Village Bakery turns 1

Kit baked herself a cake.

BBQ dance party

Sounds fun. I like the "partners optional" bit. Hyuk hyuk.

A Mui Wo Christmas

I waylaid Santa as he was on his way to deliver sweets to the old folks' home in the village – on his bicycle, of course.

 Kit at the Village Bakery has fresh mince and pumpkin pies and gingerbread cookies.

At first I thought, well that's a funny place to sit, wouldn't the beach be better? Turns out that they were doing an audit of the public transport. On Christmas Day.

How to invite a lion to dance

During Chinese New Year, there will be lots of itinerant lion dance troupes wandering the area in search of patrons.

If you want to invite one to perform in your home/shop, just hang a lettuce and a lai si above your door. The higher the better – in the old days, the dancers were so skillful they could extract the red packet from three/four stories up.

The lion will "chew" the lettuce, grab the red packet and unroll the scroll of blessing to ensure good luck in your premises all year round.

Kids just love them.

Lion dance drums

Woke up to the lion dance drums today. As Mui Wo is surrounded by mountains, it's impossible to miss the drumming as the lion troupe goes round the town.

The drummers decide the lion's movements.

There are two basic beats: The syncopated rhythm is for playing.

And the drum roll is for bowing and paying respects.

Once you know that, you'll know, without having to look, what the lion is doing.

Will upload photos in the next post.

Workshop Christmas party

Why do they hold these things on weekdays when I can't attend? :(

I so wanted to go for the charity concert at Cheung Sha too but it was on a Friday – when I was busy earning enough to keep Buffalo Wilbur in espressos.

Anyway, for those who can go, the Workshop X'mas Party is on Thursday, December 22, 2-5pm, with a gift exchange at 4.30pm. The Workshop is in Chung Hau village. Bet the party will be fun!

Dragonboat festival

We were woken up early today to the rhythmic sound of gongs. It's Tuen Ng festival again – let the battle of the dragonboats and who-has-the-longest-lens begin!

The weather was absolutely perfect for a day of watching the races... blue sunny skies and a nice stiff wind to keep temperatures down.

There was a carnival feel in the air. Even the sad old dragon at the entrance to the beach got its ceremonial garb out.

Apparently there's some secret illegal betting going on and the rivalry between the local fishing teams and the sponsored (mostly expat) teams is bitter.

You can tell which ones have the most money by their coordinating outfits. The poorer ones just make do with a motley bunch of T-shirts.

But for spectators like us, who don't have a particular team to root for, it was just a fun, colourful event.

It even prompted Buffalo Wilbur, always the last to be picked out for playground football teams, to want to join a dragonboat team too.

He wants to join only the most unfit, it's-not-the-winning-it's-the-taking-part team because he's worried his team-mates might just kick sand in his face.




For some people, though, it was just business as usual.