Med Stars, Gold Coast – just don’t!

We made a rare mistake in choice of post-hike refreshment this week having walked up the Yuen Tun Country Trail to the point where it intersects the Maclehose, then 10km of the old Maclehose trail along the banks of the Tai Lam Chung reservoir, and finally down to the Gold Coast. Here we had a number of choices, from Ebenezer’s and McDonald’s through Med Stars, Chili’n'Spice up to Le Bristol. We decided we were a bit grubby for Le Bristol but then were tempted into Med Stars by the fact that bottled beer was $25 and 500ml of draft Carlsberg $27.

The Globe – it’s back, at last

The Globe finally got its new liquor licence for the new premises today, so this afternoon quite a crowd descended on the place. It’s in the space that used to be Le Tire Bouchon in Graham Street, just a few steps up from Hollywood Road and only 100 yards or so from where it used to be.

Profiting from fear

This is utterly outrageous – one Jim McCormick in the UK has managed to sell useless pieces of metal to the Iraqi government for US$85M. They can’t have cost him more than a tiny fraction of that to make.

One of the really sad things about the mess in various bits of the Middle East is how snake oil salesmen can talk their way into making millions of dollars at the expense of western and local governments.

And while we’re on the subject, look at this for how useless the imminent “full body scanners” are and how many more people are therefore profiting from the politics of fear.

Great value in Tai Mei Tuk – Portofino

Hiking yesterday consisted of the Plover Cove Reservoir Country Trail. Previously I have found the AFCD’s ratings on trails to be a bit conservative so I was expecting a moderate hike with a couple of climbs. But I was wrong, and the AFCD is spot on when it says “the trail is a challenge for all hikers”. In particular there are a number of long descents on somewhat eroded slopes with loose scree which are quite nerve-racking, and would be very hard indeed for anyone with dodgy knees.

So when we finally made it back to Tai Mei Tuk we were very ready for a sit down and some refreshment.

“Procurement by false pretences” – the HK legal system makes an ass of itself

There are so many issues raised by the case brought against a self-proclaimed Taoist practitioner accused of duping a young model into having sex, and by the verdict and judgement delivered against him, that it is difficult to know where to start. But there is no doubt in my mind that the Hong Kong legal system (normally so sound) has made a complete ass of itself in this case.

Yet another Sai Kung lunch – Hebe101

Despite knowing several other places we like in Sai Kung, after today’s hike (Maclehose Stage 3 – only 10.5km, but 600m of ascent and descent) we decided to try Hebe101 which I had read good things about. And again it was an excellent (extended) lunch. I don’t know if we’re just lucky or if the Sai Kung area is unusually blessed with very reasonable western style restaurants, but we haven’t found a bad one there yet!

Panevino – a mid-levels survivor

I’ve been a resident of the Robinson Road area of the mid-levels for about ten years now, and it’s never had a surfeit of places to eat or drink, but one that has survived the whole decade is Panevino. Until a year or so ago it was in a small space on Mosque Junction, but then it moved to the corner premises 100 metres away which has, in the course of the last decade, housed Animals Bar, Brown (much missed), a kindergarten, and an estate agency. Although I always rated the food, the cramped old environment always put me off a bit in the days when people could smoke in restaurants. It’s taken me a while to get round to going to the new location but Mrs smog and I popped in for dinner this evening.

Sai Kung beef

After hiking MacLehose Stage 1, part of Stage 2 and then the Luk Wu Country Trail on Thursday, we decided to try something different from Grande, which had been our regular place for the post-hike late lunch in Sai Kung. And after about 21km (yes, I know, nothing compared to the whole trail that the serious people were doing the next day, but plenty for someone as unfit as me) we were in the mood for some meat, so decided to try Anthony’s Ranch. And it turned out to be a good call.

A toady comes visiting

Hemlock, in an excellent post yesterday, highlighted that the people cosying up to and riding on the coat tails of the property cartel tycoons include a fair few gweilos, one such being Mr Rory O’Grady, on whose toadying and self-interested letter to the SCMP Hemlock commented.

Real ale, or the lack thereof

It is a great shame that so few people in Hong Kong seem to appreciate good beer. Mrs smog and I had an excellent evening yesterday with a couple of friends at Trafalgar where the ladies enjoyed Green Goblin cider and the guys had a thoroughly enjoyable ale tasting, but only managed to sample about half of the list. Green Goblin is real cider – not the artificially sweetened crap like Blackthorn or Strongbow, and without the nasty aftertaste as well; the ladies enjoyed it very much, although Mrs smog does have a bit of a sore head this morning!

