Sai Kung Magazine January 2013

The really useful magazine JANUARY 2013

THE PLANNER 4 Happening in January The first events of the New Year.

LETTERS

FEATURE 14 Don’t worry, be happy Eight ways to a sunnier new you.

WINE

5 Have your say A heartfelt thanks.

18 Trend spotting Wines you’ll be drinking this year.

EATING

NEWS 6 What’s going on?

Sai Kung’s alfresco tables under threat.

LOCAL

19 Winter warmers Central heating on a plate. Plus a veal osso bucco recipe.

MOTORING

8 Crackdown on illegal structures What to do if you didn’t report your unauthorized building works.

INTERVIEW 10 Peter Maize Out of the newsroom and into the novel.

VINES IN SAI KUNG 12 A New Year wish list Changes Stephen Vines would like to see in 2013.

21 Daytona dreaming Kevin Yeung drives his hero car.

EDUCATION 22 Picking a preschool programme ITS explains early-education philosophies.

FAMILY 24 Play away Where to take the little ones on dull winter days.

HEALTH & BEAUTY 26 Winter swimming Public pools that open all year.

HIKES 28 A man on an island Pete Spurrier circles Peng Chau.

PETS 29 Mine, mine, mine How to get socks, food and the remote control away from the dog.

TRAVEL 30 China’s big chill Ice is nice in Harbin.

GARDENING 34 Pot to plate How to grow produce in tiny places.

PEOPLE 35 Oh snap!

Santa in Sai Kung.

ON PATROL 35 Special branch Tackling the tree thieves.

MARKETPLACE 36 Your guide to shops and services Cool stuff to buy and do.

BIRD AT MY WINDOW 38 The feral pigeon David Diskin on Hong Kong birds.

CLASSIFIEDS 42 Loads of random useful local stuff.

ULTIMATE GUIDE 44 All you need to know Numbers that make life easier.

LAST ORDERS 46 The trouble with targets Iain Lafferty’s resolutions.

“WRITE IT ON YOUR HEARTS THAT EVERY DAY IS THE BEST DAY OF THE YEAR” – RALPH WALDO EMERSON

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planner

happening in january JAN 12, 19, 26 Stock Market Smash Investment, analysis and public-speaking course for children aged 12-15 by ITS Tutorial school and Analyst Bullpen. 1pm-4pm. 2/F, Sun House, 181 Des Voeux Road Central, 3188 3940.

FROM JAN 13 ESF LIONS YOUTH FOOTBALL

JAN 27

CLEARWATER BAY CHASE The annual race is on. Take part in the 10km run or the 1km parent-and-child event. 8.30am, Clearwater Bay Golf & Country Club. Register by January 6 at www.cwbgolf.org.

The ESF youth soccer league is bringing its professionally coached programme for children aged two to 16 to Sai Kung every Sunday, Wai Man Road playground. Register at www.esf.org.hk, or call 2711 1280.

Jan 1 New Year’s Day

Jan 16-Feb 9 KIDSFEST 2013

Pull up the duvet.

Stage productions of children’s favourites. Drama Theatre, HKAPA, Wan Chai. Details and tickets from www.hkticketing.com, 3128 8288.

Jan 1 Dragon and Lion Dance Extravaganza Hong Kong’s largest collection of mythical beasts, including a recordbreaking parade of unicorns, shimmies through Tsim Sha Tsui. Starting 2pm, Canton Road. For details, visit www.DragonLion.hk.

Jan 10 Sai Kung Sampler The monthly shop-and-sip bonanza at Steamers. 66 Yi Chun Street, Sai Kung.

JAN 20 HYATT WEDDING FAIR Lots of ideas for brides-to-be plus a chance to win a luxury holiday in Thailand or Bali. Hyatt Regency Sha Tin, 18 Chak Cheung Street, Sha Tin, 3723 7332.

Jan 11-12 3-legged Tale A visually engaging and funny puppet show by Theâtre de l’Oeil. Cultural Centre, Tsim Sha Tsui. Tickets $160$220 from www.urbtix.hk, 2268 7323.

Jan 24-26 Punchline Comedy Club Telling the jokes are Jeff Green, Geoff Boyz and Alan Francis. Tamarind, Sun Hung Kai Centre, Wan Chai and Grappa’s Cellar (Jan 26), Jardine House, Central. Tickets $250-$290 from Cityline, www.cityline.com.hk.

Jan 28 Technology & The Brain Find out what all that screen time is really doing to your kids at this public lecture by leading US psychology professor Dr Larry Rosen. 7pm, HK Convention & Exhibition Centre, Wan Chai.

Tickets $275-$300 from www.hkticketing.com, 3128 8288.

Jan 30-Feb 16 Bamboo Theatre A capella and jazz artists share the stage with Hong Kong’s best Chinese opera troupes, including Golden Glory and Lung Fei. Western Kowloon Cultural District, Canton Road entrance, www.bambootheatre.wkcda.hk. Closed Feb 10-11.

Jan 31-Feb 3 Michael Morpurgo’s Kensuke’s Kingdom Embark on a fantastic voyage with Faust Youth Theatre. Jockey Club Amphitheatre, HKAPA, Wan Chai. Tickets $220-$270 from www.hkticketing.com, 3128 8288.

Book now Feb 21-Mar 22 Hong Kong Arts Festival The city’s premier performing-arts event attracts world-class opera, theatre, music and dance. For details, visit www. hk.artsfestival.org.

If you have an event in Sai Kung, please email the details to editor@saikung.com 4 | WWW.SAIKUNG.COM

letters

have your say

Dogs’ best friend I would like to thank you so much for all the exposure Sai Kung Magazine has given Sai Kung Stray Friends Society (December 2012). We don’t take your generosity without appreciation. We have had one reader already come to the kennels to offer to walk dogs and may be a possible adopter.

Thank you again.

Narelle Pamuk, SKSF Chairman More about the IB Your article “All about the IB” in December is accurate but incomplete. I work with students on a component of the IB Diploma that, although it's a cornerstone of the programme, is sadly undervalued even in schools. The compulsory IB Diploma element of Creativity, Action and Service (CAS) has the unique ability to open the world to students who would otherwise lead a purely sheltered academic life. It changes lives and career choices and it is making an incredible change to people in developing countries that schools engage with.

In my opinion, CAS can have an unbelievable impact.

David McCracken

Sai Kung support As many of you know, my darling Andy (Naylor; right) passed away unexpectedly while competing in the New York Ironman Triathlon last year. It was a total shock to me and my three girls and five months on we are still struggling to come to terms with his death. While we will never stop missing him, one thing that has kept us going has been the unwavering support of our family, friends and the local community in Clearwater Bay and Sai Kung. The love, compassion and friendship that you have shown to my girls and me have been amazing.

In addition to providing emotional support, many of you have given us financial help, both personally and through fundraising events. Some of you we know well but others have given anonymously and I can’t express my heartfelt thanks enough. You have all been generous beyond belief.

Please know that we are hugely grateful and you really have done Andy proud.

We wish you all a healthy, happy New Year.

Lynn, Tara, Sasha and Katelyn Naylor

Please email your letters to editor@saikung.com. We may edit for length.

Sale starts 4th Jan up to 50% off Pedder Building Store 5/F Pedder Building,12 Pedder Street, Central T: 2522 7112 Horizon Plaza Store 21/F Horizon Plaza, 2 Lee Wing Street, Ap Lei Chau T: 2552 5000 www.bumpstobabes.com

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news CWBS Cookbook wins award The Clearwater Bay School Cookbook has won an award for “Best Fundraising, Charity and Community Cookbook in Asia” in the Gourmand World Cookbooks Awards 2012.

Featuring favourite family recipes from the ESF primary school’s community, this victory advances the cookbook to the next round, where it will be judged against winning entries from other regions for the title of Best in the World.

CWBS parent Langley Allbritton, who helped produce the book, said, “It was the community support – CWBS parents and local businesses – that made this possible. Hurrah for our Sai Kung and Clearwater Bay community, best in Hong Kong and in Asia!”

Final results of the international competition will be announced on February 23 at the Paris Cookbook Fair.

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Do you recognise this necklace?

Sai Kung Police are appealing for help in the identification of an Asian woman whose body was found in the sea off Sai Kung pier on Tuesday, May 8, 2012.

Believed to be Filipino or Indonesian and in her 40s, the woman was 1.65m tall, medium build, and was found wearing a purple polo shirt, blue jeans and pink shoes with a distinctive rosary around her neck (pictured). Her death is not being treated as suspicious.

Should anyone have any information that can help identify the woman, please contact PC Hau at 2792 8621 during office hours, or the report room on 3661 1630.

in the know

New threat to alfresco dining A new government crackdown on outdoor tables could make eating alfresco in your favourite Sai Kung restaurants a thing of the past.

According to a December 3 letter from the Sai Kung District Management Committee to local restaurant operators, it will be implementing a “three-strike rule” regarding alfresco dining violations with immediate effect.

“Under the ‘three-strike rule’, restaurants found to have breached [their Outside Seating Accommodation] licensing three times within 12 months of the first contravention… shall have their OSA Land License terminated by the Sai Kung District Lands Office.”

The policy is being enforced via collaboration between Sai Kung District Office,

the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, District Lands Office, Buildings Department, Electrical and Mechanical Services Department and the Hong Kong Police Force. And the enforcement has already begun — at the time of writing, a couple of restaurants already had one strike, and officials were considering whether to issue one restaurant with its second.

The policy is being enforced in phases, starting with the Sai Kung waterfront.

“May we once again urge you to abide by the licensing rules to prevent your licence from being cancelled,” the letter concludes. “We very much look forward to joining hands with you to maintain the environmental hygiene and beauty of Sai Kung Town. Thank you.”

Quiz-night kudos Sai Kung and Clearwater Bay residents dug deep into their pockets at last month’s Operation Santa Claus Christmas Quiz, raising $21,215 for Hong Kong charities.

Donated prizes from local businesses and hotels, including the Hyatt Regency Sha Tin, Crowne Plaza Kowloon East and Art Futures, helped pull in a record-breaking crowd to the annual event at the Hebe Haven Yacht Club.

Thanks to all those who gave so generously.

Michelin nods The Michelin Guide to Hong Kong and Macau 2013, released in December, held good news for Sai Kung restaurants. Old town Cantonese restaurant Loaf On keeps its star – the only Michelin star in the area – and Indian restaurant JoJo Sai Kung, above Bacco, is named in the Bib Gourmand section. This means the guide’s reviewers think it offers particularly good value for money (see page 19 for more details). Sai Kung waterfront stalwart Chuen Kee also gets a review in the guide.

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local Senior Consultant Editor Jane Steer jane@saikung.com Managing Editor William Whitaker william@fastmedia.com.hk

Crackdown on illegal structures begins With the government actively looking for unauthorized building works, William Whitaker finds out what homeowners can do.

Art Director Sammy Ko sammy@fastmedia.com.hk Graphic Designer Carly Tonna carly@fastmedia.com.hk Sales Manager Nobel Cho nobel@fastmedia.com.hk Sales Executive Jackie Wilson jackie@fastmedia.com.hk Business Development Manager Alison Dyer alison@fastmedia.com.hk Traffic Coordinator Cecile Chui cecile@fastmedia.com.hk Accounts Manager Clara Chan accounts@fastmedia.com.hk Publisher Tom Hilditch tom@fastmedia.com.hk This month’s contributors Kawai Wong Carolynne Dear Iain Lafferty Louis Doctrove David Diskin Jane Ram Robby Nimmo Stephen Vines Cynthia Smillie Timmy Lee Kevin Yeung Joshua Kindler Lauren McPhate Pete Spurrier Tim Sharpe Printer Gear Printing 1/F, Express Industrial Bldg 43 Heung Yip Road Wong Chuk Hang Published by Fast Media Limited LG1, 222 Queens Road Central Hong Kong Give us a call!

