Back in the 852, this time for a whole month. Will it be long enough?
Thursday 15 October
It’s good to be back. Properly this time, not for 48 hours.
As the Airport Express hurtles up the north Lantau coast, I peer up at the lush hills and imagine how good it will feel to soon be in Hong Kong’s great outdoors.
Before heading to our Airbnb on Cheung Chau, we’ve booked one night at the Ramada in Sai Ying Poon, for reasons neither of us can now recall. It’s cramped but functional.
We head out for dinner, ending up in a momo joint so small it only seats three comfortably. The staff, who we only see through a serving hatch, are lovely, suggesting tweaks to our order for better value and variety, then slipping us a few extra momos completely free.
What did we do to deserve that?
A selection of books about Nepal sits on a shelf above us. I pull down the Lonely Planet and we skim it for ideas for when we get round to visiting one day.
Back on the steep dark streets of Sai Ying Poon, I find myself going all soft inside simply being in a familiar-looking environment. It’s in the shape and colour of the taxis. In the shops and street signs. Heck, it’s even in the road markings. It’s home, even though I barely know Sai Ying Poon.
Friday 16 October
I don’t want a hotel breakfast in a bland dining room, so I slip out to find a bakery.
From the nineteenth-floor lift lobby I think I spot the tower on Robinson Road where Chris Pennington lived twenty years ago. The bakery can wait. I head uphill towards it.
It’s not Chris’ old place, but I do pass Nickie Arthur’s old low-rise just off Bonham Road. And it’s given me a decent morning workout.
In daylight, everything looks reassuringly familiar: the red-roofed minibuses, the piles of fresh vegetables laid out neatly in tiny shops, the familiar municipal architecture of the school buildings.
But there are also telltale signs that Hong Kong has changed. A banner featuring Chinese cosmonauts hangs from a school gate. “A cosmic rejuvenation of our national pride”, it proclaims, hitting just the wrong note.
I pick up an egg croissant and a pork cutlet bun — two Hong Kong breakfast classics — and head back to the Ramada.
We check out and head to Central piers. M&S have opened a tiny food outlet in the underground passage linking Central and Hong Kong stations. A genius location. I bet they empty nearly every shelf every day. We stock up on small comforts M&S do better than most: tea, coffee, fresh bread, posh crisps, then make our way to the ferry.
Al fresco seats on the slow ferry to Cheung Chau cost less than expected: HK$16.7 / £1.60 for the fifty-minute ride. If we stick to the stately old slow ferries, we can save a not-insignificant amount this month. We’re in no rush to get anywhere, and the weather is just cool enough to sit outside.
There may be just the faintest hint of autumn in the air, but when we reach our Airbnb, we’re still drenched in sweat. The clue is in the address: 3 Hillside Road. Still, it’s a great flat, larger and more modern than expected. Outlying-islands internet speeds, but we’ll manage — just as we managed for decades on Lamma. And, of course, it’s supremely quiet and peaceful.
Shortly before sunset, we head back down to the village (town?) to stock up. Both Park n Shop and Wellcome are tiny, with a correspondingly limited range. I’d hoped to grab some zero-alcohol beer for the first time since Canada. No chance.
But what the tiny supermarkets lack in range, they make up for in deals. Living in supermarket-free Yung Shue Wan, I never really appreciated just how cheap the big-name Hong Kong supermarkets can be for basics. K’s wine works out at HK$43 / £4.10 a bottle if we buy three. My Sapporo comes in at HK$10 / 96p a half-litre can if I buy an eight pack.
Details, details. But the cheaper-than-expected ferry and groceries should go some way to making the next month more manageable than feared.
Saturday 17 October
It’s cool enough at dawn to explore the neighbourhood, so I wander the quiet paths of early-morning Cheung Chau down to the Ting Hau temple at Nam Tam Wan:
Many of Cheung Chau’s village houses, most built in the seventies, look shabby and dilapidated. In an estate agent’s window last night, I noticed the asking price for many homes for sale had been reduced, often significantly:
Neither of us feels ready to sell our own place, which is still a decade newer than much of Cheung Chau’s housing stock. But those discounted prices are a concern. Or perhaps some owners simply started out with unrealistic expectations.
K disappears Kowloon-side for her first haircut in eighteen months. I have the day to myself. It’s the first day we haven’t spent together since the last time we were in Hong Kong, eighteen months ago. A strange feeling.
