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Calling all photographers!
How to get YOUR photo(s) into the Lamma
Calendar 2014
Lamma Calendars 2011 - 13
 
 
Sunday mornings, 8am, our regular get-together with dogwalking friends at
the pavilion above our popular landmark, the Lamma windturbine:
This is the scene of utter devastation that greeted us this morning! All the
seats and tables destroyed, all the colourful tiles scraped off and smashed
to bits!
What had happened??
Closer inspection of the area yielded these notices below: Closed till
Nov 4!
 
So we had to relocate our get-togethers, all the way to the famous and
recently renovated 3 Chairs w/Rock Table on Snake Trail. It's high
above Lo Tik Wan with a sweeping view of South HK Island, fish farms, Luk
Chau Island and Luk Chau Village, including their pier, Tin Hau temple and dragonboating area:
 
A surprising number of young Lammaites seem to be fans of boy
wonder Justin Bieber. To the utter bewilderment of this old fogey here,
who's almost illiterate in today's hottest music, these devoted fans are
eagerly anticipating Bieber's repeat performance in Macau on Sat, Oct
12. We've even got a "guest blogger" today with
some interesting fan news for all true believers, err, Beliebers:
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A True
Belieber:
Guest music blogger: (Photo from a
ticketing website) |
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Justin Bieber Fever
It was not so long ago that
Justin Bieber was just like any other guy, one that loved music,
but another teenager after all. Of course this feels like ages
ago, especially to him, but it was only in the year 2007 that
Scooter Braun casually found his YouTube channel and decided to
stop and listen to his songs.
 Who
would have thought millions of girls all around the world would be
dying to go to one of his concerts and pay a fortune for the very
best tickets. By the way, if you want to make sure you don't miss
any of his concerts go to
Ticketbis.com.hk to stay tuned.
Justin owes a lot to YouTube, since
that is where he started to promote his music and what made him
famous at first. Comes to show how important social networks have
become these days. Six years later, that very same YouTube channel
is about to hit 4 million subscribers and already has billions of
views.
This may sound like a lot, but you
will be surprised if you compare it to his Twitter account (which
will soon reach 45 millions of followers), and his Facebook profile
(which is getting closer to 57 millions of "likes" every day). This
is Bieber's strongest marketing strategy, since all social networks
make it easy to stay connected to his fans, gaining popularity. And
of course it is another way for the media to keep up with him.
Because he wants his fans to feel
closer to him, there are now tickets available for people to not
only go to his concert, but also take a picture with him. The price
is obviously quite higher and not everybody can afford it, but it
sure is being successful. There isn't one concert where these
Premium tickets are not sold out. |
P.S. Nick, our Official Court
Music Reviewer, is eagerly gearing up for the 3-day Clockenflap Festival and
will soon return with another unique & inimitable review!
I'm
always interested in more guest bloggers. Contact me!
Click
photos to enlarge
 Well-known
Lamma photographers couple Rambo Lai & Lorraine Cultfish are
participating in the
Families 300
group exhibition in the
HK
Design Institute, from tomorrow, Sep 28 - Nov 3, part of the
HK International
Photo Festival.
They've been hounding, eh, friendly persuading Lamma families to sit for
portraits over the last months, including Lamma-Por & -Gung to be portrayed
in our former Rooftop Jungle, but we're too bashful and low-key for such
publicity. Looking at their absolutely professional and beautiful portraits
above, they're a fine representation of typical, local families. How many of
them do you know personally?
Learn more...
P.S. In the meantime, check out Rambo's artistic
Lamma photo galleries!
Malcolm writes:
"I wish to make a formal public apology. A
couple of days ago in my foolishness I posted a comment
"Cats, meh" - for which I am deeply and sincerely sorry.
While our own cat tenants have accepted and
forgiven my ignorant dismissal of their superiority, it appears
the neighbourhood felines are not so lenient.
This morning, as penance, I was up at 5.30
cleaning bits of blood, fluffy fur tufts, and hundreds of razor
sharp glass fragments off our stairs, while breathing in a truly
awful miasma of cat piss.
You win. I, for one, acknowledge and welcome
our feline overlords."
This public apology has been republished here
with Malcolm's magnanimous permission. We seem to share 164
mutual FB friends and he's definitely one of my most
"interesting" and big-headed, err, big-brained friends, see
above.
The comments on this Facebook post above shed
some light on his public apology:
"Don't insult cats ever ever again. You bad
Malcolm!"
Malcolm: "A glass candleholder got involved
in the cat rumble, trod on it myself but got off lightly... I'd
closed the roof door last night so they had a confined space for
their disagreements."
"'tis the natural order restored so it is...
I was going to call you out on the last posting but decided cats
can look after themselves very well."
"Your gracious apology is accepted by
Tabbyboy, my current guest-cat, who spends all day in my garden
and house, or on the bed, wherever he chooses, until returning
to his "owner" at night."
Having an occasional look at the village noticeboards can be most
interesting. This week there were 4 individual notices posted for new
Village Houses to be built at the beginning of YSW Main Street. They'll be
located right behind Jackson's property agency and holiday resort, which is
currently being rebuilt as two Village Houses as well. I've superimposed and
coloured photos of the 4 notices to give you a complete picture. More
top-priced houses just 2 minutes from the ferry pier; Yung Shue Wan is
changing fast, becoming more
suburbanised.
Sometime next year, we'll likely have 6 brand-new houses completed in a
single tiny area, which was just a green jungle with a natural stream a few
years ago (Do
Pink Dragonflies Like Drainage Channels). Within just a few dozen
metres of this busy corner above, at least another 3 new village houses will
be going up this and next year. A few new photos:
 
