I have been in Hong Kong for roughly 15 years and I am ashamed to say that I discovered its true beauty only recently. Hong Kong is renowned for it’s skyline of skyscrapers. But if you really want to see it you need to tie your sneakers, put your sun hat on, pack lots of water, and head for one of its fabulous country parks.

Since we came back from Dubai, we live right at the edge of one, and I am truly thankful that destiny put us here. Right from my doorstep I can head up the mountain, and see subtropical wilderness. It bowls me over every time.

Little man is less smitten. Hiking 45 degrees up a mountain, sweating a lot, and only with your mother as company …

The first time it’s fun, because you bathe in a rock pool. The second time is fun, because you see a cobra. The third time is fun for your mummy because lots of shrubs are in bloom. The fourth time you run into half a dozen spider webs, and mosquitoes are out in force. The fifth time takes most of the day and is much too long. The sixth time you go on strike.

So I was more than happy when I discovered a web site that told of World War II tunnels the British had built to defend their Hong Kong colony from the invading Japanese. I knew right away that this would get little man to head out with me without any complaints, and that it would be fun for us both. A wonderful adventure.

We put our hats on, loaded up on water and snacks, calibrated mum’s gps system on a parking lot near Shing Mun reservoir, and took the 12 year old Volvo for a ride. You can get there with public transport too… aah, the beauty of Hong Kong.

When we arrived, we discovered that Shing Mun country park is a much more frequented area than the country park near us. Lots of people were hauling barbeque supplies along the road to get ready for a day of family fun, and there was some sort of hiking race going on. But I bet it’s deserted on a weekday.

We went along the Maclehose trail past barbecue areas, and although I had packed a map, and read all sorts of websites, I was worried that we would miss the entrance to the tunnels.

In the end it was very easy to find them, because there are warning signs on the path below, discouraging you from entering them :).

Little man and I left the hiking path and scrambled up a hill, despite a group of hikers behind us mumbling “The sign clearly says it’s dangerous”. Little man was on fire and the kid in me was too.

We scrambled up the hill and were met by a giant electricity pylon, concrete tunnels exposed by erosion, and a large group of people with a guide ready to dive into World War II adventure.

It was hard to stop little man from diving head first into the ventilation chimney, but I convinced him to follow the group of hikers before us to a more accessible entrance.

When mama finally found the two flashlights she had in her backpack, the other people were gone and the adventure was ours alone.

The tunnels at Shing Mun are part of the “Gin Drinker’s Line” (gosh, I love the Britsh even if I am German myself), a defense line across the Kowloon peninsula that was designed to hold up the Japanese from conquering Hong Kong.

In the end, it didn’t do much to hold up the Japanese, because it wasn’t manned by enough British soldiers, but if you scramble along the tunnels today, you can certainly see why they choose this line. At the outlooks, it has very good views of the lands below.

I think we walked all the tunnels that are still accessible. All of them are quite low because of silt that was washed into them, which gave me back pain but was no problem for short little man. At no point I felt that it was a dangerous adventure, although I would not do it after heavy rains.

I am very happy that something like this still exists in Hong Kong. When you are here, please check it out, I guarantee it will be a fun day out.

The Majestic Plastic Bag from Heal the Bay on Vimeo.

Unfortunately, on my side of the Pacific Ocean people behave just the same, if not worse. A few weeks ago, I discovered the most beautiful beach inside a protected country park. It looked like paradise from the trail above. Then I went down to the coast line and there was plastic trash everywhere. On the beach, in the bushes behind it, hanging from trees. Plastic bottles, styrofoam lunch boxes, toys, bags, and lots of shoes. All dumped into the sea one way or the other and then spit out again by wind and waves.

One of the commentators on youtube asked why the Pacific garbage patch can’t be seen from satellites. I read because the plastic is not necessarily swimming on the surface, but just below it. If you go swimming on one of Hong Kong beaches it’s just the same. It looks ok from the shore, but then you head out, and garbage bags touch your legs and wind themselves around your arms.

The big beaches here are cleaned everyday, but the cleaners find it hard to pick up tiny pieces of plastic and styrofoam. So there is this constant colorful line of miniscule plastic bits on the beach that marks high tide.

A year ago, I wrote an email to the biggest supermarket in Hong Kong commending them on the introduction of a HK$ 0.50 fee for plastic bags at the checkout, but also asking them to get rid of the excessive plastic trays and cling wrap they use for fruits and vegetables. Why does a single fruit need to be put on a plastic tray and wrapped in cling wrap?

