EcoLog06 - From Winter we Spring

My last update on a ‘green’ life in Hong Kong was written in early February just when it was starting to get a little cool in Hong Kong. Actually it was bloody cold! Little did we know that most of February was to herald the coldest and longest winter in Hong Kong for about 20 years!! As you can imagine our little house at the top of the valley is not built for the cold (or the hot weather for that matter). We spent most of February huddled over a heater, wearing ski jackets and practically all the warm clothes that we’d brought to Hong Kong (which we never thought we would need). We were actually very lucky to have a heater as the cold snap caught many by surprise and all of the shops in HK had sold out of all the heaters that they had ordered for the whole season in a matter of days.

On some days the top temperature was 10°C …and that was inside our house. We needed to stop the gales blowing in through the cracks in the windows so you guessed it we had to rely on a little Kiwi ingenuity. .This amounted to buying a roll of bubble wrap and covering all of the windows and/or stuffing the gaps with newspaper to increase the warmth factor. I’m sure this approach did make some difference but it really was hard to tell some days.

Needless to say during this cold snap we still did not have a hot water system installed for a shower. As you can imagine this resulted in a few tears of frustration and stamping of feet from Louise, who was beginning to wonder why the hell we had left our lovely home on the hill in Wellington with all its mod cons. Thankfully I can now report that we do indeed have a hot shower in our little abode. With the help of a friend who spoke Cantonese we managed to enlist the services of a local electrician/plumber. Up the valley he cycled initially to install the electrical wiring. A few Cantonese phone calls to and fro and we established that he could also install the plumbing. So Sunday 2 March became a very auspicious day indeed! Voila….we now had a shower… There was one heart stopping moment a few weeks after installation when the water pressure (such that it is) dwindled to nothing. More tears from Louise! Being a good keen Kiwi man I managed to find the source of the problem (this being an air bubble in the pipe from the water supply) and soon all was good again. So for all of you, our friends and family who have been waiting for this modern convenience before you came to stay, I can now report that there is no excuse anymore. Oh course the 30 minute walk up the valley may still faze some of you but just think of the exercise value.

Now that there is a shower in the bathroom, Louise was of course on a mission to ‘decorate’ said bathroom. Actually ‘decorate’ seems a little far fetched. What she was actually trying to do was ‘create’ a bathroom. Off she went on many a reconnaissance mission to source the relevant accessories. The result is not the most stylish bathroom in the world but pretty good under the circumstances. She managed to source a shower caddy, trolley, wooden hooks, shelf, toilet roll holder and a mirror and two rather cool bamboo floor mats, which prevent one from getting ones wet feet as you walk ‘through’ the shower to get to the toilet. The mats were found in the Causeway Bay big GOD store…yes ‘Goods of Desire’ a great place to go if you want to add a touch of flair to…well any room in the house actually!

Actually the addition of a shower caddy suspended off the wall was a bonus in other ways! Prior to installation we had been having some problems with a visiting soap eating rodent. We thought that we had sufficiently covered all of the holes in the wet area (kitchen/bathroom) but a sneaky rodent was coming in and gnawing away at my soap! Not to mention rifle-ling through the rubbish bucket looking for other tasty morsels. Eventually a stop was put to his visitations by covering all small entry spots to the kitchen/bathroom outhouse with metal gauze.

As the cold winter period drew to a close I really started to notice nature changing in the valley. The pomelos in our garden finished soon after our return from NZ. They were replaced by some lovely large grapefruit on the tree growing next to the steps up to the house. The flesh of these is quite orange in colour but they are definitely on the sour side of the spectrum. Lovely to be able to pluck fresh citrus fruit for breakfast for several months of the year though! We had planted tomatoes and basil interspersed with marigolds as companion plants, prior to our NZ holiday. The cold slowed down the tomato crop but once it warmed up again we were able to continue to pick tomatoes right up till now. Have just pulled the last plants out and have replanted more tomatoes and basil, plus aubergines, parsley, lettuce chives etc. Just call us Tom and Barbara Good - aka Merrin and Lou living ‘The Good Life’ Hong Kong style. Actually I do love to head off into the wilderness that is our garden armed with a slasher and hoe, clearing paths and creating viewing platforms.

