Festivals and Farewells.

Reflections.

We used to love to travel, then covid hit. Even here travel has now started again, but we have not rushed to embrace it, as our situation is complicated by my husband's poor eyesight and his general health. However, we are about to go on a month long trip. We used to be very on the ball about how to travel, but it has been a very long time and we are currently running around like headless chickens. Trying to sort out our trip has taken over our lives and made us both argumentative and irritable. You would not want to be our neighbour at the moment, unless you like to listen to a good fight. So we are spending our time packing, sorting stuff and so on, but also we have been meeting up with some friends who want to see us before we go.

I started off by meeting up with three friends from work who wanted to catch up and celebrate a fiftieth birthday at the same time. As we were celebrating in Sai Wan Ho, which is very far from where I live, I decided to make the most of it and set out much earlier and go there by the touristy ding dong tram. I started from the very end of the tram line in Kennedy Town. I thought I would have enough time to go all the way to Sheung Kei Wan and walk back along the waterfront to Sai Wan Ho. That was the plan. I had not factored in just how slow trams are and although I travelled for what felt like forever I never made it to Shau Kei Wan. I had to get off in Sai Wan Ho or I'd have been really late for dinner.

Anyway the good thing about the tram, in addition to it being fun as long as you are not in a hurry, was I got to take some good shots from it, especially into some of the shops we passed.

Take a ding dong tram and see Hong Kong slowly.

Dried goods shops.

Dried goods shop.

Dried goods shop.

Pawn Brokers' Sign.

Passing a restaurant selling ducks.

For the meal, we went to a restaurant called The Salted Pig on Sai Wan Ho Waterfront. It was great to catch up and wish a happy birthday to Maggie. We had a lovely meal, including poutine, nachos, pork ribs, quinoa salad and a rather large quantity of desserts. Portions here are quite big and very filling.

All of us.

All of us.

The birthday girl.

Linda, Yang and the nachos.

Salad.

Poutine.

The birthday girl.

A plank of desserts.

On the Monday, Peter and I met up with Jason, who naturally hadn't read the entire what's app and wasn't even in the right meeting place, but it all worked out in the end and we enjoyed drinks, snacks and a catch up in the bar above DB Pier in Central.

The three of us in The Pier Bar.

Jason.

Peter and Jason.

Peter and Jason.

Me and Jason.

Peter and I.

Peter and I.

On Wednesday we also met up with our friend Bonnie. I forgot to take pictures, but she is kindly looking after my beloved plants while we are away.

Today I had to go and collect lots of medicine for Peter to make sure he has enough for the trip. Since I was out anyway, I decided to go to the Hong Kong Flower Festival. I think this is the first time we have had the flower festival for the last three years. Peter and I used to go every year.

The festival was held in Victoria Park. It cost me $HK14 to get in. It looked like the whole of Hong Kong was in there with me. It was rather busy.

The Hong Kong Flower Show.

It's certainly a colourful event. Floral rainbow.

Floral memory ball.

The theme flower for the festival was the hydrangea. There were lots of these in various shades of blue, white, purple and pink.

A Wall of Hydrangeas.

Pink and Blue Hydrangeas.

Pink Hydrangeas.

In addition I think there was an attempt to look at different seasons, or at least I found an autumn and winter section.

Autumn.

Autumn.

Autumn.

Winter.

Winter.

Silver grass in winter.

There were gorgeous colourful fields of tulips.

Tulips.

Tulips.

Tulips.

There were booths showing flower displays representing different countries. Some of these were really beautiful.

Displays from different countries.

Displays from different countries.

There were areas devoted to different animals, such as a phoenix, birds, insects, chicks, butterflies and sea creatures.

Phoenix.

Floral Phoenix.

The phoenix tail.

Floral birds.

Chicks.

Floral crab.

Floral whales.

Floral octopus.

Floral turtle.

Floral butterflies.

Posing with a butterfly.

Butterflies.

I loved that two old men had visited along with their pet birds. They took photos with their birds all over the place.

Birds enjoy gardens, too.

Birds enjoy gardens, too.

There were a wide variety of different themed gardens. Some of these were amazing. I think the idea was that you could vote for your favourite one. I had no intention of doing this and it would have been a hard call, as they were all pretty spectacular.

Japanese style garden.

Japanese style garden.

Garden with picture frames.

Windmill.

Garden with statues.

Tall house.

Garden based on a playground.

Garden based on a playground.

Garden based on children's games.

Garden based on chess board.

Garden based on chess board.

Garden around a wooden chalet.

Wave garden.

Thai garden.

little boat in the waterfall garden.

Bright Pink Cosmos Flowers. Detail from one of the gardens.

There were stalls selling flowers. I have bought flowers here in the past, but it was not good timing to do so this time.

Orchids for sale.

There was, one of my all time favourites, the bonsai section. I love bonsai. I used to have several but I was no good at looking after them and they died, so I won't buy more.

Bonsai.

Bonsai.

There was an indoor flower arrangement section. Again there was some gorgeous stuff here.

Indoor display with daffodils.

Indoor display.

Indoor display.

And in my view the highlight, on the wide open meadow, a sea of foxgloves. I found this stunning. The tall buildings of Causeway Bay looked very different when photographed across it.

Foxgloves and city view.

Foxgloves and city view.

Foxgloves and city view.

White foxgloves.

A Sea of foxgloves.

Selfie with the sea of foxgloves.

There were some other gorgeous displays on the meadow, too.

Plant pots near the sea of foxgloves.

Floral display near the foxglove meadow.

I'm certainly glad to see The Flower Festival back again.