Autumn 2011 in Hong Kong

For some strange reason until November 2011 I had never made it to Hong Kong. Whenever there had been opportunity to take some time off, the roads have always been taking to different "old" or "traditional" corners of China, not to modern cities like Hong Kong.
And of course when living in Shanghai there was no urge to go to similar kind of megacity. Well this proved to be wrong, Hong Kong is and feels like no other Chinese city, actually a lot more like Singapore. Also the 100 years of being under Great Britain has shaped its living style, culture, architecture. All of it together making a very pleasant place to be.

Even though it is on a small piece of land, there is actually a lot of nature and when taking a bus to one of the suburbs the curvy road and views from bus window can easily leave impression of being in European countryside.

Fortune tellers' street

Freedom of speech. Protests under the main bank building.

Typical office lunch



All packed up, even though nowadays almost all industry has moved away from Hong Kong, the city is still among the TOP most polluted cities for China, mostly due to its extreme population density, traffic...

Red house

City link with the sea

Busy streets

Seafood market further away from the central Hong Kong.

Seafood market, selling fish straight from the sea

Packed bicycle in metro.

Special Disneyland metro line

Disneyland, strange but actually really nice wonderland

Balloons

Indonesia - Lombok island surfing

Lombok island, 4 hours by slow boat from Bali. The transformation is remarkable: most of Bali houses looked like small stone temples, houses in Lombok are often just small straw huts. The main religion in Bali is Hinduism with all the ceremonies, bell tolls, bright colours, then Lombok comes with Muslim religion, mosques, women covered up, speakers echoing prayers over villages.
Besides that Lombok comes with incredible hidden beaches, perfect waves for surfers.

With a small fishing boat to the waves

Boat, surfers and the village shared by traditional fishermen and surfers.

Gerupuk village old surfshop on the main street (the only street)

One of the hidden beaches we found just by accident. From the cliff top opened a beautiful view on surfers making their way between waves and rocks.

Lombok's highes peak Gunung Rinjani showing itself for a moment from behind the clouds.

Learning the waves again after first trial 4 years ago in Australia. Photos by Gerupuk surf photographer Russell.

Legend of the leaving Gili Trawangan, Lombok. Gili Trawangan is a small island just by Lombok, it is a popular tourist beach hideout. Connected with Bali, the main tourist hub, in numerous ways - one option is taking the speed boats. It can be a fast trip of 2.5 hours, cutting short the time of travelling from Gili Trawangan back to Lombok, then taking 3-4 hours bus trip to slow ferry terminal and then taking a 4 hour ferry back to Bali.

After a quick decision the idea was to catch the last fast boat to Bali at this day. First 10 minutes of the ride were nice, boat speeding up, waves little stronger than would want from a smooth ride. Then we were out from behind the islands and the waves started to show their full power. They were smashing against boat hull with incredible cracking sound. Captain slowed down the boat, then speeded up again.

At one moment one of the front hatches broke open and water started to come into the saloon. Children crying, women shouting to turn back and give out the life vests. The boat front was heavier from the water on board and nose started to point more and more downwards, making sure even more water from the waves will come into the boat.

The crew asked everybody who could move to go to the back of the boat, for getting the boat back in balance and to be able to shovel water out. After few moments this and change of course helped to regain the balance. With people still crying or just seasick the trip went on by not driving directly into waves.

Already calmed down.

Seaweed harvesting

Indonesia - on the road in Bali

Bali is a tiny island, few hundred km West-East and maybe hundred km North-South, somewhere in the middle of it is Ubud, the cultural and artistic centre of Bali and Indonesia. It is all rainy and humid there, makes you think that who would like to live in this wetness, but despite that it is packed with local and foreign artists and maybe even more tourists who have wondered little further away from all-inclusive beach resorts.

The ultimate jungle villa, the local staff was extremely proud to show us around in this brand new establishment. One of the interesting detail was the bath in a middle of water, the whole bathroom was opened to the sky.

Ubud is relaxed town to wonder on hilly streets and look into different art galleries and enjoy the best what there is to offer for tourists: I had never thought of car service in restaurants seriously, after one dinner a waiter asked if we would like to have a car back to our jungle hotel, obviously there was no need to spend money as the hotel was just 1 km away, waiter explained it is all taken care of, this is inclusive part of our dinner, how nice is that?! We sticked to our walking plan, but as such it was interesting service, that I had never came across. Last year in Macau, the gambling paradise and special economic zone of China, heard similar service being offered for gamblers all over China, casinos would send a private jet to pick the gambler up and deliver to Macau, obviously in these cases the expected spending in Casino is few million RMB or USD.

From Ubud the the direction was towards North coast. Rice fields on the road.

Religion



Simple living houses looking like temples

The 3 younger brothers of volcano Gunung Batur. All 3 were born in different eruptions within last 100 years, the black flowing lava is still visible from the last eruption.

Temple ceremony

Temple ceremony - carrying offerings

Temple ceremony - Young fellow fully dressed for the occasion

Indonesia - Bali island

As the tradition goes, Chinese New Year is the time to be far from China, so it went also in 2012.

Last moment destination choice was Indonesia, though just a fraction of it, with Bali and Lombok islands.
Finally made it to Indonesia, and what a place it is: Bali's mysterious religious rituals, high volcanic mountain passes which only sometimes see any tourists, luxury resorts packed with Australian holiday seekers. And then Lombok, wild beaches with few surfers hunting for perfect waves.




Moist climate








Balinese architecture is one room = one house.







Bedroom opened directly to other rooms (houses)






Blossoms







Decorations in front of temple. Religious rituals are natural part of daily life. A common practice is to make 3-4 small food offerings per day by putting small plates with rice in front of doors, gates and statues.







Balinese







Decorations on the road to the temple.







Typical gates in Bali, looks like one structure has been cut vertically from the middle and then lifted few meters apart from each other.







The fuel for motorbikes: Absolut Patrol

Fist days of the year 2012

Usually the first day of the is the quiet one, this is how the life is in one of the markets in Rizhao today afternoon (January the 1st).


Eye on the meat. Usually it is not a problem to drive the motorbike right to the meat stalls to pick up the best piece of meat.







Sausages hanging in the wind







Selling fish







Some fish sold directly on the street.






Vegetable guy







Local leek & onion pizza shaping up







Another vegetable guy.






Coming from shopping








January 1, 2012. The big holiday in China - Chinese New Year, also called Spring Festival, will be only in 3 weeks time. Then is possible to see something what National Geographic called as the biggest yearly human migration on planet.