The valley is a wondrous place to be at times. To be woken up in the morning by the dawn chorus is quite special. There are also the ‘night birds’ who seem to spend all night calling to their mate and the owls hooting to theirs in their roosts near the house. As the temperatures got warmer I also noticed the return of the insects with different varieties taking it in turns to make their presence felt. When all the fruit trees in the garden were flowering a few weeks ago, the drone of bees was the most prevalent sound during the day. Now it is the drone or should I say high pitched screech of the cicadas. Wasps, hornets and beetles are also flying about but fortunately these do tend to mind their own business. The large and small snails and slugs are also about now and the other day there was a rather large worm trying to share my shower. I did however manage to encourage it out through the drainage hole in the floor. The butterflies are also many and varied around our home. They come in all shapes and sizes from really big brightly coloured ones to small white cabbage and common yellow butterflies. We also had an influx of brightly coloured tiger moths….actually hundreds of these flying around and settling in the trees around our home.

Last week we saw our first snakes of the season near the house. First we saw a Red Necked Keelback slithering up the bank near our vege garden. Later that same day another Red Necked Keelback (it may have been the same one) decided to curl up in the little drain hole of our patio next to where Louise was washing the dishes (outside in the basin filled with water boiled from the kettle – as you do). She noticed it when she went to place a bucket practically on top of it. Now this one was a little too close for comfort! Mind you, when it realised that this large thing next to it was trying to squash it with a bucket off it went down the wall. Lou then walked to what she thought was a better viewing spot only to disturb another snake also less than a metre from where she now stood! Talk about palpitations! Not sure what variety this one was but we did manage to take a photograph of it to try and identify it in the snake book.

A few days later when I was leaving to go to an early morning meeting. He opened the front door to find another snake similar to the brown one curled up on our doorstep! Needles to say out came the camera again (for identification purposes). As I was in a rush to catch a ferry into Central I left Louise to usher it off the threshold. This she managed to do by giving it a gentle poke with a ‘long’ stick of bamboo. We haven’t seen any more snakes quite as close to the house lately, just a few down the valley as we are walking home! Not so keen on the fact that the snakes come quite so close to the house but really there is not a lot that we can do about it. One just has to keep a wary eye out and ‘believe’ that they are more fearful of us than we are of them!

Of course, the most unwelcome critter at the moment (and one which definitely makes their presence felt) are mosquitos. We currently have daily competitions to see who can kill the most. It really is unwise to leave the door open on the damper days…especially in the early evening. One of our most useful Christmas presents was a mossie net for the bed. When we first started using it we did have a problem with rogue mossies sneaking in through the gap. Once inside they would have a feast! These little blighters even know how to bite you through the sheet! After a few nights of having to turn the lights on in the middle of the night to act as the great white mosquito catcher Louise fixed the problem by sewing up the gap!

We haven’t got any resident animals of the domestic variety (apart from our resident geckos). Stumpy the gecko (tailless due to some trauma) was one of our favourites for a while, but he eventually went to the big gecko place in the sky. Over the last couple of days the flying ants (these winged ants come in waves at certain times of the year) have been making a nuisance of themselves by coming into the house through every crack and cranny (of which there are many). The only good thing about this event was that we could watch gecko TV…i.e. watch the geckos scurry up the walls catching and munching on the winged ants. The bad thing about these nuisance insects (those not caught and munched by geckos) is that they drop their wings overnight and then you end up with a colony of ants inside!

If we feel the need to get close and personal to domestic animals we can go to Jenny’s and say hello to Charlie the pig, Cherry the cat, the 2 turtles and 5 dogs that make up her menagerie. We sometimes volunteer to take the five girls for a walk (Jenny’s dogs – Radar, a collie bitser, afghans Yuki and Carmen, Pepper a small fluffy something?? and ‘Belle the Beautiful’ - a pug who is the smallest dog but makes her presence felt the most). Belle is the self acclaimed star of the family!

