Hong Kong - Golf, AGAIN!

Playing on a Municipal Course in Hong Kong was always going to be interesting. After 6 weeks and 2 days of not setting foot on a course the day finally came for me to try out the Gary Player designed North Course at Kau Sai Chau Public Golf Course in the New Territories of Hong Kong. It is a course I will remember for 2 of the Par 3 holes for quite some time.

When Monday morning arrived I decided to use Public Transport to get to the course to compliment the rest of the adventure. The first leg was a trip on the MTR (Tube) to the east of the city to a place called Hung Hau. There I changed to a bus which I found easily by simply following the others carrying golf clubs. The bus trip was up and over a hill to place called Sai Kung from where the Golf Ferry would pick up the golfers and ship them to what for golfer could equate to a Paradise Island. Once on the Island it was short shuttle bus trip up to the Clubhouse where my green fee was quickly handed over.

After performing particularly well on the driving range I headed towards the first tee. I still had 20mins to spare and when I noticed it was going to be 32 degrees and 86% humidity I decided the extra 10 pounds for a caddy to drag my bags around the course would be well worth it. The course itself has a no cart policy, as there are parts of the course that it would just not be possible to run a cart on.

That was it, we headed to the first tee and I handed over all my details to the starter. I got on the first tee and got the positive thoughts going. Teed the ball up and gave it a tap with my driver. Great, it only went straight into the trees, what a fabulous start and how embarrassing. Luckily my second was straight out of the middle right down the middle of the fairway.

The first 2 holes were a good introduction to the course. The fairways were cut tight and the greens were hard and fast, something I knew would take me while to get the grasp of. We got to the 3rd hole which was a 166 yard Par 3 Slightly elevated Island green that must have been all of about 15 feet deep. Though the course is definitely a tough walk up hill and down dale most of the holes carry over the main undulations. There were some pretty special tee shots and my Cobra and I stepped up to the challenge on all but the first tee. It was a real pity the other 13 clubs didn’t join the party.

So for any of you that haven’t dozed off reading this I will just add that my highlight (a very macho one) was carrying the 285 yard Par4 16th and ending up 10 yards off the back…yes I know making a six means it is all a waste of time but the reaction from the tee was worth it. Favorite hole - the 168 Yard Par3 14th into the wind. Landing on a back to front sloping Island green. I also managed a 6 here after going to far chipping to hard going off the front and so on. I would also recommend that anyone playing here take plenty of water. I drank a total of 8 litres of water in the round and never had to take a pit stop once.

Hong Kong - Driving Range

I had arranged to go to the City Golf Club on Kowloon side with my manager on Thursday night to use the driving range. It had been sometime since I hit a golf ball and with my first round of 18 holes at Kau Sai Chau public course coming up next Monday I really needed the practice to make sure I was still capable of hitting a golf ball.

We left the office at about 19:45 I had my golf clubs with me and we took the Star Ferry across the harbour and then grabbed a cab to the Club. It is a pretty impressive place from the road. The driving range has 215 bays on 4 levels and there is an immense amount of people using it. (Picture below courtesy of www.golf007.com)

We headed to the booking office and booked our spaces. $100 HK (about £7) for 1 hour in a bay with unlimited balls. We got bays in the basement level and headed down there slowly watching a few people practicing on the way.

The range itself is only about 200 – 250 yards long which is plenty but they have a fair bit of earthmoving equipment in there at the moment. The surface is no longer grass but completely covered in astro turf. Needless to say it did not take me long to get my driver out to see if I could hit the back net (I am not a great fan of driving ranges and my practice quickly digresses into a waste of time) but I must say it was good fun spending an hour hitting balls.

I have now realised that I will have to get to the course on Monday early enough to get to the driving range as the distance the balls were going seemed very different to those I hit in the UK.

Honk Kong - Po lin monastery.

On Saturday we headed in to town to catch a ferry over to Lantao Island to take a trip to see The Big Buddha. I suffer very badly with sea sickness so was not looking forward to the journey but was looking forward to seeing the big fulla.

I wish we had caught the fast boat and not the old slow one. Well my stomach does anyway.

There at last and were greeted by a sight(above) my father, the avid cyclist, would be delighted with.

It was now lunch time so we followed a recommendation we had heard for an Italian restaurant that also serves good Indian curries. The curry was good and hot.

