Honkers

Travel  always seems so glamorous when you're planning it. Much of the time is spent getting ready to travel or unpacking and going to sleep and then working out what to do next. We took ages to get from Hong Kong Airport to our hotel because our bus driver got lost many times and then to top it off he knocked over a motorcyclist. Luckily no one was hurt. It just took a long time. Next day we had arranged to go on a tour of Lantau Island and visit the Po Lin Monastery and one of the largest outdoor bronze Buddha statues in the world. We also squeezed in the fishing village of Tai O. We got there by bus and then the Ngong Ping Cable car - 5.7km sky rail over the lush heavily wooded mountains.

This is our first view of the Buddha from the sky rail.

Here he is up close.

And even closer.

There was a lovely view from the top.

And then on to the temple. A very tranquil place to hang out after the humidity, noise and hustle and bustle of Kowloon and Hong Kong.

Lantau used to be a very rural island with farming and fishing as the main activities. They still fish but there is no more agriculture. They import all their produce. This left them with the cows. So now the cows roam all over the island.

The fishing village was very primitive and very picturesque.

A lot of the fishermen live in these little houses on stilts over the water.

 

Tom have a conversation with a local.

The local produce.

And then a catamaran over to Hong Kong and then the Star Ferry back to Kowloon.

We sat and had a beer and watched the city put on its light show.

And then it was time for dinner. We decided against duckbill and tripes.

And settled for a delicious chilli and chicken dish. By the end of the meal there were nearly as many chillies left in the bowl. I think they must have used twenty to thirty dried chillies in this dish. It was mighty hot.

Next day we had quite a lot of time to kill after we checked out of our hotel. We walked back down to the harbour to visit the Space Museum and the Hong Kong Art Gallery. Both were closed for renovations. So what to do? We visited the Peninsula Hotel, one of the most expensive hotels here. What were the locals doing. Most of them were enjoying high tea. The little group of ladies above dressed up for the occasion. What else to do? Well, there's always Tiffanys. Tom and I escaped the humidity and went inside the chilled, refined portals of Tiffanys and had our rings cleaned. And that as they say, was the end. Farewell Hong Kong. Next port of call, Sydney.

Finland

 Tom's happy.

We were only in Helsinki twenty four hours and quite a lot of that time we were asleep. But we discovered some Finnish facts. They make a mean hamburger, they speak astonishingly good English, they have first rate designers and it's bloody cold.

We weren't quite sure why there were such a lot of statues of naked people.

The autumn leaves were gorgeous. The temperature was four degrees so we didn't spend a long time admiring the leaves. Instead we headed for anything warm.

This church on the edge of the waterfront suited us.

Even if it hadn't been so cold outside, we would have appreciated the pretty ceiling.

Tom forgot about his dislike of churches and started snapping away.

We couldn't stay in the church all day so we went down to the water and bought some souvenirs in the market place.

Did I mention design? The Finns have a quirky sensibility. These shoes were outrageously expensive.

And then we sought for warmth again. The Kiasma gallery of modern art was warm and interesting.

Inside there were the normal exhibitions plus Mona Hatoum's first solo exhibition in Finland. She was born in Beirut and her work examines conflict and contradictions.

I'm not sure where the conflict is in the work below but I think there are some contradictions between the woven hair and the scrap of paper.

The one below took my fancy.

And the giant graters were fun.

Part of the general exhibitions was this olifactory experience. There were about fifty vases filled with different smelling oils. Some of them were lovely like roses or lavender and some were horrid like stale tobacco smoke. And then in the centre the artist combined all the smells and called it Babel. Too much. It was an interesting concept. And then out into the cold once more and back to our hotel. We had checked out but we were allowed to use the sauna and showers so we were squeaky clean and relaxed by the time we caught a taxi to the airport.

This was the lavender. But below was my favourite part of the gallery. We walked into a little room and sat and watched two videos that ran for about twenty minutes. The first one focused on a young boy whose mother was dying of cancer in Mynama and the second was a meeting between a Filipino man on an arctic cruise ship and a man in a wheelchair. They connect as we watch whales and penguins and icebergs. The boy and his love for his mother and the chance connection between two unlikely men was both poignant and life affirming.

And now we fly back to Hong Kong on the last leg of our journey.

Jewish museum

 Our last day in Rome. Had to do the usual packing and then for last trek along the Tiber.

After all the distances we've covered we wanted to see something not too far from home. And even I have to admit that we've seen a lot of churches so the Jewish museum and Synagogue ticked all the boxes. Close to home and not a fat cherub in sight. We were lucky enough to arrive as an English guided tour was beginning. We went into the Synagogue and heard about the long history of the Jews in Rome.

