A day trip to Lamma Island for seafood

Well the weather was not to bad this morning when we awoke and a glimmer of sunshine hopefully to break up the last few days of very cloudy skies. Again we gave up the idea of going to Macao as it due to rain there again and so no point in going unless you are a gambling maniac. For those that don't know, Macao has always allowed gambling even since we lived in Hong mid 70’s but know following the Chinese takeover of this once Portuguese Overseas territory they have allowed it to expand as it was discovered that many people who travelled to Las Vegas to gamble came from this area. Macau now has a greater turnover in the gambling market that Las Vegas and the Hotels that you see in LV are also here, like the Venetian, MGM etc.

Anyway, we are not going there today but to Lamma which is a short 35 minute ferry from Central to the Island. The Hong Kong Island outlying Islands ferry piers have grown over the years and are huge and now there are 7 large piers plus the main Star Ferry pier. So a long walk from Central Station on the overhead walkways took us about 40 minutes from leaving our Hotel to arrival at the pier. The Ferry was leaving at 11.50 and would arrive in time for lunch which was our target today. During our years living here we used the company junks to go to the Island either with friends or business entertainment where you can have all types of  extremely fresh (yes its still alive)seafood with a very quaint view and so today we though we would replicate that.
The journey took us out of the main Harbour and round the bottom of the Island and past where we first lived in Hong Kong, a place called Scenic Villas in a area called Pokfulam. We had flat G8, not bad really when you consider our surname started with the letter G and we were on the 8 th Floor and the number 8 is ‘LUCK’ in the Chinese numerical. On to the lower part of Lamma where we saw a huge Maersk Container ship had rammed the Island and gone aground and was there for some weeks whilst they took the full containers off and then had to blast the rocks to help the vessel be towed away and repaired. It would appear the the crew had been on the booze for the last 24 hours and could not right from their left. Anyway enough of the past and we arrived at the small dock and then found the restaurant called the Lamma Mandarin which I have used before and also with a good trip adviser write up. We had steamed prawns for a starter and then a mid teamed and cut Garoupa with broccoli, and several other veg which Noel did not eat, and finally some chicken and cashew nut with a bowl of boiled rice. The fish and food was excellent and to have a fish this size is not cheap but the man says as it was a quiet day he would give a discount which probably means he a added a few dollars.

Scenic Villas Pokfulam our first home

By the time lunch was finished at a slow pace it was time to catch the 2.30 pm ferry back and as the sun had partly come it was possible for Noel to take some photos of the development along the coastline and also pictures of our old flat(nee apartment). We arrived back in Hong Kong and walked to the MTR and discovered that our Octopus Cards were short on cash for the return journey and so we went to the customer service and I asked for 2 times HG$ 50.00 to be added, unfortunately with a slight language barrier he tried to ad HK$ 250.00 per card which was incorrect as we don't need that cash on the card as we are leaving on Friday morning. So after a fifteen minute wait the problem was resolved and back on the train to Mong Kok and Noel wanted to look for a new mouse for the computer as after changing the mouse mats it looks like its the mouse that is not working and so we went to the Computer Building to look for a mini mouse which we finally found at the huge costs of £ 5.20 and it works brilliantly.
The back to the Hotel room for a shower and a evening doing blogs and photos, there was two days to catch up on, and then we watched a Sherlock Holmes film which was quite good.
And then after covering about 16000 steps in the last two days we both needed a god long rest.