We had decided to spend the extra it would cost to get to the monastery to travel by taxi rather than bus. We proceeded to the taxi rank only to see 8 people waiting and no taxis. I quickly pointed out to Nik a sign I had seen when getting off the boat 'Big Buddha taxi call ********'. I asked him to call and arrange for us to be picked up somewhere other than the rank because we would get the cab and not anybody else waiting. Nik being Nik ignored me with a scowl. Is it men or just my husband that hates asking for something? Anyway waiting in the heat and humidity with two tired children for five minutes was enough for Nik to go and find the sign I had seen and to run back towards me triumphantly whispering that a cab would be picking us up in 2 mins outside the McDonalds. I gave him a smug smile and said 'what a great idea'.

The girls both slept on the 30 min taxi ride while Nik and I enjoyed the beautiful and lush scenery.

The Buddha is certainly big and all those steps up to it look quite daunting when you see them at first. It was 33 degrees and sunny but Rhiannon managed to walk 3/4 of the way up and Nia walked the whole way. The climb was nowhere near as bad as it looked. If I can do it with only being a little out of breath then it can't be too bad.

We had a good look around and then headed home. Via the fast ferry this time. Much better!

Almost forgot, How could I?! Before going home we headed over to show Nik a golf shop the girls and I has spotted one day on one of our days of exploring. Boy would I regret that one. Nik was very pleased with our find. So much so that within 10 minutes of entering he had bought a new putter and booked a day of golf in China for a coming Saturday. This much activity and decisiveness would normally take at least 2, hour long visits back home.

All in all a good day was had by everyone.

On our way up to see the big fulla.

Thank goodness my girls are here to pull me up.

Maidens bearing gifts. A bit like Nik's return home from work. 

And back down to find some shade.

Little ladies. 

Hong Kong - Easy street.

Me again. Not much going on really. Hanging out and having fun in the pool has been the theme this week. I really am felling like I am living on easy street though.

Any laundry that I would prefer not to go in the dryer (because it is not that good and takes 4hrs to get things dry) I send to the laundry service that comes back clean and ironed. Lovely.

Every day two lovely ladies come to make the beds, tidy up a bit and hoover. The last bit is the kids favourite. Rhiannon especially loves riding on top of the machine while one of the ladies holds her and the other gets on with the vacuuming. They are really nice ladies.

Just to confirm my lady who lunches status I got to go and have my eyebrows shaped using a method called Threading today. It was fab and I am pleased with the results. It was I am not too shy to admit great to have some time alone. Seeing as I am on a roll I have booked a hair appointment too for Sunday afternoon. Those of you who know me well will know that this is a real treat for me. I can't wait. My lovely husband will have fun too getting into trouble with the girls no doubt.

We are off to Lantau Island this weekend and Macau next. Will keep you posted as to how we get on. Of course! I have nothing else to do right????

She is a great help!

Hong Kong - Weekend.

We, the Brunner girls, love the weekends because we get to spend it with Nik.

Our plan for this weekend was:

Saturday:

go to the Goldfish market, lunch, Ladies market for gifts and then home.

That is prettymuch what we did.

The girls enjoyed seeing all the different size and colured fish at the market.

Wow! Look at all these! Can't see Nemo or Doris though!

There was one slight complication to the plan though. Nik and Nia were inside one of the pet shops looking at some puppies and rabbits, I think while I waited outside with Rhiannon who was asleep in the buggy. It was around midday and the light suddenly faded. It looked like it was about 8 o'clock at night. Then the rain came. Oh my word did the rain come!

We decided it was a good time to have lunch. One problem! The nearest restaurant was on the other side of the road. Nik was a little apprehensive but with my childhood in Wales I am very certain skin does not rust so I shouted' lets do it' and across the road we went. This was not a wide street I would like to add but the rain was so heavy we looked like we had been swimming in our clothes by the time we got to the other side. This amused the waitresses in this little cafe no end. They hurried and fussed around us (only because we had the children of course) and within minutes of entering we were at a table with menus, tea and hot water on our table. I will come back to the hot water thing later.

They had kindly given a menu with some English translation so it was easy to find a few dishes we wanted to try.

Nik is not sweaty for once just wet.

soup

As you see in the photo Nia is certainly tucking in to the lunch and the food was great.

However, there is one thing that totally grossed me out. They bring you a free bowl of homemade chicken soup to eat while your order is being made. Yum I hear you say. What would you say if I told you there was a chicken foot in the bowl and in every other one I saw on the other tables too. That is not my idea of happy dining but when in Hong Kong and all that. This (my horror that is) however amused Nik no end. He had been roped in to eating chicken feet at a work lunch thing you see. He proceeded to put the foot into Nia's bowl and say to her 'do you want the chicken foot Nia?'
Her reply.....'Mmm, yes please Daddy' and she promptly picked it up and started chomping or should I say sucking on it.

