Sorry, people!  I didn't mean to go away for so long.  It was a very unintentional break. So much has happened, good and bad that has left my head spinning. Been going through deep, wrenching personal stuff (BAD) and moving house to Cheung Chau (good) and settling in (good) and working working working (BAD BAD BAD) (but good for my bank balance).  I also have no camera, very reluctantly relinquishing my mother's and now I'm on the lookout for a good DSLR (any recommendations on this would be very welcome). 

I'm so tired.  Deep down bone tired. The last 3 weeks have been a constant run around - work, sleep, commute on ferry, work, clean, work, pack, commute, work, clean, work, unpack, *sigh* and rinse and repeat.  Emotionally I'm not in the best shape, have seen much better days but my little guy keeps me going and reminds me why I moved back to HK in the first place.  Sadly I have done no cooking.  I've felt neither the inclination, nor the desire to eat. Which for me is very out of character, because I always love to eat. There is never a wrong time of day to eat.  But at the moment everything is tasteless, like sawdust.  The smell of food just turns my stomach.  I'm lucky to live with some great house mates who take care of my son when I work, so it is one big worry I don't have to struggle with.

So the place I live?  Here's just a taster...

The pier

The Harbour

 

The local bakeries do mean egg & coconut tarts.

 

That's good.  We need pigs to be raised co-operatively...

Fish getting ready to be dried and sold in market.

And because this cracked me up... it was 7:30am and the square was starting to fill up.  And there he was in all his finery, looking dapper and slightly sinister.  They don't make them like that any more...

And my beach...

 

Yep, I think I'm gonna like living here...

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 The old Wanchai temple on Queen's Road East

Okay I'm behind, but to be fair I've had a very hectic week.  I've been reunited with my other half (brilliant), but had to find a flat to move into (Boooo) and finally found one (yay) in Cheung Chau, my favourite small island (WOOHOOO!).  The past couple of days have been a blur of organising, looking at furniture catalogues, checking statements, signing contracts, trawling appliance and furnishings shops... I'm about ready for a holiday I reckon!

Anyway, on the day we went over to CC, we woke up at the crack of dawn.  R was up at 3am, J and I at 5 (why??), so we decided to start our day early and were out the door by 7, and wandering round the back alleys of Wanchai.  I had always wanted to go and see where the haunted house of Wanchai was, so I took R up to Ship Street and we climbed the old steps to as high as we could go.

The old Nam Koo house is still there and surrounded by corrugated iron sheeting to stop people getting in.  I took some good photos through the cracks of the sheeting and R climbed up the concrete slope behind it to see if there was a way in.  There was, over a thin, old plank of wood, which neither of us chanced!  But I climbed up after R came down, and saw the old metal pagoda on top of the house. It looked like a giant bird cage.  At that time of the morning the house looked very serene and peaceful but I could imagine only an hour or two before, in the dark it must have seemed a very different place.   The front of the house has giant pillared porticos.  It still looks beautiful, but so forlorn.  The history of Nam Koo I found on Wikipedia and Gwulo.com .  The piece below is from Wikipedia:

"The two-storey red brick building was built in c.1915-1921 and owned by a wealthy Shanghai merchant family by the name of To (杜).  Prominent Hong Kong businessman To Chun-man (杜仲文) first leased the land lot where the building now stands in 1915. At this stage To Chun-man held the position of Chief Chinese Silks Salesman (專理紗羅綢緞員) for Wing On Company Limited (永安有限公司), although he was later promoted to Assistant Manager (副司理).  He also held several posts in various community committees including that of Secretary (司理) for the Commercial Chamber of The Heung Shan District (香邑僑商會所), and was a member of The Chinese General Chamber of Commerce (華商總會).  However, To Chun-man was forced to evacuate the mansion at the onset of the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, and he died soon after his return.

It is said that during the occupation, Nam Koo Terrace was used as a military brothel or "comfort house (慰安所)" for the Japanese soldiers from 1941 to 1945.  Many other properties within the Wan Chai area were also used as brothels by the Japanese military during this period, including St. Luke’s College and neighbouring Tung Chi College (同濟中學). Nam Koo Terrace continued to remain under the ownership of the To family until 1988, when the property was sold to YUBA Co. Ltd.



Hopewell Holdings took over ownership of the building in 1993, which was initially acquired to be demolished in order to make way for their Mega Tower hotel project (Hopewell Centre II). However, the site has stood vacant since then; despite the fact that the company's development proposal gained Government approval in 1994.  While Hopewell Holdings remains the current proprietor of Nam Koo Terrace; recent public announcements indicate that their intentions have now shifted to the preservation, rather than the demolition, of this historical site...

Colloquially referred to as a 'Haunted House', the mansion has been attached with a certain conjectural element of mystery and esoteric connotation.  The 'ghosts' of women, who are said to have died in the time Nam Koo Terrace allegedly served as a Japanese military brothel; are claimed to have been witnessed at several different points in the building. Accounts of hearing cries and screams from these said comfort women, have long been circulated by the supernatural rumour mill and have subsequently furthered Nam Koo Terrace's reputation for being a place of paranormal interest.