 
Rebuilding the former Mr Kebab/Spicy Island building - 4 new village houses
Typhoon Usagi - announced as the largest typhoon to hit HK in 34
years, fizzled out within a few hours last night, without causing major
damage and flooding locally. It also didn't knock down more than a handful
of trees all over Lamma, unlike the massive tree damage of
Typhoon 10 Vicente. Usagi, meaning rabbit in Japanese, lived up to
its meek reputation, never surpassing a T8 signal, very fortunately missing
HK by about 100km and causing no local deaths or major injuries. Other areas
and countries in its path were not so lucky...
Here are a few fine pictures from Robert Hope-Jones and the
Langstons:
Yung Shue Wan beach - Outdoor area at Banyan Bay Cafe damaged and adjoining
area washed away (all pictures by Robert Hope-Jones).
Lost a boat? - Sand bags thankfully not needed.
A YSW Gaido Pier photo from a former, more severe typhoon?
  
Tidal surge at midnight last night - Pak Kok ferry pier at the same time
(Photos by the typhoon-proofed Langston family)
 We've
published so many mostly positive reviews from Lamma visitors over the last
11 years, maybe it's time to counterbalance? Checking out what's probably
the travel site with the most
reviews of Lamma Island, TripAdvisor, there are actually 7 reviews
rating Lamma as "Terrible" (as opposed to 151 Excellent and 121 Very good
ratings).
But might these few but honest opinions remind us maybe a bit how Lamma's
been changing over the last ten years and what aspects we could help to
improve?
Click here for these
7 Terrible & 6 Poor reviews (Click on the ratings).
To discuss this topic, see our
Development, Environment & Politics forum.
Families & friends enjoying the clear full-moon night of the Mid-Autumn
Festival.
Pete Gable writes:
"Faster
Broadband For Lamma Island.
NO, sadly, this is not an announcement that finally we
will get a decent service. But rather a call for ALL residents
to join this action group on Facebook (and petition PCCW and the
HK authorities for the service that PCCW declare is their
minimum and for what we already pay for.)
 The
facts are these:
- PCCW declare that the minimum speed is 8 Mbps. We get
at best 3 Mbps on a good day, often much worse. We also
suffer countless cuts in the service on a weekly basis.
- Elsewhere in HK and on Lantau customers get up to 1
Gbps, that's over 300 TIMES faster than what we're allowed
on Lamma.
- Lastly, and this is the kick in the pants… We pay the
same price as everyone else for what is a 3rd rate service!
Numerous calls for improvements over the last 5+ years
have been met with a "We have no plans to upgrade the service on
the island."
Why not even a plan?
There is a Facebook group called
Faster Broadband For Lamma. We are asking everyone on FB
to join the group! Just click here for
Faster Broadband For Lamma and join us in fighting for
what we are already paying for!
Stop
the rip off of Lamma residents!"
 P.S. by L-G: In the meantime, I'd recommend
using your smartphone as a Wifi hotspot for short but intensive
up/downloads to your PC.
It has serious drawbacks (Cost of 4G LTE mobile and
subscription, network availability & speed, not simple setup,
mobile overheating, "fair use" policy), but it's by far the
fastest Internet option available for now on Lamma. See my test
results from today, connecting my desktop PC via Wifi USB
antennae to my Samsung Note II hotspot, using Hutchison 3's 4G
LTE service. iPhones have been reported to overheat severely
doing this, but my large-size Android phone can download for
hours at this speed, getting warm but not overheating so far.
 Learn more via
Lamma Gung's discussion in the Facebook group above.
For the very fastest up- and downloads, you could use your
smartphone's local storage, but the same drawbacks as above
apply.
4G speed test a few weeks ago:
  
