Photo Challenge – Day 23

I had to go down to the club house today so I thought I’d take my camera to try and snap some of the decorations. I spotted these red and gold guys… they represent the Year of the Ox. In Chinese tradition each year is associated with an animal and people born in the animal’s year are believed to share different traits. This is similar to the Western Sun Signs.

Tradition says that Lord Buddha had called for all the animals to come to him before he departed from the earth. Only 12 animals came to farewell Lord Buddha and as a token of appreciation he named a year after each of the animals based on the order they arrived.

The story goes that when the cat heard about the news, he told the rat about it and they decided to go together. As any cat owner knows, cats like to sleep and the next morning the rat did not wake up the cat, therefore the cat never made it to the gathering. The rat is the first year in the cycle, however he did trick other animals to get their first. Another story says that he asked the ox to let him ride on its head, and when they got closer to the congregation he jumped off and reached Lord Buddha first.

The order of the animals are Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. During the animals year there will be pictures, stuffed animals etc displayed in shop windows, in cars etc.

Photo Challenge – Day 22

As I walked out of the apartment I was greeted by this beautiful, blossoming chysanthemum.  This flower along with the cumquat trees signify good health, prosperity and happiness, and are used to decorate for Chinese New Year celebrations.

Photo Challenge – Day 21

After I got off my Spiritual Life Coaching conference call I thought I’d better see what the kittens are up to and look who I found sunning herself on the balcony.  She’s soooo adorable and such a girl!  She’s constantly stealing things out of my make up bag and especially likes my make up brushes.

Photo Challenge – Day 20

As mentioned in an earlier post I was going to be out and about today, and I had planned to take some photos of Hong Kong Park and the shopping crowds of Causeway Bay.  Unfortunately I had left my camera on overnight (which seems to be a bit of a habit of mine lately) and the battery was flat.

So I had to improvised.  I took a photo of the flowers I bought on the way home.  They are so bright and I’ve never seen these flowers before.  If anyone knows what they are, I’d love to know.

Photo Challenge – Day 19

As mentioned in an earlier post, I had High Tea at the Peninsula Hotel with a friend, Kim and her daughter, Olivia.  Unfortunately it was so dark that my photos didn’t turn out that well. 

My friend lives in Australia but her husband works out of Hong Kong so he took their 6 yearold boy to the Science Museum while the girls had a girly afternoon. The Peninsula Hotel is an icon and one of the most prestigious hotels in Hong Kong. High tea is a tradition and one I’ve not participated in before… it was a real treat!

High tea starts at 2:00pm and finishes at 7:00pm and the menu varies from finger sandwiches to decadent desserts. We had their high tea special for 2 which included scones, some savoury finger food and some chocolate and cake desserts.  I had a lovely caramel flavoured tea.

I came home feeling very special. I think I’ll have to organise a girly afternoon when my mother, sister-in-law and niece are all visiting in June/July.

Photo Challenge – Day 18

I thought I’d show you the pool within our complex.  It’s a little bit too cold to swim at this time of the year, and sometimes during Summer it can be too hot to swim in.  We actually went to the pool on a really hot day looking for some relief but were terribly disappointed because it was like a warm bath – LOL!

Photo Challenge – Day 17

I got home this afternoon and noticed that the big boat was docked… look at the size of it!  It’s not always docked and I believe it belongs to the property group that manages the Hong Kong Gold Coast complex and many other properties around Hong Kong. People can actually hire it out.  You can really get the feel of its size just by looking at the smaller boat nearby, and then the other live aboard boats docked.  It truly is huge!

Catching Up

Phew… I’ve just caught up on my blog posting for A Photo A Day Challenge.  I have been taking photos each day but just not had the chance to post them each night.  I’ve now posted them in the day/date order.  I hope you like them.

I’ve now got to do some catching up on my Health and Wellness blogging as well as The Next Chapter blogging.  I’ll do that over the weekend, so stay tuned!

I hope you’ve all had a great week… I’m working tomorrow (Saturday) but then have Sunday and Monday all to myself… bliss!  I have a couple of photos opportunities next week and I look forward to sharing them with you.  To give you an idea, I’m off to have High Tea at the Peninsular Hotel on Monday with a friend and her daughter.  I have 2 client coaching sessions on Tuesday – one is near Hong Kong Park and the other is in the busy shopping area of Causeway Bay.

Next weekend it is Chinese New Year so sometime next week we’ll start to see the decorations in preparation for the weekend festivities.  I really enjoy taking photos around this time of the year and watching everyone get into the mood of the celebrations.

I look forward to catching up on my blog reading.

Photo Challenge – Day 16

After a busy week, it was nice to be home today.  This morning I caught up with a friend for coffee and had planned to take photos of her and her bub, but we got talking and I forgot.  As I was coming home I spotted these 2 fellows taking a nap and couldn’t resist taking a happy snap… they were oblivious to my snapping away.

Photo Challenge – Day 15

I can’t hep but share with you photos of my kittens, Osiris and Isis (named after an Egyptian God and Goddess).  They are so amusing and after having Missy for 14 years and Pirate for 6 years (but was 15 years old when he went to Kitty Heaven) I forgot what it’s like to have kittens.

With these two being so cuddly, they sometime have the strangest sleeping positions.  The photo above is on my office chair and the photo below is their basket underneath my desk.  That’s Osiris hanging half out of his basket – the basket is long and is double in length.  He wanted to be close to the heater.