Like father like daughter is all I could say while I turned my head to look away.

Refreshed and off to the Ladies market. I think we have mentioned this place once before. But boy is it amazing! They have everything you could imagine and all fake - watches, handbags, shoes...........

We did exchange some dollars for some items but just in case any of you are with the customs service I will not go into details.

Needless to say some family and friends will be pleased to see us on our return.

Oh yes Graeme. I got the items you requested. Nudge, nudge wink wink if you know what I mean.

After all that excitement it was time for more food.

We found a very busy Japanese fast food place. They had deep fried balls of mixed vegetables with squid in the middle. They were very tasty.

We walked back down Nathan Road avoiding golf shops the best I could and then home exhausted but happy.

Balls anyone?

Hong Kong - Sad News and some good

We have been glued to the news since we first heard about the bombings in London.

I personally was relieved that Nik was working in the 2IFC building in HK and not at 100 Liverpool St yesterday. It was awful to see the pictures and hear the reports from London but I realise it would have been a lot worse if I had been waiting for Nik to call or get a message to me that he was ok. My heart goes out to all that were there yesterday and the families that will be grieving right now for the loss of a family member.

As for life in Hong Kong. We are back in our first apartment now but alas the water heater in the kitchen worked for less than 24hrs after a so called total overhaul or replacement. I sense a bodge job was attempted and it has failed. I have decided not to bother telling the management team and will manage with boiling a kettle if we need hot water to wash dishes etc. I can not go through the farce of moving again only to be put in an apartment that is worse than this already dire one we are in.

We have had a bit more sun and a few more rain storms and are just getting on with life.

This leads me to the good news mentioned in the heading. I managed to find a babysitter for the evening. Nicole our Australian angel came over last night and stayed with the girls while they slept for Nik and I to go out. We had a nice dinner with no highchairs at the table. A real treat for us I can assure you. I only had to fight Nik off from stealing the food off my plate instead of the girls as well. Fantastic. We did however feel a little old when walking past a bar in Lan kwai fong we looked at each other and said 'boy that music is loud'. Who would have thought !

Hong Kong - It Ain't Half Hot Mum

Well the heat stayed turned up for the day again today. The rain has stayed away for several days now and the humidity was below 70%. But with the clear blue sky and the sun blasting everything it was a good day to stay in one building that I managed to do apart from going to catch the bus home. Catherine and the girls joined me for lunch and it was nice to have a break and see them during the day. The drama today was the water heater in the apartment blew out. When Catherine got home there was a peculiar smell in the apartment and soon after a team of 'engineers' was in the kitchen trying to fix the bloody thing. There was chiselling, blow torching, hammering and all kinds of noises but alas they could not fix the problem. When they tried to turn the water back on so we could at least shower it was leaking in the kitchen. So when I got home we were moved up to the 21st floor for at least one night. This was amusing as Nia and Rhiannon were both really tired and the man from the apartments I think was a little shocked at just how much noise and 18 month old strawberry blonde can make and of course when Rhiannon started there was no way Nia was going to be left out. The sooner we get out of the new apartment the better. The whole serviced apartment bit in the Royal Tower is a bit of a joke. Our apartment on the 20th floor has an original aroma to it but this one took the cake. The mix of Damp and stale smoke just does not do wonders for a family of non-smokers. As usual we will grin and bear it for the time being.

Hong Kong - Thats Better

VERY HOT WEATHER WARNING VERY HOT WEATHER WARNING
THE VERY HOT WEATHER WARNING HAS BEEN ISSUED BY THE HONG
KONG OBSERVATORY AT 2:05 P.M.

THE HONG KONG OBSERVATORY IS FORECASTING VERY HOT WEATHER
IN HONG KONG TODAY. THE RISK OF HEATSTROKE IS HIGH.

WHEN ENGAGED IN OUTDOOR WORK OR ACTIVITIES, DO DRINK PLENTY
OF WATER AND AVOID OVER EXERTION. IF NOT FEELING WELL, TAKE
A REST IN THE SHADE OR COOLER PLACE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

THE HONG KONG OBSERVATORY ADVISES THAT PROLONGED EXPOSURE
UNDER SUNLIGHT IS TO BE AVOIDED. LOOSE CLOTHING, SUITABLE
HATS AND UV-ABSORBING SUNGLASSES CAN REDUCE THE CHANCE OF
SUNBURN BY SOLAR ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION.

