Neco Sampo

Hannah and Minimi have been having lots of fun playing together.

Hannah likes to treat Minimi like a doll and generally 'mother' him.   Minimi plays along with this graciously and patiently.

 
Minimi has clearly been suffering from becoming an 'indoor cat' again.  I noticed that he often seems bored and frustrated and wants to go outside.  So I resolved to resume taking him for 'neco sampos' like we did in Tokyo.

Last Saturday we put him on a leash and took him down the road to the park.  Hannah wanted to hold the leash and Minimi wanted to be safe with Daddy. 

Minimi was very happy to be outdoors again, although he was a bit nervous at first.  He was a big hit with the families in the park.  And we even met two people who also take their cats for walks.

One small omission was failing to bring  'Ombudako' child carrier.  I forgot that when we went for neco sampos, he liked to ride behind my back in the Ombudaku.   Minimi hadn't forgotten, and eventually communicated his preferences, so we improvised something that worked for him.

Minimi got a chance to walk about himself.

 As usual he wanted to find a nice secure hiding place.

Hannah quickly found some friends and had lots of fun introducing Minimi to them.

The park was so nice that we decided to join a charity walk down to Tai Tam that was just about to start.  We quickly popped back to get the 'OmbuDako' and some water.  

Unfortunately back at Parkview Minimi had a small accident jumping from my shoulders and fell awkwardly.  His face got scratched and for a while he seemed to be in shock.  So we changed plans again, cancelled the walk, and took him home for 'observation', in case we needed to take him to the urgent vet.  Fortunately after some bed rest he was soon back to normal and keen to go back outside.   

Lamma Island Boat Disaster

This morning we were shocked to discover that while we were enjoying our dinner cruise on the Bauhinia, a  terrible tragedy was unfolding involving two other vessels.

Around 8:20pm, a few kilometers to the west of us, near Lamma island, two ferries collided causing 38 fatalities and injuring over 100.   Apparently a catamaran ferry, the Sea Smooth, collided into a smaller pleasure boat, the Lamma IV, causing it to sink rapidly.  The Lamma IV had around 125 people on board including many families, and was on its way to Central to view the fireworks display.

One survivor told the SCMP "after 10 minutes out, a boat crashed into ours from the side at very high speed.  The rear.. started to sink.  I suddenly found myself deep under the sea.  I swam hard and tried to grab a life buoy.  I don't know where my two kids are. "  Obviously our hearts go out to this poor person and everyone else who lost friends or family.

This tragedy feels very close to us.  We had planned to go to Lamma ourselves earlier that day and I even recall seeing the Sea Smooth at the pier (distinctive name).   When we took the fast ferry to DB Hannah insisted that read the safety card to her and we discussed emergency procedures,  even to the point of looking at the life-jacket stowed in our seat.   I had some uncomfortable moments imagining how difficult it would be to evacuate Hannah from the ferry along with 500 other people  if it was sinking.  

When we took the cruise on the Bauhinia I'd noticed the absence of a safety announcement.   And I'd been so struck by the of crowd of spectator boats maneuvering for a view of the fireworks that I took this video.

Despite this, Hong Kong harbor is apparently very safe overall, especially considering how many vessels are moving about.   Yesterdays tragedy was the firth worst in Hong Kong history and the worst since 1971.

National Foundation Day Fireworks

Rika had booked us onto the Bauhinia for a dinner cruise to watch the firework display celebrating China National Day.  This year it commemorates the 63rd anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and coincides with the Hong Kong public holidays for the mid-Autumn festival.    

We took the boat from North Point Pier at 7:45, and had a nice dinner before the display at 9pm.

The firework display was very impressive and lasted for about 25min.  It seemed more varied than the display for 15th anniversary of SAR earlier this year, although again the colour Red predominated.

We had a good view from the deck of the Bauhinia which is a converted car ferry camouflaged to look like a paddle steamer.

The harbour was crowded with other sight-seeing vessels....

...including a replica of HMS Bounty

The kids enjoyed hitting the dance floor.

This is Rach dancing with Hannah

Day-trip to the Islands

On Monday we planned to take a trip to Lamma Island.   But when we got to Central Ferry Piers there was an enormous que for the Lamma ferry.   So we quickly changed plans and went to Discovery Bay instead.

Hannah was able to play at the same playground she had played in when she first came visited Hong Kong.   Unfortunately the water quality was only 'Fair' so we couldn't swim in the sea.

We had a nice McLunch and then took a slow boat to Peng Chau.

We had 30min to look around before taking the boat back to DB to catch the fast ferry back to Central.

Kowloon

On Sunday we went to explore Kowloon.  We took the Star Ferry over to TST and admired the Harbour View from the Avenue of Stars.

Then to Mon Kok for some authentic Dim Sum at the London restaurant.   (Rika chose this because the decor matched Rachel's top).

Then Rika took Rach to the Ladies' Market while I took Hannah to the Carpenter Road Cycle track.

On the basketball court next door temporary temple and Cantonese Opera stage was being set up for the weekend mid-Autumn festival events

We met at the Ritz Carltin in the ICC building and went up to the Ozone Bar  on the 120th floor to watch the lights come up in the harbor.

A cruise ship docking at the Ocean Terminal far below.

Rach with the lights of Central behind her.

Ozone is achingly cool.

But Hannah seemed to feel right at home.  'No Paparazzi!'

And this is the view from the men's toilets.

Mid-Autumn Festival - Victoria Park

After Ozone we went to Victoria Park to see the mid-autumn festival event.

There was a display of lanterns and illuminations.

Video:  Mid-autumn festival at Victoria Park

And in the sports ground many many families on the lawn enjoying the traditional activities of lighting lanterns and playing with lights.   The atmosphere was delightful - it felt very safe and child-friendly, with no alcohol and no aggravation.

All benignly overseen by the umpires...

Hannah was very happy once she got some luminous toys.

We stopped in at a ramen shop on the way home.