I got a call back from them, and I got the feeling that the girl did not like her job, although I was very friendly. She told me that she would send my email further up the command line. Don’t think that I had ever any hopes. Writing emails has as much impact as cleaning beaches.

I have decided to buy more of my veggies and fruit in wet markets, where the produce is not disguised in cling wrap and where I can bring my own bags. I have also decided to leave excessive plastic wrappings right where I bought it, in the bins behind the checkout counters.

And I feel pretty helpless to be honest, and a bit angry, like that teacup yorkshire.

I now need to step onto a garden chair to pick the fruits, which makes them all the more sweeter.

Papaya trees can have one of three sexes: male, female, or hermaphrodite. It’s the last one you want if you have a tiny garden like me, because hermaprodite trees grow flowers that can pollinate themselves. Female trees need a male nearby and lots of insects to pollinate their flowers to bear fruit, male trees can’t bear fruits at all.

By sheer luck this tree is self-pollinating. There was also a male one in a shady area that I chopped down and put into the compost… sorry mate.

I pick the fruit when it turns slightly yellow with still green spots mixed in and then let it ripen in my kitchen fruit bowl. The seeds are also edible and have a sharp mustardy/ wasabi flavor. I just pop them into my mouth as I peel and slice the papaya, but I have also seen recipes that use them for salad dressing.

Papaya has protein digestive enzymes, especially prevalent in unripe fruit. So that Thai special, the papaya salad, which uses green papaya is especially good as an appetizer to a big steak. I have also seen a chef on TV, who wrapped beef in papaya leaves for a few days to make it especially tender. I have yet to try that. I can’t bear to tear down the big leaves of our tree. They look so beautiful and sculptural at the end of their upturned stalks.

The birds love the tree as well. They land on the long leaf stalks and chirp loudly, probably to warn their friends of the white lion lounging below.

To make my mistake even worse I stayed at a truly terrible business hotel in Osaka, which is close to Kyoto. If you are a road warrior you know what kind of hotel I am talking about: expensive, closet-sized room, musty bathroom, smelly (stale cigarette smoke with something more awful mixed in, and the whole night you wonder what it was that died under your bed), air-conditioning either too hot or too cold, and (help!) the window can’t be opened. After that you swear to yourself that you will never, never book your hotel room at the last minute.

I don’t want you to put off to visit Japan after reading the above. Normally, hotel rooms in Japan’s urban areas are tiny but spotlessly clean, and have free internet access (woohoo!).

Where was I? Japanese gardens. They are beautiful.

I have a coffee table book with beautiful drawings and pictures, which I recommend to any Japanese garden fan: Japanese Garden Design by Marc P. Keane. I think Japanese gardens appeal to the average European because they encompass design features that seem familiar to us. They are fenced in (that archtypical paradise garden), surprising after you round the next corner, abstract, and highly symbolic. Yet in other ways they are so different to what we know, and therefore exciting.

I didn’t go to Kyoto this time, but I stopped at every public garden we came across, and sucked in on all the details of road-side private gardens we went by.

A friend of mine likened Japan to the Galapagos Islands. A seed or animal flies in and adapts to its new environment, changes, and becomes something truly unique.  The beauty of Japan is that it embraces outside influences,but every new impetus gets adapted to something truly Japanese. I think that is one of the reasons what makes Japan so interesting to visit. You recognize so many things, but see them in a completely new way.

Japanese garden design has strong Chinese influences, yet I bet you would instantly know how to tell apart a Japanese garden from a Chinese garden. A Chinese garden repaints an epic landscape in a highly artificial way, a Japanese garden distills the essence of it and does so seemingly effortless. Ok, that’s the ignorant Western short version, but you are free to dig deeper.

That’s the theory. Then you go to Japan and notice that space for gardens is limited. You walk through Tokyo. Skyscrapers, pavement, smelly cars, and endless sprawl with these gray apartment buildings. You stay in a hotel near Shinjuku Station, and discover the beauty of having your own, tiny, private space. And it has a bath tub. Japanese need bath tubs. As a Westerner (me at least) you are ok with a working shower. After I went on a pan-European business trip with a Japanese colleague I knew that a bath tub is essential for surviving, otherwise you will hear about it all through dinner.