This magnificent building was built in the early 1900's. There had been a lot of little Synagogues in the ghetto area along the Tiber but during one purge of the Jews, they were all knocked down.

This upstairs area is where the woman congregate. Above are the stars which represent something lovely that I've completely forgotten.

All the men had to wear these smart green berets. I was jealous.

These fragments were from the old ghetto that had existed in Rome for thousands of years.

This gorgeous inlaid stone piece was once a part of the floor of an erstwhile synagogue.

And this prisoner's uniform is a sad reminder of the horrors of Nazism and Fascism. A lot of Roman Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps in Germany. The museum showed what a hard struggle the Jews have had.

To finish off the day on a sweet note we picked up some biscuits from the most wonderful bakery two doors down from our apartment. We have seen guided tours stop outside Biscottificio Innocenti to praise the splendid biscuits inside. It has been rated 2 of 11,379 places to eat in Rome by TripAdvisor.

They were delicious.

Borghese excursion

We set off bright and early on our one hour walk to the Borguese gardens and villa. If we add up to an hour on to Google's directions it becomes less stressful and allows us to take in local colour on the way.

We walked passed these cats and looked down and found more proof that Rome is an ancient city.

The origins of these ruins are unknown. They simply are ruins. The cats seem to like them. I remember when I was at the Coliseum when I was sixteen, there were cats lazing amongst the ruins just like this. Too many tourists for a cat to bask in the sun at the Coliseum today.

And then we arrived at the lovely gardens. Tom stopped for a much needed drink after all that walking. The gardens are free so they were full of Romans and tourists out enjoying a sunny Sunday. The only problem for me was that walking down the paths proved extremely dangerous. There were lots of cheap bicycles, tandems and strange moped things for hire. And everyone who hired one seemed to have a license to kill. They seemed to swerve towards me rather than away from me.

Besides the trees and grass there were statues, water fountains and other jolly things to look at while we waited for our three o'clock entrance time to the Borghese villa. The on line ticket buying is the only way to go here. If we'd turned up to buy the tickets today, Sunday, we would have had to wait until Thursday to be able to purchase a ticket.

Anyone can fill their water bottle at any of the plentiful water fountains. One woman actually picked up her small dog and gave him a bath in this one. Thankfully after I'd filled my bottle.

A quick lunch and we were ready to face all that art.

First off was Bernini's Rape of Prosperpia. The size and the beauty of the marble added to the talent of the artist are breathtaking.

I am having a love affair with Bernini but another artist I really like was Caravaggio who lived briefly from 1592 to 1610. He was a bit of a rock star of his time. He quickly gained fame and fortune from his painting and started to behave badly. He vandalised his own apartment, was jailed several times and finally the Pope sentenced him to death for supposedly killing a man. He fled from Rome but died mysteriously of a fever. Sadly, the Pope was about to give him a pardon. The picture below is of a young Bacchus. It is said that the face is Caravaggio's face.

These little lovelies are frolicking in the water in this Correggio painting of Zeus having his way way with an unsuspecting damsel.

And here's some more Bernini. This time it's Apollo and Daphne. He is about to capture her and have his wicked way but she escapes by turning into a tree.

Look at the wonderful detail of her toes turning into roots. The dude below is Cardinal Borghese who owned all these wonderful art works and lived in this villa. He commissioned Bernini to make this marble bust of him.  Bernini finished the bust and then discovered that there was a flaw in the marble and had to start all over again. It took him four days to carve a new bust. Borghese might have collected all this wonderful stuff but he was a bit of a monster. If he saw a painting or a sculpture he wanted and the owner didn't want to part with it, he would just throw him in gaol. The only way out was to sell the art work to Borghese.

The detail is just fabulous.

Here is another Caravaggio. It is David holding the head of Goliath. David doesn't look triumphant, he looks pensive and a bit sad. People have said that David's face is that of a young Caravaggio and the head of Goliath is Caravaggio's older more dissipated head.

I love this little marble boy removing a thorn from his foot.

Wonderful detail.

What gallery would be complete without a Da Vinci? Here is Leda with the swan. Why do most of Da Vinci's women all have the same face as the Mona Lisa?

After all that art we walked home via the Spanish steps. So many people and so many expensive shops.

But there was love on offer. A group of people were offering free hugs to passerbys.

And after a hard day what could be better than a lovely meal at a nearby restaurant?