How clean is the water?

Sitting next to the Silver River, in Mui Wo on Lantau Island, I saw some people walk down to the waters edge and take a mouthful of water. This is at the rivers mouth with Silver Mine Bay.

This is in an area where people do go swimming and shellfish is collected.

What is interesting is that these people must have perceived that the water was clean enough looking to taste.

I wonder where else in Hong Kong they would be brave enough to drink the sea or river water?

The last 10 years records show that Silver Mine Beach has a fair water quality (http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/water/beach_quality/bwq_current_i_sil.html).

You might like to look at the EPD website before heading to your favourite Hong Kong beach for a swim!(http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/water/beach_quality/bwq_home.html)

Swim well

The Magic of Mui Wo, Lantau Island, Hong Kong

The classic photo that a tourist will take in Hong Kong will be of the high rise buildings stacked along the ever changing (should that be shrinking) waterfront of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.

Yet 30 minutes by fast ferry there are numerous places to visit where you will not even be able to see one single high rise building.

Mui Wo, on South Lantau Island is one place that I love. It is a community of bicycle riders that share the narrow paths and beach with each other.

Our accommodation is up a valley and you can only see two other houses from it. The view is of greenery and bush, with the mountain Lin Fa Shan taking centre stage, and at 700m high it certainly does.




We love sharing our "home" with others. It is like a homestay or bed and breakfast experience that you get in so many other parts of the world though very rarely in Hong Kong.

From the patio you can hear the birds during the day and night. There are butterflies of all shapes and sizes and the thrill of picking your own fresh fruit is so rewarding.

The response we get from people who visit is wide ranging. If you are not used to getting close to nature then it is a great spot to experience it without needing to fly to another country or visit a zoo.

Come and visit Mui Wo (also often called Silvermine Beach) see a real contrast in Hong Kong. So come and visit us for the day or even stay the night!

EcoLog05 - From Summer to Winter

Kung Hei Fat Choi – Happy Chinese New Year

It has taken a little longer than expected to launch into this next issue of our travels in Asia. And actually, I originally started typing this in November. At that time I commented that after months of very hot weather with many Hong Kongers heading to cooler climes the weather had finally cooled off. The temperature decrease seemed gradual. I couldn’t quite put my finger on when temperatures did drop to the early to mid 20’s. Sometime in October I think. Those balmy autumn temperatures are now long gone and we are now experiencing our first Hong Kong winter!

But now to step back a bit to fill the gaps between the present and the last update!

We have made a wee bit of progress in our house in the valley. Not as much as I would have liked but some progress is always better than none! This took the form of a major rubbish clean up, tree pruning and gardening exercise back in August/September. We engaged a couple of Chinese people to clear out years of appliances including fans, washing machines, old tubs etc that had been dumped in a water tank that we had discovered buried in the undergrowth. They also chopped and cleared the trees around the house in order to give us more light and destroy the mosquito habitats in the damp bush around us. They moved into the shack above us and spent two weeks clearing and hauling. They worked really hard and the result was a much lighter brighter home with the wilds of our garden cleared back so that you can actually see what is growing rather than all the plants being smothered by a carpet of invasive vines.

Daily life in our traditional Chinese agricultural house does continue to have its challenges. The task of doing the washing is not as easy as putting the clothes in to our electric washing machine (yes we have one) and turning on a switch. The problem is that the water comes directly from the stream. If the washing machine is left to fill with unfiltered stream water then the washing machine filter soon clogs and water slows to a trickle. Alternatively if we fill using an external filter the water also slows to a trickle. So, picture one, filling 3-4 buckets of water from the tap and lugging them to tip into the washing machine for each cycle. As you can imagine it takes a wee bit of time to get through a few loads of washing. I do however have a retractable clothesline ….of sorts! I have a rope that is tied to a post on one side that I roll out and hook over one of the trees that received a pruning, making whirring noises as I unravel it! Ha, ha, I think this Island living is driving me mad.

We also had the misfortune to have the little green fridge that we had inherited from the previous owner break down on us. Jenny very kindly loaned us her tiny bar fridge but low and behold this broke down too! This was just before we set off to Bali in late September so we didn’t bother buying a new one until we came back. That was a drama in itself…not only being without a fridge in tropical Hong Kong but the grand expedition of buying it on Hong Kong side and getting it home! It took me basically a whole day to catch the slow (freight) ferry with the trolley, wait for delivery of the fridge to the Central ferry terminal then wait around for the next slow ferry back to Mui Wo. Then of course one had to push the fridge up the valley and finally carry it up our 90 odd steps. Luckily Jenny’s helper Ron was able to help carry it up the path as there was no way that Louise and I were capable of helping to carry a 70kg fridge up to our house!

The valley still has its charms though. September is dragonfly season or so it seemed to me. Hundreds of them, flying around the house and alongside you as you cycle up the path! Dragonfly season has to be better than spider season. Cycling down the path in spider season (during hot summer weather) sees one peeling ropey webs from face and hair as you fly down the valley. None too pleasant!

