Christmas Season

The Christmas season began in November when the shopping malls started putting-up Christmas decorations.

The decorations at Elephants Mall at ICC were typically impressive.

A huge neoclassical edifice on a fashion and clocks theme.   No doubt intended to attract visitors and encourage them to buy an expensive frock or watch.

The display had 'clock-work' figures - party-goers and musicians - that moved into life on the half-hour with a musical accompaniment.

It was well done and attracted big crowds.

The ICC building also put-up decorations.  A huge christmas tree.

Surrounded by revolving figures on a 'fairies with big balls' theme.   Good to see them 'embracing diversity'!

Shing Kee Noodles

One of the well-known and popular restaurants in Shatin is Shing Kee Noodles,  famous for its hot-pot cuisine and its decor.



Id been interested in going for some time, but we only tried it for the first time recently.  It quickly become one of our favorite restaurants since the food is delicious, the staff are nice and the prices are very reasonable.



I found out about it by searching the very useful website 'Open Rice Hong Kong' for the most recommended restaurants in Shatin  (Open Rice Shing-kee-noodles).  

We would never have found it otherwise,  since it is hidden-away in the bowels of the Lek Yuen Estate.   The first time we went, I used Google Maps but still couldn't find it without asking for directions twice!



But is its easy once you know how.   From Shatin's main road you take the walkway under the Rural Committee Road to the Lek Yuen Estate.  Stay on ground level and head for the passageway on the left (next to the public toilet)....



Go down the secret passage and...



... there you are, outside Shing Kee Noodles!



The quirky decoration is made from recycled materials and creates a cosy atmosphere (link).



The only problem is that it it is extremely popular, especially in winter, and you often have to book more than a week in advance.

We went again recently with the As and had a lovely meal.   For the hot-pot we chose one mild broth made with bitter melon, plus a spicy broth with chillies and Sichuan-pepper, then lots of meat,  seafood and vegetables which we cooked in the broth.   Washed down with reasonably priced cold beer and white wine.



While Hannah and Yu-chan enjoyed playing with the I-pad together, and occasionally allowed themselves to be fed...



Looking forward to going back again soon!

Christmas Market

Rika has been working hard preparing stock to sell at Christmas Markets.  She has booked three:  two at Discovery Bay (Nov and Dec) and one at posh hotel on Hong Kong Island.




On Sunday we got up early and helped her take the stock to Discovery Bay and set-up her stall.    Then I looked after Hannah until the market closed at 6pm.



Hannah and I hung-out at the market and then moved to the DB North Plaza for lunch and several hours at the Discovery-land playroom (now called Epic-land).    Rika's stall had a lot of interest and she made a small profit after the costs of rent and transport.



A few days later Rika had another Christmas Market at the ballroom of the Conrad Hotel at Pacific Place.   The rent for the space was a rather high HKD 5,000.   Unfortunately Rika's sales we about the same as the DB market, so she made a small loss after rent and transport costs.

Daddy Day (1) - Hong Kong Park

Recently Hannah and I have been meeting up with AJ and his daughter M for 'Daddy Days'.   Like Rika, AJs wife wants some time off in the weekend, so AJ and I are both under strict instructions to take our daughters out for activities.  



Fortunately H and M really enjoy playing together, so its just a matter of finding suitable playgrounds.   We met up for lunch after my Tai Chi class at one of my favorite Dim Sim places - DimDimSim in TinLok Lane.  



Its a busy road in Wanchai so while I was waiting outside I was surprised to hear birdsong.  A couple of stories some birdcages had been hung-outside and the parrots were noisily enjoying the fresh-air.   I fancy they were singing 'I shall be released' (link).

Video:  Exotic birds of Wan Chai

After lunch we went on a playground tour.   Starting with the Morrison Hill Road Playground near the Queen Elizabeth Stadium.    Then on to the playground at nearby Wan Chai Park



Then after a short walk along Queens Road East and up to Hong Kong Park.  Although it was cold the girls enjoyed playing at the fountain.



We found the tai chi garden and climbed up to the top of the tower for a good view.



