Goddag! F and I have been fortunate enough to spend a long weekend in Copenhagen, and to see our friend J who was also a fantastic host, proudly showing off what the Danish capital has to offer. In no time, he got us oriented well and one of the first places that we visited was the Christiansborg Tower – free to visit, by the way – that stands high over a former royal palace but is today the seat of the Danish Parliament as well as the Office of the Primer Minister and the Supreme Court. Parts of the palace remains in use by the monarchy.
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The ruins of the Heidelberg Castle perched romantically to overlook the Altstadt, surrounded by forest and park. First built in the 1200s and successively expanded by Palatine prince electors, it was through French hands that it fell rather thoroughly in the late 1600s, burned and blown up during the course of the Nine Years War. Subsequent attempts to reconstruct the castle was hampered by financial difficulties and fires caused by lightning strikes, the latter taken as an omen from heaven that the Palatine court should not return to Heidelberg Castle. And thus, a well-loved ruin is born, no doubt helped by beautiful descriptions written by Victor Hugo and Mark Twain, among others.
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Work travel recently took me to Heidelberg, a town which up to then was known to me largely because multiple research institutes are based here, including EMBO, EMBL and Max Planck Institutes. Somehow it escaped my radar as a place to visit, given the famed Heidelberg Castle and the picturesque, baroque Altstadt have made it a popular tourist destination. Whenever I did not have a meeting session to attend, I went out exploring ;)
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Q: What makes a wonderful gift to someone who has been bitten by the travel bug?
A: A scratch map! (pun not intended) ;)
Anne gave me this highly entertaining gift for Christmas but I’ve just got round to getting the materials to hang this map in the apartment. Right now, I’m attempting to remove the curls out of it, after a lot of fun scratching out the places that I’ve to, plus a couple of countries which I’ll be visiting soon – I’m too excited to leave them off the map!
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Sunny days with blue sky were hard to come by during my little sojourn in Hong Kong. We had snatches of it on our first day – ah, what a bright welcome – and then the city was just shrouded in foggy whiteness/greyness on the following days. I was beginning to wonder if I was actually in Hong Kong or in Beijing… Lo and behold, on the final day of my trip, I woke up to clear blue sky and everything was basking in shimmering light!
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I’ve lost count of the number of markets I stumbled upon in Hong Kong. In the vicinity of Mong Kong/Yau Ma Tei, visitors’ guides are recommending the Bird Market, the Flower Markets, the Ladies’ Market, the Temple Street Night Market and the Jade Market. The variety of things that anyone could buy is just mind-boggling. Not only that, all of these markets could be pretty much visited in one go – they form a complete walking tour route! Somewhere along the way, there are shops and stalls to pick up walkabout snacks. ;)
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Central Hong Kong puts up a colourful display of neon lightings no matter where you go and look, and over at the harbour waterfront, the Symphony of Lights set to wow visitors nightly at 8pm with its almost-15 minutes lightshow. I caught the show one evening from the Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade, and for anyone interested in listening to the accompanying narration, the places to be are the Avenue of Stars and Golden Bauhinia Square (Wan Chai).
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For yet another change of scenery from central Hong Kong and its skyscrapers, A and I took the bus out to Stanley, one of the oldest villages in Hong Kong, and the site of a former English fort that is now famous for its market bearing the same name. En route, I spied the cable cars that transport visitors to the Ocean Park and some of the park’s rollercoasters, and I also looked admiringly at the scenic Repulse Bay – nothing repulsive there, right? We found Stanley Market highly commercialised and generic to many other local markets; walking along the main street waterfront and Stanley Ma Hang Park was decidedly more interesting.
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A short 20-minutes bus ride away, to the west of Po Lin Monastery, lies Tai O, a traditional fishing village that sits partly on Lantau Island and partly on a small island mere metres away – not immediately obvious until I had a closer look at the map. The small island is today connected to Lantau by way of 2 bridges: Tai Chung footbridge (completed 1996) and Sun Ki bridge (completed 1979); until then, river crossing relied on punting and even rope-tow ferry pulled by elderly Hakka women! If you want to experience the latter, it may be possible on some weekends and holidays, but not on the day I was visiting.
On arrival, we were lured by the touts selling boat tour of the village and to see the pink dolphins. The 30-minutes ride is very affordable, and while no sighting of the dolphins for us that particular day, what I actually found more fascinating is the way of life in this small village that relies heavily on the river and the sea for their livelihood. It is as different from central Hong Kong as day and night. No skyscrapers, no shopping malls, but houses so close that the neighbours could stick their heads into each other’s living rooms.
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SL and I arrived at Tung Chung, and we started to hem haw – should we trek for 3-3.5 hours or queue up for for the cable car in order to get to the Ngong Ping plateau, where the Po Lin Monastery and the Big Buddha are located? It was already past noon, the sun high in the sky, and the queue for the cable car didn’t look too bad (it ended up being a 40-minutes wait). And I admit it, I was feeling lazy too. Cable car, it is!
The 6km-ride from Tung Chung to Ngong Ping plateau took about 20-25 minutes, over uninhabited peaks and rather magnificent view. We could also see the trekking trail just below us, and spotted the occasional walkers heading downhill towards Tung Chung. Clearly, they’d been up at the Lantau Peak much earlier in the day and were ready to wind things down.
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