Once K’s on her way back to the island, I amble around getting my bearings. I’m also looking for somewhere to watch tonight’s early match. No luck. The only place showing it is little more than a drinking hole and doesn’t serve food. It looks as though we’ll be giving live football a miss this month.
K appears with almost a foot of hair removed from down her back. What remains is streaked blue and purple. We settle for a quick Indian meal, picking over the logistical log jam of the coming month, and call it a day.
Sunday 18 October
The hills are calling. It’s been a year and a half since our last hike in Hong Kong and we’re both chomping at the bit. The afternoon is glorious, if toasty. We’re ready for a sweaty trek from Tsz Wan Shan to Che Kung Temple.
The Sunday hikers today: Nick (73), Peter (71), Jon (65), me (57), and K the young tyke at 48. How did we all get so old?
Lion Rock looms high above Wong Tai Sin. Few things tug at the heartstrings like it:
We beat a steady trek up and out of the city, disappearing into the jungle at Tsz Wan Shan (below) and emerging at Laughing Policeman café at the Shatin Pass (also below):
We’ve hiked together for many years, but today, for the first time, all of us have retired from full-time work — Jon, the last among us draw a regular pay cheque, left CityU earlier this year when he turned 65.
Much of the conversation revolves around how we all plan to spend the coming years. There’s a sad inevitability knowing that the Sunday hiking group has almost run its course. In one form or another, it’s been around since 1985: a good innings, but one coming to an unavoidable close. Fellow property-owner Nick is the only one of us likely to remain in Hong Kong.
The easy conversation — I’ve known Jon and Nick half my life by now — the quiet paths, the lush jungle, the brilliant blue sky, the distant views to the planet’s densest concentration of skyscrapers, the rustic squatter homes as we descend through a valley: I’ve waited a long time for all this.
Back in the city, I’ve crossed the bridge outside Mongkok East station a hundred times or more, but never at sunset on a Sunday. Dozens of photographers with serious cameras are lined up along the railings waiting for the perfect shot as the sun drops at the end of Argyle Street:
The traditional four o’clock vote designated that we retire for adult refreshments to Graceland in Mongkok East — a new venue for both of us, one the others discovered only recently. It’s a long time since I’ve knocked back three pints, but there’s still much to talk about, not to mention several rounds of Mike’s Mat:
Stepping off the ferry back on Cheung Chau, we bump into John, the gentle waiter from Yung Shue Wan. I don’t recognise him at first: he’s missing a lot of teeth and going grey. Everybody’s getting older. He says he’s still waiting tables, but he’s left Lamma and moved to Cheung Chau. We never establish why.
Monday 19 October
We’re back on Lamma for the first time this trip. Immediately, familiar faces are everywhere. We’re barely off the brand-new ferry pier when we run into Nick and Sarah outside Jaybird. They’re enjoying a last drink with Liam, who’s quietly leaving tonight after thirty years. We wish him well for his retirement back in Scotland.
Barely fifty metres further on, we run into Santi and Nural. Nural’s husband, who I’ve never met until now, solves the mystery of poor Steve Cray’s passing last year. Apparently, he suffered a massive heart attack in his sleep. “He woke up dead”, as he puts it.
Adam and Vicki have invited us over for dinner, where we’re joined by Miranda, Dan and Annette. We’re staying over, which is just as well as there’s much to catch up on. Six hours pass between arriving and slipping into their guest room. We only stop then, shortly after midnight, because Vicki is visibly flagging.
Tuesday 20 October
I wake up at Adam and Vicki’s at dawn, make a cuppa and take it up to their roof terrace. It’s lovely to gaze out over the Yung Shue Long valley, yet I’m still glad we’ve chosen to stay on Cheung Chau, where everything feels fresh and invigorating rather than the ghost of our old life.
Over breakfast, Adam and I throw every log we can find onto the conversational fire. Their plans to start travelling once their geriatric cat finally passes. Adam having to submit the VVs’ lyrics to the police for approval before they can play at Lamma Fun Day. The equally absurd security arrangements at a recent Belle & Sebastian gig in Guangzhou. The implications of the Renters Rights Act for us as UK landlords.
Once K’s shipshape, we say our goodbyes and head out into the bright sunshine of an unseasonably scorching October day, this time bumping into Suzi and Helena on our way to the pier. It’s lovely seeing the gawps of recognition and surprise every time we’re spotted.