Editorial: 2776 2773 Advertising: 2776 2772 Sai Kung Magazine is published by Fast Media Ltd. This magazine is published on the understanding that the publishers, advertisers, contributors and their employees are not responsible for the results of any actions, errors and omissions taken on the basis of information contained in this publication. The publisher, advertisers, contributors and their employees expressly disclaim all and any liability to any person, whether a reader of this publication or not, in respect of any action or omission by this publication. Fast Media Ltd cannot be held responsible for any errors or inaccuracies provided by advertisers or contributors. The views herein are not necessarily shared by the staff or publishers. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any way, part or format without written permission from the publisher.

www.fastmedia.com.hk

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Starting this month, the government is actively looking for illegal structures – or unauthorized building works (UBWs) – in the New Territories. Its consultants have already begun taking aerial photographs from helicopters, looking for unauthorized rooftop structures, and will soon be starting foot patrols looking for additions and alterations to homes in the area.

The crackdown follows last year’s “Voluntary Reporting Scheme” for UBWs, which expired on December 31, 2012. So if you have carried out any unauthorised building work in your home – and you decided not to report it before the deadline – now may be time to consider removing it.

According to attorney and property expert Tim Hallworth of

Consultants have already begun taking aerial photographs from helicopters.

back to basics?

The best thing you can do is to remove any structures before anyone takes notice.

Minter Ellison Lawyers, anyone intending to carry out building work is required to appoint a “prescribed building professional” (typically a registered architect, structural engineer or registered inspector) to prepare plans and obtain approval and consent from the Building Department (BD).

“The problem,” Hallworth writes in an article for Minter Ellison,

“is that the Building Department approval and consent procedure for alteration and additional works requires drawings, often calculations, and the appointment of a building professional. It is therefore a complex, bureaucratic and expensive procedure.”

And so many homeowners in the New Territories have not obtained approval for their home improvements. However, to make an addition or alteration to one’s home is an offence that may lead to criminal prosecution. Under the legislation, according to Hallworth, homeowners will first be given a warning notice advising them to remove their unauthorized building work within a given period of time.

If the UBW is considered a lower potential risk, the BD registers the warning with the Land Registry.

“This will constitute an encumbrance on the property title and may affect the value and saleability of the property,” Hallworth writes.

If the BD considers the UBW a safety risk, it may issue an order to demolish the work. Failure to comply can lead to prosecution and carries a maximum penalty of one year imprisonment and a fine of up to $200,000, coupled with a fine of up to $20,000 for each day the building work remains.

LegCo has stated it will be deploying more resources to tackle the issue this year, awarding contracts to consultancies to take stock of New Territories’ UBWs, including foot patrols, as well as aerial photography.

“In all likelihood, your UBW will be discovered and noted by the authorities,” Hallworth warns.

What should homeowners do?

For those who registered under last year’s voluntary scheme, there will be a five-year grace period during which property owners can remove their UBW without fear of reprisal. After that, however, the Building Department may ask property owners to remove their UBW or register it as an encumbrance.

While Hallworth says it is not clear what will happen after the grace period, what is clear is that even reporting a UBW will not enable homeowners to keep it or to pay a levy of some kind in lieu of enforcement.

“If you report your UBW, you will have conveniently brought your UBW to the attention of the BD, it will be in the system and you may have to eventually demolish it,” Hallworth says.

And if you decided not to report it? “Given the public awareness

campaign, if your UBW is later found out by the BD and you have not reported it, it is likely that the BD will ask you to demolish your UBW even if it is in the lower potential risk category.”

And regardless of whether it is registered, if you receive and ignore an order to remove a work, there is very little legal recourse.

“When you show up in court for failing to comply with the order, either the structure is there and you are culpable, or you have removed it between receiving the court summons and court date, and so have in fact complied with the order,” Hallworth says.

“The best thing you can do is to remove any structures before anyone takes notice.”

For Tim Hallworth’s article on UBWs, please visit www. minterellison.com/publications/ voluntary-reporting-scheme.

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interview Peter Maize The Sai Kung novelist and award-winning journalist tells Robby Nimmo why he swapped the newsroom for a more altruistic path.

Hong Kong is the shopfront of China, but where I work, it’s the back office. I head Operation Blessing, a big international charity.

We work in rural China, where many live close to a subsistence existence. It’s not like urban poverty. Despite issues with health, education and clean water, poor people in rural China often live in beautiful places.

We are less about the old style of charity – “Here’s a bag of rice and shoes for your kids” – and more about helping villagers find solutions.

One area is water supply. One jerrycan of water is about 10kg-15kg and is about all one person can carry. A water supply improves hygiene, and gives people up to three hours a day to do other things. It can make the difference between children getting to school or not.

I migrated out of journalism. After I’d been a journalist for about 18 years, I stopped reading the paper. When my passion was gone, I migrated to the internet at the peak of the dotcom bubble. Then, at church, someone suggested this new career path. Sometimes I feel that your career, like writing a book, takes you to places you hadn’t imagined.

I thought of Hong Kong as a stepping stone. I studied journalism at the University of Southern California and I wanted to be a foreign correspondent. I thought a stint in Hong Kong would give me some leverage back home.

Initially, I worked for TVB. Later, I worked for Cable TV as news director until 1998.

Photos: Sammy Freeman.

We arrived in winter 1989 and lived in Tai Koo Shing in a drab, cold apartment. It wasn’t designed for winter, and we weren’t used to living in skyscrapers and that degree of population density.

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I thought it was the worst year of my life. I thought I’d be lucky if I saw out the first year of my two-year contract.

Then I was assigned to cover Tiananmen Square. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

It was thought there would be minor protests as Gorbachev came to China. The students spoke of hunger strikes. They weren’t evicted the first night – I thought they would be – and the next

zoom in day the number grew. There were no police.

Then there were a million people in the square, it looked like things were set to shift in China.

And then, of course, the rest is history.

Tiananmen changed my career. Suddenly I wasn’t planning my exit strategy anymore.

I wrote for fun when I was a kid. If someone has an ability for art, music, singing, painting, even if they don’t make it a profession, they should enjoy it. I always thought of myself as a writer. I had my first poems published when I was 16. Kids don’t seem to write poetry today, although rap and tweets are a form of it.

When I wrote my first novel, Zoom Out, I felt the story was already there. I feel like I have books in me. I was on holiday in Malaysia a few years back and I bought some paper and sat on the beach and started writing. I just wanted to write something.

It took years to write my first book. The first drafts can just flow; it is though you have no

idea where the ideas come from and where they are going. Then there’s the rewriting, which takes a lot of time. Some parts were lost in the editing, but this is part of being a writer.

In the first book, there are two main characters.

The second book, Nine Dragons Belly Up, is told in the first person by one of the characters. The woman from the first book features; she is based on someone familiar to me in real life.

Hong Kong is the shopfront of China, but where I work, it’s the back office.

The books are not about my personal life, although Tiananmen Square is covered in the first one.

Moving to Sai Kung changed everything.

My wife, Wendy, got a job in property that she still enjoys. We have lived for 10 years at the end of a road leading to the MacLehose Trail. We like the quiet and the wildlife. Right now the wild boar are out, and there’s an incredible number of porcupines. My wife read that they like bananas, so she’s putting them out. Something’s eating those bananas.

Our kids, Chris and Melissa, were about the only Americans in King George V School. They have become pretty decent people probably because living in Sai Kung there’s plenty of availability for the outdoors. And having help has meant we’ve been able to spend a lot more time with them.

Sai Kung is the same liveable place except for the traffic. I know a lot of people don’t want the road widening, but people love to visit and live here and the road will help us all get around.

Peter Maize’s new book, Nine Dragons Belly Up, is available at Dymocks Sai Kung.

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vines in sai kung

stephen says... the roads with vehicles, lamentably this has proved to be fatal. Besides which there is danger and inconvenience for everyone using these roads. So why not make 2013 the year of encouraging this healthy form of sport and recreation and establish more cycle tracks?

Public transport While Sai Kung is served by a reasonable level of public transport for most of the week, weekends and public holidays can be a nightmare. But this need not be so. The fine people at the Transport Department could simply license more companies to provide services on these days. Of course, the likes of the Kowloon Motor Bus company won’t be happy but it too can add extra services and what about licensing more minibuses to ply these peak times?

A Sai Kung wish list Stephen Vines dreams of attractive government buildings, more cycle tracks and a free-flowing Hiram’s Highway in 2013...

So here we are in 2013 and it’s time to look forward and make a wish list for the coming year, sometimes with a determined disregard for the realism of these aspirations. With this proviso in mind, this is what I hope will happen in Sai Kung.

Concrete Yes, I know concrete has its place in the great order of things but that does not include rural trails. Could we please have a concrete moratorium this year? Not only is it ugly but it despoils the countryside.

Sai Kung’s public market This is the evil-smelling, resolutely ugly eyesore in the middle of Sai Kung town. There is nothing wrong with most of the fresh food sold in this temple dedicated to the God of Depression but the environment is vile. The more I travel around the world and the more food markets I visit the more obvious it becomes that a fresh food market can be a truly wonderful place. Remove the dead hand of the bureaucrats and let there be light, floors that are not dangerously slippery and even stalls not clad in lavatory tiles but built to be attractive. It ain’t that difficult.

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Other government buildings It’s not just the market that’s an eyesore. Just glance at the Sai Kung government building and the adjacent Mona Fong Clinic and it’s clear that someone with a prejudice against aesthetics was responsible for their construction. The suggestion is not that these buildings need to be torn down – however tempting that may be – but that someone with a tad of design flair should be allowed to make these structures less of an eyesore. It is remarkable what can be done with a little imagination.

Sai Kung old town Although it is largely tatty, the old town is a gem and one of the few remaining reminders of how rural towns used to look in Hong Kong a century ago. I suggest a facelift with trepidation because the city’s track record in facelifting old structures usually results in a plastic-looking disaster. But it is not axiomatic that things need to be done in this terrible way. In 2013 we could at least start talking about how the old town could be improved.

Cycle tracks Cyclists continue to battle for space on

Parking There is a need to extend the excellent initiative of providing low-cost parking at MTR stations that serve Sai Kung to encourage car owners not to drive into the centre of town but to park and ride. This avoids congestion, lowers pollution and is highly convenient. As matters stand this service is provided at Hang Hau and Choi Hung stations – 2013 would be a good year to extend this scheme elsewhere.

Sheer fantasy Every now and again I am gripped by the fantastic idea that it might be possible to travel down the Hiram’s Highway without it being blocked by road works. No sooner has one government department dug up a section than another jumps in to dig up a new patch.

Naturally there is no coordination in this matter – after all, the only people being inconvenienced are members of the public. Who cares about the great unwashed? Anyway on the slightest off chance that anyone in authority reads this stuff, is there a tiny hope that in 2013 road blockages will be minimal and that some coordination will be undertaken?

I have more to say on this matter but I’ve just seen a pig flying over the moon, watched a show on BBC Entertainment that had not been repeated 15 times and saw Leung Chun-ying explaining his new policy of basements for all.

Stephen Vines is a journalist, broadcaster and entrepreneur.

He is the former editor of the Eastern Express and Southeast Asia correspondent for The Observer.

feature

Reasons to be cheerf l Eight ways to a happier new year.

By William Whitaker.

Be spontaneous We may fear the unexpected, but we love surprises. Whether it’s a back-rub or tickets to that thing you love, when someone doles out unexpected kindness, there’s nothing better. So do yourself and your loved ones a favour and get them something nice when they least expect it. They’ll thank you for it.

Be romantic, send flowers from Cindy’s collection in Cindy Florist, Man Nin Street, Sai Kung, 9365 0624.

