Friday, May 26, 2006
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Camping at Wong Shek Pier
Our second camping trip. 
The next day Cliff and Mike met us there and we walked over to Dai Long Wan. A smuggling junk had become shipwrecked, spilling frozen chicken all over the beach, ruining what normally is the best and most beautiful beach in Hong Kong. Mike and Cliff braved Sharp Peak - we chose to chill on the beach.
Camping on Tung Peng Chau
Tung Peng Chau is the island furthest to the East of Hong Kong. A ferry ride away, it's un-inhabited from Monday to Friday, with boats only making the trip at the weekends. We were the only campers on this occasion and it seemed a bit creepy. The island can be walked around in a few hours, and has some spectacular rock formations along the coast.
This was the first timke we'd used all our camping gear and didn't do too badly - smoked salmon for dinner followed by Thai curry washed down with a good bottle of wine. I've still never worked out how the self-inflating pillows work. After dinner we played back-gammon by the gas lamp until the early hours. Throughout the night speed-boats raced by - no doubt thge big powerful four-engined boats used for smuggling goods in and out of ther mainland.
Gin Drinkers Line
The Gin Drinker's Line is a fascinating and poignant reminder of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong on December 8th 1941. 
The last
remains of this British military defense line can be found dug into the hillside above the Shing Mun Reservoir. The eerie tunnels can still be explored by those brave enough with a torch, but some stone entrances are hidden by the undergrowth and some have been partially blocked up with silt.
Named after nearby Gin Drinker's Bay, the tunnels were given London road names and at various tunnel intersections you will find signs carefully carved into the walls pointing you towards Oxford Street or Charing Cross.
At various tunnel entrances you can find the remnants of machine-gun posts and pill-boxes, giving you the same landscape view that a soldier would have been scanning over on his watch.
It was this line of defense that the Japanese invasion forces broke through during the 1941 invasion of Hong Kong. The defense line should have played a key role in delaying the
Japanese on the leased mainland territories and Kowloon, stalling their arrival and giving the main defenses on Hong Kong Island time to prepare, and also protecting the aerodrome (later Kai Tak Airport) on the Kowloon Peninsula.
As it was the defense line played little or no role in the invasion at all. Poorly manned and developed, the line was connected by a serious of tunnels into the the hillside, with not only entrances and exits to each tunnel but also open ventilation shafts. Added to the problem was the inability to see the entrance of one tunnel from the end of the next, therefore creating parts of the line that could be broken but not detected. The British quickly retreated to Hong Kong Island, and then as the invasion continued, to Stanley, where some of the most bitter fighting occured. The British surrended Hong Kong to the Japanese on December 25th 1942, 17 days later.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
One Year Anniversary at Ho Tung
We went for a great meal at Hotong Restaurant on Peking Road, Tsim Sha Tsui. We arrived just in time for the harbour light show and sipped champagne. The food was out of this world; in fact the whole evening was.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Rob's 50th Birthday - May 2006
Robin was 50 and held a great Sunday afternoon BBQ in Tai Mei Tuk to celebrate. Good food, good beer, and great company. Dave Thain serenaded us with Scottish numbers till dusk, then the Tequila came out. Here's Rob and his wife Catherine as we raise our glasses
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