Then along to the Edward Youde Aviary (link).     This was my first visit to the aviary as it had been closed for renovation on our previous visits to the park.   It really is a wonderful place where you can observe lots of interesting birds close-up.



These Bali Myna are apparently endemic to Bali.  They were quite unafraid and seemed as interested in the humans as the humans were of them.    

Video:   more exotic birds

There was also a good selection of parrots.



After the aviary we moved on to the large children playground in the park where the girls played until about 5:30 pm.

 

Hong Kong Living

Last weekend Hannah and I went cycling with my former collegaue AJ and his daughter M who used to be in Hannah's class.  We had a nice ride along the cycle-path from Shatin to the playground at Ma On Shan park.  

Id just heard about the awful terrorist attacks in Paris the previous night.   Having lived through several IRA bombings in London and then the 7-July bombings close to both my old work and my old apartment,  I am very grateful to be able to live (as an immigrant) in a peaceful and safe city!   I enjoy living in Hong Kong very much and in many ways think of it as a near-perfect city.  

I sometimes say  that the only thing I'd change is reduce the pollution and make the taxi-drivers drive more carefully!

We had two examples of HK taxi-driving recently:   Firstly we nearly had a serious accident when our taxi made an illegal U-turn and an intersection near Shatin, and were 1m from impact with a fast-turning van that our driver hadn't seen.   Then last week our taxi had a fender-bender with another taxi at a  round-about at Tai Po.

Hannah has started reading the Horrid Henry books on my Kindle which she enjoys very much.  "Gloop starts with snails and worms" said Moody Margaret.

School Sports Day

 On Friday I took a half-day to attend Hannah's school's  Sports Day with Rika.

warm-up boogie

This is the first Sports Day Ive been to.  I understand the tradition for attending Dads is to try to look important by typing obsessively into their Blackberries and thus miss their kids' events, and then get over-competitive or injured in the Parents' race.  (maximum points for a heart-attack!).

It was a good occasion and managed to fell neatly between bursts of heavy rain in both the morning and the late afternoon.    Hannah was 3rd in her race (although I missed it because it was the very first race and I was checking my I-phone).

Hannah race

Then there were a range of team games between the red, yellow and blue teams.

Throwing game

Finally the dreaded (and potentially lethal) parent-child rely.    I remembered how my boss in the UK had ruptured his Achilles tendon on sports day.   So my modest goal was to avoid injury without being last!    I took care to stretch as I chatted to other Dads about potential injuries and how many years since our last race (30 in my case).

Parent-child relay : Hannah papa in light blue shirt

The kids ran first and Hannah did well to come in 3rd and do a smooth hand-over.  But as I turned to accelerate,  I felt my outer left hamstring tear!    I started to pull-up but then realized I could still run so I dashed as hard as I could to overtake the slowest parent and come in 2nd-last.  If we had won our race the 3-points would have been enough for Blue-team to tie with Red in the final scores.

Final scores

Fortunately it was a minor tear and I was able to walk with only a slight-limp, and it cleared-up in a week.   We got soaked in a downpour as we walked to the buss-stop but all stayed in a good mood and were thankful the rain had held-off during the actual sports event.  

And I was glad to have play my role in this important tradition.

Hong Kong Open Tai Chi Competition

On Sunday we had the 25th Hong Kong Open Tai Chi Competition at Kowloon Park organized by the Hong Kong Wushu Union (website).  I'd entered through my school back in October, along with some of my classmates.

You could only enter for one style so I chose chen-style again.   The time-limit was relatively long at 5-6 minutes which was just right to complete the whole Chen-56 competition form.   Other competitions allow as little as 3-4 min.

Classmate from my Chen-style class

There were about 270 competitors : 150 women and 120 men, of which only 4 had western names.  The overall standard was very high.  I understand that this is the Hong Kong competition that everyone wants most to do well in.

Classmate from my Chen sword class

My long-term goal is to be good enough to win a gold-medal in this competition but this is some years away!   So my goal for this year was to give a good account of my current level, not embarrass myself or my school - and not get the lowest score!   And to make a permanent step-up in my ability from two months of intensive preparation.

Classmate Tommy 

Actually this did not quite go to plan.   In the end I simply didn't put-in enough hard-work and preparation.  So my performance was pretty disappointing.   But there are several positives for next time.

