Junior Police Call volunteers handing out burglary prevention leaflets along Main Street this Sunday morning. I told them that their pretty pictures will go onto Lamma.com.hk and they were happy to pose.

Junior Police Call volunteers posing for a group shot in front of the Policebox,
some of them getting distracted by our famous YSW High Street fashion.

After this fun interlude, Lamma-Por and myself got back to our customary Sunday Dim Sum, in Sampan Rest. this time. Yes, my weight loss diet permits Dim Sum. ;-)

By the way, here are the leaflets they've handed out. These girls (and a few boys) are volunteering their precious Sunday to distribute public messages on Lamma (Thank you, volunteers!)  Let more Lammaites see the leaflets, even the ones still sleeping this Sunday morning, recovering from a very late Saturday night...

How to enjoy a mini vacation on Lamma on a weekend but staying away from the often huge and maddening weekend crowds of tourists and visitors? Well, here's what I did this Saturday morning, a spontaneous, wonderfully relaxing and invigorating half-day biking/hiking tour of North Lamma, visiting trails and areas usually only frequented by Lammaites:

• Riding (mostly pushing) my mountain bike up the hill via the Kindergarten and Open Space to Lamma Winds, a mere 12-minute walk from Back Street through the forest.

• Running up to the pavilion above Lamma Winds (below right) where I encounter the very first tourists; three giggly Mainland girls asking me to take their photo in front of the sweeping HK Island panorama.
  
  

• Returning to Lamma Winds and climbing up to Mt. Panorama, the hill in front of Lamma Winds (see above left) with a panoramic view of YSW and North Lamma. Descending on the front side and taking the unknown, deserted, partially overgrown Back Passage trail around Mt. Panorama; a half-hour power walk along this beautiful path returns me to the back side of Lamma Winds.
  
  

• Resting & refueling by getting a sports drink from the weekends-only drinks vendor outside Lamma Winds, but not buying any of her many wind-related toys, for example Hello Kitty electric fans.

• Rehydrated and invigorated, I take my favourite Lamma path, the Snake Trail, up to the Trig Point, the highest point of North Lamma with the very best 360-degree views (see above).
  
  

• Spotting the Outriggers at Power Station Beach, I take some maximum zoom photos of them training for the Round Lamma Outrigger/Surf-ski race next Sat, Oct 3. My race photo shoot from a boat is already scheduled....

• Returning to Lamma Winds and riding my bike down Cable Road at high, but safe speed, as exhilarating as you can get on a bike on Lamma, all the way to the Power Station. The employee bikes outside their main gate always make me smile. This station produces all the power for HK/Lamma Islands, but their staff arrives to work on bikes, ferries or on foot!
  
  

• Power Station Beach is not busy even on a Saturday morning, unlike the crowded public Hung Shing Yeh beach closeby. But no rock towers today? Where's the now-famous Lamma Rock Balancer, Malcolm?
  
  

• Biking over to Hung Shing Yeh beach to the almost empty Concerto Inn hotel coffee shop, overlooking the beach full of visitors, a great people watching spot. Chatting with the ever-popular head waiter Danny who moved here a few weeks ago after 4 years in B&B Restaurant in YSW where he was attracting passers-by with his smile and cheerful comments.

• Enjoying a yummy chicken satay and wine lunch while watching the teeming beachlife. Tourists are walking by asking me about the room rates of the hotel. Hey, I actually LIVE on this island where tourists come to VISIT to get away from all the urban life, stress, noise and pollution for just a day. I consider myself fortunate, blessed and very happy!
  
  

The local Fire & Rescue Services have been using these cool-looking, fire-red quad bikes for years, the only motorbikes of any kind on our home island which is thankfully still free of all private motorised vehicles.

The job market is still really tough out there and the job ads are becoming very specific and very demanding, for example this ad in our jobs forum.

I quite like the questionnaire above. But who'd be admitting that "(v) I'm a fugitive", but probably most of us would say that "(v) I enjoy my Sundays off".

But are you "courageous, responsible and supportive?"

Easy enough, there are quite a few of those upstanding citizens living on Lamma, fortunately.

