa hats

'Aunties' on their day off in Central

Tokyo

After staying in Izu we returned to Tokyo, so Rika could catch up with Kyoko and I could have a shakuhachi lesson with Christopher

Video:  Hannah taking the Shinkansen

 

In Tokyo, we stayed at the International House in Roppongi which is very nice and has an enormous garden.

We were just getting settled in and enjoying the facilities like the modern loos.... 

...when the building was rattled by a long earthquake.   It was only a 4.9m but the center was east Tokyo Bay so we got some good shaking.  

On Saturday we were able to take Hannah to Roppongi  to see the 'church' where her parents first met.  Unfortunately it closed a few years back and has been replaced by a new building containing a bunny club called 'zen'.

The bar next door  'Mogambos' which I visited many times and liked a lot had also closed down recently, as had many of the other iconic gaijin bars of the 1990s like Paddy Foleys.   Roppongi seemed very quiet with very few foreigners except the african touts.      

To me this was a sobering reflection of the collapse of employment of gaijin bankers and their supporting community as all the big banks have downsized and off-shored operations.  The old era has truly passed and Tokyo is feels much less international  than before.

Family Meal

After the memorial service we went for a family meal at a local restaurant.  It was quite something so I thought I'd blog about it in detail.  Even though I dont have any good photos of the family.

Shuzengi is a popular hot-spring resort so it has  many nice restaurants showcasing the superb local ingredients including fresh mountain vegetables and fungi, wild boar, seafood from the waters around Izu, and of course, wasabi.

The restaurant was a high quality establishment in the woods near Shuzengi called 'Tengu no Mori', (Tengu Forest) which even had its own hot-spring.   'Tengu' are mountain demons who live in the with crows (link).  They have big noses and ruddy complexions.

  As an aside, when the first westerners arrived in Japan there were compared to Tengu.

Picture:  Commadore Perry .  From Ryosenji Museum Shimoda


Anyway we enjoyed a lunch of 9 terrific courses:

Zensai  Mixed starter of vegetables, meats and seafood.

Otsukiru.   Sashimi of prawns and Tuna.   The port of Numazu, about 30min drive away on the east coast of Izu is a major port for tuna and prawns.  

Sunomono.  Marinated salmon (no photo)

Yakimono (fried things).  Kinmedai and scallop.  Kinmedai is a small tasty red fish that is associated with the port of Ito on the East coast of Izu

Tobanyaki.   Hotpot of pork and mushrooms

Deep-boiled things.  Porkbelly and parsnip

Tempura.  Renkon, eggplant, red snapper with almond

Sushi

 Desert.  Mango Pudding