Craft(ivist) Work

Howdy all.
Here is another article from the archives. Last year I interviewed the lovely Sarah Corbett, who runs the Craftivist Collective, for House magazine. House is a quarterly magazine, which goes to members of the Soho House group. If you can't read the text clearly in the picture above, then you can access the entire magazine here.

Dots the Film

Last October I wrote in RWD magazine about a new graffiti documentary coming your way. And then, I forgot to post it on my blog. Doh! So here is the article with a link to three of the sections that are now available to view on Babelgum. Check out James Jessop, Rowdy and Cyclops as they cover New York, Australia and India and the power of street art.

The Dance of Attraction

Zzzappp. There it is. That spark of attraction. It hits you the first time you spot him. You glance at him, quickly scanning him up and down, checking for any flaws or imperfections that might cause you to think twice, but nothing catches your eye in a negative way.

Your eyes meet. You smile.

If he smiles back, you raise your eyes to meet his again. If not, you let your brain move to the next thing on your agenda for the day.

But he does smile back. So now you want to properly take him in, but it would be too obvious now to let your eyes lazily wander across his body. So you allow your gaze to occasionally dart in various directions, trying to piece each snapshot into one cohesive picture, while maintaining eye contact.

He introduces himself. This is your one big shot. Within, your internal organs breathe a sigh of relief while simultaneously tensing at the prospect of you messing this up when you open your mouth.

For oh, tis a merry dance we dance.

Close encounters of the New York kind - part 2

I open one eye. Then close it. Then open the other one.
Where am I?
Oh yes, on my friend’s sofa-bed in New York.
What time is it?
Nine-ish. Sunday. Hmm. What shall I do with my day?
Hang on a minute.
I’ve made a plan. I was supposed to meet the Brooklyn hipster at midday at a gallery.
Maybe he was drunk when he agreed to do this. Should I text him to double-check the plan is still on?
Maybe in a bit.
Hmm.
Had a bit to drink last night, so should probably have some water, as I might be a tad dehydrated.
I unzip the sleeping bag and stagger over to the sink. I swig some water and stagger back to the sofa.

Urghh.
That doesn’t feel good.
No, that really doesn’t feel...shit...run...
Well there goes that intake of water.
Oh my god, my head is pounding!
Maybe I should drink some juice instead and take an ibuprofen. Then I’ll have a nap for an hour, get up and go out to meet this guy. After I’ve double-checked that he remembers who the hell I am.
Oh...oh no...quick!
Hmm.
If only I had topical ibuprofen as I don’t seem to be currently capable of retaining anything in my stomach for more than two minutes.
Bugger.
This is not good.
How can I get rid of this blasted headache?

Ok, I’ll text him. He’ll reply, saying he wants to cancel, and then I’m off the hook, and I can resume talking to god on the big white telephone.
And maybe sleep for a bit too.
He replies.
We’re still on for midday.
FUCK.

A shower. A shower will make me feel better. And more human. And less nauseous.
Unfortunately, this proves not to be the case.
My friend laughs when I tell her I’m off to meet a guy in my pitiful state.

“It’s fine,” I tell her. “I’ll just put an emergency plastic bag in my handbag.”
“Emergency plastic bag?”
“Yes. In case I need to be sick again.”
“Nice one Holly.”
I quickly find a bag capable of suffocating a small child, i.e. one without safety holes in the bottom, or leakage holes, as I prefer to call them, and stuff it into the depths of my handbag. Just, y’know, in case...

I rule out taking the subway (being trapped in a tunnel when you need to vom is not a good look) and plump for a cab.
At least I can jump out in an emergency.
Or wind down a window at the very least.
Half way into the cab journey and I’ve already wound the window down.
Only for the breeze of course.
I barely make it to the gallery bathrooms in time.
And sadly, in the States, toilet cubicles are not very private.
Oh well.
Maybe people will think I have morning sickness and will feel sorry for me.
No, I think I’d rather people thought that I was hungover than pregnant.
Shit.
Do I look fat?
Hmm.

The hipster shows up.
I feel rough.
He claims he also feels rough.
I reckon I can win the “who feels the roughest” contest, but decide that this may not be a competition I want to win. Or at least brag about winning.
I then feel compelled to tell him that if I suddenly run off, fear not, I’m not abandoning him, I’m just going to be sick.
God. I disgust myself at times.
Thankfully I don’t end up running off.
Of course, this means that I shared that information for nothing.
Idiot.