Are you an "English-speaking Christian living on Lamma Island?"

A lot more specific job requirements, but there might be a few; I even know some of them.

But are you willing to work FOR FREE as a volunteer...on SUNDAYS?!

Wow, OK, those last two job requirements are really a shocker!

If you are such a very special, very rare and very worthy person, fulfilling all these requirements, then the Lamma Mission Centre would love to hear from you as they're currently recruiting such unique individuals:

"LMC is looking for some wonderfully talented people who would like to join and contribute to the local Christian community." You'd be expected to attend their gatherings and "join our activities like CELL GROUP, BIBLE STUDY, WORSHIP etc."

Click here to apply or contact Mr Tang at 2982 0316 / 6122 5740.

P.S. All faiths, charities and good causes are always welcome to promote their activities and events for free in the Lamma-zine! Email me!

Notice that last sentence above about "Acknowledgment of heroes of the world for their noble actions to save the planet." Wouldn't you like to know such a noble hero taking action to save the world? Well, one of them is a pretty well-known, real-life Living Lamma Legend, according to the SCMP and the Lamma-zine's official CCC (Celebrity Classification Code) for Lammaites. Guess who?

He writes: "At this special conference below on the 3rd of October I am being honoured with an Eco Award: "Shining World Hero". This is truly an honour that I am glad to accept.  ;-)"

It's an international Climate Change Action Conference about Global Unity, saving lives and other noble deeds, organised by Supreme Master Television, and the honour is most likely bestowed for the Save the Human campaign which is currently displaying hundreds of (free) posters in many MTR stations. Guess who?

Yes, it's pretty easy to guess for regular Lamma-zine readers. It's our single-named Bobsy, already an official Earth Champion, Lamma Forest co-founder/cheerleader and SCMP's Living Lamma Legend! My congratulations to one more very impressive-sounding eco-award to add to his growing collection!

Let's assign him a new, local Lamma-zine nickname: Bobsy the Shining World Hero! Please use it with a very loud voice in public whenever meeting him in person - maybe combine it with a little bow or curtsy - and enjoy this (usually) quite modest Hero's reaction.

BOOTCAMP 3 - beginning Friday, Oct 9, 2009, evenings for 8 weeks, from 8:15-9:45p.m. under the stars at the Basketball Court.

Course intro and Q&A session: Saturday, Sep 26, 6:30-7:00pm at the Island Life Studio (right after T.R.X. class; if people want to try out the T.R.X., they are recommended to sign up for the session to "test drive" the program.)

IMAGE+TEXT, Exhibition by Robert Scherle & Chris Hall,

Sep 7 - Oct 3, Culture Club, Soho

From the Culture Club website:

"IMAGE+TEXT is a joint exploration by Hong Kong based photographers Robert Scherle and Chris Hall of the relations between the text and visual art.

"IMAGE+TEXT reaches for that unity in photography and texts from both artists, using film in the case of Robert Scherle's "chromes," and digitally derived images in the case of Chris Hall's work.

"Chris Hall thinks of himself as a "digital artist," using digital images as the take-off point for sets and variations in software. Chris says that, "When I realized that the PC was, in effect, a digital darkroom, I was a complete addict. It was like escaping from prison.

"In IMAGE+TEXT, Chris is showing three sets. The first, based on images of women in lingerie, titled Taking Off, is a jokey, self-referential play on the commodification of art. The second set, "Echoes," is a series of portraits accompanied by poems, in a contemporary attempt to capture something of the feel of Asian art and calligraphy. A second set of portraits, titled "Layers," includes brief meditations on the creative process.

"Chris comments, 'These works, with the possible exception of the poem portraits, are very much in a long line of Conceptual Art. The concept in Conceptual is a method or procedure for the making of the work, and in that sense I think Conceptual Art can be very liberating. It questions its own status as it searches for new ways of working.'"