But even in noisy, packed, central Tokyo, you round a corner and suddenly there is silence. It’s a quiet street. There are two storey homes right  next to the high-rises. They have a tiny parking space (don’t ask me how they rear-park-oh no!-bang-park-their-car) and a highly clipped pine tree.

The average American home has one-millimeter lawn, the Japanese house has a tightly clipped pine tree or two, and Germans have their garden dwarfs.

The charming feature about Japanese cities are tiny plots in the middle of town with detached private homes. It makes these cities human. Other nice features are carefully clipped hedges in between skyscrapers. It’s built up in a higglety pigglety kind of way, which makes it kind of cute, like Japanese cartoon characters and cars. You know what I mean when you visit.

Normally when I am a tourist I walk a lot, this time I had a Toyota Prius. This has nothing to do with Japanese gardens,  but why anyone would buy a Toyota Prius beats the :peeeeep: out of me. Ok, you save bucks at the gas station. It’s supposedly ecologically friendly, but if you look into what the hybrid battery is made off you know that’s not true. And then when you drive one, you know that any old Volkswagen is much better than this. For starters, they put the “hand” brake next to the gas petal down below, and when you  try to find it with your foot you snap apart some loose fitted plastic thingy (black) and something more complicated looking ( white, possibly from the air-conditioning outlet). The visibility back into your rear-view window is minimal. The overall feeling is that of driving a U-boat . Driving through a city at minimal speed is OK, but when you try to get to Hiroshima from Kagoshima on the Expressway or drive along these beautiful curving roads on Kyushu, you notice that the Toyota Prius’ handling is truly awful. It’s similar to steering a cruise ship down a mountain creek.

Have you ever stopped at a gas station in Japan at 1.30am? You will be greeted by a gas station employee with a deep bow. He looks like he is about 75 years old, and you have the urge to serve him not the other way around. He bows again and shouts a lot in Japanese that you don’t understand. You keep thinking that your generation is no good at all. There is this feisty silver-haired man filling your car’s gas tank in the middle of the night while you are thinking about a nice soft bed. It’s all going down hill from now on for sure.

Back to Japanese Gardens.

So first things first: the 5 hour stopover in Shanghai.

We took the Maglev train into the city, courtesy of the German taxpayer. In Germany this train generated too much protest (too expensive, too much noise for the people living nearby, too much of everything). In Shanghai it was built, because no one living nearby was asked and a good chunk of the cost was paid by German tax payers. So you can travel from and to the airport at a maximum speed of 430 km/h (267 mph), as clearly seen on the display above the doorway.

It was all a blur to me. You don’t need to travel at 430 km/h into downtown Shanghai, you can take the subway at much lower cost, but it won’t be as exciting for your speed obsessed 8 year-old son.

The end of the Maglev train is not in the city center, and you have to either take the subway or a taxi to get to the prime postcard spot of Shanghai, the Bund. Which may explain why the Maglev was very empty.

Friends told me that Shanghai is a mega-metropolis with just one beauty spot, the Bund.

And beautiful it is. As a nostalgic European you could fret about all that was destroyed in Shanghai since it was the gateway to the East in the 1920s, but let me tell you, the line-up of pre-war buildings at the Bund is truly breathtaking and more historic architecture than you will find in entire Hong Kong. Considering that they are basically colonial buildings and – although beautiful – represent a very sore spot in China’s history, I find it truly amazing that the Bund survived through the cultural revolution and the recent spout of destroy-and-build-higher frenzy.

The promenade in front of the Bund was full of tourists, whereas the new business district Pudong on the opposite of the river was full of cars stuck in a traffic jam among the new skyscrapers.

If I have the chance to visit Shanghai again, I will stay on the old side of the river and explore all the little streets behind the Bund.

Well, the arugula has been eaten by a dozen caterpillars a few months ago. They looked beautiful, grass green with bright yellow stripes on their back. When I discovered them it was much too late. A woman from the local gardening society told me that they would turn into beautiful butterflies. Little bastards!

They also ate the Kailan (Chinese greens). The Japanese cucumber and string beans climbed up the bamboo sticks and look pretty, but there is not a single pickle nor bean in sight.

The surprising winners are the cocktail tomatoes and carrots from seeds I bought in Germany. Thirty juicy and sweet tomatoes and a dozen small but very orange carrots. I also put supermarket ginger into the ground and it sprouted. However the lemon grass, which was such a success in Dubai, withered and died.

