In Camsan’s eyes…

We don’t want the pier to be a memory. We want it to stay.

Remember those days we went on junk trips from the pier? The new ferry pier is so much farther away.

The pier was originally due to be demolished today to make way for reclaimed land and a new highway. I was by chance having dim sum for lunch in the City Hall restaurant and saw this.

It was sad to see a protester being carried away by the police (left centre of photo).

The judicial review hearing is scheduled for Tues 7 Aug. Let’s keep our fingers crossed…

Lulu asked me today whether she should remove my blog’s link from her “favourites” list, as it looked to her I was not going to update my blog again (there was only one post in the last 2 months).

I have been busy with ‘a big match” in the past few months, including two weeks in Canada for holiday then almost a week in Singapore on business. Back to work this week, with so many other things to catch up on. No wonder…

Now that I am done with the match, can have the time back to update my blog. (at the time of writing this post I haven’t put on any post about my mid Jun - early Jul trip to BC Canada yet - will do slowly, but surely)

So, Lulu, do not remove the link please. Otherwise you will have one less interesting thing to do during the day.

is not fun, and it’s the only reason why I am up so early in the morning (6am) after only a couple of hours’ sleep.

This is what happens after spending a fortnight in BC Canada where it’s 15 hours (14 hours in some mountain areas) behind HK.

BC is beautiful. Will write more about BC when I have recharged my battery.

Finally reached Vancouver after flying for more than half a day. What a weird feeling - I arrived the same day but two hours before I got onto the plane from hk.

The immigration queue was very long, but it turned out not than bad. The queue moved quite quickly.

Felt quite excited as this was my very first time in Canada, where it reminds me of the song in South Park \ O /.

Was told by a friend living in Kamloops (with whom I stayed for a few days during the trip to Canada) that I should expect 20C-ish. Turned out it was (to me) freezing in Vancouver. Think it was about 10C! I ended up having to buy two coats there to keep me from frozen to death.

Breakfast in the hotel was not bad. In terms of shopping, I have to say I didn’t like it that much - a bit too boring. I much prefer shopping in Japan, especially clothes, which I personally think has more character.

When I saw this I remembered that the 2010 Winter Olympics would be held in Vancouver ad Whistler. That’s why any other shop you walk in, you see T-shirts with big touristy prints of “Vancouver 2010″.

Went to a restaurant called Tsunami sushi for early dinner. Apparently an award winner restaurant. The conveyor belt was a “mini canal” manouvering around the sushi bar, and different kinds/combinations of sashimi and sushi were placed on sushi boats floating along the canal. The sashimi especially the uni was quite fresh. Not too expensive but for the unfortunately high exchange rate (almost HK$8 for each Aus$1). Had about 10 dishes in total and spent about HK$200 odd per head.

The thing I didn’t like about Canada was the high GST and tipping system. Every thing/service you buy/get, the GST dollar amount is not stated in the price tag/menu (not a surprise though) plus the at least 15% (and if it’s good service, 20%) tip one is expected to give for service.

HK is not that bad after all in that respect la.

The day felt so long. Jet lag was not fun. Was absolutely exhausted by 10pm and went to bed. Woke up at 2am and couldn’t sleep again till 6am but only kind of half-sleeping. Then decided to get up to start my first full day in Canada.

…but I think Jordin is going to win. She is only 17 and the American Idol is supposed to be a singing contest after all.

I absolutely love this!

It was only after the 97 handover that 1 May became a statutory holiday in HK.

Every Hongkonger knows about or remembers the handover - how Chris Patten and his family waved goodbye to us (dumped us) while China took back the sovereignty of HK at midnight 30 Jun. Still so vivid in my memory.

Come to think of it, the handover was almost 10 years ago.

Time does fly, not only when you are having fun, and life is short.

So, try to get the most out of it and don’t let things get to you.

Carpe diem!

23 Apr ?¶?ìÀÜ?¶‚Ä??ì?¶‚Ä?£‚Ǩ‚Ǩ?¶‚Ä?‚Ä°?£‚Äö?† ~ ?߬؂Ä??•?ì¬? (Tsukiji) - ?©?†‚Ǩ?•¬?¬ß (Ginza) - ?¶Àܬê?ß‚Äù¬??߬©¬??¶¬?¬Ø (Narita)

This day we had a pretty uncreative itinerary, as it was the day flying back to HK and it left us with only till 3pm in the city.

After checking out, we drove to Tsukiji. We already took short cuts and avoided busy roads (could easily do using the GPS), but it still took us almost an hour to get from Shibuya to Tsukiji.

We continued to stuff ourselves with food - we had grilled scallops, fried crabmeat sticks and rolled egg omlettes even before we stepped into the sushi restaurant. A local who was also eating there told us the restaurant was one of the best in Tsukiji. It was true. The sushi and sashimi were lovely.

Our next stop was Ginza, which was only a few minutes drive from Tsukiji. Bought only a couple of things at Matsuya Ginza, as we only had an hour and a bit to shop.