Some exhibition photos provided by Lammaite Chris, who's also a frequent contributor to our Artwork of the Day spot, plus his Fotografiqx website:

Check out this exhibition in person at the Culture Club Gallery:

My brand-new rooftop garden, exposed in all directions and unprotected from the extreme winds, survived this night's typhoon Koppu - Signal 8 - pretty well, even the tall bushes, besides just a handful of flattened, soft-stemmed plants.

But much of Lamma and our big rooftop canopy weren't so lucky, it got Koppu'd and is now kaput. It had to have an emergency total amputation by the local experts - like a C-section with a boxcutter - as it was impossible and way too dangerous to roll it up in the high winds. See photos above, just before I removed half the tarp to the rubbish bins and kept the other half, awaiting a probably huge quotation to replace it. See our TPCG Gets Koppu'd forum for more on this and the local Koppu aftermath.

A big, public thank-you to our new property agent, Stephen of Dollarful Real Estate Agency, who showed up on my doorstep with a friend within minutes of my desperate call at 9pm. They removed our huge canopy during typhoon signal 8 winds at night, It was impossible to roll it up in the extreme winds and would surely have ripped soon and caused damage to our neighbours! Great work, guys, saving us after not returning home much earlier and not getting help sooner. It takes two strong people to roll our big canopy, too much for Lamma-Por who made a brave and valiant effort to help me earlier.

This fantastic service is all the more surprising as Dollarful did not get the usual half-month agency fee for letting our new flat, just a modest handling fee for the standard contract and govt. paperwork. It was a break-lease, the former tenant found me via our Lamma.com.hk forum to take over their lease. Our Rent & Let forum, part of our thriving free classifieds, has become THE hot place for Lamma flats these days, all dealt privately without any agencies taking big commissions from landlords and tenants.

I'm still amazed at the very good, quick and low-cost service I get from Stephen for any problems in our flat. Often, he's even managed to convince the landlord to pay for any repairs and even upgrades. His qualified handyman friends have been cleaning our aircons, adjusted the gas water heaters, replaced all balcony lights, installed a brand-new, double-size, digital TV antennae, and will soon build a rooftop shed to protect the outdoor gas water heaters, all fully paid for by our great landlord. This is definitely NOT standard practice on Lamma and we count ourselves very lucky and in good hands. The name card & link above is a little, free thank-you.

Other work, like putting an outdoor power point onto the rooftop, installing our ceiling lamps and setting up satellite TV antennas was done for very fair prices, quickly and well. They even called me after the typhoon to enquire if our TV antennas were still fine and came by within hours to adjust one of them for free. Exemplary after sales service!

Finally, some more "Lamma Got Koppu'd" photos, the main path through Po Wah Yuen and the Tai Peng Community Garden, submitted by gargoyle and zep:

Finally, ending on a positive note, a few Koppu'd words of inspiration from Peter Lloyd, Lamma's Interfaith Minister and publisher of HolisticAsia, from his twice-monthly newsletter:

"Typhoon Koppu stormed into Hong Kong last night, after a month of near constant hot weather, reminding me of the power of nature, of the nature of constant change and our vulnerability to forces greater than ourselves as I scurried to catch a ferry home.

I remember as a kid I loved the excitement of typhoons and the way they create a greater sense of being present to the moment. This morning my day did not go to plan as I cleaned up a fallen tree and bamboo and banana trees in my garden; sometimes it's good to have a change come to us."

P.S. I've just been informed that our landlord will pay for the entire new canopy, despite initially turning it down, thanks to Mr Dollarful telling him that we're "good tenants". They've just installed a "PrePainted Steel" permanent canopy, no more rolling up in a typhoon necessary!
Lamma-Por says, "WOW WOW WOW!!! Great thanks to Stephen!"
I completely agree.

As I just found out, our local police is actually following our forum with great interest and is a bit disappointed about all the negative and critical opinions expressed about the electric car in our forum, Lamma Police's iMiEV electric car arrived 9/9/09.

Well, the iMiEV has just left Lamma for good this morning, after just 5 days on the island, and is now being tested by other govt. depts. for suitability, under central supervision by the Environmental Protection Dept.