We move listlessly through the museum, which turns out to be a bit like the Wallace Collection in London. I highly recommend that you do not visit this place hungover. It won’t help you and frankly, you won’t help it.

We headed out into the fresh air and walked across to Central Park.
Walking through the park, we saw a number of tents.
Ooo. What’s that? Is there a festival on?
No, it looks more like a marathon.
Oh.
It’s the Colon Cancer Challenge 15km run.
Seems to be over, thank god.
Don’t think I could bear to be surrounded by sweaty healthy jogger types. That would be too much to bear.
But look. What’s that?
A blow-up tunnel.

The hipster suggests we walk through it. We get closer. It appears to be a colon.
A giant, infected, inflatable colon.
I’m instantly impressed that he also thinks that it would be funny to walk through this.
Although as soon as we start looking at the inflatable growths on the inflatable colon, my stomach starts doing flip-flop manoeuvres. I indicate that I’ve probably seen enough and we head back into the sunshine.

And I don’t get sick.
Win.

Close encounters of the New York kind - part 1

I met him on the subway.

Well not really on the subway, on the platform to be precise. He was walking along with some friends and I asked them where the interchange was. They pointed me towards the end of the platform and that was that.

In typical New York style, the change between subway lines proved less easy than it looked. After exiting the station, I walked three blocks (get me, with my Noo Yoik lingo) to the interchange station, only to be told that I didn’t have the right type of ticket to change lines (?) and that I needed to buy a new one. “That’s the spirit”, I thought to myself, “Fuck over the tourists who are spending money in your city.” This was the brown-icing on the shit-cake of a day I was having. As I headed to the ticket machine, I saw him again with his friends, entering the station. We smiled as we passed each other.

After much faffing on my part, I finally got myself to the Guggenheim, joining the snaking queue of canny people who know the times different museums offer ‘pay what you wish’ deals. (I had hit up MOMA the night before.) As I drifted along in my line, I saw him again. “You made it!” he called across. His friends looked puzzled, wondering who the hell he was talking to. “It’s the girl from the subway.” I waved and carried on.

From the top floor of the spiraled gallery, I looked down to survey the building design and the weaving crowds of ant-like people making their way around the space. And then, I saw him again, just one floor down. And with that, he looked up and saw me too.

I waved.

He waved.

This was now incredibly embarrassing and a tad corny. But it was also kind of cool, because it was the kind of thing that happens in a really predictable rom-com yet never happens in real life. Until now. (It’s best to not read those last two lines in a cheesy movie trailer voice-over style. Thanks.)

I strolled down to meet him. We started talking. I gave him my sob-story (the friend I was staying with had been struck down with flu-like symptoms and was confined to bed, so I could either stay in her flat weeping or roam the city alone. I chose loner option no.2). He replied with “Well we’re just hanging if you want to hang out with us” (or another Americanism to that effect), and I said “Sure, if that’s ok with you”, and then he introduced me to his friends.

So then we hung out in Brooklyn. And drank...quite a lot actually but more on that later...and then, and then, and then...at the end of the evening he walked me to a cab and offered to meet at the Frick Museum the following day at midday, so I wouldn’t have to spend Sunday in New York on my lonesome. And with that, I sped back to Manhattan.

To be continued...

3.33 is the magic number

3.333333333 recurring.

Or should that be 3.33 recurring? Or even 3.3 recurring? At what point does one stop writing numbers while maintaining the look of a figure that’s recurring? Ahh, the aesthetic challenge of turning maths into literature.

Does it even matter? As long as it suggests infinity, something that will go on forever, something important, something without an end, something significant.

It’s a figure I think about a lot.

I went out with someone for 3.33 recurring years...

Grrr

I screwed up. I forgot my book. I’m on the bus and I have nothing to read. I don’t even have my iPod to listen to. What will I do? [Write for my blog as a result of utter desperation it seems.]

I know, I know, I could look out the window. The problem is I’ve done this specific route for over ten years. On foot, in a friend’s car, in a taxi and on the bus (top and bottom deck). There is officially nothing new to see, I could recite the order of shops, bars, offices and hotels with my eyes closed.

But weirdly, unlike on the tube where most passengers travel armed with books, nobody else on the bus appears to be reading today. It’s a Saturday, so there are no free papers on offer. Even more weirdly, no one seems to be bothered by the fact that they’re not reading – maybe the shop signs and billboards are all the literary stimulation that they need.