I knew it would happen. Gardening is about learning and sticking with the winners. It takes time and experience. Next year my compost will be ready and I will dig it into the very clayie veggie bed. Every morning I will search for caterpillars. I will construct a raised bed, because tropical downpours will turn level veggie beds into ponds (with tiny cute frogs). And I will plant German carrots and tomatoes and maybe have a second go at Japanese cucumbers.

While the caterpillars munch the rest of my veggies, I watch a BBC series Around the world in 80 gardens. It’s enlightening. Gardening is like religion, so different around the world, but the concept is the same, we all like it and it makes us happy, in a weird BDSM kind of way.

I have been fifteen years in Hong Kong, but having this little garden around the house has been such a pleasure and new discovery. The veggie garden is a work in progress, but the rest, the so-called weeds, the plants that just sprout up after each rain, they are so pretty. The ones I like, I transplant to prime spots where they will strive and grow.

Whereas gardening in Dubai was about watering thrice a day, gardening in Hong Kong is about cutting down plants you don’t like at least once a month. I feel like Tarzan in a jungle with a machete… ok, huge -made in Germany- garden scissors. I also spray myself with “Deep Woods” mosquito repellent. It lasts for about 15 minutes until a colony of these little devils break out in laughter and descent on me.

And then they are the palm-sized spiders, and the creepy crawlies in the compost pile, and at least three geckos inside the house. I was raised by a mum who threw the spiders from the ceilings under our bath tub to eat the silver fish. Nature is about balance, and we are a part of it.

Little man and I observed our bedroom gecko tonight. George the Slow climbed up the wall, ambled past the curtains, and then stumbled behind the TV. The insect population in our bedroom will be kept at a minimum, my task in the equilibrium will be to wipe the gecko shit away.

Tomorrow little man and I will leave for Berlin where we will take care of my Dad’s garden. He is in hospital and half of his right foot is amputated, but in spite of this, and because of this, his tiny allotment garden is Eden and I will help my mum to take care of it. I am so ready for the pleasure of a temperate garden in summer. A bit of grass cutting and watering, how hard can it be?

Lots of other people had the same idea. The sidewalks were  crammed with people buying late Chinese New Year flowers.

I however was after this…

To put in here…

Last week I removed a lot of weeds, bougainvillea roots, and a lot of…

Now I have  so many seeds that I better prepare the neighboring bed as well…

Other girls buy handbags, I buy plants. Although I was strictly on a seed buying mission, I couldn’t resist buying this strange creature…

It’s a staghorn fern that in the wild takes it’s nutrients from the bark of trees (in the back are pomelos). So I plan to put the fern up there…

Next to the flower market is the bird market. It’s housed in a very nice building surrounded by a traditional Chinese garden. I loved looking at the  Chinese wooden cages, at all the colorful birds, and little man and I squeaked with delighted horror as we discovered the stall selling live grasshoppers. Some stalls however take hygiene a bit too lightly… it smelled, bird poo was mounting in the cages, and I had the urge to open them.

Please excuse the wobbles, I took the video with my phone.

Birds and grasshoppers were not the last fauna we encountered yesterday. When we came home, I noticed a very strong smell in the garden, then we heard some rustling and cracking up the hill behind our house. Urghh… burglars?

No, it was Elsie, having a late night snack. This morning I caught her on camera munching in our neighbor’s garden with long-neck birdie waiting for insects attracted by her not-so-Parisian smell. Elsie is a wild buffalo that roams through countryside and gardens with her mates. Later I saw three of her friends holding up traffic on the main village road. Yep, I live in the boonies, but the skyscrapers are only half an hour away.

This is a Thanksgiving post from a professed atheist, though I know that God loves me nevertheless :).

I was craving for food that I grew up with. I am quite adventurous with new foods. I eat what smells good, and that is 99% of the food I have encountered. The big exception is Durian, but one day I will be brave enough to try it too. It smells of dogsh*t, but people tell me it’s as good as custard. Maybe, one day, I will try it.

I was dreaming of calf’s liver. In Berlin, it is dusted in flour and seared shortly on each side, and served with fried apples and onions on top and mashed potatoes. My mum makes yummy calf’s liver.

Some people get grossed out at animal innards, frankly I don’t get it. If you eat a steak (which necessitates to kill an animal), you should also be able to eat its innards, especially if they are as tasty as liver. Isn’t it more humane to eat as most as possible from an animal, you kill for food?

I know people who eat goose liver (expensive, French, you need to force feed geese to get it) but turn their noses up at liverwurst (cheap, German, you only need to quickly kill the pig). I eat both of them.