K heads off to run a few errands while I make my way to PolyU to meet Matt for lunch. I’m just emerging from Hung Hom station when I run into Rhys on his way to teach. He only has a couple of moments to spare, but we manage a selfie before he hurries off. I try to imagine myself scuttling off to teach. It’s all beginning to feel a long time ago. A previous version of me.
Matt is his usual affable self over a plate of chicken doner in Tsim Sha Tsui. Lunch is over far too quickly. I leave him back at PolyU and, far too early to meet up with K, ride the MTR all the way to Chai Wan and back to Fortress Hill — quite possibly the cheapest hour of air conditioning available in Hong Kong.
After a quick visit to the lockup, we head back to Cheung Chau. I’m still dressed in last night’s black jeans, which are desperately uncomfortable on this brutally hot October afternoon. If the forecast holds, today is the last day the mercury will touch thirty degrees. Bring on the autumn breeze.
Wednesday 21 October
I was way too optimistic yesterday: today Hong Kong limps and pants through its latest-ever hot weather warning. Parts of the New Territories nudge 36 degrees.
I was looking at the wrong weather app. Whatever the shortcomings of the local powers that be, the Hong Kong Observatory, not Apple Weather, remains the last word on local conditions. And HKO is warning the mercury will stay right where it is until at least the middle of next week.
But at least I’m not wandering around in black jeans today. After a morning of work, the only place we need to be is the launderette. In shorts.
The launderette has nowhere to sit and no air-con, so we head off in search of iced coffee. This proves more difficult than expected. Cheung Chau has a scattering of dessert shops, but a proper café proves elusive. We eventually wash up at McDonald’s, where the air con is almost as frigid as the launderette would have been sweltering. Some days you just can’t win.
Back at the flat, our Airbnb host Cecelia pops round with a new kettle (the one in the flat has a broken lid). We hit it off and soon fall into conversation. After building a bit of rapport, we cautiously ask about a terrible one-star review she recently received.
Cecelia immediately launches into a dismayed yarn about a Singaporean family who sound like the Airbnb guests from hell: demanding help to carry their luggage up from the pier, demanding she drop everything to attend to them immediately (“I was in the middle of my dinner!”) when they locked themselves out of a bedroom*, and predictably leaving the flat a complete tip on checking out.
And then having the chutzpah to leave a one-star review. Some folk are simply beyond redemption.
*Hong Kong must be the only place on earth with lockable doors to every room.
Thursday 22 October
I head out once more at dawn to join the Cheung Chau dots into something resembling a town I can navigate comfortably.
At Tung Wan, a dozen early-morning swimmers splash around in the water. I offer a chirpy jo san to everyone I pass. Reactions range from an equally chirpy jo san in reply, to complete indifference.
After dark, we’re back on Lamma at the Beer Shack to see the VVs — minus Colin, who’s laid up with flu.
More familiar faces pop up on the way. On Main Street, Martini’s buying supplies for her new job as head chef at Carlos’. Later, after we’ve wandered to the edge of the village, Kelly emerges from the darkness between two widely spaced street lights. We have just enough time for a quick chat, keeping one eye on the time to ensure we make it to the Beer Shack before the clock strikes on their extraordinarily generous happy-hour prices.
There are barely twenty of us in the audience, almost all familiar faces. It suits the band fine: they haven’t played a gig since May and have only managed a single rehearsal for tonight.
Without their lead guitarist, it’s a stripped-back sound: Adam on acoustic guitar, Magnus on a cajón with a tambourine wrapped around his left foot, Dave’s bass turned low in the mix. Beer Shack owner Joseph occasionally adds a little improvised lead, and Shaun drifts in and out on fiddle. Two sets: the first a run through VVs originals, the second largely covers.
Without Colin’s lead guitar, Adam’s pretty arpeggios reveal his love of Sarah Records and all things jangly. A couple of songs require a little imagination to fill in Colin’s missing parts, but overall it works remarkably well.
I’ve already caught up with Dave before the set, so at the break I have a long natter with Magnus. Adam returns to play Billy Bragg’s A Lover Sings, Magnus joins him for Waiting for the Great Leap Forward, then Dave and Shaun join in for a rousing California Stars. They run through Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me), a stomping Werewolves of London, and even make a ramshackle but charming stab at The Boy with the Arab Strap.
There’s nothing quite like hearing some of your favourite songs played, competently, by your mates in a tiny bar.
Talented bastards.