Depending on the local feedback from the police, stakeholders, village reps and the population a decision will be made which govt. depts. will get an iMiEV permanently in the future. Maybe Lamma, maybe not. It looks like they'll even take some of the detailed feedbacks in our forum into consideration, discussing them internally already.

This was the very first iMiEV in HK, just released this summer, and Lamma was chosen as a prime suitable testing ground. It looks like Mitsubishi will only produce about 300 of these cars this year worldwide and about ten of them might come to Hong Kong soon, maybe around 5 of them for the HK police force. The rumoured price was completely wrong and the estimated price - no official price announced yet - is around HK$250,000/car. It runs about 160km on a single charge of its Lithium-Ion batteries, same battery technology as most laptop PCs. Full recharge time 6 hours, or fast-charge from flat to 80 percent in just 20-30 minutes. Top speed of 87mph (140km/hour), ability to carry four adult passengers and luggage.

Planned usage:

Supporting police work by reaching difficult remote parts of the island quickly, including Po Wah Yuen and Pak Kok Village;
Moving arrested persons to ferry pier for transport to Cheung Chau;
Emergencies, especially in remote areas.
The Lamma police does not have any car right now.
They'll be trying to avoid Main Street and other narrow paths whenever possible.
It was parked up in the Fire Station while on Lamma.

So it'll be quite some time till we'll ever see the iMiEV again on Lamma, if ever. I'll personally miss it, as it was a really nice addition to the eco-reputation of our island, fitting in well with "no private cars", Lamma Winds, the rural, quiet environment and the ecologically-minded residents. But some of our outspoken forum members do not agree with me at all:

Lamma Police's iMiEV electric car arrived 9/9/09

Before-After photos of the Official Court Artist, Andy Maluche

I've been asked quite a few times to provide Before-After photos of my weight loss. But I've always declined the request as I'm still kind of shy and not really interested to focus the Lamma-zine on my private life, instead preferring to feature other, more interesting and colourful Lammaites, like the guy above.

Somebody who has no shyness problem whatsoever and truly believes that all publicity about him is good publicity, is our Senior Official Court Artist. Here's a horrid Before picture showing him in the olden days of wild debauchery and beer-sodden excesses. The After picture on the right shows him recently in his fitter, slimmer and healthier version, Andy 2.0, after going Cold Turkey and sobering up. He's now full of health and creativity again, with a positive, fun-loving outlook on life with his trademark blue hairdo. Really cute, no?

Unfortunately, he recently became the victim of some dastardly Turkish hacker named iSKORPiTX who defaced his famous website - cheekily named Dont-touch-my.com - with this weirdly patriotic home page:

The Turkish text means, according to Google Translate:
Global brand never imitated. Hurry NOLU CD OUT TWO

A Valiant Fight of the Official Court Artist versus the Dastardly Invader from Turkey ensued! After many "Unable to connect ...can't establish a connection to the server..." messages, Order & Peace was restored in this small piece of virtual real estate in Cyberspace! Hooray!

Stop, hold the presses! I've just been informed by some usually very reliable sources in The Island Bar that I got the Before-After photos above in reverse order, actually showing Andy outside the bar very recently and the blue-haired cute boy from a few years ago, during his 5-year artistic "sabbatical".

Oops, my little mistake, sorry, my apologies!  {*Big BLUSH!*}

Well, I'm sure Andy will try very hard to return quickly to his blue-haired, fit & trim past look. Wish him luck and withhold all beer and alcohol from him while he's going cold turkey once again! Will he join me in the Island Life Studio, the Island Gym, on the bike or on a hike to Southern Lamma/Mt. Stenhouse soon? Let's hope so!

Stop, hold the presses once more!

Just in from Andy, after reading this story above:

"Ok, Here is the big public announcement:

"I decided to go on a diet!

"This decision was not based on recent comparative photographs that show me frightfully thin when I was young and blue.

"I rather realized that I can probably save enormous amounts of shower gel by reducing my body surface area. Such an opportunity to be frugal and at the same time environmentally conscious as well should not be missed.
Let the whole world watch when I single-handedly make Unilever and Procter and Gamble cry because of falling sales figures."