Surprise your children with toys from Babushka, Shop 12, 66 Yi Chun Street, Sai Kung, 2791 9070, babushkahongkong@gmail.com.

Get cultural with tickets to the world-class music, dance and theatrical performances at the Hong Kong Arts Festival (February 21-March 22), www.hk.artsfestival.org.

What was your most successful New Year’s resolution?

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Get active New year? New you! Pull on those trainers and get active. That doesn’t mean you have to go hit the gym to lift heavy objects and run on the spot. Sai Kung offers a host of fun activities that get your blood pumping, from dragonboats to Zumba.

Ladies, join the yummy mummies on the 30-minute workout rotations at Curves’ women-only gym on Hiram’s Highway, Sai Kung, 2234 9800, www.curves.com.

Dance yourself fit in a party atmosphere with Zumba classes, or get physical during Body Combat sessions at The Studio, 1/F, 28 Man Nin Street, Sai Kung, 2791 9705, www. thestudiosaikung.com.

To get a better balance life, by working less, spending more time with family and friends, and taking care of my health. – Lydin

Tone up with personal trainer Jenny Poon at her home gym in Po Lo Che, 6621 2279, www.jfitstudio.weebly.com.

Train in the great outdoors with Tim Stevens’ FitCamp in Lions Nature & Education Centre three mornings a week, 9196 9442, skbasecamp@gmail.com.

Join the dragonboat team or learn stand-up paddleboarding at Blue Sky Sports Club, www.bluesky-sc.com.

Or take a class at Seasons Fitness, One Kowloon, 1 Wang Yuen Street, Kowloon Bay, 2995 3009, www.seasonsfitness.com.

To get my wife pregnant. We tried for 18 months and now we have an eight-week-old daughter. The best feeling ever. – Chris

feature Tidy up Get an early start on the spring cleaning by getting rid of all the excess clutter that (if you’re anything like us) has built up over the last year.

Rid your wardrobe of anything you haven’t worn in the past 12 months, tidy your desk and reorganize your living space by creating a place for everything and putting everything in its place. There, doesn’t that feel better?

Laugh So it turns out that laughing makes us happy (stop the presses). But beyond the obvious, laughter is also good for the heart.

And frequent laughter is correlated with longer life expectancy and greater general health.

Laughter may not be the best medicine, but it’s no slouch.

Punchline Comedy Club brings the funniest comedians from Britain’s stand-up circuit to Hong Kong every month for three shows at Tamarind in Wan Chai and Grappa’s Cellar in Central, www.punchlinecomedy.com/hongkong.

TakeOut Comedy Club is Hong Kong’s first permanent stand-up comedy venue, with homegrown and international jokers taking the mic every Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

Basement, 34 Elgin Street, Central, www.takeoutcomedy.com.

Dubbed “the funniest show on the planet”, the National Theatre of Great Britain’s smash-hit comedy, One Man, Two Guvnors, is coming to Hong Kong with its West End cast on February 15-23. Treat yourself at www.hkticketing.com.

For modern storage solutions in reclaimed or sustainable wood, drop by Tree, 116 Man Nin Street, Sai Kung, 2791 2802.

And for those who prefer Asian-style furniture, check out the antique and reproduction pieces at Chez Uno, 1 Tai Mong Tsai Road, Sai Kung, 2791 9662.

Sell unwanted secondhand goods at AsiaXpat.com.

Or donate unworn clothes and unwanted computers, white goods and furniture in good condition to Crossroads Foundation, which will redistribute them to those in need. For details, visit www.crossroads.org.hk.

To cycle from London to Istanbul in six weeks for the Campaign Against Living Miserably, a charity against depression. I did little training for it and in the end I just went for it! – Tom

Relax Traffic. Trains. Children. Chores. Alas, poor Yorick! Take a day off and relax. Stress is the antithesis of happiness, and we know just how to beat it.

The Deep Calm Swedish massage returns your serenity in an hour or 90 minutes at Sense of Touch, 77 Man Nin Street, Sai Kung, 2791 2278, www.senseoftouch.com.hk.

The Luxury Aromatherapy massage is a one-hour treatment designed to soothe at Sabai Day Spa, 2/F, 10D, Po Tung Road, Sai Kung, 2791 2259, www.sabaidayspa.com.

A good foot rub and a glass of champagne (bring your own) may be all that stands between you and utter contentment. Sea Foot Reflexology, 1/F, 60 Po Tung Road, Sai Kung, 2791 0328.

Whether you go for a head-to-toe makeover or a hair wash and head massage, you’ll look and feel good at Tala’s Hair & Beauty, 56 Po Tung Road, Sai Kung, 2335 1694.

My most successful resolution was to give up smoking 12 to 15 years ago. My wife (then girlfriend) pushed me to quit, she had given up a year before. I’ve never looked back. – Fraser

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feature It’s not lazy, it’s organized.

Home deliveries It’s not lazy, it’s organized – and often healthier – to have food delivered to your door. In some cases, you don’t even have to pick your produce, but simply have the best of the season arrive in a box.

Homegrown Foods delivers seasonal organic produce from its farms to your table.

Details at www.homegrownfoods.com.hk.

Fresh and frozen seafood and meat, fresh bread and a host of other products, with free delivery on orders of more than $500 from South Stream Seafoods, 2555 6200, www.south-stream-seafoods.com.

Get upscale and artisan gourmet goodies, including meat, seafood, cheeses delivered from new online grocer, Golden Goose Gourmet, 2732 0981, www.goldengoosegourmet.com.

Good wines at reasonable prices is the name of the game at Winerack.com.

To exercise more. I did it to prepare for the annual Oxfam Trailwalker event.

Renaissance College, where I work, has participated for five years and my family has done it once before. We have so far raised $15,000 and hopefully we’ll get to $30,000 – Phil Morgan

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I wanted to lose weight and followed through by going to the gym, taking dance classes and I stopped eating at night. – Lari

feature Read more books (and less Facebook) Feelings of wonder and awe are powerfully positive. And where better to find them than in a book? Whether it’s in the fantastical fields of Middle Earth or Westeros, the majestic heights of Machu Picchu, the storied battlefields of ancient Rome, or the biography of some great scientist, find the time to renew your wonder and read. You’ll love it.

For the latest titles in fact and fiction browse the shelves at Dymocks, 7 Man Nin Street, Sai Kung, 2791 9110, www.dymocks.com.hk.

A homegrown gem right on the waterfront, The Reading Room has new and “pre-loved” books, plus English classes and storytime sessions. 21 Hoi Pong Road, Sai Kung, 9021 2397.

Look for secondhand treasures at Leisure Bookshop, Shop 6, Sai Kung Garden, Po Tung Road, Sai Kung, 2791 9629.

Borrow a book from Sai Kung Public Library (District Library), 5/F, Sai Kung Government Offices, 2792 3669.

Learn Cantonese Make this the year you learn Cantonese.

Yes, we know Mandarin is more important in the business world, but we live in a predominantly Cantonese-speaking community. Wouldn’t it be good to be able to say more than “cho san” to your neighbours?

Catherine Man Lai-ting teaches truly useful conversational Cantonese at her home in Sai Kung. Individual and small group classes available, day and evening. For details, email man_catherine@yahoo.com.hk.

To live life more, work less, sleep more! I guess I succeeded by coming to Hong Kong for the first time. – Valerie

Bonus: Just smile Did you know that the simple act of smiling releases dopamine (a neurotransmitter that produces feelings of happiness) into your system? Try holding a genuine smile for 10 seconds, and you’ll see. Sometimes, the best things are also the simplest.

I wanted to keep an open mind. I have engaged in volunteer work for ethnic schools and Riding for the Disabled in Pok Fu Lam. It’s very enjoyable, even though I cannot ride. – S. Clark

To be more patient and enjoy more of the little things in life – Miran

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wine

Uncorking 2013

Wine recommendations

Lauren McPhate picks wine trends for the New Year.

2012 was all about trying to figure out what based on price (the higher the better) to quality wines pair best with Asian cuisine. OK, we get it. for money. With the economy the way it is, Powerful, juicy red wines work with char siu bao people are looking for bang-for-your-buck wine. and Gewurztraminer is great with, well, all Asian Finally, I predict 2013 will be the year of the food. But what’s in store for 2013? Will Spain super Tuscans. I’m banking on a trend to revisit overtake France as our favourite wine-producing the fruits of the 1970s, when experimental country? Will people go crazy for sherry? Or Tuscan winemakers were willing to break the rosé? Nope, I can’t see it. Here are my humble rules for the sake of creation. They were the predictions for the wine scene in 2013. first to blend Italian varietals (Sangiovese) with I foresee a newfound love of slightly sweet, international (Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon) slightly sparkling wines, with Moscato at the producing wines that are not only perfect forefront. These wines are perfect for novice with char siu bao but also delicious, elegant, drinkers, those who don’t like to lose control, and for those who like sugar. (And who doesn’t like sugar?) Moscatos typically have low alcohol of five per cent to seven per cent, and because they are only slightly sweet they appeal to different palates.

They’re great as an aperitif, a respite during a meal, and are perfectly suited to a fruity dessert.

Online daily wine discount deals will soar this year. Several new platforms have popped complex and full of character. They come in a up lately, including slurp.asia, yeswine.com and range of prices that will appeal to the victims of spikescellar.com. But this is just the beginning. last year’s big bank layoffs – and to those who People like wine. People like bargains. Let the have weathered the storm from the top. deals begin!

Fast media January 1 12/18/12 10:36 AM I also foresee a shift away2013.pdf from buying Lauren McPhate holds a WSET 3 certificate.

Tuscan winemakers were willing to break the rules for the sake of creation.

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Sweet: Carlin de Paolo Moscato d’Asti DOCG (Piemonte, Italy), Moscato, $130. An intensely cool fragrance, with notes of orange blossom, sage and a touch of honey.

Low in alcohol (5.5 per cent), sweet, well balanced and lively.

Value for money: Torremoron 2011 (Ribera del Duero, Spain), Tempranillo, $130. Intense, pure and bright, this is the “bargain of the century”, according to Robert Parker who awarded it 92 points. A product of 80- to 100-year-old vines, this fresh wine expresses complexity and flavours of red berries with crisp minerality.

Super Tuscan: Antale Toscana 2009 (Tuscany, Italy), $150. An intense ruby wine with the aromatic complexity of ripe red fruit. The mid-palate conveys light notes of sweet spices and aromatic herbs. Made from the finest sangiovese, cabernet and merlot grapes.

All available from www.houseoffinewines.com.

eating

winter warmers

roasted potatoes and crispy apple for dunking, and we recommend a charcuterie platter to keep things interesting. $295 for two. 5 Sha Tsui Path, Sai Kung, 2529 3454.

JoJo JoJo Sai Kung is aglow, basking in the glory of being included for the first time in the Michelin Guide to Hong Kong and Macau; it’s in the 2013 guide’s Bib Gourmand (good value) section. And if that doesn’t warm the cockles of your heart, the food will. Rich, spicy and hot from the tandoor, Indian food is a winner on cold nights. Michelin gives special mention to the tandoori dishes, as well as the Goan prawn curry and chicken chettinad.

A mention in the guide is usually associated with a boom in business, so we recommend booking ahead. M/F, 21 Man Nin Street (above Bacco), Sai Kung, 2574 7477.

Chilly chow Baby, it’s cold outside.

Warm up with something steamy.

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Okapi Possibly the cosiest restaurant in Sai Kung, with its fireplace, chandeliers and deep-red walls, Okapi’s Belgian-inspired menu features moules frites ($168) all year. But there’s something about slurping mussels from the shell, dunking warm bread in tasty white wine and cream sauce and chomping on crispy fries and mayonnaise that is more appealing in winter. We also like the choice of mussels in the dish – not the big, green-lipped New Zealand type, but the smaller, sweeter black-shelled variety. 67 Man Nin Street, Sai Kung, 2791 5068.

