Lovely Shek-O

We finally took a little RnR in Shek O, Hong Kong. We had been tryin to make it to the other side of the planet, for a while, but between pregnancy and INS it took a little longer than expected. We stayed with Matthieu, Mareille, and Iluka; Milan was hired to help to childproof their new apt.

Incidentally, the New York - Hong Kong nonstop is the longest commercially available nonstop flight in the world. Milan was a star (as were about five other babies taking the flight, one of was about nine months and had just been adopted taking her big flight to her new home). None of them were screaming, even when the captain flew through all the turbulence available in China and over Long Island Sound. For Milan, he just loves attention and so when he saw that we were going to hold on to him and read magazines for an extended period of time, he got along quite well with the idea. He also liked some Chris Rock cartoon about the inside of Bill Murray's body. Evee really liked a movie about a wealthy brittish girl who grew up in india but is held at an orphanage in England when her Father disappears in WWII, where they try and get her to give up all of her fantasys. with a great imagination whos father is gone during the war

Shek O is a little one road one store two beach village set on a peninsula on the far side of Hong Kong Island. Each morning when Milan woke us up to early Evee or I would walk over to the beach and set him free to crawl around and leave his turtle like tracks up and down the sand. There were about ten villagers who spend all day picking up moop (material out of place) and raking the beach flat. The water was perfect, a bit cool and refreshing as you go in but warm and soothing to play in, like a pool in Connecticut in mid June. Of course the water only gets warmer so by mid june the water in ShekO is probably approaching warm shower temperature.

In China the aesthetic is basically anti natural, and so if they decide to fix up a park, it means that they cut down any trees or nature, and cover the area with tile. In the age of SARS and Avian Flu anything that isn't totally white is basically dirty and unhealthy.

Children are very highly regarded and every time we walked out the door Chinese people were talking to Milan over our shoulders or offering to play with him while we ate our food at the restaraunt.

Privacy is very different because the people live all on top of one another. As you walk down the alley to get to the apartment you have people sitting down to dinner or practicing piano or playing majong or collecting wires, or whatever people feel like doing in living rooms and entryways five feet to the left and the right of you.

Hong Kong is very tropical, the island is basically a few mountains covered in jungle with cities and villages tucked in the nooks around them. There are more skyscrapers than any other city in the world a lot of fantastic architecture and overall breathtaking skylines juxtaposed against lush mountainsides time and time again. Unfortunately, Hong Kong has terrible smog, blowing down from mainland china, which leaves the view restricted to the nearest mile or so until the lights come on at night.

Anyway, with some resting, hiking, surfing, swimming, ladies nights outs, karaoki, barbequeing,brunching, sightseeing, shopping, theater, sandcastlebuilding, babysitting, charades, and general carousing behind us...here are a few pictoral breadcrumbs.

If you'd rather see these images as a slide show you can go here.
http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2092976756.

Posted by Kirk at April 24, 2007 09:30 PM