I however, am decidedly cross.

Because I forgot my book.

Excuse me sir, would you mind filling this in?

My ex-boyfriend (and wise counsel) thinks I should give prospective boyfriends a questionnaire. He reckons, due to my love of efficiency, that it will separate the wheat from the chaff and prevent me from wasting my time dating chaff. Which, it could be argued, is becoming a bit of a habit.

But the question is – which questions should I ask? Which of course leads to that eternal question – what do women want?

So maybe I should reflect on why the last batch all fucked up and cover those topics first with prospective candidates.

Question 1: Do you want a relationship?
If no, please go away. If yes, please go to question 2.

Question 2: Are you in a rush to have a family?
If yes, please move onto the next woman, and I would recommend you target the over-35s. There’s a huge batch of women in that category who are desperate to start birthin’ some babies.
If however you would like to spend a few years having fun while getting to know me, giving me sufficient time to ponder whether I really want my genes to mingle with yours, then please go to question 3.

Question 3: What are your thoughts on gender equality?
This one kinda relates to what you look for in a woman. I would like to think that I only date smart intelligent men who are intellectually my equal (or higher – that’s even better as I love to learn from my boyfriends).
However, history has shown that my choices do not accurately reflect what I think I have chosen.

If you want a 1950s wife/mother type, then I am not the one for you. I have a busy social life – I go out most nights of the week – theatre, galleries, restaurants, pubs, cinema, random events (flashmob pillow fight anyone?). You will always be welcome to join me.
Want to do something different? Stay in and watch tv, go for a meal together, do something that no one else is invited to? That’s fine. I love that stuff too. Give me a date and I’ll put it in my diary. Once it’s in there, I will not cancel on you. Just don’t resent the fact that I have a life and I have friends that I want to spend time with. They’ve lasted longer than all boyfriends past so don’t expect me to be one of those dumb girls who dumps her friends as soon as she gets a new man. (Note for the female readers – because if you’re that kind of girl, then one day you will be single again, only this time you’ll have no friends to fall back on. Lecture over.) Oh yeah – and some of my friends are boys. I expect that some of yours will be girls. So no need for either of us to be jealous then…

Anyway – the social life issue cuts both ways. I’m sure you will also have a busy life. You will want to meet up with your own friends. You’ll want to go on holiday with them as well as with me. That’s cool.

So if you’re looking for a quiet girlfriend who agrees with everything you say, has dinner ready for you when you come home from work and sits in the kitchen doing the darning while you watch football, then I don’t think we’re going to be compatible.

If you’re looking for an equal, who will take you to fun places around London while listening to your stories (and recounting a few of her own), who also happens to make a mean tiramisu, then please go to question 4.

Question 4: So when are you next free?

Postcard from Schiphol airport

I wrote this in a copybook (how old school am I? Pen and paper, people. Pen. and. paper.) while waiting for my flight back to London on Monday night. Good thing I brought it with me. My flight was delayed by three and a half hours. And annoyingly, my friend Aoife (she who wows the boys at my parties), dropped me off an hour and a half before my flight. I thought an hour would be fine but she insisted. Security was quiet so I breezed through. Decided to kill time buying a birthday present for my nephew. But I knew what he wanted so that only took five minutes. Damn.

Then I discovered that there is a museum inside the departures area. How cool is that? But, as you may have guessed by now, it was closed for the evening. So I decided to read for a bit. But as my book is only 112 pages long (Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own in case you’re wondering), I didn’t want to tear through it and then be bored on the flight. Or have nothing to read while waiting for the train to Gatwick to London, which according to my flatmate who looked it up for me, was going to be a long wait of an hour and a half – bloody brilliant. Or even while on the train itself. Or on the bus from the train station to my house. Oh god. When was I going to get home?

Anyway. I got a coffee, sat down, and thought about writing for a bit. I kept seeing things moving in the shadows. Decided that I was tired and that my eyes must be acting up. Looked again. Saw a mouse. I don’t think I’ve seen a mouse at an airport before. I watched it running around the place for a bit – it clearly knew its way around. I began to feel really happy that I had plumped for a coffee and avoided food. Who knows what surfaces had felt the pitter patter of mouse feet?

