Hongkong 2

Almost 3 years later, I was back in Hongkong. This time for a whole week, but it still felt like a whirlwind tour.

Notables:

- the wedding: a full day of traipsing around in high heels that very quickly hurt, on about 2 hours sleep. The morning was fun, I kept myself entertained taking photos while V participated in the games, but the endless standing around, waiting (I never realised how much time is spent just taking photos during a wedding – photos getting ready, photos with the groomsmen, photos of the groom ‘fetching’ the bride, photos of the tea ceremony, photos of the bride & groom, photos walking back to the groom’s house, another tea ceremony and more photos, on and on… I think that’s driven the last nail into the coffin of weddings for me.)

- Sam & Maggie, the happy couple and V’s very close friends, two of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.

- Macau: strange how excited V and I were to go back to ‘Europe’ after only two days in Hongkong (and I had said I was sick of Europe!); loved the Portuguese on the street signs – as tragic as this sounds – both foreign and yet also comfortingly familiar. The street that’s lined on both sides with bakeries that sell that Chinese dried jerky-like (but so much better than jerky) pork that comes in sheets, the shop assistants standing outside, ready with a pair of scissors to cut you a sample whether you want it or not. Walking down a quiet side street, eating fresh, fall-apart-as-you-bite-into-their-crispness egg rolls, hot off the ‘iron’. Eating taro flavoured ice cream, bought from an old man with a proper old-style ice cream cart.

- street food: you never ever have to go looking for food, it’s only ever a few paces away, even if it’s just a little doorway of a shop/stall wedged between two shops, selling all manner of fishballs on sticks, deep-fried on order.

- congee: boy did I eat my fill of preserved egg congee – I don’t think I want to see congee for a long while yet.

- dim sum: likewise. Although we did discover something I’ve never had before when my family ordered these steamed bun rolls with a sticky rice centre – really really good!

- Tai O: a little fishing village with houses on stilts, a street you walk down and all you can smell is dried fish and seafood from the shops on either side. The ‘egg’ waffly-type things we got from a street-vendor, who cooked it in a bin filled with coal (the old way, Sam said, you never see that anymore in the city.)

- the other village on yet another small island where we wandered around, looking at shops selling sarongs and colourful thongs and little bags, before having an alfresco dinner of cheap seafood which you pick out live from rows of tanks set out on the ground, and which is then cooked by the restaurants after some negotiation on price.

- the really good Indonesian we had for dinner one night: I over-ordered but the rendang was delicious, as was the barbecue chicken, the gado-gado was very good, and the satay was perfect, and I got to have yellow rice with all of it!

- street markets in Kowloon where I bought a couple of pairs of shoes, really cheap, and shiny silky gifts to take back home with me.

- the massage we cancelled our Michelin star restaurant booking for, that was so worth it because it sorted out all the kinks and knots in my back. I walked like my body was weightless after that, and I think I’m going to make massages more of a regular thing.

- the beef brisket noodles I had afterwards, at the cheap unassuming place we had dinner at instead.

There hasn’t really been any more trips since Italy, other than hitting the Edinburgh Fringe – twice. The first visit was a bit of a disaster, leaving is feeling unsatisfied, and the second was an opportunistic last minute trip which ended up being all that we could have wanted, sating our desire to see, hear, feel, laugh, and be at turns, amazed, surprised, and appalled.

We saw what felt like dozens of shows, some good, some bad. Among my favourite were The Clockheart Boy, a tale for adults (i.e. some rather dark themes) told through the vehicle of a children’s story; 21:13, musings on language and communication, I guess falling mostly under physical theatre as well as word-based theatre; Barbershopera (I think this one’s self-explanatory).

There were bite-sized plays – 4-5 short, very funny, 10-minute plays; this one was a breakfast show and so we got a croissant and a hot drink thrown in as well. On the day we caught this breakfast show, I think we managed to fit in 6-7 shows, finishing with a supper show at midnight, a chilled variety show hosted by a multi-talented (she played the saw, and did something gross with her tongue, and ‘channeled’ Margot Fonteyn) Kiwi host with the driest delivery ever (perfect for a supper show).