Where am I heading? Gosh, I don’t know, but the oxtail stew (the very end of a cow) cooking away on my stove smells lovely. I can’t get calf’s liver in my neighborhood supermarket, but fortunately they have oxtail, and chicken with the heads still on, and other animals that we eat but sometimes don’t want to know we eat.

One thing I admire about Asian Food, and there is lots more that I admire, is that they are still aware where the meat comes from. In western-style supermarkets, more often than not, every reference to the animal is removed. Clean cut steaks, minced beef and pork, cutlets, chicken breasts. We have that here too, but you can also get chicken feet, whole chicken with their heads on, and fish that is taken out of the tank and killed for you. Sounds gross? It’s the reality. If you don’t like it, become vegetarian.

I eat meat as a treat. I use meat to flavor, not to get full. I remember the pigeons, rabbits, chicken, and pig at my grandmother’s neighbor’s house. We ate them, they tasted lovely, they were prepared with care, they were prepared as a rare feast.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It takes about 45 minutes to watch all 5 parts, but if you have a bit of time now or later, I promise you it’s worth it.

Part 1: The body builder restaurateurs and the angry hawker granny

Part 2: Handmade noodles, a ball-crushing art
Part 3: Bliss in a North Point food court “I am so happy here”
Part 4: Spicy typhoon shelter crab
Part 5: Fighting for Dim Sum

See the big, white swirl between Hainan (first Chinese island east of the Vietnamese coast) and Taiwan? That’s typhoon Fenshen, which already wrecked havoc in the Philippines.

It’s heading to Hong Kong (located midway between Hainan and Taiwan, at the Pearl River Estuary, where the red line meets the sea, just a touch north of the big, white swirl). The early morning hours are going to be interesting.

Pssst, don’t tell anyone, but I love typhoons.

The air is already fresh and clean. A strong breeze is going through our flat, a welcome relieve from the humid heat we had during the day. The night skyline of Hong Kong is in front of our windows, so clear that it seems possible to grab the skyscrapers with our hands.

Thankfully the winds are not as strong anymore as when Fengshen hit the Philippines, but the bedroom window just closed shut with a bang. I better tighten the hatches.

Don’t tell anyone, but when little man has fallen asleep I will go onto the balcony and stay there until even I get scared. Last time, I only went inside when the plastic chair of one of my neighbors was flying by.

PS: Update at 23.45 from the HK Observatory…

“Tropical Cyclone Bulletin

Here is the latest Tropical Cyclone Bulletin issued by the Hong Kong Observatory.

The No. 8 Northeast Gale or Storm Signal is in force.

This means that winds with mean speeds of 63 kilometres per hour or more are expected from the northeast quarter.

At midnight, Severe Tropical Storm Fengshen was centred about 80 kilometres southeast of Hong Kong Observatory (near 21.7 degrees north 114.6 degrees east) and is forecast to move north or north-northwest at about 14 kilometres per hour in the general direction of the Pearl River Estuary.

According to the present forecast track, Fengshen will be closest to Hong Kong in the morning, its centre might even cross the territory of Hong Kong.

In the past hour, the maximum sustained winds recorded at Cheung Chau and Sai Kung were 44 and 47 kilometres per hour with maximum gusts 62 and 69 kilometres per hour respectively.

(Precautionary Announcements with No. 8 Signal)

1. Complete all precautions in your home. Lock all windows and doors, fit bars into position and insert reinforced shutters and gates if they are available. Adhesive tape fixed to large window-panes in exposed positions will reduce damage by broken glass. Strom water drains should be cleared of leaves and rubbish.

2. Do not stand near windows on the exposed side of your home. Move all furniture and valuables away from these areas. Make sure you have a safe place to shelter, should windows be broken.

3. Since seas are rough, you are advised to stay away from the shoreline and not to engage in water sports.

4. Flights at Hong Kong International Airport may be affected by the weather. Please contact your airline for the latest flight information before departing for the airport.

5. Owners of neon signs are reminded that they should now arrange for the electricity supply to their signs to be cut off.

6. Please listen to your radio or watch your TV for the latest weather information broadcast at the 15th, 30th, 45th and 58th minute of each hour. You can also browse the Hong Kong Observatory’s web site for the information.”

It’s lovely and calm on my balcony, and I wonder if this was a fluke to begin with or if I am in the eye of the storm.