L O G B o o k

Solstice Pursuits

Fri, 21 Jun 2019 14:00:42 +0800

In the dark, fish-smelling recesses of Hong Kong’s Aberdeen Harbour we turned a corner one night and came upon an unexpected sight: a makeshift, floating restaurant bobbing between the fishing boats.

It was little more than a battered old sampan, one which probably spent its days delivering cargo or picking up passengers across the way at Ap Lei Chau. But by night it turned into a bustling eatery, where an elderly couple cooked home-spun noodles, sizzled fried fish and hatcheted up char siew (local barbecued pork) for a long queue of hungry customers. Judging by the size of the line and the waiting times involved, this was a popular spot - and not the sort you’d see written up in any Michelin or Lonely Planet guides.

Aberdeen remains home to the territory’s largest fishing fleet, and although trawling in local waters has been banned since early 2013 (depleted fish stocks are gradually showing signs of recovery), the fishing boats still ply the International and Chinese waters outside the boundaries.

For us, slipping like ghosts through an unfamiliar part of the city, it was a glimpse back to an earlier age, when this harbour was full of people living on boats and such floating kitchens, full of fresh and savory comestibles, were widespread. (And yes, if not rushing to meet the schedule of a departing ferry, we would have taken our place in line and tried the fare ourselves.)

As always, the most interesting glimpses of life were fleeting, and too often passed us by.

Fruits de mer: a local sampan restaurant in Hong Kong

Sat, 25 Feb 2017 12:29:53 +0800

The Monarchs of Summer

Sat, 9 Aug 2014 19:53:09 +0800

When I was a kid, late summer used to bring the monarch butterflies in droves. They would start massing in August in the southern Ontario countryside, sometimes in such numbers that they outnumbered the leaves on the trees. Watching the shimmering fire of their presence, it was as though autumn had come a month early.

Throughout the summer we would often find their zebra-striped caterpillars, or the dangling green fruit of their pupae, on roadside milkweed pods. What North American school child did not study – and marvel at - the ‘life cycle of the butterfly’ using monarchs for illustrations?

Monarchs have been renowned not just for their plenitude, but for the mass migration they make between Canada and southern Mexico, some even flying across the Gulf of Mexico, legend has it. It’s a feat as unusual for the insect world as it is miraculous.

In recent years, however, their famed numbers have diminished vastly – victims of farming monocultures, habitat loss, pesticides and all the other accoutrements that go to feeding a hungry world with too may people. http://bit.ly/V6QpJf

So I was glad, on a recent visit to the winding, country road of my childhood, to find this lone monarch fluttering past. Like a shard of my own memories, it flickered in the summer sun and alighted on some clover nearby, long enough for me to photograph it.

The numbers of Monarchs may be down but they’re not out for the count. They have not yet followed the passenger pigeon or the plains bison herds into memory. Not yet. http://bit.ly/1pHCWCJ

And while the regal flicker of this butterfly still remains, so linger our hopes for a better future. There is something redeeming about that.

The Wrong Side of Rangoon

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 10:21:27 +0800

As an inveterate traveller, I've driven all over the world - from the rugged tip of New Zealand to the winding roads of Santorini. By now It takes a lot to surprise me. Being a Canadian I learned drive (like 66% of the world) on the right-side of the road in left-hand-drive vehicles. In Australia, NZ and the UK, I recalibrated my driving skills to the left-side in right-hand-drive vehicles. These two opposing systems are standard throughout the bitumened world.
But until Yangon, I've never encountered a place where they drive on the right-side (like Canada) in right-hand-drive vehicles (like the UK). Apparently this is an artifact of a 1970s consultation with an astrologer, who urged the ruling general to "move to the right." Go figure!
Yangon is, to my knowledge, the only place in the world which employs this unique system. And with the drivers' blind spot it creates, I'm surprised there isn't more carnage on the roads!

The Simplest Pleasures

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:52:50 +0800

Sometimes it was the simplest pleasures that made the journey worthwhile: That cup of coffee that stirred your thoughts before the day unfolded, a morning stroll in the sunlight of a bright new land, the smile exchanged with a stranger in passing. Such tiny comforts wove the fabric of our day-to-day lives, and made us in part the people we were.