Shing Kee Chilly Hong Kong nights are made for hotpot.

Try the real McCoy in 30 – yes, that’s 30 – different soup bases at this iconic Sha Tin dai pai dong-turned-restaurant. Soup bases range from the regular (coriander and century egg) to the experimental (drunken chicken with Huadiao wine) and the list of ingredients is just as comprehensive, including premium beef, oyster dumplings and deep-fried beancurd sheets. Don’t be deterred by its

Classified Cheese fondue is the ultimate European winter dish, evoking snow-covered Alpine mountains, wood-beamed restaurants and apple-cheeked apres-skiers. We can’t promise the frosty setting, but Classified is cooking up shared dishes of cheesy goodness – a combo of wine, emmental and gruyere bubbling gloopily over a flame (non-alcoholic versions available). It comes with sides of toasted homemade bread,

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location in a cooked-food market. This 50-yearold family business is a funky little spot, with quirky installations made from found objects, such as a shelf of old stools, sculptures made from ropes, a chandelier of old bottles and an entire wall of black-and-white photographs. Shop 5, Lek Yuen Estate Market, Sha Tin, 2692 6611.

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What’s yours?

Sai Kung Campus opens August 2013. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis for PK1 – Grade 12. For more details or to book into one of our upcoming Information Sessions, please call 2655-1112. www.hkacademy.edu.hk

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sponsored recipe Ingredients

4 pieces of veal osso bucco (veal shank, delivered to your door from south-stream-seafoods.com) Plain flour, for dusting Salt and cracked black pepper 2 tbsp olive oil 1 onion, chopped roughly 1 carrot, chopped roughly 1 stick celery, chopped roughly 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped 4 cups (1l) beef stock 1/3 cup (80ml) red wine (optional) 400g can chopped tomatoes 1/3 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley Instant polenta or mashed potato, to serve Method 1 Combine the flour, salt and pepper and toss

Veal osso bucco

By South Stream Seafoods In cold winter weather, nothing is more warming than meaty stews and soups. The marrow and quality of South Stream Seafoods' stirk veal guarantees a rich, hearty and delicious casual meal. Don’t keep this a family secret – your friends will love it too.

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the meat to coat. In a large heavy-based saucepan over medium-high heat, heat the oil and cook meat for two or three minutes on each side until browned. Set aside.

2 Add onion, carrot and celery to the pan, and cook for four minutes until soft and slightly browned. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds, then add stock, wine (if using) and tomatoes.

3 Return the meat to the pan, bring to the boil, then reduce heat to low. Simmer for 1½-2 hours, occasionally skimming off excess oil. Stir through chopped parsley and serve with polenta or mashed potato.

motoring

va-va-vroom

Photo: Daryl Chapman

Meeting a hero Kevin Yeung lives the dream in a Ferrari Daytona.

They say you should never meet your heroes as you'll only be let down. A recent discussion among friendly automotive aficionados about hero cars – the most iconic cars of all time – got me thinking. At the top of our collective lists was the Ferrari 365 GTB/4, unofficially known as the Ferrari Daytona.

This impossibly stylish, Pininfarina-styled berlinetta masterpiece was the undisputed champion in our cool category. Lean and athletic, its long distinctive bonnet made it intuitively understood that this car had immense power. The consummately cool Daytona effortlessly conveyed aggression without anger.

Launched at the Paris Motor Show 1968, the Daytona was an immediate hit, selling more than 1,400 units as customers responded eagerly with their cheque books. Notable early owners included Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, who each purchased more than one example.

Designer Ralph Lauren, who has one of the world’s most important classic car collections, owns every significant classic Ferrari. It’s appropriate the first Ferrari that inspired him was a Daytona. He once said, “I was coming out of the Connaught Hotel in London and saw a black Daytona. What is that car? I thought it was fantastic. And I fell in love with it and I said, where can I get this?”

The Daytona commands an arresting presence, oozing confidence and authority. Just looking at it is a visual treat. But how is it to drive?

It was time to meet my hero car. Thankfully my friend, Alex, owns an immaculate example and generously encouraged me to find out.

Settling into the cabin swathed in vintage leather, I feasted on cool details such as the charismatic metal rocker switches. But I was here with the key in the ignition to drive it. The Daytona wakes with a deep but smooth roar before settling into a perfect idle. Once the car’s fluids were warm, we set off.

My first impression is that it is disarmingly easy to drive and my fear that it would be difficult to operate evaporated. Alex instructed me to drive with purpose and engage deliberately.

The 352-horsepower, free-revving V12 pulls smoothly without hesitation all the way to 7,500

rpm and is accompanied by a symphony of sounds. Starting from a rumble, it quickly layers into a multi-textured roar before finishing with a proper vintage-racer’s bark instead of a modern V12’s scream. Just going up and down the power band is addictive.

The ride remains composed when hustled through a series of challenging corners. It still feels properly fast so I can only imagine how amazing it must have been for Jagger and Clapton back in 1968.

The Daytona was the last front-engine Ferrari supercar until its spiritual successor, the Ferrari 550, was introduced in 1996. Then last year, 44 years after the Daytona, Ferrari introduced the F12 – its reigning king and the most powerful road car in the company’s history.

They may be four decades apart, but just one passing glance at the F12 and the Daytona’s bloodline is abundantly apparent.

But after our “meeting”, it’s the Daytona that remains my hero.

Kevin Yeung is a Hong Kong resident and entrepreneur.

He is a founder of Feeding Hong Kong and a motoring enthusiast.

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sponsored column

Choosing a preschool programme ITS School Placements explains some early education philosophies.

For many parents, the most confusing part about choosing preschools is trying to comprehend the different programmes. While educational philosophies are numerous and their definitions are not set in stone, these are the definitions for some of the most popular philosophies.

Montessori Montessori combines individualised attention with a carefully structured environment. Children work freely in mixed age groups. Children's innate passion for learning is encouraged by giving them opportunities to engage in spontaneous, purposeful activities with the guidance of a trained Montessori teacher. Through their work, children develop concentration and joyful selfdiscipline. Children progress at their own pace, according to their individual capabilities.

Traditional This is a more structured learning environment for children of similar ages. Teachers generally plan the daily activities, and children mostly are actively involved in group work, although, they do have opportunities to work

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which children can take part. Lots of outdoor activities are offered, accompanied by songs, poems and games.

alone. The idea is to help children adapt to a classroom setting, and prepare them for a more formal learning environment at primary level.

Waldorf Steiner This programme has a definite structure built around routine and rhythm. Children work in mixed age groups. The classroom environment is homelike, includes natural materials, and provides examples of productive work in

The Dalton Plan The Dalton preschool programme is based on founder Helen Parkhurst’s belief that whenever children are given responsibility for their learning, they instinctively seek the best way of achieving it and execute their decisions with focus and rigor. The students’ programmes are tailored to their needs, interests and abilities to promote independence and social skills. Children are nurtured through giving them appropriate freedom, responsibility, and opportunities for cooperation.

Remember, the best way to determine which preschool programme is best for your child is to investigate all your options, visit schools, and observe classes.

ITS School Placements provides an education consulting service that works with families and employers to find the right schools for individual children in Hong Kong, from nursery to secondary schools. ITS also offers research, policy and advisory services for corporations. For more details, contact es@tuition.com.hk or 3188 3940.

family

Play away Three groups to keep the under-fives busy on dull January days.

By Timmy Lee.

Bright Buttons Clearwater Bay’s new early-education centre offers a number of playgroup sessions for young children and their parents.

“I started my own playgroup from home to meet other new mums in the area and also to help my daughter learn early socialisation,” says Principal Rowena Hunt. “It was the best thing I could have done. Not only did it lead eventually to my daughter forming her first real friendships, but it gave me an outlet for all of those parental strains and stresses that are faced in Hong Kong... There is one piece of advice I was given when pregnant that I will never forget: ‘The friends you make through your children’s early years will be your friends for life!’”

Bright Bambinos follows directly from Hunt’s personal experience and is a 90-minute social group offering engaging activities for babies and toddlers, and a chance for mums to meet. Bright Babies is somewhat more structured. The hourlong sessions for babies aged three months to one year and their parents include fun activities designed to develop skills.

Bright Beginners are one-hour classes for parents and children aged one to two years that follow the UK Early Years Foundation Stage and include pre-reading skills, concepts and themes, music and free play, with each child following an individual learning plan. Bright Buttons builds on this curriculum with 90-minute classes for two- to three-year-olds.

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Suite 9, Dairy Farm Shopping Centre, 8 Razor Hill Road, Clearwater Bay, admin@ brightbuttonsltd.com, www.brightbuttonsltd.com.

The friends you make through your children’s early years will be your friends for life.

Jungle Playroom This drop-in jungle-themed playroom in Sai Kung Mid-Levels is open to children from the age of six months to eight years. It offers a fun, comfortable environment with large indoor and outdoor play areas that allow children to explore, socialise and share during free-play sessions – and a chance for their parents to make friends too. Facilities include a mini rollercoaster, rocking horses, reading corner, play-dough and plenty of outdoor toys such as cars, trucks and bikes. There’s also a sofa area for parents.

Activities are conducted in English and the playroom is open for casual drop-in sessions on Mondays to Fridays, 1.30pm-5pm, and Fridays from 9am-noon. It is also available for party hire for $1,000 for three hours.

3 Tan Cheung Village, Sai Kung,

2553 3825, admin@jungleplayroom.com, www.jungleplayroom.com.

Bumble Tots Started by a local mother frustrated by rainy days and Mondays, this is a 5,000-square-foot, indoor playground for the under-10s. Stacked to the bug-decorated rafters with fun activities, it encourages active kids to bounce off the walls with slides, tubes, ball pools, trampolines, gliders and balancing beams. There are also quieter activity areas for drawing, a Bumble Babies area for the undertwos, and a cafe serving a decent cup of joe to keep parents happy.

It’s designed as a drop-in centre, with a pay-once-play-all-day policy and the main rule seems to involve wearing socks. Entry for a child accompanied by one adult costs $80 (cheaper during happy hours), with monthly passes available.

The Bamboo English Playgroup for children aged 18 months to 30 months is held at Bumble Tots on Tuesday mornings, 10am-11am and 11.15am-12.15pm, including free play after the session. And there is a party room available for 10-30 children (plus 10-30 adults). Occasionally the whole venue is booked out, but there’s usually a notice on the website.

1/F, The Waterside Mall, 15 On Chun Street, Ma On Shan, 2631 4001, enquiries@bumbletots. com.hk, www.bumbletots.com.hk.

circle time

Four kids and a life Carolynne Dear rediscovers the “joys” of a family Christmas.

My husband has decided to whisk the family pans in the kitchen and everyone else drank – off to Macau for the weekend to blow away and drank and drank some more – to drown out the cobwebs of one more Christmas past.

Lego Batman on the PS3.

It started so well. Not one, but two sets After lunch, I (foolishly) dragged out Trivial of grandparents showed up at Chek Lap Kok Pursuits. Hey, what’s Christmas without a last month, laden with suitcases stuffed with board game? But old age, jet-lag and way too presents for four over-excited grandchildren. much Veuve made this particular game more It was our first extended family Christmas controversial than the chief exec’s conservatory. in 13 years and I envisaged grandfathers The worst moment came when one chuckling from the couch as the grandchildren grandmother answered “South Bank” to the happily ripped open presents, grandmothers innocently worded question, “Where is HMS sipping sherry and giving me a hand with Belfast moored in London?” Personally, I had no the canapés, and all of us bopping away to idea and cared less, but oh my goodness, those Mariah Carey on shuffle. I could practically elder family members certainly did. smell the home-cooked turkey.