As I started training harder in the months before the competition I suffered from recurring knee-pain.  I belatedly visited a physio and podiatrist who diagnosed muscle imbalance and issues with my gait stemming from my unusual foot shape.  They adjusted my shoes and gave me regime of exercises to build-up strength in my quads and glutes to better support my knee.   And based-on their explanation I also focused on some corrections to my tai chi technique.

Former classmate

This made a huge difference to my tai-chi, and the knee-pain improved immediately!  But as I started using the correct muscles more my legs were getting utterly exhausted.    It was really hard to motivate myself to do the 5 x 5-min sets daily that I'd planned.

It is often observed that 'Kung Fu' in Chinese literally means 'hard work' (wiki definition).  The  fundamental requirement for developing skill in the martial arts is the character and dedication to train every day, and 'eat bitter' (persevere through physical discomfort).

Participant

Unfortunately I rather failed the test of 'kung fu' character this year.   In the last weeks before the competition I became much busier at work.   I could still have trained after work at 10pm like I did back in 2013.   But instead I got discouraged and almost stopped training altogether, and even put on several extra kilos!

On Sunday Hannah, Rika and I arrived at the competition 30min late to find that I was scheduled to compete in 15 min.   I just had time to register, change, observe that the competition was on carpet not wood (slippery and harder to balance), and do a few breathing exercises to center myself.  Then I was on.

Actually I was quite happy with my performance.  I had to be careful on the carpet but I didn't make any major mistakes.   I felt that I displayed a lot of technical improvements compared to 2013 (head upright, back straight, body relaxed, breathing from stomach, moving from the waist, balance solid  etc).    Although the standard of competition was high, I thought I compared fairly well with the bottom third of the group.

So I was quite disappointed to get a score of 7.2 which I think was 2nd lowest (behind a man who got stuck on a very difficult move that I'd not even attempted).   I found myself in the embarassing position of watching the remaining participants and secretly hoping that someone else would slip-up and get a lower score!

As I watched I realized that the judges were looking to see powerful 'fajin' (explosive power), which is a characteristic of Chen tai-chi, even if it wasn't fully controlled.   I had focused too much on control and ended up being too soft and slow on the fajin moves.   My sifu had repeatedly warned me about this and I had planned to work on it in the last 2 weeks but never did.  So looking at the video my performance looks rather plodding and lifeless.

Video:  Hannah Papa tai chi.  See also this other video on Youtube (youtube link).

Also I had paused too long between moves (a habit from practice to check alignment), rather than flowing smoothly from one to the the next.    These weaknesses might have been fairly straight-forward to correct with more training in the final weeks and perhaps a few pointers from Tommy.  So perhaps I could have achieved a mid-table 7.4 if I had worked more dilligently.   Finally my stance is too high, but it will take many many months of daily training to build-up the necessary strength to maintain a low stance for 6 minutes.  

Three of my male classmates won gold-medals (score over 7.75) in Chen tai-chi although this year none of them placed in the top six places.   One of my other classmates was 2nd runner-up in the women's section.  And our school won the prize for best overall result.   And amazingly, the other gweilo male placed 2nd in the Yang-style section!

So whats next?   Most of all I want to get back into a routine of training every day even if it is just for 20 min.  It is absolutely true that doing tai-chi every day makes you feel great!

I plan to enter competition early next year doing a Yang-style form, the combined 42-form, and the Chen-sword form with the goal of improving to a 'silver-medal' level by year-end.   This will require a lot more work on the basics like stepping-properly with the the right muscles and relaxation.   But with the exercises from my physio and corrections from sifu I feel Im finally on the right track in training my legs and kua (hips).

And I hope to keep working-away on Chen-style 56-form especially the fa-jin movements and hope to get a score of 7.5 or more in the HK Open next year.   We have also been learning a new shorter Chen competition-form (38-form?) which I'd also like to try-out in a different competition.   And we have just started learning on a version of the long 78-form (or 83) New Frame (xin jia yi lu).  This complex form the 'real deal' but at 15min long must be brutal on the legs and far too long for competition.

All of which will require diligent kung fu!