end of may

The end of May was the calm before the storm, the storm being going twice to and from Switzerland within the space of 2 weeks!

A Sunday was spent on belated birthday celebrations as it turns out they don’t give Pilot’s their birthday off work. We started off at the affordable art fair, thinking we might choose something, well, affordable, as a pressies. Arriving on the last day of the fair probably didn’t help but there was barely anything I would consider affordable remaining! It was supposed to have prices from $1,000 to $20,000 (NZ) but we seemed to find a lot more things on the upper part of that scale than the lower! It was fun to check it out though, always entertaining to see the wide variety that is considered art and how different humans find such different things beautiful. The fair was held at the HK convention centre which is a distinctive, curved roof building right down on the waterfront of HK Island, it was cool to check it out from the inside, a pretty grand construction alright, with classic harbour views.

We then headed for soup dumplings at Din Tai Fung (all of you add them to your “next time I am in Hong Kong” list right now) followed by Ice Cream Bao at Little Bao as a kind of pseudo-birthday-cake, and a new pair of shoes for good measure ;)

I had a few days to myself later that week and treated myself to a night at the theatre to see War Horse. It was a pretty incredible production, the puppeteers controlling the horses impressed me most of all, somehow totally bringing these huge animals to life.

I finished the week with an epic Saturday night on the water, my first night time junk boat trip. It was a surprise birthday party for a friend, who was suitably confused and then wonderfully stoked when she realised what was going on. A funny mix of expats with a heavy French contingent and a French birthday girl served up a great night of drinking, dancing, and all the bread and cheese you could wish for. I’ve spent plenty of time staring at the HK skyline at night from rooftops, waterfronts and ferry and it really is something special, this time though we were treated to a whole new view. We headed away from HK island and the usual views and out towards the more commercial port area of the water, it was beautiful in a totally different way and a really cool backdrop to the evening.