Plumbing the depths of despair ....

View over Star Ferry from the podium.

My last blog involved a description of a visit to the temple of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. Was it just coincidence that I went home from that visit to find my bathroom flooded? Or was it something more sinister?

This was the start of a very unpleasant and distressing part of my life. Basically, our bathroom floor kept flooding, over and over again. I spent my whole life sitting in my house, waiting for my plumber to come round or mopping up a deluge. I was embroiled in a thousand, plumber suggested, science experiments: trying to trace the source of our water leak using food colourings, measuring water levels of toilet bowls, and lying across my bathroom floor with my head poised centimetres above my floor drain, trying to work out where all that water was coming from. In short, it was absolute hell!!!!

In the end, it turned out, our plumber had made an error when he replaced our shower taps a week before the flooding started. He's a lovely man and we forgive him. The floods have gone now, but I am still waking up in the night, panicking about some unknown domestic disaster.

Yesterday, was the first day in around two weeks when I dared to actually go outside, instead of manning twenty-four hours a day surveillance on my bathroom floor. I could have wept as I savoured the sense of freedom crossing my threshold brought. I had been invited to a friend's for dinner and I went via a dinosaur.

There are currently two robotic dinosaurs in Hong Kong. The first one I went to see was a robotic T-rex with an excellent harbour backdrop in front of which he twitched and roared.

On my way to the dinosaur, I stopped to take a quick photo of 1881 Heritage, the Former Marine Police Headquarters, which have been transformed into a shopping centre while maintaining several features of cultural significance.

Heritage 1881.

Outside Harbour City I photographed some strange sculptures, some of them were actually benches. All of them were partially depictions of people. I don't remember ever seeing these sculptures before, that might be because they are new or because this area is normally so crowded, I may just have missed them

Strange sculptures.

Strange sculptures.

Strange sculptures.

Strange sculptures.

The T-rex was displayed on the podium of Harbour City, Tsim Sha Tsui. Unfortunately, it wasn't the clearest or brightest of days, but it wasn't too bad. The dinosaur model is supposed to be built to an accurate size - 4.6 metres high and 12 metres long. These measurements are based on scientific knowledge of dinosaur skeletons. I rather liked that the dinosaur could move and make sounds which made it quite life-like. So much so that one little boy was round the corner from the dinosaur crying and being comforted by his mother, because he found it so terrifying. This was the first time I had been on the podium here and I was pretty impressed with the views.

Giant T-rex.

Giant T-rex.

Giant T-rex.

He is getting angry now.

This little boy wasn't frightened.

He is pretty big.

Getting carried away but it's not every day you get to see a T-rex.

View from the podium.

Looking towards Central from the podium with a rainbow coloured star ferry passing by.

View over Star Ferry from the podium.

Art work in Harbour City.

After I was finished with the dinosaur, I decided to take the star ferry across to Central. The ferry was close to empty which is sad, as it is yet another tourist attraction here under threat from lack of tourists. Just a couple of weeks ago the famous floating Jumbo Restaurant was towed away from Aberdeen Harbour. It was supposedly going into storage, but capsized on route. Anyway, the journey was enjoyable and the views were great.

Heading towards the star ferry.

Inside the star ferry.

Star ferry man in uniform.

Star ferry man in uniform.

When I got off the ferry in Central, I was pleased to see the walkway from the ferry had been beautifully decorated for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Handover.

Decorations to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Handover.

Handover decorations.

I took the MTR to Shau Kei Wan then set off to find a present to take to Linda, my friend who invited me to dinner. I found a lovely flower stall in the market and was just deciding what to buy when I realized my friend Lai was inside selecting flowers for a beautiful bouquet. We decided instead of me buying additional flowers, we would all share the cost of the bouquet and give it to Linda from all of us. I had been intending to take the bus to Linda's, since although it wasn't far I couldn't remember the way, but Lai knew so we walked there together.

We took turns posing with the beautiful bouquet of flowers.

Linda the hostess with the mostest.

Lai.

Yang.

Maggie.

When we got there, Maggie had already arrived and Yang turned up soon after. Linda is a fantastic cook and we started off with her delectable seven layer dip and nachos. I always got excited when Linda used to make her seven layer dip for school events. For main course we had a huge slab of salmon served with a Greek yogurt, dill and mustard sauce, new potatoes, leafy salad and garlic bread. Wonderful!!!! Dessert was crackers brie and boursin cheese. I photographed most of the food, but forgot to photograph the dip. Guess I was too busy eating it. Haha!

Taken by Linda's son.

Taken by Linda's son.

A superb spread.

Salad and new potatoes.

Salmon and garlic bread.

Cheese and crackers.

After dinner we played a board game called Racko, which was a lot of fun. I have not played a board game for years. The purpose of the game was to organise your number cards from lowest to highest, following the rules on how you could move them.

Concentrating hard.

Concentrating hard.

Racko, a very good game.

It was a truly lovely evening and it was great to catch up with my friends. When I got home, my bathroom floor was still dry. Yippee!!!