Telolet Apps: A Short HongKong Getaway

Monday, January 23, 2017

A Short HongKong Getaway

[by Peggy Wong of Kuching, Borneo] I was between 2 jobs at the end of October this year and decided to go away for awhile before starting fresh at the new job. Since Alvin of Urban Sketchers HongKong had always extended invitations to visit their chapter and sketch with them, I put myself on a flight and headed there.

On the day I arrived, Alvin, Rob and I sketched the towering skyline of HongKong island, after a stroll along the waterfront of Tsim Sha Tsui, together with Lapin & Lapinette, who was also in HongKong at the same time. In the next few days, I also explored HK on my own, which included the HongKong History Museum, with all the elaborate displays, detailed information and scaled models, like this life-size boat dwellers junk boat.

One of my favourite to-dos in HK was their old school cha-chaan-teng, literally translated as tea restaurant, which serves canto-western cuisine. Speed sketching was a need here, as loitering at such a fast-paced high-turnover rate cafe was frown upon; you might even be repeatly questioned "When will be be done?!". Since I was at one during non-peak hours, I did a quick sketch but was quickly hastened when the lunch crowd started pouring in.

I had one of their typical meal sets which include macaroni & ham in soup, buttered toasts with sunny-side fried eggs and chai-fay black coffee. Other must-try includes egg tart and bo-lo-bau, although translated as pineapple bun, it is a bun with crusty sweet topping but no pineapple.

USk HK organised a sketch outing, hosted by BMW at their car showroom in Tseun Wan district. They arranged for a classic Isetta to be on display for our sketching amongst other luxury cars. Majority of sketchers were excited about the little yellow car, as they crowd around to sketch it; and I sketched them sketching it.

Vanessa invited me to sketch ta-siu-yan literally translated as petty person beating, an intangible cultural heritage, under the Canal Street flyover, between Causeway Bay and Wan Chai districts, with Romy and Noble. This popular Chinese folk sorcery involves hitting human-shaped paper effigies of the villain with slipper. Generally, it is to quell any curse put of their clients who came to seek help; some sort of exorcism.

Alvin had his own villain-hitting chant for USk Manifesto violators; "??????, ????????" which translates to "Beating your petty hands, beating till you wont be able to copy from a photo". We had a good laugh about it.
(The Chinese text on the far right has nothing to do with villain-hitting. I stamped it there because it looked interesting but found out later it is a quote "chaam-ji-tou-le" meaning "I know", with chaam a first-person pronoun arrogated to Chinese emperors)

It was an awesome trip, with more encounters and sketches from the trip here. But it was time to return to Kuching and begin a new chapter in my life.

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