Summertime - and the living is easy

31 degrees - U2's "A Beautiful Day" on my Ipod speakers (sounds like a cliche, I am fully aware, but that's what it was) while crawling up and down The Peak - higher speed is impossible due to permanent dripping from sweat, arghhh...still - what a priviledged life here in Hong Kong!
As promised I will try to summarize my activities during the past 3 weeks --->

* it started with the stunning fireworks on july 2nd which we unfortunately had to watch from the 3rd row pushed back further into Tsim Sha Tsui than we expected. Although arriving 1 hour before the action was going to start we just hit barrier by barrier and didn't succeed in even coming close to the Avenue of Stars since every spot there had been blocked off hours ago - before being shoved around back and forth we decided to just hang out next to the Sheraton and gave into our fate.
At least we were lucky to watch part of the fireworks since one of the 3 ships carrying the explosives was right in front of us - of course that didn't make up for missing out on the Lightshow and the harbour overview but at least we've got to mumble some OH's and AH's with about 350.000 others around us. Don't ask how long it took afterwards to disentangle the crowds...?! Next year we'll rent a hotel room with harbour view intime and have a private party....
Since the extended lightshow was on for the whole week I still managed to admire it a couple of days later and especially the pyrotechnics on top of the participating buildings were magnificent.



* then HK hosted its first International Ballroom Dancing Competition at Queen Elizabeth Stadium and some girlfriends and I found ourselves in the midst of cheering chinese dance enthusiasts - the program was all in chinese and we had not many clues about what was going on while the officials gave their endless speeches. We saw the semi-finals and finals of the international Standard and Latin Dancers and were reminded of the superb German Ballroom Dancing traditions after a german couple did win the Standard competition. The most impressive moment of the evening came when a huge crowd aged between 7 - 85 years old danced a mass ChaChaCha choreography, especially the youngest and the oldest were very sweet to watch. Inbetween there were lots of colourful performances by the local up-and-comings and while admiring the finalists of the age group of the 7-12 year olds I was wondering very strongly whether it makes ANY sense to continue my own efforts in mastering the Latin American Ballroom Dances, hmmmmmm........
- it's been 4 months of dancing classes in the meantime and I am still forgetting some steps and stagger around aimlessly...at least I am having a blast doing it and luckily our cute chinese dancing instructor has all the patience of the world....

* the week after we ventured out to participate in the Gymnastics Extravaganza at the Hong Kong Coliseum - HK hosted the Chinese national team including 2 current World Champions plus their own gymnstics elite. We watched unbelievable acrobatic and rhythmical gymnastics perfomances and got a glimpse of what the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics might look like. Once again the crowd was 95% Chinese with lots of Mainland travel groups who went ballistic once their Champions showed up. Unfortunately each of the visitors was given a plastic clapping hand upon entering the venue and even worse - made use of them at all times throughout the evening...I had a little boy with clapping hands in each hand sitting behind me and was ready to "clap him" inbetween - needless to state that I was half deaf when everything was finally over. This time even the written program was just in chinese and we had to make up our own interpretations of the proceedings - no wonder that no Westerner attends these events....on the other hand it's an exciting feeling to be surrounded by nothing than black haired heads ;-)



* last friday the final event for this summer which I would be able to follow, took place - the Wushu Spectacular which was mostly a performance for sponsors of the Wushu fighters but after finding out that there would be some tickets for the general public available I hopped on the next bus to hunt them down in the middle of nowhere...it's always rewarding once you finally managed to find the boxoffice to see how astonished the locals are when a westerner shows up and we could even communicate because they were mostly giggling students who spoke a little English. Once again it was a very interesting evening full of local culture and of course just in cantonese - although this time they provided the translation into a foreign language which was MANDARIN :-( I will definitely sign up for mandarin classes this fall since I am sick and tired of not understanding anything during these events!!! We also received a "blinking 10th Anniversary" button which luckily didn't make any noise - the funniest incident was that the only thing written in English was the small label that interrupted the battery contact and since the neighbours on both sides were elderly we had to provide development aid in sign language, hysterical. We did watch a lively dragon dance, the traditional lions were romping around and and lots of "Jackie Chan's-in-the-making" performed various stunning martial arts fighting scenes - meaning everything between the traditional Tai Chi to "Kung-Fu-fighting" demonstrations with all kinds of tools (sticks, swords, tridents, fans, etc.) - the body language of the performers was amazing - at times it was more like watching a perfectly choreographed ballet, especially with the music that accompanied most presentations. I include some pics to give you an idea - just don't forget to take a closer look at the officials on their stage - the size of the flower arrangements at their suit lapels made me expect them falling over at any minute, unfortunately it didn't happen, sigh ;-) and good-bye!