Camping at Long Ke beach, Sai Kung

Hong Kong has one of the highest numbers of public holidays per year, so when one came around recently, some friends and I went camping overnight, to what is reputed to be Hong Kong's most beautiful beach, Long Ke, in Sai Kung.

We live right over on the western side of Kowloon, so we had a 3 hour journey by MTR (underground) and minibus to get to Sai Kung country park (eastern territories).

So we jumped on the public minibus, filling it up entirely...




...and got to Sai Kung Village (way out in the middle of nowhere), where we found Nemo and some of his friends.



Another public minibus and a taxi later and we got to our destination, Long Ke beach...




We set up camp right next to the beach...



... and where Neville found a dead tree, climbed up it and started to collect wood for...



...the fire, which the kids loved (especially the marshmallows and pop corn!).



I think they also had rather a lot of fun playing around in a pool!



The next day we climbed up the hill ...



...to check out the views of the reservoir.



Looking in the other direction, we saw Sharp Peak (tallest mountain on the left in the photo below) and the beach where Steve camped a couple of years earlier. The faint land mass on the right, just below the clouds, is actually in China!



It was a rather hot day so we stopped off to cool down...



but the kids had other ideas...



...which involved getting very wet!



But at least in Hong Kong you can dry off very quickly!

Hong Kong's 10th Anniversary of the Handover

In the first of a series of features, the BBC's Samanthi Dissanayake looks at how Hong Kong has changed, 10 years after it was handed back to China by the British.

full story...

Happy Anniversary Hong Kong!

Update:
I went to watch the fireworks celebration down at the water front. Here's a couple of pics from Nathan Road...



Little girl sitting on a police bike. I think she's a little to young to ride!



Crowds on Nathan Road...this was about half a mile from the water front.

Shawn the Sheep

Katey just me about Shawn the Sheep videos...and look... Aardman let you post videos on your blogs... so rather than waste space talking about it... take a look at this...!

Gaming Galoore

To post or not to post... it was very easy not to break with tradition and not post again...especially with a photo like this that I'm sure I'll regret putting up...

But in honour of the man called Paulo, that great mine-placer, the opitomy of XP...we held a gaming night with a 'different feel'.

I should probably step back and explain what it is we're talking about. "Wolf ET" - a computer game that we occasionally get together to play involves various campaigns and missions for soliders (little computer animation thingos) to engage in.... one side attacks...the other defends...you get the picture.

Now we've got together in the past to play and its a great excuse for getting the "lad's" together for food, fun and banter. But this time we decided to "up" it a little and surprise paulo by blending reality with gaming fiction by donning some khakis and borrowing some replica weapons. Was a lot of fun!

Silence!

Well, following my previous blog entry I thought the "Silent Programmer" name was rather appropriate... notice the change in the title above.

Again, its been sometime since my last post, but this time there is a proper excuse...



But it came off today and to celebrate my 'one (hand) becoming two again" freedom, I have decided to blog in honour of that.

Time to change a name

It has been suggested that the sub-title of my blog is slightly mis-leading...

"if you could suck my life into the internet it would look like this..."

I've been hearing certain groanings that I don't blog enough and therefore, according to this text, my life would be pretty dull... i.e. no blog posts therefore my life looks like .

But that does tend to exclude a primary factor in this case...laziness...yes, I've just been too lazy (substitute for 'busy ') to blog anything...shocking I know, but I'm gonna try again to change that.

So in order to avoid any embarrassment on my part, especially quips about being dull and boring, I'm inviting some new suggestions for this blog title. Can anyone suggest a better name? Seriously!

Lightning Strikes!

Ever wondered what happens when lightning strikes your car?

Will it still work?

Do the tyres melt?

Does the airbag fry?

Does the petrol tank explode?

Top Gear, that great car review show in the UK, have started posting mini reviews on YouTube. And of course, they just had to find out the answer! Take a look for yourself, its an awesome experiment. Was pretty impressed the car still worked fine afterwards!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve6XGKZxYxA

And if you thought that 20-year males were the stereotype most prone to pulling donuts in their a small convertibles, then think again! These 80 year old grannies showed them a thing or two!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAVCcHFam7Q

Hong Kong's first budget long haul airline

Hong Kong's first budget airline, Oasis, has finally got off the ground with an inaugural flight to London.

I'm quite excited about this as it means I'll be able to get to and from London for a lot cheaper than normal - a seriously big bonus when you work as a volunteer!

Wikipedia entry

Hong Kong's first budget long haul airline

Hong Kong's first budget airline, Oasis, has finally got off the ground with an inaugural flight to London.

I'm quite excited about this as it means I'll be able to get to and from London for a lot cheaper than normal - a seriously big bonus when you work as a volunteer!

Wikipedia entry

New York City Children

A friend of mine recently sent me this short 3 min video about a project to photograph a child from every country - but they are all living in New York.

Those of you that know me, know that I love anything multi-cultural, crossing borders and boundaries, bringing people from many nations together. So I love the motivation behind this project:

"The mission of New York City Children is to gather and nuture an inclusive community of children and create opportunities for them to meet and learn about each other and form friendships"

You'll also probably know that I really enjoy portait photography. I love taking shots of friends that reveal just one or two aspects of their character... and there's some really neat about the characters of the children captured in this sequence.

I'm not sure how many nations he's covered yet, I couldn't find a website apart from www.goodmagazine.com (which produced the short documentary) but it has no search feature! If anyone finds it, please let me know :o)

Links

• video
• www.goodmagazine.com