At the airport, security was again tight like when we flew out of HK. Both Corolla and Tobi had to open their suitcases for inspection by the airport staff before check-in. To make things worse, on arrival at the airport we were told the flight was moved forward by 30 min, and therefore so was the boarding time. So, we did not have any spare time but had to go straight to the boarding gate after check-in.

That said, shopping at Narita was pretty shitty anyway, so we didn’t miss that much. I still had time to buy a salmon bagel and some sandwiches before boarding the plane, as I remembered how bad the food was on the outbound flight. There were also egg rolls which Tobi bought from Tsujiki. The meal on the flight back to HK was much better.

As I had been lack of sleep since even before I flew to Japan, I slept almost all the way on the flight back.

It was midnight when I reached home (actually only the boarding time was moved forward, the take off time was not any early). I made an executive decision not to check my laptop, as otherwise I would stay up till ridiculous hours checking emails.

Had to drag myself out of bed the following morning - back to work

22 Apr ?¶‚Ä?¶‚Ä??ì?¶‚Ä?£‚Ǩ‚Ǩ?©‚Ä?¬®
~ ?®?†¬¶?£?í???¶¬?‚Äì (Ashinoko) - ?•¬§¬ß?¶¬??í?®¬?¬? (Owakudani) - ?•¬æ¬°?¶¬Æ¬ø?•¬†¬¥ (Gotemba) Premium Outlet - ?®¬•¬ø?¶¬ù¬æ?•¬±‚Ä? (Nishimatsuya) - ?¶¬?‚Ä??®¬?¬? (Shibuya)

It was raining in the morning, but the garden outside the hotel still looked pretty.

We checked out of the hotel and started driving back to Tokyo. According to our itinerary, today was going to be half sightseeing and half shopping. Despite the weather, we still decided to try our luck at the Ashinoko lake ?®?†¬¶?£?í???¶¬?‚Äì and the Owakudani crater (?•¬§¬ß?¶¬??í?®¬?¬?) on our way to Tokyo.

So foggy on the way.

We were all staring at the GPS screen, puzzled, when the screen clearly showed a lake right in front of us, while we could see nothing but a smoky windscreen. Then, as if it was magic, the fog cleared up, and the lake appeared out of nowhere.

We parked the car and tried to take a walk along the waterfront, but it was so windy that I felt like a Cable TV reporter standing by the Victoria Harbour under Typhoon no. 8. Boat sails were suspended due to the bad weather.

While I could barely stand still in the wind, two ducklings were elegantly floating along with the choppy waves. It was a funny scene watching them “chopping” up and down.

After watching the duck dance for a little while, we set off for Owakudani.

Owakudani is an area around a crater famous for its sulfurous fumes and hot springs. Eggs (black eggs) can be boiled at the spot using hot water from the springs.

However, when we arrived we realised that it was even worse there than Ashinoko. I could hardly walk a straight line from the car to the souvenir shop, not to mention staying outdoors having a look around the area. For safety, we chose to hide in the shop, did some shopping and had some of the black eggs.

I had my first encounter with an inoshishi (wild boar) - well, only a specimen of and not a real one, when I walked to the other end of the shop. I remember being told a story before that someone (a non-native) was once explained by a local Japanese that an inoshishi was “the friend of the pig”. Probably because that local was trying to use simple vocabulary.

This trip to Izu was so short we didn’t have time to visit the inoshishi farm. Perhaps next time.

I have been surfing the net and find out there is even an Inoshishi Ordinance in Kobe, for protection of the species.

I then had to say goodbye to the inoshishi for our next destination, the Premium Outlet in Gotemba. We spent 3 hrs shopping there, then started driving back to Tokyo.

We had a mission on our way - to find a shop called Nishimatsuya, selling kids wear, for Corolla to get clothes for her boy (this was almost the only reason she joined us for the trip). However, we did not bring the address of the shop with us (we only roughly knew where it was), and we were going round and round and still didn’t see a trace of the shop at 6.45pm (the shop closes at 8pm, and we had to give enough time for Corolla to shop). Two of us started making long distance calls asking for help - to get friends to check the internet for the address.

When we thought we might not find the shop, Corolla shouted “There it is!”, and then we saw this big bunny sign in an obscure side street. Whew!

Had a big dinner in Shibuya - soba, tempura, rolled eggs, fried rice dumplings, fried chicken wings, meat skewers, chicken rice…etc., but that was only the beginning. We then moved on to a ramen place. Apart from Corolla who declared that she was already absolutely full, each of us ordered a bowl of ramen. As the price was the same for the normal or the big size, being typical HK we all went for the big one to get “more value for money”. None of us could finish the ramen (I almost did, but not quite).

Saw a can of Kit Kat chocolate drink in the vending machine at the hotel. I was tempted but was so full I simply couldn’t drink one, or I would explode.

It was a nice surprise at the Shibuya Prince hotel. Their rooms were bigger than those at the Shinjuku Prince.