Then my boredom turned my eyes to the seats that the mouse had just run across. They reminded me of something. Ah yes. Dali’s sofa in the shape of Mae West’s lips. I don’t know why they didn’t go the whole hog and fashion them the same way instead of turning them into a symphony of red and pink in pvc.

But best of all were the airport police. They rode around the airport on Segways. A bit like the dude in that mall cop movie. Well, the trailer anyway as that’s all I’ve seen. Didn’t really give the policemen an air of authority, but then all I could think of was that old Harry Enfield sketch anyway, so I just looked down at the table and smirked to myself.

As for my reflections on Amsterdam itself? Well, it’s been 15 years since my last trip, and I still haven’t been to one of their famed coffee shops. No doubt I’ll want to go to one when I come here again in about 15 years time and they’ll be illegal by then. I did see the prostitutes standing in the windows and I spotted the sex shops which are just about everywhere. Not sure how my aunt managed to take my friend and me around the city when we were 14 while avoiding all of them.

Saw the Purse Museum, two of my cousins, and of course my friend Aoife, which was the main purpose of the visit. Oh, and there was one other thing of note – chips with mayonnaise are great. But 15 years ago, they were definitely the weirdest thing ever…

I'm so excited...

...that I've just had to do a little happy dance. Last year I went to the Guggenheim in Bilbao, which I think is now my favourite museum (although the V&A does still have fashion, so maybe let's say it's my favourite art space). The purpose of the trip was to see an exhibition by the amazing Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang. And it was incredible.
So, I was just looking online to see if he had anything coming up in the vicinity (he doesn't - Shanghai is next on his hitlist), when I wondered (cue Carrie Bradshaw-esque voice over) "Maybe the Guggenheim Bilbao might have something good coming up."
And I checked.
And it does.
And that was when I did my happy dance.

The Anish Kapoor show that was on at the Royal Academy last year is going to be at the Guggenheim from now until October. So very exciting. I was gutted to have missed the exhibition last year when I was in Hong Kong (it started after I left and finished before I got back), so much so that I even looked for cheap flights back to London to see if I could nip home for a weekend to catch it. Sad I know. But now I have been rewarded as (a) I will finally get to see the show and (b) I get to tie this in with a trip to Bilbao, which is a super city.

Yay.
So if you fancy a trip to the Basque country, gimme a shout.
And the picture in this article is one I took in the art musuem in Phoenix, Arizona. In the flesh, the sculpture is jet black. It was only when I photographed it that it took on the silvery hue. And that was without a flash!

It's gone all quiet again

Sorry folks - I have been meaning to update my blog - but have been kept away from it by my busy social life. In fact, I've resorted to multi-tasking. A few weeks ago I went to an event entitled Gay Africa. Not only was it something to do, but it was also a place to bring my date (note to the ladies - this is an excellent way to see if the guy you fancy is a closet homophobe. Mine wasn't. I win). And it also served as fodder for a piece I wrote for Ctrl.Alt.Shift. Which you can read here

Going for a slash in the park

Decided to tackle tai chi again – tackle being the operative word is this case. Found an instructor who taught a number of styles, including sword form which I wanted to learn here, so I popped along with a friend. After numerous phone calls and 20 minutes roaming the park, we eventually found the class. It didn’t seem particularly like tai chi to me, although the instructor had said that he doesn’t teach his classes in the usual manner of a tai chi class. After practising some moves in pairs about how to deflect a punch to the face, the instructor then pulled some knives from his bag. They were blunt training knives, but looked enough like the real thing to freak me out a little. Then we put the deflecting moves into practise armed with the knives.

“Aim with intent” he kept encouraging us. “Don’t aim for the side of the head, aim for the middle of the face.”
“Great”, I thought to myself. “With my slow reflexes, I’m bound to get stabbed in the face.” Thankfully, I didn’t.

However, I did manage to keep tangling my arms, so I asked the instructor where exactly I should be positioning my hands on my opponent’s arm to deflect the attack. “It doesn’t really matter. In the heat of the fight, you’re not going to have time to check that your hands are in precisely the correct position.”
True, but then in the heat of the fight, I’m more likely to kick my opponent in the nuts and scarper than try practising some new martial arts moves. And what’s the point in learning the moves if you don’t learn how to do them properly in the beginning?