We managed to finally see (and yes, it did require a concerted effort on our part) La Clique, which was indeed as much sexy fun as promised by everyone who had been before – oh my god the Bathtub Man is sex personified, and no, you really won’t understand until you see the show live (all the females in the Spiegeltent were whipped to such a state of … ‘heat’ – there was not a single female pulse that was not racing, not a single one of us was beathing normally by the end of his act). The Caesar Twins’ show (they used to be in La Clique but were at the Fringe with their own show) were a bit of a letdown, but I think that was as much to do with V and I as it was to do with them. And we caught the English Gents (who are a current act in La Clique) out and about doing their act on the street, three times over the two trips.

Mark Watson impressed, Danny Bhoy not so much. We went to see Gary & Stu’s free improv show again, and again, they had us in stitches. Other various bits and pieces of comedy advertised as free, turned out not to be entirely free (they touted for tips afterwards) and not worth the effort.

Some of the shows we went to see were different – some in a good way, like the Korean melodrama which used some inventive ways to create some amazing imagery with sheets, and Dada Noir (under music), and some didn’t quite work – well for us anyway – like the Park-keeper (at the Red Room), and the Tiger Lilies’ Seven Deadly Sins, and the worst production possible ever I think, of a 14-15th century Scottish play.

And that I would say, is a pretty representative sample of the Fringe.

……………………………………………..

And then there were other fantastic shows we caught in London, like Brief Encounter, a show staged in a cinema (which had been converted to a stage), which was lots of fun (if you want heart-ache see the film), and a clever staging of Tosca (clever because they set it in the 60s, and it worked) at Holland Park (which being outdoors, should have been fabulous in summer, but thanks to the appalling weather, was freezing). Testiment to how good it was I think that despite the circumstances (the cold and some distracting noise carrying in from outside), I was on the edge of my seat for much of it.

We saw some dazzling  dance from Christopher Wheeldon’s company Morphoses, choosing to go because we had loved DGV so much (last year? the year before? probably matters more that we are going again this year). He didn’t disappoint – putting out such beautiful dance, choosing such incredible music to set it to as well.

We saw Akram Khan again, this time with Juliette Binoche. Understandably, this time the show was less dance – coming nowhere near the physical magic he had with Sylvie Guillem in Monsters (they were amazing – they were so fast, so graceful, so expressive, so playful, and just generally such a wonder to watch) – and more theatre, but nevertheless a good show and a riveting watch.

And those are only the ones that I can remember.

Naples – we didn’t have much time in Naples – just one short day, just enough to get an impression of chaos. Naples reminded us of Asian cities (although I don’t think any European city would ever really rival them). The small shopfronts, wares spilling out onto the street, the touts selling all manner of stuff on the sidewalks, the little places selling fritti - I finally got to try zucchini flowers! -  the slightly larger places selling pizza by the slice, kids zipping around on scooters, groups of men standing on the street discussing current affairs.

The best bit was the older chap who started talking to us (in Italian), as we sat on a bench on the street, eating baba al rhum. We were eating these for breakfast - the sign in the bakery just said ‘baba’ and I hadn’t realised that they always came doused in rum, even at 10 in the morning. He told us they were called baba, and that they were a Napolitan speciality. And that if you saw someone you thought you were cute, instead of saying ‘hey, you’re bella/bello‘, you say ‘you are a baba‘.

Agropoli – …. sounded so promising, an old town perched on a cliff overlooking the sea, a popular sea-side holiday town with locals. Proved to be quite dead, and looked and felt tired and worn; this impression probably not helped by the fact that we arrived in siesta hour, and struggled to find accommodation (the first place we went to which was recommended by the guidebook was closed, as in completely shut down). We were so tired that day I think we actually had dinner by 6 and were in bed by 8. But not before I got a very sweet compliment from an old lady walking down the street – she stopped us to ask where I was from, and pinched my cheek (can you believe), exclaiming ‘bellisima! bellisima!’ (I think her eyesight was going).

Paestum – was a bit of a letdown. The guidebook had said it was hard to beat the vision of 3 greek temples standing in a field of poppies, and I think the picture I made in my head was just too idyllic for anything real to ever live up to. And I think we missed the poppies – although we’d seen a smattering of bright poppies in various fields in Tuscany, the few we saw further south looked weary and sun-faded.

