Just interesting to some

OK so this is my old office building at Exchange Square, it had a walkway and the harbour in front of it. Now the photo below is of the newly coined by Jim "Chairmans Member" that now dominates the HK skyline, ok, check out in the bottom left hand corner of the photo you can see one of the exchange quare buildings. The member is sitting on land that didn't even exist 10 years ago. Impressive!

Tin Hau Temple

Although there is a minimum of information in English about the temple workings, it is always somewhat of an adventure to find these islands of calm in the sea of crazy urbaness. The Tin Hau Temple is no exception. It is located in Ya Ma Tay, whose claim to fame is being the most densly populated place in the world and home of the "cage men". The temple is to the god of seafarers, as this used to be a little harbour. It is all reclaimed now of course.
The Temple is full of spirels of insence, you can buy the spirals for any person that you want to give luck too, they last for 10 days. The whole place is soo full of burning insence and smoke that the maximim time to explore the inside is about 3 minutes! It is a neat environment and very exotic!

From the city of Lights

I know Paris is the the 'real' city of lights but why. Most cites have lights and i think that Hong Kong has got to be in the running for the most. It is a spectacular city. Soooooo hustling and bustling, full of energy and well some serious smells! We were out and about alot on the first day, boring August to tears with Oh yeah and that is were I worked before you were born, i lived, i ate i am pretty sure he was just smiling and nodding. We loved it. The first night we arrived HK was struck by a Typhoon. Number 8, which is how they rate the storms. The rating goes up to 10. Our windows in the hotel shook and it rained like cats and Char Peis. Well the downside of all that is that it is 5 days later and it is still raining! Yeppers, we are fully waterloged, but also know all of the secret patway though building etc..Lots of the things to do in this city are indoors. The bummer is that most of them involve shopping...he he!
I realize looking at my photos that i have been remis since i arrived mostly because of the rain, but also i forget to take a photo since i have seen most of it before.I will try to be better.

This is on the overpass to Queensway plaza looking at the (bottom only) Bank of China Building. Which used to be the most prominent thing in the skyline, now it is dwarfed by this building that Jim immediatly dubbed the "chairmans member" and many others. My old office which used to be on the water front is 3 BLOCKS back. And many more. There are lots of lovey things that remain the same. Great food at every corner. We had fantastic Korean BBQ the other night, lots of lovely cantonese and every other South East Asian fare. Plus don't forget the cheapest McDonalds in the world!

Bum Boat!

This is the final photo from the Lion City. We went on one of the tours around a kind of inlet into the center of the city and finiacial ditrict. We went in a Bum boat which is named that for the Dutch word for tree, since the boats were all made of wood. I was trying to listen to the recording, but Alison was cracking me up! We love Singapore!

Cable car

The Cable car in Singapore goes over to an entertainment complex in the harbour.It is a great ride and a pretty good bargain. We went on it twice, and this last time in a glass bottomed car. My stomach was in my throat the whole time. The large building in the bottom photo is the mid way point.

The first little blue pill

In little India. Check out the size of this add. There is a guy walking on the street beside it. I won't say another thing.

Requsite Python Pose

It seems like everywhere you go in Singapore there is a guy with a snake and a hat. Well we deffinatelly wanted to be a part of that action!! August was super gung ho at first and then a bit overwhelmed on how heavey the snake was..I guess he had just eaten his last client, so i could understand his concern! Anyway, i like this photo best since you can see how the creature is winding himself around August' leg. We had to use three men to pull it off!

The Singapore Zoo!

The Singapore Zoo is deffinatelly the best zoo that i have ever been to. That being said i have never been to the San Diego Zoo, which is supposed to be pretty dang good too.

What i loved about this zoo was that it was totally shady (and Singpore is HOT!) everywhere we went. And at every area there were LOTS of animals that you could see up close and very presonal i forgot to post the photo of the fruit bats, but we could see every detail of those guys (!) chomping away on thier papaya.

August actually had a lemur walk by him on a branch and brush him with it's tail. Very cool. We were greeted at the entrance by this big black ape hanging on a branch. Every were we went it was feeding time and the animals were out and about. The Bengal white tigers were awsome! And their enclosure looked pretty good from may perspective, not being a tiger and all. In my mind they were the most wonderful of all. Of course there were elephants and giraffes galore and lots more. A good time was had by all!

Nematodes!

Yes we are in HK now, but i haven't gotten a chance to post the rest of the photos from Ingpore, so bear with me!

Have you ever seen the Sponge Bob epasode about the Nematodes? well these things at the Singapore Aquarium look just like em! They ate Sponge Bobs pineaple in like 3 seconds! Funnily enough the SA thought that they were "Sea Worms" Who has ever heard of that!

Underwater world

Well the title really says it all. We went to UWW and it was great!! Lots of fish you can touch and plenty of shade and AC!

Shoot i have other photos but i can't get them uploaded! We have been tearing around Singapore like....well TOURISTS! It has been great. We have seen the Zoo (best ever) been on a boat in the harbour, done lots of eating and shopping, gone on a cable car....TWICE! and a LOUGE...twice. Imagine. I went to a lovely Modern dance preformance on Saturday, la la la Human Steps. From Canada no less.

We are off to Hong Kong Tomorrow!! The time has flown by. Damn! But i hope to get the photo scenario sorted there! See you in......

Photos

I can't figure out how to post more than one photo per entry that looks the way i want it, so here are a couple of shots higglely piggely.  The one one below is another one from the Botanical Gardens, feeding the fish. Evita totally stole this little kids fish food, luckily Singaporeans think she is cute and took lots of photos of her.

The one on the right is from Alison's living room. Check out her neighbors!  Singapore is definitely all about apartment living.  More later!

Singapore!!

Well after a can we say, a looooonnnnnggggg flight, 14 hours from LA to Hong Kong, waiting on the tarmac for a couple of hours, weather delay, then another 3 to Singapore we arrived at 2:30 am on Saturday morning. (having left at 1 pm on Thursday afternoon...you figure it out!!) 

Of course we leaped out of bed the next day and bounced around the immediate proximity of my friend Alison's house. Our first stop after lunch was the Singapore Botanical Gardens. It was lovely! We think Mexico is lush, this place has got us beat hands down. Every tree is HUGE and covered with ferns and other interesting bearded growths. Those plants in the photo in the foreground are similar to these elephant ear plants that i just can't get to grow at Eden. Well these look awesome!! 

 We fed gold fish and turtles and Evita made friends with lots of small children and babies. It was great. We love Singapore!

Everybody hates a tope!

And Jim is no exception! It was poring down cats and dogs today and our tope to the north, the one right past our service entrance showed us it's alternative pourpose! To block the water from going down to the natural beach outlet at Monteverde and to allow it to puddle up and come in our back gate! Well that was not going to happen on Jim's watch, he went out there and destroyed it pick and tiny shovel! It worked. The water is flowing smoothly down the street and we are high and dry, just the way we like it!

It was good to get a soaking rain. We are leaving tomorrow and felt like it just wasnt summer time with out some mud between our toes! Yea, squish squish! We have hopefully gotten all of our ducks in a row. Every body paid up and happy. We went to Patzcuaro last weekend and ordererd new colmns for the entrance and a fountain for the entrance area too. Eeek, it should be done by the time we get back. How exciting!

The shop in Zihua will be open all summer so if any of you dear readers are in the neighbourhood please stop by and give saludos to Karina, Diana or Sandra, they will be holding down the fort.

I will be writing next from......