It feels strange catching the almost-empty ferry back to Central after a night out on Lamma — just five of us on the upper deck. Two are a giggling teenage couple, the girl wearing bunny ears. Lamma: eccentric as always.
Cheung Chau shortly before midnight is nothing like Yung Shue Wan at the same hour. The shops are closed but the praya is still buzzing with street snack sellers drumming up a little late-night business from the ferry returnees.
We pass them by, climb the hill, and arrive home deeply satisfied.
Friday 23 October
We’ve been zipping around seeing people for a week. It’s time for the tables to turn: Henry and Fanny come to visit us on Cheung Chau. Henry immediately confesses this is the first time he’s stepped foot on the island. He’s 72.
I have a vague plan for an amble around the best parts of the island, but Henry understandably wants to visit the Cheung Po Tsai pirate cave. And so he shall, newbie that he is.
For the most part, it’s not a walk that shows off Cheung Chau at its charming best, but things improve past Sai Wan, where we leave the populated part of the island and head over the small promontory towards the cave.
We arrive just as an energetic band of youngsters catch up with us and disappear through the rocks towards the cave, teasing each other for being too fat to squeeze through the narrow gaps.
Henry follows them but soon re-emerges. As far as I recall, there’s not a lot to see — and besides there’s no evidence whatsoever that Cheung Po Tsai ever used this particular cave. It’s pure folklore and marketing.
We’ve barely started heading back when the youngsters overtake us again. “How come you guys are so slow?” jokes Henry, to much hilarity.
Fanny’s suffering with a bout of plantar fasciitis, but she’s sufficiently curious to accept a detour to see our Airbnb. Inside, I pull out the Airbnb app and show them where else we’ll be staying between now and the middle of next year.
Back in town, we settle on a rather scruffy seafood place on the waterfront. The food is decidedly so-so, but good value. As the beer and wine flow, everyone loosens up. I click my heels three times and disappear. For the next ninety minutes I sip my Tsing Tao and monitor the torrent of Cantonese for the occasional familiar word or phrase with very little idea what’s going on. But it’s fine. It’s family.
In fresh surroundings, it’s the most memorable day with the in-laws for years.
Saturday 24 October
K’s due for lunch Hong Kong-side and has errands to run. I enjoy a rare day of solitude before we meet Nick and Ludi for dinner on Cheung Chau.
I’ve known Nick 28 years, yet I had no idea he has a twin sister. I’ve heard his tales of growing up in fifties and sixties Luton: the Black grandfather, the half-brother who disappeared to LA at fourteen and never came back. But a twin sister? Never a murmur.
Odd.
Despite best intentions to remember, we fail to grab a photo.
Sunday 25 October
Hike Two of our very short season is a ramble round shady Tai Po Kau. Jon’s working in Macau, but James E puts in an appearance, bringing me up to speed with what’s going on behind the curtain at PolyU. More reorganisation. More construction. More Mainland students. None of it sounds welcome, but what changes ever do sound welcome to old-timers like us?
The taxi whisking us from the MTR station to Tai Po Kau passes now-abandoned Wang Fuk Court. I’ve passed it many times over the years, when it was just another high-rise estate. But today feels different. Visceral. Looking up from the taxi window, it’s impossible not to think of the 168 poor souls who unnecessarily lost their lives there.
Despite lacking a single OS map between us, we manage not to get hopelessly lost and eventually find our way back down to the King’s Belly:
Monday 26 October
For me, a quiet day kicking back on the island. K has old art-class friends to see for dinner and heads into town. I use the last of the sunlight for a brisk stroll to the Ting Hau temple at Nam Tam Wan.
I wish I had more days to enjoy Cheung Chau like this. The next few days are going to be packed.
Tuesday 27 October
Nick’s extended an open invitation to join him walking Foster any morning the fancy takes me. I’ve never explored the north side of Cheung Chau beyond Nick’s home, so at seven-thirty I report for duty as dog walking companion.
Nick delivers. First, at this time of day there’s barely a soul about once we cross the edge of town just beyond his place. Second, he ignores a sign warning ‘Access for Slope Maintenance Only’, and leads me down a rough trail deep into the jungle to a hidden viewpoint overlooking the island. To reach it, we have to ascend a narrow, slapdash, open-sided staircase using a weathered length of rope. It’s completely worth risking my neck for:
And third, we genuinely feel like two retired old codgers taking our morning constitutional. I watch a ferry slipping the harbour for Central and tell Nick how I no longer understand how I used to work forty hours a week and still somehow squeeze life into the corners left over. We may both still have regular work, but this morning more than ever I’m convinced by my own propaganda that retirement is primarily a state of mind.