(Photos
by Howard Sheard & Rambler)
Nancy the Frog Lady, temporary Lammaite
(formerly full-time, now only staying here during summertime
research at HKU):
"Greetings from the U.S.!
That one is the brown tree frog (Polypedates
megacephalus)
They are the cousins of the flying frogs of Borneo; distant
cousins, but in the same family. A single female makes the foam
nest and she is about 50% larger than the males. As she extrudes
about 300-700 eggs and a lot of mucous, anywhere from 1-5 males
are hanging onto her trying to fertilize them. She kicks her
legs back and forth during this process, whipping the eggs,
mucous, and sperm into a big meringue-like foam that attaches to
vegetation above a pond or on the edge of the pond. Within about
8 hours the outer surface of the foam nest hardens a bit and
that helps to retain the moisture inside as the embryos develop.
Nice pictures all! That is a male sitting on
the foam nest at the pond edge in the picture. It looks like the
nest is quite a few hours old (that he can sit on it) and it may
not be his. Looks like a nice soft chair, though."
Moving to the remote wilderness of Pak Kok Village seems to be great for my
health, weight and fitness so far. To do ANY shopping or eating, you have to
either walk or bike a long way, or even take a ferry. Above is the route of
my shopping run to the Tai Peng Regent store this morning. I seem to have
burnt off a lot more calories (1,435) getting there than the smallish lunch
I prepared at home afterwards. 2 kgs lost since moving to Pak Kok 1 month
ago, 9 kgs more to lose to return to my "ideal" weight, by year's end,
hopefully.
Bike-hiking is a lot more fun (and a lot sweatier) than spending time on the
treadmill, I think. The fresh boar tracks, huge hornets, colourful spiders,
smallish snake, cheerful dog walkers and the friendly shopkeeper/Village Rep
made the ride even more adventurous and entertaining.
Pushing my mountain bike up Heart Attack Hill is slowly getting easier,
despite today's 35 degrees; pulse rate well below 200! Well, this trip today
was a lot easier than yesterday's early Sunday morning bike ride: Pak Kok to
Lamma Winds, Power Station beach, YSW for breakfast and back to Pak Kok via
Po Wah Yuen. Any destination tips for tomorrow? Luk Chau or Tung O Wan
perhaps?
Yes, that's a shot of the inside-outside thermometer in my home office.
Hotter inside than outside, thanks to my toaster-oven, err, PC. South-facing
and aircon-less, the temperature remains above 30 degrees all day and most
of the night as well; despite curtains and a tabletop fan trying
unsuccessfully to blow all this hot air into the (weakly) air-conditioned
living room.
Simplifying and downsizing our lives after the move meant downgrading from 5
aircons before to just 2 (which we had to buy from the former tenant).
Installing a new one is just too expensive for just a few more weeks of
summer heat. Mid-autumn Festival and the cooler months can't arrive soon
enough!
Part of the excessive lot of hot air might be generated by what I'm writing
here in the Lamma-zine... I apologise in advance if my writings these days
sound even more feverish, muddle-headed and confused than usual.
Big windows in Village Houses seem to be quite a hazard to some of our local
birds. Occasionally we might hear a mild thump of a bird not noticing these
transparent panes of glass. For example this morning, 8:42am on our balcony,
a major thump got our undivided attention:
 
The impact was so hard that this Red-Whiskered Bulbul dropped and lay
on its side on our balcony. It was still alive but obviously suffered a
severe concussion. It was unconscious for over 5 minutes, breathing heavily
and rapidly, while we were worried and wondering what to do.
Then it got onto its feet, rested another few minutes, regaining its
strength. Then it quickly jumped off our balcony and flew away, nothing
broken and undamaged, it seemed. These little guys are so tough! But it had
left behind a little souvenir for us to clean up, without complaints as we
were just glad that it was OK.
 
For more photos of these very common and
playful birds with the mohawk and red "makeup", see our Official
Court Birdographer's latest fanciful pictures, including
one shot that caused our Bird forum senior moderator Zep to
complain:
"LG, can you please devise an opt-in filter so that upright forum members
can avoid having to view this kind of scatological content?"
Plus a few more of Rambler's candid bulbul photos:
 
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