Wetlands again

With an old friend in town, and recovering from the glory of yesterday's birthday dinner (crowned with an enormous apple pie with my name on it) I planned to revisit the Wetlands Park today.

However, with the vagueness that accompanies a sunny day off, we took hours to get out of the flat and down to the bus station. Then when we did get the bus, we failed to get off at the right spot and ended up at the Tin Shui Wai terminus, which in turn meant we had to walk to the Wetlands Park.

Of course my unerring sense of direction meant we got very lost, almost ending up in Shenzhen before realising that if we'd only walked in the opposite direction before, we'd have been there in a few minutes. Ah well. It did provide a good opportunity to catch up with each other's lives.



There didn't seem to be as many birds to see as the last time we visited: perhaps it was the wrong time of day. However, when we got to the mudbath where all the mudskippers hang out, the sunshine seemed to have driven them mental. Everywhere, mudskippers were rushing across the shore, chasing flies, chasing one another, and even stalking a snake that had swum along the river, probably thinking it was on the hunt. The crabs were invisible though. Last time, there had been fiddler crabs before; this time, not one was there to be seen.

Chastened by this, we had a quick look at some butterflies, then took the bus back to Hong Kong, and after the usual 12 flights of stairs, I passed out asleep for an hour. Walking around looking for birds is exhausting work, especially when you keep doing it wrong.

In the evening, I spent some time on Facebook thanking people for their birthday wishes, and thinking there must be a more efficient way to do that. But what is it? No time to shake the world of Web 2.0 to its knees though: we scampered out to a gargantuan meal at American Peking, then another foot massage; just as painful sober as Sunday's was when I was plastered. I thought you were meant to become accustomed to the pain after a while...