He then whizzed through a sequence of moves for the sword form and asked me to repeat them on my own. All I could think was – if I was doing this with my class in the UK, what you’ve just sped through would take at least three classes to teach properly. So it wasn’t the class for me, which was a pity. I think the instructor is probably quite accomplished, just maybe not suited to teaching people. Well, not suited to teaching me anyway. Although I do now know how to stab someone in the face with a knife. Which is bound to come in handy back in London…

Explore, explore, explore

So as I enter my final month in Hong Kong, the race is on to make sure I have seen all the key sites before I leave. Today I ventured to Kowloon for two reasons: The first was because there were a number of markets I had yet to visit, Apliu Street Flea Market in Sham Shui Po and the bird, flower and goldfish markets in the Prince Edward area. The second reason was because some contractors are doing work in my building and it sounded like someone was standing beside me with a Kango hammer, so I needed to escape. The flower market was pleasant enough and featured the ubiquitous bunches of roses with each flower wrapped in polystyrene.

The bird market wasn’t that big – possibly due to the old bird flu issue – but it did have a lot of bugs for sale, which was pretty squeal-inducing for a wimp like me. I also enjoyed watching the local birds nipping in and out around the stands, hovering up the spilt grains of birdseed.

Then to the goldfish market, which for some inexplicable reason stank to high heaven. As the fish were already packaged in plastic bags like funfair prizes, I’m not entirely sure where the whiff was coming from. However, with prices starting from $10 a fish (80p), I know where I’ll be coming should there be a food shortage in the future...

New Dan Flavin installation?

Or stall in Sham Shui Po selling a variety of light bulbs? You decide...
You can read about Dan Flavin here.

Terrapins

The original inspiration begind cheerleaders' pyramid formations?

Happiness is...

…self gifting. Turns out the Americans were right all along. I decided not to give or receive Christmas presents this year because (a) the thought of posting loads of packets from Hong Kong was a headache and (b) I had no way to bring anything back from here as I had already exceeded my luggage allowance on the way out. So, having saved all that money, I decided to self-gift and spend £30 on a small box of chocolates and three pieces of cheese. Rock and roll. And so bloody Western too. Oh and the crackers are from Shanghai. Yes, I went all the way to China for Tuc crackers.

Luckily some people took pity on me and did hook me up with some amazing prezzies. Thanks to my dad for The Sunday Times (real journalism…how I have missed thee), to my mum for the mince pies (well it wouldn’t be Christmas without them) and to T for the card (although I’m not sure I approve of violence against pandas).

Thanks guys!

Just a quick post to say thank you to everyone who sent me a card in Hong Kong. My walls don't look bare anymore!

I know the secret doorway

Secret doorways. They’re great, aren’t they? Just so secretive. Yet door-like. I found a fantastic one the other week. I think you might be a little jealous.

If you’ve ever been to an Ikea store, you’ll know the format. You wander for miles and miles along a snaking path through the fake living rooms and fake kitchens and fake bathrooms until you finally reach the down escalator to take you to the homeware section, which was where you wanted to be in the beginning because you only wanted to buy some cheap glasses and an industrial-sized bag of tea lights. On your way out you think “I’ll remember how I exited this place so I can bypass all the crap next time”, but with a sinking heart, you realise that Ikea has terrifyingly managed to read your dark thoughts and has only installed an up escalator. Gah! Rumbled!

Well guess what? I managed to find the secret entrance into the Causeway Bay branch of Ikea. And it’s through the doorway in the above picture. Yup – no signs at all. But just walk inside, get in the lift, and go to the basement. Ta daa! However, I would like to pass on this information with a caveat. It is hard to imagine, but you have no idea just how weird it is walking through Ikea backwards, so to speak. To the point where I felt so disconcerted, I almost wished that I had taken the usual lengthy route. It was a bit like being a salmon swimming upstream. But at least I now know the secret. And that is all that matters.

An oven of one’s own*

*With apologies to Virginia Woolf.

So, two months in, I decided to have a housewarming party. Why, you may ask? Well, why not? Of course, it did require some careful planning. As my flat is pretty damn small, and really can’t fit that many people, I decided that while I wanted to invite all my friends here, I was worried that if they all turned up, I’d have to get some of them to hang outside my windows cause there simply isn’t enough floor space. So I came up with two solutions. 1. Have the party on a week night. 2. Send out the invite only a few days beforehand so most people will be booked up already. And it worked a treat!