“Technically it’s not South Bank, it’s off Christmas Day dawned early with the Queen’s Walk, which is much further along,” four-year-old making his first appearance at chipped in my mother.

4.30am. By the time the oldest generation “But the card says South Bank,” my made their appearance at a leisurely 9am, the husband replied equably. presents were open and it was Playstation “Well, the card is wrong,” retorted my mother.

Sai till Kung 190x120_ad_1212.pdf 18:05 all the way lunch-time.

I sweated over1 the13/12/2012 “I’ve lived in London most of my life, I should know.”

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At which point I went to “see” to the mince pies, while the debate about London’s geography raged on. It culminated with neither grandfather daring to back up their wives and my mother-in-law storming out “for a breath of fresh air”.

So here we are in 2013 with the grandparents safely homeward bound, while we head to Macau for 48 hours of fun and relaxation. To the children’s delight, tech will be allowed. As for board games, they have been well and truly left at home.

Carolynne Dear is a journalist and full-time mother-of-four.

Wednesday 30th January • 10am to 5pm Jaspa's Sai Kung • G/F 13 Sha Tsui Path

Toys

Huge

Books and

Swimwear

Back to

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Clothing

Goodies!

Clearance!

10F, 1 Duddell Street, Central • Tel: +852 2522 2466 Open hours: 10am-7pm (Mon-Sat) Sunday & Public Holidays: 11am-6pm

www.tinyfootprints.com ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

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health & beauty

Hyatt Regency, Sha Tin The beautiful outdoor pool at this luxury hotel is heated and open year-round, with bar service available poolside. A day pass is $400 a person ($200 for children), which includes access to the swimming pool, whirlpool, fitness centre, steam room and sauna. Sixmonth and annual memberships are available from $15,000, with a host of discounts on accommodation, restaurants and other facilities. 18 Chak Cheung Street, Sha Tin, 3723 1234.

Sha Tin Jockey Club Main Pool Of the seven pools in the complex, only the 50-metre main pool is open during winter. It’s outdoors but it’s heated so you don’t have to be that brave. Closed Fridays. 10 Yuen Wo Road, Sha Tin, 2693 6613.

Hammer Hill Road Swimming Pool When it comes to taking the kids swimming in winter, Hammer Hill is probably the most fun pool open in Hong Kong. The indoor pool includes a large children’s section, with a pirate’s ship, playground, water guns, sea serpent slide and rain trees. There’s also a lap pool for the grown-ups. Closed Mondays. 30 Lung Cheung Road, Wong Tai Sin, 2350 6173.

Kowloon Park Swimming Pool The biggest pool complex in Hong Kong keeps its indoor pools open year-round: a 50-metre main pool, two training pools and a diving pool with seven springboards and four diving platforms. Dive in. Closed Tuesdays. Kowloon Park, 22 Austin Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, 2724 3577, 2724 3344.

Shing Mun Valley Swimming Pool It’s a bit of a hike, but this bright and airy 50-metre indoor pool is where Hong Kong’s international swim meets take place so conditions are perfect for serious swimmers, who can usually be found ploughing up and down the fast lane. Closed Mondays. 21 Shing Mun Road, Tsuen Wan, 2416 0522.

Hin Tin Swimming Pool The indoor facilities are open year-round, including the 50-metre main pool and – joy – a 100 sqm heated jacuzzi for getting thoroughly warm on bone-chilling Hong Kong winter days. Closed Thursdays. 68 Che Kung Miu Road, Sha Tin, 2607 3423.

Tseung Kwan O Swimming Pool The 10-lane main pool remains open all winter. It’s outdoors but the water is heated to balmy temperatures and there’s a tunnel leading from the changing rooms to the poolside to keep the chill at bay. Sorry kids, the fun pools are closed until April 1. Closed Mondays. 9 Wan Lung Road, Tseung Kwan O, 2706 7646.

Top: Hyatt Regency, Sha Tin. Left: Hammer Hill Road Swimming Pool.

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not-so-cool pools

Be a goal-getter Louis Doctrove doesn’t make resolutions, he sets goals.

Here's a suggestion for the New Year: don’t make resolutions.

Instead, take decisions, set goals – and act on them. The first step is identifying what you want to improve: it could be weight loss, muscle gain, or raising your overall fitness. Set a realistic goal for the first three-month period of the year. It should be challenging but attainable, and not one that is so easy you coast through training sessions. You know whether you’re going through the motions, or if you are really pushing at the gym. Personally, I make sure that at the end of each training session I’m pretty close to exhaustion: on a scale of one to 10, you should be at eight or nine. This can be achieved in as little as 30 minutes.

Create accountability by sharing your goal with others – otherwise, it's too easy to make the goal disappear. Then you are simply a goal-setter with nothing to show in the goal-getting department. If you want to lose weight, a daily action you can take is to eat healthier.

Before you blow your nutritional programme after a couple of days, decide what’s more important; the short-term satisfaction of a treat, or the reward of shedding those pounds and getting the physique you have always wanted.

Any physical transformation requires a significant increase in training frequency, intensity

and duration. This doesn’t mean that from January 1 you should train like a beast five times a week until you collapse.

The usual reason for quitting a New Year training regime is overtraining and burnout. The first month may require some major changes to your diet and lifestyle. Give your body a chance to adapt and accept these changes, and it will be 10 times more beneficial in the second and third months. Hit the gym like a madman and I can almost guarantee you will quit within a month, from injury or burnout.

From January to April, try resistance or weight training at least three times a week, with two cardio sessions thrown in to maximise fat burning.

These can consist of one 30- to 45-minute lowintensity cardio session on the treadmill or elliptical trainer, and one high-intensity session on the treadmill (sprint for a minute, rest for 30 seconds, for a total of 10 sets). Stick to these basic programmes and every two to three weeks raise the intensity by increasing the weights, the number of repetitions or the length of the training sessions.

Make this New Year the opportunity to get the results you have always wanted.

Good luck!

Louis Doctrove (louisdoctrove@hotmail.com) is a NASM-certified personal trainer with a Sports and Exercise Science BSc. He specialises in strength training, weight loss and TRX suspension training.

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pets

Mine, mine, mine Cynthia Smillie tackles guard dogs.

When it comes to a dog’s perception of what is and isn’t theirs, one expression sums it up: possession is nine-tenths of the law. Dogs are never going to make a New Year's resolution to share their toys or go on a diet.

For dogs, food is a highvalue resource; in the wild, if you don't eat you die. Even though we provide our pets with several delicious meals a day, scavenging behaviour is hard-wired – it may even be compounded because Rover has no real control over when he is fed.

Dogs do not share. Generally it is a case of "if I have it, I keep it". Dogs often perceive having something taken away from them as a threat, and they may meet this threat with one of their own.

Food guarding is often perceived by owners as the dog trying to be "dominant" and may have been told the problem can be solved by repeatedly taking food. But we can't explain to the dog why we want to take its food so it is no wonder the poor dog sees it as a punishment.

This merely reinforces the dog's motivation to guard.

A more sensible approach is to add food to the bowl. If the dog is eating boring old kibble and

every time you approach the food bowl you add delicious chicken or cheese, your dog will welcome you instead of trying to rip your arm off.

Dogs guard things other than food, including odd socks, the TV remote or even used tissues.

A dog soon learns that taking certain items will result in a great game of chase. This is very rewarding as it elicits attention and becomes a way to prolong interactions with its owner and so the dog becomes reluctant to surrender the item. If the dog is physically punished it will not understand why.

Owners can address objectguarding in the same way as foodguarding: when we ask for an item back we give the dog something more interesting in return. A yummy chew or slice of sausage usually does the trick. These techniques need to be practised from a young age – trying to resolve serious food – or object-guarding in older dogs can be more difficult and needs a different approach that does not involve punishment.

If a dog could make New Year's resolutions, high on its list would be playing and going for more walks. Maybe you could add them to your list too.

Dr. Cynthia Smillie BVM&S PG DIp CABC MRCVS is a veterinary behaviourist and deals solely with behaviour problems in companion animals. For appointments please call 9618 2475 or visit www.petbehaviourhk.com.

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travel

From top Club Med Yabuli at night; Asia’s longest alpine run; Club Med's ski-rental hall.

Ice town

Kawai Wong chills in Harbin.

What does –25 degrees Celsius feel like?

Looking at the locals at Harbin Airport arrivals gate – all casual corduroys and lumberjack jackets sans hats and gloves – it doesn’t seem that bad.

Then the automatic doors retreat sideways.

The cold is brutal and the wind savage. I clutch my turtleneck to fend off the stabbing Siberian gusts, but it isn’t much help. My breath solidifies almost instantly on the thick yarn, turning the collar into a frosty little scarf. I must look comical because a man smoking nearby gives me a sidelong smile and shouts in a thick northern Chinese accent: “Silly girl! Put on a pair of gloves!”

But I’m not sure gloves are going to be enough.

I dig out some heavy-duty skiwear and try again, finally making it to a taxi. With the heater on full blast, I ask the driver to take me straight to the famous Harbin Ice and Snow Festival.

On the brand new six-lane tollway, fir trees and yellow brick houses fly past the windows and snow-trucks shoot out jets of powdery confetti that glow prettily in the roadside LEDs. It’s 4pm, and the sun is setting.

The traffic slows and finally gridlocks as the peppering of houses gives way to high-rise fortresses, softened by marshmallow snow drifts.

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Harbin City, the Oriental Moscow, sits 500km from the Russian border but it was once under Russian rule – and it shows. It was established in 1900 by a Polish engineer working on the Chinese Eastern Railway, which was financed by the Russian Empire. So it’s little wonder that Harbin looks romantically European, with avant-garde wrought-iron bus stops and baroque footbridges that connect the interminable rows of art nouveau apartment blocks. Without the stagnant traffic (a characteristic of modern China) and Chinese signs for “Hot noodles” or “Harbin sausages”, Harbin could be mistaken for Berlin or Zagreb.

It takes an hour to reach Songhua Avenue over the frozen Songhua River, the source of the ice for the magnificent sculptures that loom through the taxi’s windscreen. Our destination is Sun Island, the main site of the Ice and Snow Festival. This is no mere tourist attraction, but an entire town made of ice that glows turquoise, rose pink and lime from neon lights embedded in the frozen blocks.

I hand over RMB300 for an entrance ticket and glide and twirl through the slippery labyrinthlike ice town of pagodas, temples, arches and pavilions. It is incredibly festive, with horse-drawn

travel Clockwise from top: Saint Sophia Orthodox Church; street signs in three languages on Zhongyang Street; hawkers selling nuts and glazed fruit sticks; and European-style architecture in Harbin.

The snow is dry, well-groomed and wonderfully powdery.

carriages, children sledding down ice slides, and even a nightly Chinese opera. Vendors hawk colourful glazed fruit on sticks, and visitors warm up over coffee and instant noodles.

The next day I wake early to join the locals queuing for ka lie ba bread (khleb in Russian) and Harbin hong chang sausage for breakfast near Zhongyang Pedestrian Street.

The 1.4km street dates back to 1898, although its baroque and Byzantine buildings now house international franchises such as Zara and Omega. In the side alleys, food stalls sell hazelnuts, fruit sticks and fresh bread. With signage in Chinese, Russian and English, the street has a distinct West-East flavour.

Another Harbin neo-Byzantine classic is the nearby Saint Sophia Orthodox church, the largest of its kind in Asia. Lit up at dusk, its onion domes and plaza setting resemble Red Square. The interior is less impressive, with fading murals, a half-hearted photo exhibition of old Harbin and little original decoration.

