The Dark Side of the Moon Festival

Right, we have a bit more catching up to do so even though it's 2:30am on Thursday morning I'm going to forego an hour of frankly pointless beauty sleep, break open the minibar and tell you about Tuesday. Clearly most of the early part of the Moon Festival was spent in bed as we took breakfast at around 8am having come straight off the Macau ferry. But our intrepid band of explorers were all present at Dickens Bar at 5pm for onward transportation to the ferry terminal where we again met up with Ken and Al, plus Al's other half Jan. It was good to see Jan again after a number of years and I think Jan was also excited to be spending some time with Al for the first time since we arrived. Up until now I suspect it's all been fumbled keys in the lock in the early hours and sheepish goodbyes as he leaves for work the next morning. 

Calm Down Hodge, it's only a Container Ship



Our mode of transport was the free shuttle ferry that was to take us over to Lammu Island and the Rainbow Seafood restaurant. There were some very impressive vistas of the HK wsaterfront, Kowloon and the back of HK Island as we made our way. Hodge however was more impressed with spotting a container ship. Al regaled us with a seafaring story about the origins of the word "shit", which apparently stood for "Ship High In Transit", reference to a need to store fertilizer above the waterline lest it explodes due to an errant fag end carelessly tossed by the shops boy. I have since discovered this to be a myth, confirmed by no lesser an authority than Wikipedia, which sits just below The Sun in the believablility stakes. 

Anyhow, we arrived at Lamma Island and the excellent Rainbow Seafood Restaurant and a table for 9. We played it safe and ordered one of the set menus plus a local speciality, steamed grouper, that you have to choose from the fish tank at the back and whack it over the head yourself. Pete volunteered for this task but his Cantonese let him down again and he ended up holding the fish while one of the staff whacked him over the head. Al warned Pete to be careful as they try to charge non-locals, or Guilos as we are known, more for this speciality. Lons misheard this as 'Lilos' which cued up the obvious line about Lilos being charged inflated prices and how let down we felt about it. However as there were 9 of us Pete did manage to negotiate a 'grouper' discount. John insisted on a side order of clams but it didn't shut him up.

I'm not sure how many more fishy puns we can fit into one blog but this is the last - I think. As the Grouper arrived Al told another tall story about seafarers believing that if someone turns a fish over then a boat will sink somewhere. Just as Hodge sought to disprove this by trying to flick it on it's back we noticed a bit of a swell out in the bay and heard a faint haunting Pink Floyd chord accompanied by someone shouting "Oi Guilo, Leave That Fish Alone".

OK, no more fishy stories, I'm even starting to bore myself now. We had a great meal and an excellent evening, thanks to Al for arranging it and Hodge for paying for it. Back on the 9:30 ferry to HK Island where we headed to Lan Kwai Fong and a few beers before going back to the hotel. Of course some had a lot more beers and arrived back at the hotel later than others but it would indiscrete of me to mention that.

Wednesday morning was a bit of a touristy thing for some as we all readied ourselves for the onslaught at Happy Valley Races in the evening. But that's for a different blog, I need some sleep now.