We also always stop and talk to the self styled guardians of the Valley. These are the seven cats that reside around the ‘pink gates’ at the entrance to the valley (which is also where our letter box is - about 10 minutes walk from the house). They are wild cats but all have been caught by the cat’s protection society, taken away to be de-sexed and brought back to their ‘home’. They do not belong to anyone in particular but are fed by many people. All are a tad timid except for Mama and Boy (the names we have given them). My guess is that Mama is actually Boy’s mother (they are very similar in colouring and natures). She is the most gorgeous moggie who always stops for a chat and a roll. She sees us coming and runs up the path and jumps on the 1.5m high concrete pad for her chat and pat. Boy has also become more confident and he too is often hanging out with his mum lolling in the sun and waiting for our attention as we cycle by.

On that note of cycling – bye

Grow Well
Dr Merrin

EcoLog04 - 123 days of HK Living

I just can’t believe that we have now been in Hong Kong for four months (123 days)! We have well and truly settled in to our new abode coined “Valley Vision”. It is taking shape rather nicely although there is still an awful lot to do to convert said little house into the style of home that most of you are accustomed to.

I am of course in my absolute element. I just love to be able to get up in the morning and throw a bucket of cold water over myself or wallow in my home made swimming pool…created from a tarp boxed in by the little mud brick wall at the edge of our patio and some strategically placed crates. Louise on the other hand crave a real shower. A girl can only take so much of standing outside under camp solar shower, which she has had laying in the sun for the day or have resorted to topping up with boiling water from the kettle boiled on the gas ring. Our next focus for our home will indeed be a bathroom make over. The facilities currently consist of a closed off area at the end of our kitchen with only a toilet (western style thank goodness) and a hole in the wall where it joins the floor so the water from the shower (when we have one) can flow to the outside. Don’t worry… we have covered the hole with a bit of wire mesh so that the snakes cannot venture in! The local electrician came to quote to put in an electric water heater a month or two back but when the workers were due to actually come and do the work they had a sick day. We tried to arrange for them to come on another day however boss man Mr Mok insisted that he was far too busy and could not tell us when he would not be too busy! I think that we are most certainly far too far up the valley for them to bother coming all this way so we really need to make alternative arrangements.

We would like to focus on a solar heating system and have heard that it is very reasonable to buy this across the border in Shenzhen, however we just have not made the time to investigate this option yet. We are coping with the shower arrangement while the weather is warm but we may have to look at as gas water heater in the interim pretty soon.

We have had a couple of snake encounters around the house recently. One day we came up the steps and had to wait until a Red Necked Keelback decided to move away from our gate slithering under the concrete of the edge of the patio. We looked this snake up in the book and read that it is only venomous when one is bitten by the back fangs not the front! Comforting huh!

The other day when emptying the said swimming pool and there he was again - our little Red Necked Keelback slithering along the edge of the tarp with a great big bulge in his middle. Must have got one of the frogs also enjoying the swimming pool! The other night there was an exquisite baby green snake on the top of our wire netting fence. I looked around for mama and papa and fortunately they were nowhere to be seen. Then to top it all off we had a snake in the house!!! We discovered it before it set up shop inside and encouraged it out the front door. I think it must have come in through the open side door. I have to say that this visit did indeed make me nervous as who is to know that we don’t have other snakes inside the house. I am however choosing to believe that this little chap is the only inside visitor of the snake variety and now that he has vacated all is good!

Summer time in Hong Kong sure is hot. We have lost count of the number of sunny 30+ deg days that we had in a row - about a month’s worth I think. Then the weather turned and we had about a fortnight of hot rainy weather (marginally cooler with the rain). This then culminated in our first experience of a Hong Kong # 8 typhoon. Typhoon Pebuk started heading our way on a Thursday afternoon a week ago but by Friday morning it had passed us by at a only a level 3. It then decided to reverse itself and head back towards us. The typhoon warning had shot up to Level 8 in a very short space of time and by the time Lousie and I meet each other and made it to the ferry terminal all the gates were locked up. We wandered around the side entrance and were very fortunate to be let in a side gate along with about half a dozen others thus managing to be almost the last people on the last ferry to Lantau Island. Nearly had to go knocking on the door of our Kiwi friends Kate and Gary to beg for a bed for the night!!

When a typhoon reaches level 8 status most forms of public transport in Hong Kong just stop. There is absolute chaos in the city with everyone packing up and going home as quickly as possible. The typhoon itself really was a bit of a fizzer. We have experienced better southerly storms in Newlands! The most damage was the amount of debris that we had to negotiate on cycle path while riding up the track to home.