Speaking of flying down the valley on bicycle. Louise must be getting better at staying on the bike as she has not had too many mishaps recently. The only one of note was when we were cycling up the valley early one morning – i.e. 12.30am ish after a particularly busy time of organizing a few late night and early morning XL events. She literally fell asleep on the bike…gently rolled off into the long grass on the side of the path! When I came upon her she was picking myself up saying “I’m ok”…which I had guessed as there were not the loud expletives that usually follow her tumbles from the bike.

Of course there has to be at least one snake story to relay. Coming home late one night I noticed a snakes head poking out onto the path that I was about to walk up. We stopped and it wasn’t until we took a picture and saw that its body was in fact in the shadow of the railing along side the path. We then realized that even though we were standing at least 4 metres down the path we were in fact standing along side it. It was a rather large Burmese python probably out looking for cat for dinner at our neighbours place. The Chinese lady next door to us has quite a few cats living with her. Very delicious for a pythons to munch on!

We have taken the opportunity to get out and about when we can. We took a day trip to Peng Chau, a small island between Mui Wo and Discovery Bay. Walked around the island and sat up at the pagoda on the top passing the time of day watching a group of locals on a day out dancing the tango and cackling in Cantonese. One balmy evening we jumped on the local inter-island ferry and went to the neighboring island of Cheung Chau. We had a lovely walk around the island and then dinner at a local Indian restaurant before catching the ferry home. Have also walked part of the Lantau Trail around the headland to Pui O, the village closest to Mui Wo. One day Louise and her Kiwi friend Kate caught the bus to Tai O, a traditional fishing village on the north western tip of Lantau Island. For HK$20 (NZ$4) you can go on a motor boat tour of the fishing village. All the houses are built on stilts over the water so it is a really interesting little tour. You can also, if you are lucky enough see the endangered Pink Dolphins. They were fortunate enough to see two on this trip, which was really cool. We also took a bus with some other friends to the Big Buddha at Po Lin Monastery. Louise had been there way back in 1991 on her first trip to Hong Kong but the huge bronze Buddha that sits atop the hillside was not open at that time. Had a good look around the Buddha then had a very good lunch at the vegetarian restaurant! Another great find was a quaint tea shop in Central. We discovered Mr Lee in his shop and spent an entertaining hour learning the art of drinking Chinese tea surrounded by an array of absolutely exquisite Chinese tea pots and sets.

During the later part of last year, I, in a rash moment, decided to attend a stand up comedy workshop and in an even rasher moment decided to compete in the Hong Kong Comedy Festival. I went off to the Take Out Comedy store on various occasions to practice in front of an audience but unfortunately was unable to compete in the Comedy Festival as I had to be a Hong Kong resident. It certainly has been good to give me a better understanding of timing when presenting information.

At the end of September we volunteered along with about 15 other Kiwi’s to help at a function for the NZ Special Olympics team. This was held at the Consular General’s home on The Peak. It was a great afternoon. Enjoyed chatting to the team members and their coaches in the lovely apartment that Julian and Joanna live in with the most spectacular views over downtown Hong Kong and Victoria Harbour! The boys in the team performed an enthusiastic haka which was appreciated by all.

The day after helping with the Special Olympics team we set off to Bali to once again attend the XL Entrepreneurs Business School and the XL Leaders Meeting. Bali is a very cool place to visit and EBS is always an enlightening course to be a part of either as a participant or as crew, as we both were this time. The weather in Bali was fantastic and Louise was lucky enough to enjoy her birthday hanging out by the pool as it fell after EBS and before the XL Leaders meeting.

The last few months of the year proved to be a very busy and stressful time for us with regard to organizing XL events for the many speakers who were passing through Hong Kong. It certainly became clear that we need an on the ground team to help us move the business to the next level. It was also during this time that our business partner and great friend Matthew Faid passed away at the young age of 47. Although Matthew lived in NZ he was a great source of strength to us both as a business partner and friend in terms of providing creative ideas for the business and support in general as a mentor. His death really knocked us. We had been planning to catch up with Matthew and his family at their holiday home in Otematata during our holiday in NZ. While in NZ at Xmas we decided to head south in any case and catch up with his wife Catheryn and their five children. We spent three great days with the family and it was really lovely to see how they all supported one another and just got on with life…which is exactly the way that Matthew would want it.

We seem to have made a name for ourselves as house/dog sitters. Which is cool!! We had a lovely luxurious “holiday” on The Peak in a spacious art deco apartment for two weeks in November. It was great to be living in a large apartment with an ensuite bathroom…complete of course with a shower! (We still do not have a shower installed in little house although not for want of trying). We were tasked with looking after Max the dog but also had Amy, the helper there to look after us!