SWIMMERS AND THOSE TAKING PART IN OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES SHOULD
USE A SUNSCREEN LOTION OF SPF 15 OR ABOVE, AND SHOULD
RE-APPLY IT FREQUENTLY.

DISPATCHED BY HONG KONG OBSERVATORY AT 14:06 HKT ON 04.07.2005

Hong Kong - Perfect Weather

We got up on Sunday morning and decided that we would do the Dim Sum at City Hall for lunch. We aimed to be there for 11:30 to try and avoid waiting time and if there was we would not be in a huge panic to eat anyway. I had been there with work on Thursday so I knew that once you are seated it does not take long for the table to get loaded with food.

We had to wait about 25 minutes and sure enough once we sat down it took less than a minute for the first 2 or 3 dishes to be on our table. We ended up with loads of different things to try and god knows what some of them were but most of them tasted great. Nia surprisingly really loved the Squid and the Pak Choi. It was quite an experience and the idea of the women pushing the trolleys laden with food around and you just look at what they have and say yes or no is fantastic. It really means you try things you might normally miss. We left the Chicken feet out this time though as I had tried them on Thursday. They tasted fine but I never really got passed the Feet bit.

After lunch we walked down to Pacific Place had a look around the shops and then headed home. The heat today was just a little too much as the clouds were gone and the sun was really blasting.

Once we got home we got ready for the pool and got straight into it. It really felt like we were back on holiday. The sun was shining and their was just that holiday feel to the whole place this afternoon. The girls loved it and we were down there for a good 2 hours before retreating out of the sunshine again to have a quiet evening in.

Hong Kong - The Lions Fall

Saturday morning we headed to Kennedy Town to check out the possibility of a new apartment in a slightly more friendly location. It looked great and the apartment was much lighter and the air conditioning was better and all round facilities seemed much better than where we currently are. The view from the apartment was fantastic out across the water and now we hope we can make the move. It would make a huge difference being on flat ground instead of perched up on a hill.

Once we had had a good look around we got on the street tram to get back to Central. We thought we might try Maxims at City Hall for some Dim Sum before going to watch the rugby. When we got to City hall there was a 45 minute waiting time so we decided to look elsewhere. We headed up the Mid Levels escalator and when we saw Dublin Jacks pub we decided to head in there for an Irish Lunch and see if we could secure a good seat to watch the game.

Lunch was good, it was nice to have something that we know from home and we managed to secure a prime position to watch the game. The place filled up in the last 30mins before the game started and we were so glad we had our little booth to watch it from. The girls behaved really well although they were subjected to being in the pub for several hours they enjoyed themselves….I think. As for the game I will just say that I was happy and Catherine was less so. Although she is well pleased that a Welshman scored that first try.

After the game we headed to the Wan Chai computer centre again to look for a Mini iPod that we have been toying with buying. However after a few glasses of “the black stuff” and the game we had a short look around and decided it was a little dangerous to be in the place for too long. It really is the kind of place where you could blow any budget you had in seconds if you like your gadgets.

So it was off home for the evening which ended up being a good choice.

Who cares what the score is. I told you from the start "the All Blacks will walk it!"

Tram Ride

Hong Kong - Handover Day

It’s been a while since I posted something here. Luckily Catherine has kept up the posting and kept you up to date.

Friday was a holiday and although we had tried to book to go to a few different places we had left it a little too late and there was either no spaces left or it was extremely over priced. We ended up deciding to stay around the locality and tick a few more boxes on the must do things around Hong Kong.

On Thursday we decided to go to Stanley Market on the other side of Hong Kong Island. We got up had breakfast and took a taxi down to the bus terminal. We caught the bus and were lucky enough to get seats on the top level right at the front. The ride was about 40 minutes and took us up and over the island. It was amazing to see that all the way to the top of the mountain there were huge tower blocks built.

Once we started heading down towards Stanley on the other side it was amazing to see the beaches and scenery change. It really felt like we were on a completely different island all together. We got down to Stanley got off the bus and proceeded to the market.

The market was similar to what I was expecting. There was a lot of people and tons of market stalls a lot of which were selling the same line of products. We spent some dollars on the obligatory local souvenirs such as chop sticks and silk pyjamas.

We went for lunch on the recommendation of a friend to a pace called the Boat House. It was just across the road from the beach and we ate in the restaurant on the first floor and the view across to the water was nearly as good as the food was.

We got a Taxi back home for about £7 and spent the rest of the day just hanging around home.

New Jim Jams

Pretty Dress

The Seafood is Fantastic

More Laughing at Lunch

Laughing at Lunch