Matera – Matera was the delightful surprise at the end of our trip. It was shiny and new and happening, kind of the way I’d pictured Agropoli would be, and Matera also had the kind of beauty I expected when I read that people say Lucca was ‘built of beauty’ …. yes, Lucca was beautiful, but in a completely different way to what I had imagined: shaded boulevards and spacious piazzas lined with trattoria and gelati shops, rather than the rosy hued glow of stone that I conjured up (maybe it had something to do with Split occupying top place on my list of beautiful towns). Well Matera had that luminous beauty of a town carved from stone – not at all what you might imagine from a town that guidebook explained had suffered almost fathomless poverty and disease only as recently as the 50s (the government apparently had to do a mass relocation after a malaria epidemic). The sassi, homes carved out of the rockfaces of the valley, which people used to live in out of necessity, were now trendy residences. Not all of the sassi had been repopulated – many were still empty, with their entrances barred and government signs up banning people from attempting entry.

Oh, this might make it mean something to more people – Matera was one of the locations for the filming of Passion of Christ (I should probably watch that film now that I’ve been to two of the locations – Matera, as well as a small town in the desert in Morocco).

Anyway, aside from the slightly strange tour guide we hired, Matera was also memorable for one of the best meals we had in Italy, at a trattoria that was clearly a favourite with the locals (there was a big family group in there celebrating a birthday) as well as tourists (they had their menu translated into Japanese). On a tangent here, this just shows what savvy, intrepid travellers the Japanese are, compared to say the Americans (while every second voice we heard in Tuscany was American, we heard no American accents at all in Matera). Anyway, back to the food – we had one of the most generous, varied antipasti plates ever to start with, and mouthwateringly delicious pastas (I could not not have the pasta!) – mmm….

And at the end, lugging our five bottles of red, we were just tired enough to be glad to be going home, although at the same time sad to be leaving Italy.

Notes on Italy

Italy the second time around, 2 weeks from the last week in May to the first week in June.

Milan – surprisingly beautiful. We were rapt we managed to get tickets to see some opera – a double bill of The Prisoner and Bluebeard’s Castle - in La Scala, at 12€ a ticket, in a very civilised fashion. And disappointed we were the only tourists who bothered to dress up for the opera.

Como – a bit dull. Highlight for me was not the beautiful villas and their amazing manicured gardens, that we could just see from the ferry (one we did visit), or the towns of Como, and Bellagio, yes, both very lovely, no, not these, but rather, our bus trip up part of the coast, our bus squeezing past cars in the narrow little streets of sleepy little towns (it was 8 am after all – we were pushed for time to do our sight-seeing, because the ferries had a very scatty service).

Rapello – the pensione we thought would make a good last minute stop-over (we thought we wouldn’t be able to get to Cinque Terre by dark) turned out to be well outside of Rapello, perched high above the town next to a Sanctuario (that’s a church in the middle of nowhere for us non-Italophones). Once inside the pensione (it took a while to establish whether anyone was home), we were greeted by a life-size Madonna in a faux-cave setting at the bottom of the stairs – and the dark empty corridor we were led down to our room, did nothing to shake off the feeling we were in an old disused monastery.

Cinque Terre – breathtaking Cinque Terre, beset with rain and storms when we were there, but the rain actually worked out well for us (cooling the air down so that we could do the walks in greater comfort).

We loved the charming village feel of Vernazza, where we decided we would look for accommodation: we stopped at a place with a sign offering accommodation (every second place has a sign), were told by the lady of the house who was just returning home that she had let her room but that she had a friend with a very nice room, who, as she was about to phone, appeared walking up the street. Said friend then led us down the street and up an alley to the most delightful room (with ensuite, its own entrance to the street, and a back balcony for hanging our towels, and clothes), on the way stopping to call up to his wife who was at home to come down. Maria (who we later found out originally hailed from Vienna) then showed us the room (and her ‘rules’ – things like, don’t go to bed with wet hair; I didn’t mind, I never do), and asked us to just call up to her if we needed anything.

The walks we did were of course amazing - hot and sticky on the first day (but so worth it for the views), the 20 minute easy Love Walk on the second day (the day of the storms), and my favourite, a much less crowded walk through the just-washed green of the overgrown vineyards on our last day.