Meyado / Meretec / MITL / Martin Young – A Cautionary Tale

One of the banes of one’s life as an expat is the frequent calls from often very persistent “Financial Advisers” who claim to be able to offer all sorts of ways of enhancing one’s wealth. Unfortunately, bitter experience has taught me that the only people’s wealth they tend to enhance is their own – and the best example of this for me is the “Meyado Private Wealth Management Group“, a UK-based group who were active in Hong Kong in 2001 to 2003 and succeeded in extracting quite a bit of wealth from me before they were run out of town by the Securities and Futures Commission. It is clear that I was far from alone in this, and there are various sites on the internet where others have expressed their displeasure over the years with Meyado (there were more, but apparently Meyado has resorted to legal action to get some taken down). The latest such attempt to get a critical mass of people together to go after Martin Young (the CEO and owner of Meyado) and his cronies has now appeared at http://www.forespoke.com and I wish it every success.

Some short book reviews

It’s been a bit quiet here on the blog, not least because life has been like that too. Apart from the odd bit of hiking (with crappy visibility, so no pictures) I’ve been trying to make inroads in to the pile of books beside the bed, so here are a few quick reviews.

Po Toi

I had a great trip yesterday to the island of Po Toi, which for some reason had never really occurred to me as a place to go in my 10 years here. Which is a shame because it’s a beautiful place and somewhere to which I’ll definitely be going back. Apparently it’s very busy at weekends, and during the week there is only one kaito each way on Tuesdays and Thursdays (leaving Aberdeen at 10am and Po Toi at 2pm), but the main restaurant was open, and while we were there they had two other parties of gweilos as well – one from a yacht and one from a junk.

The journey by kaito is part of the attraction. These little ferries are part of the wonderful thing that is Hong Kong’s public transport system.

Kaito in Aberdeen harbour

(Click on any of the images to open a bigger version in a new window/tab.)

iTunes Political Correctness Gone Mad

This is utterly ridiculous… I just noticed that iTunes, in its wisdom, has replaced the cover artwork of The Pros and Cons of Hitch-hiking (Roger Waters) with a version where the woman has a black block across her bum, thus:

A cracking read

Occasionally I pick up a book that holds my attention so well that it just gets read cover to cover in one sitting (fortunately my semi-retiredness means that staying awake all night isn’t a big deal). The latest such work is Craig Murray’s Murder in Samarkand (known in its American edition as “Dirty Diplomacy“) which I thoroughly recommend to anyone with an interest in the “War on Terror”, British diplomacy and politics, or Uzbekistan. (Apparently the US version names a few more names directly since it doesn’t have to deal with the UK’s over-protective libel laws.)

A great new restaurant in Tong Fuk

UPDATE on December 22nd – Eddie’s has apparently changed quite significantly since this review was written – the menus have become much longer and more generic (adding Asian dishes and stuff like spaghetti bolognese), and it seems that it no longer aspires to be quite such a high class restaurant. Moreover, it is now only open Friday evenings and all day Saturday & Sunday “due to unforeseen circumstances” according to the website.

Having got bored with finishing our Lantau hikes at the China Bear in Mui Wo, my hiking buddy and I decided to check out the new(-ish) Eddie’s restaurant in Tong Fuk yesterday. South Lantau Road is between it and the beach, so its “beach bistro” tag is a little bit of marketing licence, but this is a very welcome option indeed for quality food at reasonable prices on Lantau.

eddie's restaurant in Tong Fuk, Lantau Island

We arrived only a few minutes after the 6pm opening time, and were greeted by the very friendly and competent waiter.

If you go down to the woods today…

… you’ll find something quite fascinating, if you happen to be on Section 3 of the Wilson Trail (at distance post 026, grid reference KK163701, just above Ma Yau Tong), as I was yesterday.

There is a large collection of brightly coloured sculptures featuring people (apparently of various races) and animals, many of them labelled in English, as well as a shrine with some sort of deity in it. The sculptures are getting a little dilapidated, but the shrine itself is still clearly maintained on a regular basis. Here are some examples:

A very big tortoise!

The stone bleeds!

At long last, after concerted and repeated efforts by huge numbers of their electors, and after a couple of brazen attempts to fudge the issue, the UK Government has finally done the decent thing and fixed the outrageous rules which denied thousands of people the right to live in the country for which they had fought and risked their lives.

Hubert van Es – RIP

Another page has turned in the history of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (where I am but a lowly “associate”) with the death of Hu van Es, one of its best known members.

Extending the farce

Hemlock sums up the situation with today’s release of the detainees. Not content to quietly let a bad mistake fade gradually in the memory, the government has decided to make a big song and dance about their release. You couldn’t make this stuff up!

The Hong Kong Government Face-Saving Department swings into action today, led by its famous Molehill-Mountain Conversion Team and the highly capable Laborious Over-Dramatization Unit…

Brilliant!