Of course, limiting the number of guests turned it from a housewarming party into more of a haphazard dinner party. I decided to make some food so that we would have something to soak up the booze. So thought to myself, what can I make that’s easy, feeds a lot of people, and can be cooked in one pot (I only have a one-ring electric hob). Ahh yes – the vegetarian Moroccan cous cous dish.

Well let me tell you now – that’s only easy in Europe. Sourcing the ingredients here was a nightmare. No one sells cous cous, the relevant spices were pricey and a pain in the ass to get hold of, chickpeas aren’t available in all supermarkets and are imported from the States (and called Garbanzo beans – who knew?!), and I couldn’t find courgettes anywhere. So I ventured to my local wet market to have a look at what vegetables they had in stock. Saw some things that looked like courgettes. Held one up to the lady on the stall, and asked “courgette?” She nodded and added something in Cantonese. Hmm. Was she agreeing with me or giving me a price? I picked out another green vegetable that may or may not have been a courgette and repeated my question. And got the same response. Hmm. This technique wasn’t going to work. I had already asked a friend what the Cantonese word was for courgette and she didn’t know. (So she asked her mum…who also didn’t know. Sigh…)

Suddenly I had the solution. I whipped out my camera and started photographing a number of green vegetables that quite frankly all could have been courgettes and then went home and emailed them to the gang, two of whom were able to correctly identify them, and lo, I was able to complete my shopping for the meal. (They’re much paler and larger than the ones you get in Europe, just in case you were wondering after all this hoohah, although perhaps you may have paused for a nap by now).

Managed to make the food successfully (although a ton of it splattered onto the floor – my cooking area is small and the pot I was using was even smaller. Fear not, I didn’t scoop it up and back into the pot…I think…) and everyone turned up – one to two hours late – but I was drinking red wine by this point and wasn’t too bothered.

So as it was now turning into more of a dinner party than a let’s stand around and get drunk party, I decided to dish up the food. In paper bowls. With plastic forks. Ah, the art of fine dining Chez Howe. And once we had all sat down to eat (an amazing accomplishment in itself given that I only have four seats and no one sat on the floor), we decided to indulge in some classic dinner party conversation. Thankfully it wasn’t as boring as some of the ones I have engaged in in London (talking about property and house prices is officially boring, people), although at one point it did slip into the dull Hong Kong Island vs Kowloon debate – see my previous post.

But the highlight of the evening’s conversation was…kitchen ovens. And no, I’m not being sarcastic. Only one guest had an oven. And damn, but the rest of us were jealous. There was even a moment of silence while each of us indulged in our individual fantasies of what we would do if we had an oven of our own – roasting vegetables, cooking a turkey, baking a cake – the possibilities seemed endless…

Maybe I’ll have to write a nice letter to Santa.

Not so Happy Valley

So I decided to explore the cemeteries in Happy Valley in advance of zombie film director Andy Edward’s visit (thought I’d show him the real sites). My HK mates thought that was a weird…presumably because I haven’t yet dragged them around any graveyards as I am wont to do with my UK-based friends.
Anyway, I headed to the ironically named Happy Valley to check out their offerings – all of which were pretty different from each other. The Parsee (or Zoroastrian – y’know, like Freddie Mercury) cemetery was amazingly lush and tropical and fittingly, I was listening to Bali Ha’i on my iPod as I wandered through the foliage.

Next up was the military cemetery which was extremely quiet and austere. And featured this rather imposing grave:


Like many HK cemeteries, it is stepped up a hill, and as I climbed, venturing deeper and deeper into the cemetery, I realised that this could become one of those “in space no one can hear you scream” kind of situations because there was no one around. In fact, I’m not sure there was anyone in the place at all (apart from the dead – boom boom).

However, I brushed the paranoia away and reminded myself of how ridiculously safe HK is and carried on. When I reached the back of the graveyard, I ventured down a dark winding path and was rewarded with an unlocked gate. It led to St Michael’s Catholic cemetery and the most amazing steps I have seen in HK. An India Rubber tree had wrapped its roots around the steps – beautiful.

In this graveyard, I saw two warning signs – one which made me laugh (the Triad one) and one which I ignored (the dengue fever one). Of course I should have paid attention to the history of the area and its significance. Many British soldiers in the early 1800s contracted malaria and died there. So yeah – they still have mozzies. And yeah – they got me – again. Although luckily they appear to be disease-free ones. Well, I’m not dead yet in any case…although you now know some spots in HK where you can dispose of my body.