And then the little incidents, like observing, outside a restaurant in the calm of the afternoon between lunch and dinner, a lovely little old lady walk down, and hand to a guy from the kitchen a small bundle of herbs. The guy then of course did the very Italian thing of taking a big sniff of the herbs, and exclaiming ‘bellisima’ (or something to that effect), before thanking her and returning to the kitchen.

The food – I ate so much seafood spaghetti I was almost sick of the stuff by the end. Little worm-shaped trofie, served with pesto. V’s mozzarella and tomato filled gnocchi we never found anywhere else.

And last, but not least, Maureen and Dino, the interesting American couple we met – I thought people like them were the stuff of fiction, but nope, they were the real thing.

Tuscany – lovely Lucca, mandatory Pisa, atmospheric Siena. The vintage cars paraded out in the piazzas of Lucca, and the locals carrying out their daily activities – walking, jogging, cycling, playing, making out, having wedding photos taken, on the city walls of the town. The train strike (sciopero – why was I surprised to find that our little Lonely Planet phrasebook had it?) on the day we needed to get to Siena from Lucca, via Florence.

The narrow winding streets of medieval Siena, uncoiling from its heart Piazza Del Campo. The delicious pizza that came with a personal recommendation from the young chef, in a little hole in the wall foccaccia place, and the three sweet, cheerful young men (including said chef) that manned the joint. The sweet Colombian girl who worked at the car rental place in Siena, and openly shared stories about her mum and her boyfriend and her life in Siena.

The lovely little renovated 15th century farmhouse, just outside tiny but completely charming Castiglione D’Orcia, where we kept ourselves out of the rain (yes, the rain followed us everywhere!). The cake at breakfast (thick fat slices which still weren’t enough!) that our lovely hostess made every day. The glimpses of the old farmer who kept to himself as he did his daily tasks around the farmhouse.

Montalcino (and the wine ‘tastings’ we did), Montepulciano (still more red wine to taste), and the other little towns we stopped in, like Montichiello, a tiny town with nothing but one very good restaurant, and Chianciano Terme, which looked like it might have been more interesting than the guidebook let on, and tempting to stop in, had we not been completely stressed out about trying to do U-turns in narrow one-way streets so that we could get our car out of the car-free inner-city zone.

The free hot spring soak we had in the great outdoors of Bagno di San Filippi (another great little tip from Lonely Planet).

The meals we had in various little towns, from a minimalist spaghetti served with the best olive oil money can buy and hard cheese shaved at the table (with a flourish!), to fat pici served with a simple tomato sauce (really good when well-made, a bit like strange udon when not), to linguine with fresh porcini (V had this in the most unlikeliest of places – a small hotel restaurant stuck in the 70’s, the decor looking as though it had once upon a time had aspirations to be grand) – hmmm, is it obvious I was obsessed with having as much al dente pasta, as only the Italians can make, as I could while I was there?

….. to be continued

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And just like that, it’s summer!

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From Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting:

That conversation with the taxi driver suddenly made clear to me the essence of the writer’s occupation. We write books because our children aren’t interested in us. We address ourselves to an anonymous world because our wives plug their ears when we speak to them.

You might say that the taxi driver is not a writer but a graphomaniac. So we need to be precise about our concepts. A woman who writes her lover four letters a day is not a graphomaniac. She is a lover. But my friend who makes photocopies of his love letters to publish them someday is a graphomaniac. Graphomania is not a desire to write letters, personal diaries, or family chronicles (to write for oneself or one’s close relations) but a desire to write books (to have a public of unknown readers). …

Graphomania (a mania for writing books) inevitably takes on epidemic proportions when a society develops to the point of creating three basic conditions:

1) an elevated level of general well-being, which allows people to devote themselves to useless activities;

2) a high degree of social atomisation and, as a consequence, a general isolation of individuals;

3) the absence of dramatic social changes in the nation’s internal life. (From that point of view, it seems to me symptomatic that in France, where practically nothing happens, the percentage of writers is twenty -one times higher than in Israel. …)

But by backlash, the  effect affects the cause. General isolation breeds graphomania, and generalised graphomania in turn intensifies and worsens isolation. The invention of printing formerly enabled people to understand one another. In the era of universal graphomania, the writing of books has an opposite meaning: everyone surrounded by his own words as by a wall of mirrors, which allows no voice to filter through from outside.