Ice sculptures and architecture aside, most people come to Harbin to ski. The city is a gateway to the Yabuli ski resort, a four-hour drive southeast. It’s more affordable than Japan, closer than Europe or North America, and has Asia’s longest alpine run at 2.68km.

It can even boast Club Med, one of the world’s largest chains of all-inclusive luxury resorts. The wind is making snow swirls at the corners of the European-style buildings as I dash from the car to reception. Inside, it’s comfortably heated, tastefully decorated and vast, with signs to a swimming pool, gym and outdoor Canadian hot tub.

The ski hall feels like the United Nations.

Korean families fit their children with gear, a Czech ski instructor chats with a couple of Chinese skiing newbies and an Australian instructor babbles away at me, testing my skiing knowledge and promoting the resort’s events and facilities.

“There’s a Flying Trapeze show tonight.

Let’s go for drinks at the bar after?” Known as

GOs (genteel organisers), Club Med staff are a hybrid of teacher, performer and companion.

They teach you to ski, perform at the various entertainments and party with you at night.

The Flying Trapeze is funny. The show is a tradition in most of the world’s 80 Club Med resorts and Yabuli’s interpretation is a familyfriendly cross between Olympic gymnastics, the Chippendales and a West End production of Tarzan. Stuntmen flap about in the air, performers juggle with hats and the audience loves it. The show is a nice prelude to aprèsski agendas. At the open bar some people are playing snooker while others mingle with GOs

or groove in the disco, where more GOs horse dance to Gangnam Style to get the crowd going.

Next day, fortified by a full breakfast (take your pick from French cheeses, charcuterie, salad, Chinese congee, noodles or a full English), I take to the slopes. The snow is dry, well-groomed and wonderfully powdery. I spend most of my time on the nursery slopes and its magic carpet ride. But more adventurous skiers can catch a gondola either halfway up the peak or all the way to the top and its advanced alpine piste. It’s a 5km Nordic trail used for training by China’s national teams. When it’s –25 degrees C, there are few better places to be.

WWW.SAIKUNG.COM | 31

travel

Hideouts from home The Hideaways Club offers luxury holiday homes without the hassle. CEO Ian Johnston explains.

What is The Hideaways Club?

Some people spend millions buying overseas properties, enduring the significant cost and hassle of ownership, but end up using them only a few weeks of the year. The Hideaways Club provides that luxury holiday experience, while reducing the cost and providing a much greater choice. Essentially, members invest HK$1.65 million-$3.12 million in a fund that buys and owns holiday properties, entitling them to a share of the fund and two to six weeks’ stay in the properties (for details, visit www.thehideawaysclub.com).

How can we join?

The Hideaways Club is for high-net-worth individuals who consider holiday time with friends and family as an important part of their lives. The investment level, and the medium- to long-term nature of any propertyrelated investment, mean members should be prepared to commit for at least three years. Potential members should apply to The Hideaways Club in Gibraltar for a thorough

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selection process that can take six weeks. So far just 350 people have been selected to become members worldwide.

What’s your favourite property?

Santisook, our spectacular villa in Phuket, on a private headland near Kata Beach.

The setting is beautiful, with an exquisite sea view from the rooftop swimming pool, and the staff is superb – our local concierge is the best Thai chef I have met. I took my family and friends there in August, and with five teenagers in the party, we made full use of the cinema, gym, snooker room and pool.

What is your most memorable travel experience?

Riding a camel through local Berber villages in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco while

The pool at Santisook, Phuket.

staying at Dar Hasnaa, one of two Hideaways properties near Marrakech.

Top three travel tips?

Always pack one more shirt than you think you’ll will need (two in Singapore), carry travel power adaptors for each location, and seek reliable local advice about the best restaurants and activities.

gardening

Pot to plate Jane Ram discovers vegetables grow in the tiniest places.

If your New Year resolutions include eating healthily, help is at hand in the form of Arthur van Langenberg’s third book, Growing your own food in Hong Kong. This step-by-step primer covers all the how-to questions as well as providing the why, what and when answers.

Van Langenberg does not assume you have a huge vegetable patch. Instead, his book is a manual of maximising unpromising growing space. He makes no assumptions about your level of gardening skill in Hong Kong conditions.

He happily shares his considerable experience of growing lettuce, cabbage and other edibles in surprisingly small pots. I have been fortunate enough to visit his garden many times and am always amazed at how productive a small patch of earth and concrete car park can be.

Flower markets Traditionally Lunar New Year is a time for something new and showy in your wardrobe and is also an opportunity to find something new for your garden. One of the great celebrations of southern China is the Shenzhen Festival Flower Market. Four lines of stalls stretch along a pedestrianised kilometre-long street to create a river of red and gold with splashes of every

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other imaginable colour. This is not aggressive, go-getter Shenzhen. Everyone is relaxed and in holiday mood, out for an enjoyable excursion. The market is less crowded and prices are generally lower than at the Lunar New Year markets in Hong Kong.

Alongside the citrus trees, red and gold bromeliads, poinsettias, water narcissus, camellias and other familiar attractions there are always novelties that have me reaching for my camera if not my wallet. When I return home I start searching through my reference books to find out what I have seen, its identity, origin and – most important – its requirements.

Human beings are fickle and fashions change for plants as with everything else. One nursery brings in a novelty, finds it thrives locally and suddenly what was formerly rare and exotic becomes commonplace. Chinese plant names are by no means standardised and when it comes to something unfamiliar, local nurserymen often improvise their own Chinese name, without botanical names or other clues to help you find out the preferred growing conditions.

A case in point is Plectranthus ecklonii Mona lavender, a plant that seems to have emerged from nowhere. It has pretty mauveblue flowers and dark leaves that are decorative even when it is not in bloom, making it a good foil for blowsy begonias and coleus. It is increasingly common around Hong Kong although I think it has yet to reach peak popularity. It took ages to track down the name of this unassuming plant. In the meantime I found it to be equally happy in shade or sun, as a bedding plant or in a pot.

Jane Ram is a professional writer with a passion for plants.

She has been gardening in Hong Kong for more than 30 years and is still learning. For queries, and details of events, please email janetaipeng@gmail.com.

January tasks Winter warmth: If you have not done this already, it’s time to protect episcias and relatives of the African violet, along with non-native peperomias (with dark undersides to their leaves). Place the plants in a polystyrene box, drape fleece or net loosely over them and put the lid on overnight. Don’t let water accumulate in the bottom of the box – no plant likes wet feet. All these tropical beauties grow so slowly in cold weather they will require only occasional watering until spring.

Once a month or so, choose a fine, mild day, remove the plants from the box and stand them in a bowl of shallow water for about 15 minutes to water them from the base.

Let the surplus water drain away before returning them to their winter quarters. Check for passengers in the form of snails luxuriating in the warmth and enjoying 24-hour meal service without getting out of bed. It sounds like a lot of work, but you will reap the rewards in spring.

Seeds: Salad and other tender vegetables should flourish if you sow now, and they will give a good harvest before the spring warmth makes the plants bolt. You can also still sow coriander seeds. Arthur van Langenberg suggests soaking them overnight before sowing to speed up germination. It can also help if you crush them lightly with a rolling pin.

Cuttings: This is a good season to try making cuttings of bougainvillea, hibiscus and other hard-wood shrubs.

Gardening events Saturday workshops A series of Saturday afternoon plant workshops starts in mid January. Topics include camellias, ferns, hibiscus and passion flowers. Art with Roz garden explorations continue on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.

Jan 22 A mini nursery trawl combined with curry tiffin chez historian Jason Wordie.

Feb 6 Shenzhen Festival Flower Market visit, including lunch and a trip to the Shenzhen Wholesale Plant Market, time permitting.

people

Santa in Sai Kung Visiting Father Christmas at Dymocks.

on patrol...

rooting out trouble

Special branch Sai Kung Police take on the tree thieves.

In the grand scheme of things, offences against trees may not be rated as high on the crime scale as burglaries and robberies but Sai Kung Police take them just as seriously.

Our country parks are under siege, mostly from mainland Chinese poachers who think nothing of slashing or stealing our precious resources, which should be for the benefit of all. Two types of trees are targeted: Buddhist pines and incense trees.

Buddhist pines are considered to be good fung shui. These rare trees are uprooted and transported across the border to be replanted in hotel lobbies, shopping centres or private gardens. Good specimens sell for up to $50,000. Poachers travel to Hong Kong, dig up the trees and take them back to China by speedboat. (Seeing a bush zooming across the sea at night is truly surreal.) However,

proactive joint operations with Marine Police and stiff sentences of up to six years handed down by the courts mean this problem, although it still exists, has been greatly reduced.

However, we are now dealing with the theft of incense trees, Aquilarin sinensis. These trees gave Hong Kong its “Fragrant Harbour” moniker and were once plentiful but are now considered endangered. The bark, wood and leaves can be used to make incense but the thieves are also after the resin, which is used in traditional Chinese medicine, with a figure of $25,000 a kilo being bandied about. We all have our own views on certain aspects of Chinese medicine (mine, incidentally, rhymes with “Pollux”). However, Wikipedia states the resin has pain-relief benefits.

These beautiful trees are under attack from mainland gangs who make deep and damaging cuts in healthy trees, returning a month or two later to collect the resin that forms from the sap that flows from the cuts.

These environmental vandals are threatening the survival of these wonderful trees. Unfortunately, the police are finding it increasingly difficult to secure arrests for these activities. Gone are the days when these gangs were illegal immigrants, now they are two-way permit holders entitled to be in Hong Kong. They are also getting smarter with their explanations. We can only arrest them if we catch them in the act of damaging the trees or if they have any tree material on them.

I appeal for you to be our eyes and ears. If you are out hiking and come across suspicious activity – hearing wood chopping in the area, seeing shady characters or possibly coming across an illegal campsite or a recently cut tree – please call us on 3661 1630, or in case of an emergency, 999. Your actions will send a strong deterrent message to the criminals as well as protecting our green environment.

Stay safe.

Tim Sharpe is the Police DVC for Sai Kung.

WWW.SAIKUNG.COM | 35

marketplace

STRESSED BY YOUR PET?!!!

PET BEHAVIOUR PROBLEMS? Hong Kong’s first and only Behavioural Veterinary Practice can help resolve aggression, fear, anxiety, separation related problems, compulsive disorders, inappropriate toileting, noise phobias etc.

Not all behavioural problems are simply training issues.

Dr. Cynthia Smillie BVM&S PG Dip CABC MRCVS

Tel: 9618 2475 cynthia@petbehaviourhk.com

www.petbehaviourhk.com

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To advertise, email: ads@saikung.com or call 2776 2772.

marketplace

To advertise, email: ads@saikung.com or call 2776 2772.

WWW.SAIKUNG.COM | 37

marketplace

bird at my window

The feral pigeon

aka Columba livia The feral pigeon is one of the most familiar birds because of its close relationship to man.

Domestic and feral breeds originate from the rock dove, which has a natural range covering Europe, North Africa and southern Asia. It is a cliff-dweller, living either on sea cliffs as in Britain, or rocky canyons as in Israel.

The feral pigeon was first domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean 5,000-10,000

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years ago, mainly for food, although in Egypt it was a sacred bird associated with fertility. It has been widely bred ever since for consumption and for racing. Racing pigeons have a special ability to find their way home even across hundreds of kilometres.

Wild populations of feral pigeons that have escaped or been released from captivity have become established around the world well beyond the natural range of the rock dove. They are particularly associated with cities where the ledges of buildings substitute for rocky cliffs.

They are widespread in Hong Kong and can be found in a variety of habitats from the dome of Kowloon mosque to the fields of Long Valley near Sheung Shui. Racing pigeons occasionally turn up on Po Toi – the special bands on their legs indicate these birds are from Taiwan.