Early November also saw me take on the role MC of at the NZ Society of Hong Kong 50th anniversary Ball. The ball was great fun as was the Wanchai bar we went on to in the wee hours with a crowd of fellow Kiwi revelers after it!

Late in November I had my first trip to China with a day trip to Shenzhen with Louise and Kate. Most expats go to Lu Wo Commercial Centre and spend the day there. This is a five story mall full of small shops selling copy handbags, clothing, watches etc, etc. A great place to go for bargains (as long as you haggle hard) but also very full on with store owners following you about and trying to entice “missy, missy” into their shops! We spent most of the day there with Kate and then Louise and I walked into downtown Shenzhen. Checked out a more ‘local’ shopping area and had dinner at a small and very reasonable restaurant before negotiating our way back to the border on the metro and catching the train back to Hong Kong.

Just prior to going to NZ, on 14th Dec we welcomed Louise’s god daughter Anna and her daughter Ariya and friends Oriwia, Star and Nicole to our home for a couple of nights. They arrived for a whirlwind week long visit to Hong Kong. It was great to have some Kiwi visitors at our little abode and to also show them around some of the sights of Hong Kong.

We arrived home in Wellington on 21st Dec just in time to enjoy a night of gourmet wine and food with our wine group on 22nd Dec. Although we had a month in NZ the time seemed to go very fast. It was great to catch up with Louise’s family for Christmas in Wellington and then spend time with my family in Whakatane over New Year. We also managed to catch up with quite a few of our friends while we were in various parts of the country which was great too. And of course it was fantastic to see our boys Humphrey and Bogart (cats) who are being very well looked after by Nana Norma. Little Humph recognized us straight away and was very pleased to see us. I think Bo was pleased to see us too but he is such an independent spirit that it was hard to tell. He just went about his normal routine of coming in and demanding food and then buggering off again.

It was sad to say good bye to everyone once again on 21st Jan and we certainly have come back to some more challenges here in Hong Kong both with changes to our XL business and with the weather here which is extremely cold (midday high of 12 degrees and overnight lows of 7, especially after coming from a NZ summer of mid twenties)! Watch this space for these stories in my next installment!

A Man after my own heart - The Earth Walker - Paul Coleman

I have the pleasure of going to many motivational speakers and being around very inspiring people. Last night I got the thrill of meeting a person that blew me away.

Paul Coleman and his wife Konomi Kikuchi are absolutely inspiring humans with a clear vision of helping the planet survive - one step at a time.

Since 1990, Paul has walked over 44,000 km through 39 nations, planting trees and encouraging people to preserve the natural environment. Along the way he has delivered an environmental message to all aspects of society, from the jungles of the Amazon to the highlands of Zimbabwe, and even into war; when he walked to Sarajevo to plant a tree on Earthday 1995 during that city's three year siege.

With the help of friends and supporters around the world, millions of trees have been planted. Through these efforts, he hopes to inspire others to actions on behalf of the Earth. Paul's greatest support comes from the people that he meets along the way, who feed and shelter him, thereby enabling him to keep on walking...

If you have the chance to hear Paul speak then take the opportunity. Check out his story at http://www.earthwalker.com

His goal is to plant 100 million trees!!! Lets help him exceed this goal many times over.

Louise and I had the pleasure of sharing his plans for walking from Hong Kong to Beijing for the start of the Olympic Games. His energy and dedication has given us a boost to continue with our dream of helping green Hong Kong.

Bread and Water wrapped in Plastic

Amazed yet again by the lengths we go to to make the basic things complicated and more damaging to the environment.

Bread can not be sold without being encased in a plastic bag - how can it breath?

Water can not be served from a tap though rather from a bottle - how can this be?

Yes both are true based on my experience here in Hong Kong.

I was in a bread shop and watched them bring out beautiful freshly baked bread. Tasting a sample it was bread rather than some of this mass produced bread that is sweat and contains something that means it still has not gone off even after a week in the humidity. Anyhow back to this wonderful bread. They then proceeded to put it into plastic bags and it started steaming up. I asked them why they did not use paper bags. They said they would love to though the food safety authority insists that a loaf of bread must be served in plastic bag. Both the bakery staff and myself still do not understand why a paper bag does not do the same job of protecting the customer as a plastic bag. It is not as though Hong Kong needs more plastic bags!!!

Now to the water experience. I was in a juice bar and asked for a water along with my smoothie. They said I could buy a water from the fridge. I said that I was happy to drink the tap water. The staff then said to me that they were not allowed to serve the tap water to customers as it may not be safe and therefore they recommended I buy bottled water. So while sitting drinking my water from the bottle (yes another plastic item added to the waster for that day) I watched them make my smoothie. In went the ingredients including water from the tap!!! You go figure the difference between me drinking the water by itself and it being added to a cold smoothie.

Next they may be telling me I can not breather the air unless it comes from a plastic bottle or bag. Actually that may be a good thing.

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!