(2 photos above by KennyL, photos below by L-G & Govt. News)

Did you already see the shiny, brand-new electric vehicle of the Lamma Police?

It arrived yesterday morning, Wednesday, 10:30am at the public ferry behind the Football Pitch. The local police is so proud of it that they informed me personally of the arrival well in advance, TWICE, by telling me in person and calling me.

I'm trying to get the technical specs and info on its local use (replacing our local police bicycles? We hope not!) from them very soon.

So iMiEV stands for "Mitsubishi innovative Electric Vehicle". Reminds me of the TV cartoon Roadrunner's Meep-Meep! sound....

Photos and video of this fully electric, plug-in vehicle: Mitsubishi i MiEV hopes to hang out in Hong Kong.

So they've come ahead of HK Electric's electric vehicle which will transport disabled and unfit people from the Power Station to Lamma Winds soon, but is still awaiting official approval.

This will undoubtedly become another tourist attraction for the weekend tourists, adding to our cute little windturbine. They might just drive the iMiEV slowly around the village to show off the Govt.'s newly discovered green credentials, like a "green" parade proudly showing off their "eco-awareness"!

They could even hand out the new "Green Hong Kong Green" green T-shirts and Lamma eco-tour leaflets to the adoring tourists by a "Lamma Eco-Queen" (maybe a pseudo-model in Green Fashion attire made from recycled materials?) sitting on the car's rooftop?

Poilkoop writes, "NOW IT'S WORTH GETTING ARRESTED." So who's the first one to get arrested, just to get a free ride in there? Email me pictures, please!

Let us know YOUR opinion in our new forum:
Lamma Police's iMiEV electric car arrived 9/9/09
and in the Chinese forum as well, of course, 過百萬警車.

More and more trees are being cut down all over Hong Kong and there are multiple notices about felling "dangerous trees" all over Hong Kong's rural area. Since a child got killed by a falling branch last year the Govt. has been spooked, erring on the side of caution, cutting down any tree that might maybe, perhaps be in remote danger of falling down someday in the distant future.

I was alerted by Dr. John about another local battle between Lamma's very active tree huggers (It's a complimentary term, count me in!) and several govt. depts. It was concerning the mature Acacia tree just below the Kindergarten, on the corner up to Lamma Winds:

Bookazine writes:

"We are delighted to invite you to free Afternoon Tea for Mums-to-be and new Mums: Wed, 9th Sep, 3:30-5:30pm, Bookazine, Room 309, 3rd Floor, Prince's Building, Central.

"Bookidzine features a new shop design with a super spacious new children's corner, the biggest selections of children's books to keep the little ones entertained while you browse.

"Cakes will be provided courtesy of Sweet Secrets, and prizes to be won courtesy of Annerley.

RSVP enquiries@bookazine.com.hk, or 525 0218."

(Advertorial)

What are all these people ogling at (or should that be googling?) Is it a contest, a flash mob, a surprise birthday party or a fun launch of a new publicity campaign?

According to the picture's caption provided by HK Electric's latest press release, they're "Officiating guests and eco-tour participants all set to explore and probe into nature and our heritage" after they all had received "their mini magnifiers to identify eco-heritage hotspots."

But are these eco-heritage hotspots so tiny that it needs a magnifier lens to find them? Is there so little eco-heritage left all over Hong Kong? Let's hope not!

Yes, the 3-year publicity/tree planting/eco-tours campaign by HK Electric and The Conservancy Association, Green Lamma Green, has taken over the rest of Hong Kong, growing and expanding and prospering into Green Hong Kong Green! Soon all of Hong Kong might be cheering up and making funny faces in public like these people? Let's hope so!

Click for the full press release below, learn more about this great and very worthwhile eco-awareness campaign and see even more (go)ogling pictures:

Hunting for Eco-Heritage Hotspots on HK Island [05 September 2009]

So this leaves us with only one last question:
What and where are the "Eco-Heritage Hotspots" of Lamma?
Any suggestions, let us all know in our new "Eco-Heritage Hotspots" forum.

Contribute your own baby experiences and good advice in our Parenting forum.