David Diskin is a writer and photographer based in the New Territories. His latest book is Hong Kong Nature Walks: Kowloon, Hong Kong & Outlying Islands (October 2012). Details at www.accipiterpress.com.

To advertise, email: ads@saikung.com or call 2776 2772.

marketplace

To advertise, email: ads@saikung.com or call 2776 2772.

WWW.SAIKUNG.COM | 39

marketplace

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To advertise, email: ads@saikung.com or call 2776 2772.

marketplace

scorpion sport tel +852 9199 3860 email scorpionribshk@gmail.com

wwwscorpionribs.com

Official supplier of Ben Ainslie Racing for the Americas Cup World Series

To advertise, email: ads@saikung.com or call 2776 2772.

OFFICIAL SUPPLIER

B r i t i s h

B u i lt

W o r l d

C l a s s

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classifieds LOCAL Property PRIVATE RESIDENCE ~ $26. 8M SOLE AGENT - Gorgeous 2100sf Detached 4 Bedroom Family Home.

Private 1750sf Walled Terrace & Garden with STT. Quiet, Exclusive, Sought After Location. Green Views. Ref ~ SK414 www.thepropertyshop.com.hk 27193977 C-027656

Nice stand alone village house in Clearwaterbay. Privacy. Near MTR station. Unique tranquil area. Fully renovated in Spanish style. Private garden with walls around. sbelgon@gmail.com, 63970477 and 96551065 Rent 75k. Sell 25 Mio

Western Living Resort Villa HK$50K-Sai Kung 2100' Three Storey Detached House.

4 Bedrooms (2 ensuite), Maid's Room, Roof, Lawn and Wood Decking Garden, Fitted Open Kitchen, Spacious Bedrooms with Fitted Wardrobes, Shared Pool, Carpark, Westernised Community, Quiet Location. Angela 92882529 (Private Listing)

Overseas Property

Stunning Zen Style Decor $120K Fabulous for Entertaining.

3 Bedrooms with Study, Fully Fitted Kitchen & Fabulous Bathrooms.

Landscaped Lawn Garden with Private Pool, Roof Terrace Garden with Green and Sea Views.

Ref ~ SK402 www.thepropertyshop.com.hk 27193977 C-027656

Services COMPUTER SERVICES Microtechhk(HK).COM provides onsite support to day-to-day computer (MAC/ WINDOWS) usage since 1992, Call us for any Hardware/software, internet problems, wifi setup, data recovery Reasonable Price 24/7 hotline : 23976418

NEED A HOLIDAY? PHUKET VILLA FOR RENT! Luxury 5 beds villa with swimming pool located in Surin area. Walking distance to beaches. Reasonable rates!

Website: www.phuketvilla4rent.com Email the owner: info@phuketvilla4rent.com

Luxury Beach Villa in Cebu Island Philippines for rent. (Fully Staffed) 4 double rooms all with bath. 3 direct flights per day from HK. We have a Private chef, New 50ft sailing yacht, 2 speedboats, Hobie Cat and more... www.cebubeach.net or contact owner +852 91625321

MOTORING EUROPEAN MOTORS LTD of Sai Kung since 1975.

Buy and sell used cars. All our cars are fully checked and come with a written warranty. We are on the main road opposite the Sai Kung. Police Station next to Chez Uno and Wicka on the corner by the Sha Kok Mei junction and where there is ample parking.

Open 7 days a week.

Just call Paul Gross on 9027 4846 www.europeanmotors.com.hk

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Classified classifieds@saikung.com

2776 2772

Club Marina Cove Debenture for Sale Debenture with full membership and boat mooring for sale.

Interested parties please contact Nick for more info.

Tel: 6685 4265(mr tse photo)

ShenZhen DayTrip Shopping Hk 2,000. with 7-Seaters Lighting Mall Furniture Mall Art village Homedecoration, Carpet and Rugs.

Franki (90362128) happyday2128@netvigator.com

NATIONAL HARBOUR RENOVATIONS Home and office reno upgrades.

Plumbing, electrical and handyman services. Call Charles 90851886 info@nationalharbour.com.hk www.nationalharbour.hk

Asian Slate Geoff Davies Specializing in all types of roofing and waterproofing Complete renovations, Hard and Soft Landscaping Contact Mobile 6075 6694 Office 2809 4494 Email: wgdavies@netvigator.com

PHOENIX CARPET CARE LTD for 20 years Hong Kong’s premier cleaner of carpets & upholstery.

Phoenix ensure true quality workmanship at reasonable cost.

Hand cleaning of Oriental rugs.

Steam extraction of fitted carpets.

Upholstery cleaning.

Scotchgard Protection.

Call 2328 2287 or 9517 5436 for free quote/inspection.

Health and Well being Massage @ Home, Hotel Body massage, Chinese Tui Na, Swedish Massage, lymphatic drainage & aromatherapy massage. Our therapists offer mobile (outcall, housecall) service $700/2hrs (text in Chinese Address & speak in Chinese 66903658) www.ablemassage.com

random but interesting Tuition PRIVATE VOICE LESSONS IN SAI KUNG Conservatory-trained professional Soprano, recently relocated to Hong Kong offers lessons to students 12 years old and up.

All experience levels welcome. angela.hodgins@gmail.com 6295 6266

My Music Wonderland Piano, VIANNE'S MUSIC WONDERLAND PRIVATE PIANO COURSE @ YOUR HOME ﹣www.mymusicwonderland.com ﹣Experienced tutor accept students aged 3 and over. Student Annual Recital/ Practical Examination/ Competition/ Theory/ Accompaniment/ T:6014 - 9389 for Trial lesson/ mschanpiano@yahoo.com Master Chow 9467-7787

Easter Mandarin Outdoors Camp in Taiwan for FAMILIES! 13 March ~ 5 April 2013 Come and learn Mandarin while enjoying American style outdoors camp activities in one of the most beautiful parts in Taiwan!

For details, please contact Jumpstart Mandarin Learning Centre jumpstart@netvigator.com

Tennis Performance Asia Limited Lessons/Training : Private, Groups – Adult, children, Ladies Coaching Kowloon, NT, HK Island HK,Australian,USTPA Qualified Coaches Contact Senior Coach Todd Hooper – 97335197: todd@ tennisperformanceasia.com www.tennisperformanceasia.com Director/Coach – Ray Kelly

Educators Wanted We are an innovative and internationally based educational program for teaching children and will be launching our first center in Hong Kong right here in Sai Kung!

At this time we are looking for educators/instructors for our hands-on after school programs which take place on site in “after school labs” and also in our daily courses in the soon to be opened learning center in Sai Kung!

We have full and part time positions available both in the center and in the field!

Part time could be 1 to 6 days a week with a minimum 2 hr. time frame each day. After school programs take place at several primary and pre-schools throughout (but not limited to!) the Sai Kung District.

This is especially for you if you enjoy working with elementary aged children and are only interested in a part time position.

You must: *have experience or training and enjoy working with children ages 3-13+ *be flexible and willing to travel to various schools if/as needed *be on time and have an excellent work ethic *have great organization skills *enjoy math & science concepts *agree to a background check If interested, please contact us at: blockheadsHK@hotmail.com We will then direct suitable candidates to our website to fill out our online application. This position may also lead to other events such as birthday parties, summer camps, field trips, etc... and lots of FUN!

BABYSITTING AVAILABLE My name is Rachel Buckley and I am an 18 year old student looking for babysitting/nanny work from the 10th Decmber until 10th February 2013. I am experienced in looking after children of all ages and enjoy planning activites for and spending time with kids.

My Mum, Dr Rosemary Barnett is a GP in Sai Kung/Clearwater Bay where I have live.

YOU’RE IN HONG KONG! Make the most of learning….

Cantonese/Mandarin/Mahjong

Please contact me on: 67739804 (after 10th Dec) or r.buckley718@ gmail.com

Please contact experienced teacher Catherine at man_catherine@ yahoo.com.hk

TUTORS AVAILABLE – GCSE MOCKS APPROACHING FAST……

HENRY WATSON and NICHOLAS BUCKLEY (KGV 2004-2008) are MEDICAL STUDENTS who can help with GCSE LEVEL MATHS, ENGLISH, GENERAL SCIENCE AND BIOLOGY A LEVEL - BIOLOGY $300 PER HOUR Please contact: henry.watson.91@hotmail.com mob 95274900 nicholastbuckley@gmail.com mob 93375459

HOME SCHOOLING / TUTORING Well qualified / experienced teachers available.

- Primary / lower secondary - Individuals / small groups - lessons tailored to individual needs - special needs qualification - your home or ours

Jesse Taekwondo & Hapkido Korea Kukkiwon Black-belt 5th Dan International Instructor Provide One-on-One personal training, Group training & Family classes. http://www.supra.com.hk/jessetkd

Cantonese enjoy being able to chat with the locals and gain insight into this society.

Mandarin for students’ homework and/or adult/ business conversation.

Mahjong – learn to play while sharpening your mind and having fun with friends.

Email: hilaryrampton@hotmail.com Tel: 94211495 (after 6th Jan)

Spanish lessons by native speaker with high qualifications.

Please contact sylvia.marti@ hotmail.com or 51840045.

Piano Lesson @ HOME in English/ Cantonese by professional and qualified teachers. Annual Recital in Cityhall. Trial lessons available, visit www.grandpiano.hk for details.

Classified classifieds@saikung.com

2776 2772

Commercial inquiries will not be entertained / All personal data collected will not be passed to third parties or used in any manner apart for internal employment screening.

WWW.SAIKUNG.COM | 43

the ultimate guide to sai kung COMMUNITY & HEALTH Hang Hau Community Hall 3740 5328 / 3740 5346 Li Pang Tat Chinese Medicine Practitioners 2328 9913 Resurrection Church 2358 3232 | www.resurrection.org.hk Sai Kung District Community Centre 2792 1762 Sai Kung Outdoor Recreation Centre 2792 3828 The Sai Kung Jockey Club Town Hall 3740 5328 / 2792 1487 Annerley — maternity and early childhood professionals www.annerley.com.hk Wellness & birth, pre & postnatal home care 9022 1779 | www.wellnessandbirth.com info@wellnessandbirth.com

DAILY NECESSITIES City Lifestyle 2791 5485 Mannings 2791 4432 Market Place by Jasons 2358 0542 ParknShop 2791 0471 Wellcome 2791 1841

FINANCIAL SERVICES Bank Of China (Hong Kong) 2792 1465 HSBC 2233 3000 Pacific Prime (Kiwisure) 3113 1331 | christian@kwiksure.com www.kwiksure.com Standard Chartered Bank 2792 1351 Financial Planning Excellence info@fpehk.com | www.fpehk.com

TRANSPORT & Travel SERVICES Webjet HK

Unit 1706, BEA Tower, Millennium City 5, 418 Kwun Tong Road, Kwun Tong, Kln, Hong Kong 2313 9779 Onlinetravel@webjet.com.hk www.webjet.com.hk Crown Relocations 2636 8388 | hongkong@crownrelo.com www.crownrelo.com/hongkong Kwong Hing Motors Ltd 2791 4949 | http://khmwhk.com Expert-Transport & Relocations Warehouse 2566 4799 | www.expertmover.hk Scorpion RIBS Hong Kong 2511 8337 | scorpionribshk@gmail.com www.scorpionribs.com Club Med 3111 9388 | www.clubmed.com.hk