People have also reported seeing "ghostly flames" in the house. However, as Nam Koo Terrace was frequented often by Hong Kong's squatting community, these apparitions were most likely the result of actual fires lit by local vagrants using the site for shelter.^[13]On the 30th of November 2003, Oriental Daily, as well as many other local Hong Kong newspapers; covered a story about a group of eight middle school students who attempted to stay overnight on the Nam Koo Terrace property. It was said the students wanted to catch a glimpse of the supernatural 'ghosts' that have long been rumoured to reside in the historical building. According to the report, three of the female students were seen to have become emotionally unstable, claiming to have been assailed by a ghostly visitant. Later, police sent the three girls to hospital to receive psychiatric treatment. In the days following, local people in Hong Kong thronged to Nam Koo Terrace en masse and the house continued to dominate the headlines of daily newspapers for some time."

Further up and down the steps was evidence of developers buying up land and tearing up the old places there.  I also found the ground floor level of the other abandoned, haunted house of Kennedy Road (number 15 I think).  I remember seeing that house right up until about 12 years ago when it was finally demolished after sitting empty for so long.

This is what I found on Gwulo.com:
"It was the residence of WOO Hay Tong (胡禧堂), the father of the late WOO Pak Chuen (胡百全, lawyer, ExCo and LegCo member). After the Woo family moved out, the house was the location of an art exhibition in 1987, and was the set of some films in the late 1980s. WOO Hay Tong was murdered by his nephew in 1932, and the content of his will is found in the Dec. 1, 1932 issue of the Hongkong Telegraph. It is interesting to note that he wanted his estate to be invested until 21 years after the death of his last surviving children and grandchildren who were born before his death."

 This must have been a back or underground entrance.         The ground floor level - you can still see the verandah rail where the tree has grown over and through.  There were beautiful old Victorian tiles scattered around where the entrance way must have sat.

 

In the last image, you can see the tree roots grasping the stone, as if gripping tightly, to hold onto it. 

I feel sad when I think there's so much rich history here, considering how relatively 'young' Hong Kong is.  And yet people really don't care or seem interested in preserving it.  Just the trees do...

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J and I moved into a serviced apartment on Sunday.  It's right at the edge of Wanchai Market. R arrived early yesterday morning and for an hour I showed him around to get his bearings. We are living in the smallest 2-bedroom place ever, but there is one consolation. The roof of the building has an amazing viewing deck where you get a great view of the buildings and hills.

For many tourists, Wanchai is synonymous with Suzie Wong, the tender-hearted bar girl from the 60s movie, and its red-light district is still pretty seedy and notorious, north of Hennessey Road.  There are lots of bars and strip joints and there are many Thai, Philippino and Chinese prostitutes and bar girls hanging out at street corners.  It's a colourful place to say the least. I spent a LOT of time in my teens and early twenties frequenting the bars in this area of HK... most of the bars didn't ask for ID back then.

But the other side of Southorn Playground is a different place altogether.  It's been my stomping ground for the last 6 months.  This is where you'll find Wanchai Market, fancy Johnston Road eateries, Hopewell Centre and its revolving restaurant, Queen's Road East with its tiny boutiques.  In short it's a hodge-podge of life and life-forms, from the uber-chic well-heeled, to the very distinctly, less well-shod and groomed.  Here is where you are in the thick of things, where you can see East colliding head on with West, full of new skyscrapers and old low-rise buildings.

This is the place where to my surprise, I found a tiny oasis of a church kindergarten for J, tucked away from the hustle and bustle, hidden in the depths behind Hopewell Centre.  This is where there is an old old (150 years or more) Chinese building, abandoned and reputedly haunted for over 50 years.  When the Japanese invaded in WWII, this building was turned into a 'comfort house' (brothel) for soldiers.  People don't talk about what happened in those days, but it's easy to tell from the discomfort that probably the very worst happened there. 

I love this place.  I know it so well, the outlet shops, the Chinese cafes, the food stalls, the market (wet and dry), the noodle shops, the bookshops, the trams, the dance studios, the boutiques.  It's so vibrant here.  Even at night, this place never shuts down.

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I finished my crayon rolls last week but didn't get round to posting it till now. I've got a busy few weeks lined up as R is flying out next week (YAY!) and we're moving into a serviced apartment on Sunday while my mother's is being redecorated. Not to mention, flat-hunting on Cheung Chau next week.  So it's all busy busy busy here - packing, tidying, organising. This does mean no new recipes or sewing this week to tickle your fancy.

But the crayon rolls for J and his cousin are done. I got the tutorial off Skip To My Lou and it took about an hour from start to finish. The first one (pink) took longer as my stupid cheapo sewing machine played up so I hand-stitched the crayon dividers which took AGES. J's one looks pretty good... I'm happy with that one. I may just stick to the whole 'roll' thing as my Christmas present guide for this year. So far I thought of:
-tool rolls
-paintbrush holder rolls
-makeup brush / pencil rolls
-jewellery rolls
-sewing needle / tools roll

And that pretty much covers friends and family! :D

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