Last Satruday night we were in Mui Wo having dinner with some friends (Alan and Carmen) when the most spectacular thunder storm hit. We sat it out in the restaurant and watched the most fantastic display of fork lightening (forced to stay for chocolate brownies)! When the worst was over cycled up the valley only to find when we arrived home that we had no electricity! Got the Power Company boys up the next morning but the lightening had frazzled the mains switch inside so we had to pay for an electrician to come up and fix the switch.

Some of the pluses we enjoy by living in our bush clad home are the wonderful view, the joy of watching the butterflies go about their business and of listening to the parrot sounding birds, which we have coined the “cheeky chatter birds” playing in the trees around our house.

There are of course one or two challenges, namely the army of ants sneaking in through the gaps around the air con whenever we have happened to leave a smidgeon of food out on the table. The mega centipedes sharing our outside bathroom (that so far have not ventured inside thank goodness) and of course as mentioned before the resident snakes in the neighborhood! I do love our resident geckoes but I’m not so fond of their poo deposits stuck to our white washed walls and ledges. It is fun watching them clean up the ants and mosquitoes though and we especially love watching the midget baby geckoes learning the tricks of being a gecko from their elders. Watched one crawling across the ceiling to then fall 2 stories onto the tiled floor. Sat for a few seconds and then crawled off. That must be like one of us falling off the Sky Tower and then walking away!

We had a trip to Macau this week. Louise’s last visit to Macau was 10 years ago and boy has the place changed. Buildings springing up everywhere, mainly new casinos and hotels to support the influx of tourists coming to the Vegas of the east for a flutter! We spent a bit of time (not money) people watching in the casinos. Spending time in casinos is neither of our cups of tea but clearly the Chinese absolutely love it with bus loads coming in from the mainland. We did a bit of a walking tour around the old town visiting some of the churches, Chinese mansions and the light house on the top of Gaia Hill and found a rather cute little café called Café Chocolat which was as the name suggests a good place to visit.

XL Hong Kong is going really well. We have managed to organize some great speakers and have had lots of positive comments about our networking events by both XL Life Members and guests.

The Ark Eden project has gone a little quite at the moment as it is summer holidays therefore Jenny has not been running her environmental projects for kids. We are currently waiting on the Ark Eden Charity to be formed. This should be organized soon and once this is up and running we can start applying for grants and really move ahead on some of the concepts of the project.

We do have spare beds in our Little House so would welcome visitors anytime. We offer a bed and breakfast opportunity to anyone traveling through Hong Kong. Rather than staying in a hotel you get to stay with “locals” that can give you a different accommodation experience. You may of course wish to wait until that bathroom makeover has happened!!

Summer in Hong Kong

Well after over 3 weeks of beautiful hot summer weather, with blue skies without smog you could start asking yourself why all the talk about poor air quality in Hong Kong.

The government is claiming the superb weather is due to the changes that they have implemented and the difference in how businesses are now working.

The environmentalist’s are saying that the prevailing winds have meant that the pollution is being blown away from Hong Kong.

I will leave you to decide whether it is “word of change” or “winds of change” that have made the sudden difference!

While we may be baking under the heat it is with concern that nearby parts of China have either been flooded or are still in severe drought. In addition, probably having to cope with the wind blowing towards them with the air that Hong Kong is missing.

I agree it is very warm walking in 30 degree heat. We do that each day and you certainly do not need to go to the gym! What I am surprised to hear is the number of people that say they are just going to stay at home or head to the air-conditioned malls for their day. They say we will visit Mui Wo once the weather is cooler. How sad to miss such a wonderful time of the year when you can be sitting in the shad of a tree at say the Pui-O beach having a nice cold drink from the local restaurant. This is what summer is all about. They are also missing the chance to “see” Hong Kong with the clear skies.

Louise and I have enjoyed a beer at sunset a couple of times in the last few weeks. These have been at Mui Wo beach watching a beautiful moon rise, the Central Ferry pier and on our patio of our house with friends. Come and visit Mui Wo on Lantau Island, Hong Kong. It is very different to what the central Hong Kong.

If you are in part of the world with summer then get out and enjoy the heat. Those in winter are probably huddled around a fire to keep warm and are dreaming of a summer holiday.

Live your day with what you have. It is your choice!