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HOME Box Design

2573 3323 info@boxdesign.com.hk www.boxdesign.com.hk

AA Mini Store 3483 1693 / 6977 6107 www.aa-aquarium.com Box Design 2573 3323 | info@boxdesign.com.hk www.boxdesign.com.hk Best United Eng. Ltd. / lawnings, roll shutter & insect screen 2344 9028 info@bestunited.com.hk www.bestunited.com.hk Brooks Thompson Ltd 2851 3665 | iqbalhk@netvigator.com Chez Uno 2791 9662 / 2723 8990 www.chezuno.com Eco Living 2792 2998 | askus@ecoliving.hk www.ecoliving.hk The Handyman HK 9268 0514 / 6376 7950 thehandymanhk@gmail.com Marco Electrician, Plumber, House painting 6190 8051 | marco_yenug000@hotmail.com Pakpersian Carpets Hong Kong 2549 012 / 9192 9594 pakpersian@netvigator.com www.pakersiancarpet.com Studio Annetta 9849 1216 suzy@studioannetta.com www.studioannetta.com JCAW Consultants 2524 9988 | jcawltd@biznetvigator.com Lift Lifestyle International Ltd 3907 0386 liftlifestyle@gmail.com www.liftlifestyle.com

TOYS, ACCESSORIES & KIDS' PARTIES Bumps to Babes

2552 5000 (Ap Lei Chau Main Store) 2522 7112 (Pedder Building Branch) www.bumpstobabes.com

Hazel Ltd saleshazel@biznetvigator.com Hong Kong Toy Club 8216 3870 support@HongKongToyClub.com www.HongKongToyClub.com EEK Toy Shop 3487 3053 Tiny Footprints 2552 2466 | www.tinyfootprints.com

LEARNING CENTRES Anfield School admin@anfield.edu.hk | www.anfield.edu.hk Antsmart Learning Centre / Playgroup, Math 2335 1261 tangfrancis@hotmail.com | www.playgroup.com.hk Craft Box 9014 3262 simone@craftbox.asia | www.craftbox.asia Grand Piano www.grandpiano.hk La Petite France 3403 9887 | info@lapetitefrance.com.hk www.lapetitefrance.com.hk Hong Kong Academy 2655 1111 www.hkacademy.edu.hk Hong Kong International Tennis Academy 9048 2810 lea.lai@hkita.com | www.hkita.com Hong Lok Yuen International School 2658 6935 info@hlyis.edu.hk | www.hlyis.edu.hk ITS 3188 3946 | jennifer.c@tuition.com.hk Leapfrog Kindergarten 2791 1540 / 6413 8247 admin@leapfrogkindergarten.org www.leapfrogkindergarten.org Little Hands Workshop 5431 3122 info@littlehands.com.hk | www.littlehands.com.hk New Song Christian Kindergarten (Sai Kung) 2791 2472 newsong@netvigator.com | www.newsonghk.com Sai Kung Tutors 6907 2514 info@saikungtutors.com | www.saikungtutors.com Renaissance College 3556 3556 admissions@rchk.edu.hk www.rchk.edu.hk/content/school-tours www.rchk.edu.hk/admissions Southern School of Dance 2872 6917 www.southernschoolofdance.com ESF Educational Services 2760 3934 jim.hackett@esf.org.hk www.esf.org.hk Mills International Preschool 2717 6336 preschool@millsinternational.com.hk www.millsinternational.com.hk Morrison Education 5189 5200 juliea_morrison@yahoo.com

REAL-ESTATE AGENCIES Vega Suites 3963 7888 | enquiries@vegasuites.com.hk www.vegasuites.com.hk Sino Group 8207 7608 | www.sino-homes.com Hong Kong Sotheby's International Realty 6280 3566 | lilian.lue@hksothebysrealty.com hksothebysrealty.com

directory FASHION & BEAUTY

PETS & VETS

Au Lait Online Nursing & Maternity Wear www.aulait.com.hk B Two Hair Salon 3194 4181 / 2861 2638 | btwohairsalon@gmail.com Nuan Cashmere sales@nuancashmere.com www.nuancashmere.com Podiatrist – Heidi Corcoran 2335 1694 / 6255 0088 info@ntpodiatry.com Sabai Day Spa 2791 2259 sabaidspa@sabaidayspa.com www.sabaidayspa.com Sense of Touch 2791 2278 | ask@senseoftouchhk.com www.senseoftouch.com.hk Tala’s Health and Beauty Centre 2335 1694 info@talashairandbeautycentre.com www.talashairandbeautycentre.com Tranquility Foot Spa 2792 0821 Tranquility.skhk@gmail.com Natural Day Spa 2791 0606 info@naturaldayspa.com.hk

Animal Behaviour Vet Practice 9618 2475 | cynthia@petbehaviourhk.com www.petbehaviourhk.com Animal Emergency Centre 2915 7979 | trilby@animalemergency.com.hk b dog Tokyo(Grooming, spa, hotel) 2791 6555 b-dog@hotmail.co.jp | www.facebook.com/bdog.tokyo Ferndale Kennel 2792 4642 | boarding@ferndalekennels.com www.ferndalekennels.com Vet2Pet 6999 1003 vet2pet@yahoo.com | www.vet2pet.com.hk Best Friends Veterinary Hospital 2792 8555

SOCIAL, SPORTS & EQUIPMENT Curves

2234 9000 www.curves.com Blue Sky Sports Club 2791 0806 www.bluesky-sc.com Cambridge Weight Plan Hong Kong 2525 7165 www.cambridgeweightplan.hk OKU Oxygen Limited 6904 3093 okuoxygen@gmail.com Outdoor Fitness 9043 4674 www.outdoorfitness.hk dayle@outdoorfitness.hk Weight Watcher 2813 0814 kmahjoubian@weightwatchers.com.hk www.weightwatchers.com.hk Pilates Plus 9756 1659 brubar@netvigator.com Nonie Studio 2333 2027 / 5198 9903

Get listed call 2776 2772 email marketing@saikung.com

MULTIMEDIA

2/F., 14A1 Po Tung Road, Sai Kung, NT, Hong Kong 2792 3939 | saikung.gallery@gmail.com www.saikunggallery.com

The Reading Room (Sai Kung)

21 Sai Kung Hoi Pong Street, Sai Kung, New Territories 9199 5900 | seasidereadingroom@gmail.com Dymocks 2791 9110 | www.dymocks.com.hk Jackie Peers 9121 1470 jackie@jackiepeers.com | www.jackiepeers.com Hong Kong Arts Festival www.hk.artsfestival.org

Food & BEVERAGE South Stream Seafoods

Units 202-204, Lai Sun Yuen Long Centre, 27 Wang Yip St East, Yuen Long, N.T. Hong Kong 2555 6200 fish@south-stream-seafoods.com www.south-stream-seafoods.com Casteloconcepts 2869 1766 | www.casteloconcepts.com Colour Brown Coffee 2791 7128 | shop.colourbrown.com.hk Hebe One O One 2335 5515 info@101.com.hk | www.hebe101.com La Petite France 3403 9887 | info@lapetitefrance.com.hk www.lapetitefrance.com.hk Moshi Moshi 2668 2605 Natural Springs 2484 1388 | www.naturalsprings.hk Pacific Rich Resources (HK) Ltd 2316 7290 | office1@pacificrichresources.com Paisano’s Pizzeria (Sai Kung) 2791 4445 | www.paisanos.com.hk Pizza Express (Hong Kong) 2123 1083 | info@pizzaexpress.com.hk www.pizzaexpress.com.hk Organic Experience Management Group 2981 2888 | www.organicxp.com The Dutch www.thedutch.hk Top Chefs Food Services Ltd. 2358 2332 | http://tcdeli.com Edible Arrangements 2295 1108 / 2385 0158 www.EdibleArrangements.hk

Get listed

call 2776 2772 email marketing@saikung.com

UTILITIES, SERVICES & EMERGENCY

OTHER SERVICES

China Light & Power Emergency Services 2728 8333 China Light & Power Customer Info Line 2678 2678 Electrical Appliance Repair Hong Kong Mr Ho 9846 8082 Sai Kung District Council 3740 5200 Sai Kung Fire Station 2792 1553 Sai Kung Police Station 3661 1630 / 2791 5129 Sai Kung Post Office 2792 2243 Typhoon Emergency Centre 2773 2222 Water Fault Reports 2811 0788 Water Supplies Department 2824 5000

Airstar 2264 0300 | facebook.com/aworldoflight Biocycle 3575 2575 | info@biocycle.hk | www.biocycle.com.hk Christian Environmental Health 2370 9236 | a-s-a-p@ceh.com.hk | www.ceh.com.hk Everfine Membership Services Limited 2174 7880 enquiry@evergolf.com.hk | www.evergolf.com.hk Grand Hyatt Hong Kong 2956 1234 http://hongkong.grand.hyatt.com Lunchbox Theatrical Productions 8203 0299 Sum Hing Carton Box Factory info@boxx.hk | www.boxx.hk Federal Elite Consultants Ltd. 3568 4691 | info@federalelite.com Uglow www.uglow-alg.com

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Last orders For the sake of Auld Lang Syne this issue next year once everyone’s a little bit more chilled out about things.

Global New Year resolutions already exist in the form of the UN Millennium goals, eight international development targets established in 2000 and due to be completed by 2015.

They are worthy aims but their one-size-fits-all approach is a colossal over-simplification of

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Like buses, you wait ages for a New Year celebration to come along and then three arrive at once. Diwali, Hogmanay and Lunar New Year do, however, offer something for everyone, whether your bag is multiple deities, paganism or the belief in a God almighty.

The Scots generally get credited with being the first to promote the winter solstice as a legitimate excuse for a massive party but it was actually the ancient Babylonians who originally pioneered the event as an 11-day bender.

Ubiquitous with any contemporary New Year celebration is the singing of Auld Lang Syne. Beginning with the rhetorical question, “Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind?” Robert Burns’ most famous lyric often pushes the already highly emotional New Year’s Eve reveler into a pit of sentimentally, somewhere between the pathos of Charlie Chaplin and a Richard Curtis romantic comedy.

Personal target setting in the form of New Year resolutions is an integral part of the process but such a tired format encourages unoriginal responses. In the US the denizens of Colorado and Washington State appear to be bucking the trend by promising not to give up but to increase their smoking habits in the New Year. Both liberal electorates have recently voted to legalise the recreational use of marijuana. You can, however, still buy an assault rifle in the same supermarket aisle as a packet of Doritos. Perhaps they can address

the problems experienced by the developing world. Target 1A of halving the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day has already been achieved, thankfully for some, but at the expense of an ever-increasing wealth gap and little progress in Sub-Saharan Africa. Similarly the goal of increasing primary-

school enrollment is on target while the quality and availability of secondary-school provision falls.

As with all target setting, the goals become the focus rather than the problems they seek to address and, in this case, disguise the fact that it will take far greater political will and financial commitment to properly tackle the issue of development. Since 1970 “rich country” members of the UN have repeatedly made a commitment to provide 0.7 per cent of their gross national income towards development assistance. Yet countries such as the US and Australia still fail to provide even this minimum level of funding.

Consider the 100 million children in the world who never make it to primary school. While it is no substitute for proper education, to provide each of them with a solar-powered tablet computer would cost approximately US$10 billion. Which even at the most conservative of estimates is considerably less than the cost of one month’s warmongering in Afghanistan.

But even if such a practical goal for the New Year could be agreed, how would the developed world be able to secure enough raw materials and manufacturing capacity to quickly produce so many hi-tech units? That would depend largely on the child soldiers of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the teenage factory workers of Southeast Asia.

Iain Lafferty

photo competition

shoot for it

Submit your shots Here at the Sai Kung Magazine office, we love receiving beautiful pictures of Sai Kung and Clearwater Bay from our readers. Each month we publish our favourite. To enter, simply email your best shots of Sai Kung and Clearwater Bay, along with a brief description, to photo@saikung.com.

Happy snapping!

This month’s winner; Dousan Miao "Taken with Canon 5D Mark 3 on a beautiful Sunday in Sai Kung."

46 | WWW.SAIKUNG.COM