My funny Valentine.

The Year of the Dragon.

Valentine's Day and ironically Peter and I have been fighting all week, even more so than normal, and that is really saying something. I put it down to the fact that we are getting ready to travel and since Covid, whenever we do that, I seem to get stressed out of my brain.

There's been finding clothes, washing clothes, drying clothes, ironing clothes and packing clothes. Then there's been finding all the other stuff we need to take. Then buying all the stuff we need, but don't have. Also trying to book a transfer on arrival to make the journey easier for Peter and needing to fill in all the details online around twenty times before the booking actually worked. Fingers crossed the transfer actually turns up.

Even reserving seats on the plane was hell. Peter's seat no problem. Mine - impossible. We ended up on an artificial intelligence chat line that just kept going round and round in circles. It kept explaining "Hi, I'm Elsa, your artificial intelligence helper. I'm being trialled. Please simplify your query." By the end we had removed nearly all the words from our query except the word 'seat'. Finally, as we had no intention of giving up, a human being called Stanley entered the chat and the problem was solved in seconds. So much for bloody technology.

Fortunately we discovered in time that we have to fill in our landing cards online within three days of arrival. I don't know if this is common now in Europe, but it is in South East Asia. That actually worked first time. Yippee!!

Then today I had to go out and pick up the currency we had reserved online. I went to Travelex, Tung Chung. Tung Chung was a nightmare due to the Chinese New Year holiday. The queues for the cable car to the Big Buddha had taken over the entire centre of town. The bus station had endless queues for buses to Mui Wo and Tai O. Again I realised how fortunate I am to be able to go to these places on weekdays.

Getting the money from Travelex was ok, except a Mainland Chinese family came in behind me and, I think they must have been from somewhere very rural, as they didn't seem to have ever seen a white person before. They surrounded me, mum on one side, dad and son on the other, and stared at me from a distance of about one centimetre, like I was from another planet. Even the woman serving me in Travelex told them off and asked them to back away. Not the best start to my day.

After getting the money, I decided to head to Tsing Yi, as I wanted to buy Peter a few things for Valentine's Day from there. His present was several cheeses from Marks and Spencer's, two big jars of cashew nuts and two boxes of chocolates. He got me wine and chocolates. We are very into the eating and drinking type of present nowadays.

I noticed that Maritime Square Shopping Mall in Tsing Yi was very nicely decorated for The Year of the Dragon, so I took some photos of the displays. In the west dragons are always depicted as ferocious, fire breathing monsters. In Chinese mythology they are gentle, benevolent and wise. Apparently even the colours of the dragons are supposed to mean something. For example a red dragon symbolises good fortune, a yellow dragon means wealth and a green dragon is connected to nature.

Pink dragon.

Purple and yellow dragons.

Purple and yellow dragons and children.

Close-up.

Close-up.

Dragons and blossom.

Then I went to the shop I had in mind for buying the cashew nuts and chocolates. Two jars of cashew nuts were on offer for HK$100, two boxes of Lindor chocolates were on offer for HK$69. I took them to the till. The lady rung them up and said: "That'll be HK$187." I said: "No, I don't think, so it's HK$169."

She looked absolutely shocked at my attitude and rung them up on a different till to check. She said: "Two cashew nuts Hk$100, two chocolates HK$69." I said: "Yes, that's right." She then went back to the first till, rung them up again and said: "Total HK$187."

Now I readily admit I am not terribly good at maths, but even I know 100 + 69 does not equal 187. I refused to pay and I refused to leave. A long, disgruntled queue was building up behind me. The manager was called. He started by trying to tell me the two jars of nuts cost HK$118. I directed him to the offer displayed on the wall of the shop. He tried to claim it must be for a different brand. I forced him to read what it actually said and he had to agree I had the right brand.

He then checked on the till that had given the correct prices and said: "It's two for a hundred". I said: "I know." He then took over the sale by putting my items through the original till and said: "That'll be HK$187." Now it must surely be a great token of my love for my husband that I didn't just pick up my items, hurl them against the wall and walk out. Instead I bullied the manager into actually using his brain and doing the maths in his head, not on his bloody useless machine and he eventually agreed to charge me HK$169, as if he were doing me a favour.

We live in a world where people think if a machine tells you something it must be right, even when the machine is quite clearly spouting a load of crap.

To recover from the day, I took myself for a quick calming walk in Tsing Yi Park. Here it was back to autumn again with several lovely autumnal trees in the process of shedding their leaves.

Autumnal trees.

The last of autumn.

The last remnants of autumn.

The last remnants of autumn.

The last remnants of autumn.

Pond in Tsing Yi Park.

Autumn colours.

Statue and flowers.

Flowers and waterfall.

Colourful flowers.

Then I headed back home where Peter had a good laugh when I told him about all my irritating experiences of the day. Happy Valentine's Day.