I feel retired today.
Retired or not, after lunch it’s my turn to ride the ferry into town: I need some new clothes before my existing ones finally disintegrate. A new pair of chinos and a matching ochre T-shirt at M&S. A new pair of Converse in Mongkok.
By six, I’m done. I find myself with an hour to spare before meeting K and former Impact HK faces in Sham Shui Po. So I do something I would never have done in my permanently rushed working days: I walk. On the way, I even have time to sit quietly on a bench for half an hour. After dark at least, Hong Kong in late October is the perfect temperature: cool enough to not sweat; warm enough to be comfortable in short sleeves.
The Oi Man Sang dai pai dong in Sham Shui Po is doing a roaring trade tonight. I fall into conversation with Jeff, leaving K to chatter in Cantonese with Cindy, Cosmo and Ah Lik.
Ah Lik, now 67, has moved on from Impact HK and now works as a cleaner in a small park near Olympic. Cindy continues to look after Impact’s food service. Jeff brings me up to date with what’s going on both at Impact and at Love 21 before we turn to family and footie, steadily draining two towers of beer between the six of us.
Wednesday 28 October
A second family day.
First, lunch at a cha chaan teng in Tuen Mun: delicious lumps of luncheon meat in tomato soup with macaroni and lashing of white pepper, alongside proper Cantonese-style slippery eggs and a thick slice of butter-fried toast. Comfort food like no other:
The double-decker bus winds through the scrappy far west of the New Territories, all container yards and crane depots, to Tsang Tsui columbarium. We clean Popo’s memorial plaque, then share a bottle of Blue Girl and a plate of salmon sashimi with her:
Nearby, no one else can reach Kyra’s resting place on the top row, so I make myself useful:
Since our last visit, K’s art-class friend Affa’s ashes have also been interred here. Popo, Kyra and Affa, all resting within a minute or two or each other.
Now for the awkward bit. No one’s seen Damon since we last ambushed him at work eighteen months ago. Henry admits he was less than thrilled to see us last time, but ambushing him at work remains the only reliable way to find him sober. So we’re doing it again.
This time we have a little extra justification: Damon’s UK passport has expired. To apply for a new one, he’ll need a photo that meets the strict requirements of the Foreign Office — not necessarily the sort of thing you’d leave Damon to organise alone. K places him in front of a plain grey wall and takes a few shots.
He looks noticeably older: rapidly greying and filling out into middle age. He barely disguises his displeasure at mum, dad and sis showing up at work again, but eventually softens a little.
We leave Damon to finish his shift and settle on a nearby restaurant overlooking the Kowloon gasworks. The glamour!
A bus to Hung Hom leaves from outside the restaurant. It’s gone eight, but at PolyU every office light and every classroom light still appears lit. It’s good to see the familiar red brick sprawl, but despite still having a staff card, its place in my daily life feels more distant than it once did.
Thursday 29 October
We spend the afternoon repacking our belongings at the lockup — some of the boxes at the bottom were beginning to buckle.
Raymond meets us at a Pacific Coffee in Hung Hom, and the three of us walk to the nearby funeral home — Lo Cheung’s mother has just passed away and the family are gathering for a Buddhist wake. Lo Cheung and his brothers are dressed in traditional white ‘KKK’ costumes, complete with sackcloth breastplates and hats. We’re handed burning incense sticks, bow at the altar, and place the sticks in a bowl in front of a large framed photo of Lo Cheung’s late mum. I sense everyone’s looking at the gweilo, but manage not to embarrass myself too much.
We find seats and spend half an hour dutifully folding sheets of brightly coloured paper into ‘gold’ bars, dropping them into a paper sack that will be burned to pass into the afterlife. I’ve done this before and before long rediscover the knack, despite some initial shoddy attempts at Chinese funeral origami.
K has yet another dinner to fly off to, so we take our leave just as the almighty racket of a Chinese funeral orchestra starts up*. K heads to Mongkok; I head back to Cheung Chau.
We’re halfway through our month in Hong Kong. It still feels rushed. I have no idea how we managed with just two weeks last time we were here.
* This is not the funeral itself. We wouldn’t walk out just as the funeral started!
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