Ikan Bakar ala Shatin

I went fishing over the weekend. Well, I can't really call it fishing. I just stood there and ignored the fish. I was too busy eating cake. The doctors went out to play at Lan Kwai Fong and invited a whole random bunch of people. It was cool to meet someone who spent five times more on her curtains that I did *hahaha*. It made me feel good. =) We went to have beer towers and to exercise the beer bellies while breathing in horrible second hand smoke. I thought clubs in Hong Kong were supposed to be smoke-free? Oh well, it was not a pleasant experience. I prefer the bars on the street level where the smokers can stand outside and kill themselves and let me drink my cocktails in peace. It was, in all, a good night as I didn't get any blisters in my heels and I got a kebab and a piece of mars bar cheesecake and we went back at 5am, just before the sun rose.

Sunday was spent meeting up with people I have not seen over the Chinese New Year period and just chilling out. The church had narcissus that were in full bloom, compared to my weeds, gosh, let's not compare. And I was thinking I was doing a good job as there were leaves. =(

The medic and the ophthalmologist convinced me to break the No McDonalds resolution as mango pudding cancells it out. So I dutifully listened and went for my McDonalds as the doctor ordered. We were bored and wanted to catch a movie but too lazy to move. So we came back to the hospital and just veged out. At 11pm, the ophthalmologist knocked on my door to tell me that there was a fire outside the hospital and asked if I wanted to go see it. He was all equiped with his dSLR and so I prepared my snacks in anticipation of some excitement. We went outside and lo behold, the whole hill behind the hospital was on fire. The fire was at least one kilometre long and the flames were licking the trees pretty quickly. We could hear the crackling of the trees as they went down and smelt the smoke. We went first to the top floor of the nearest building and took some photos, then we decided to drop by A&E department to see if there were any victims, after all, we are health professionals, and we were on our way to the 7-11 to get more snacks to munch on while watching the fire. There weren't any victims of smoke inhalation that we could detect so we dejectedly went on to the 7-11 to grab some crisps and drinks then made our way to the hospital roof for a better view of the fire.

View of the hills. The hills behind were also on fire. The hospital is in the foreground.

So, for those who have never witnessed a real live fire... Here you go! It is very therapeutic okay watching a big fire, it's like watching the ocean; you have surges and you have low-tides. When you see a surge you go 'wow!!' then you whip out the camera and pose. There were very few people watching the fire. Hong Kong people must be so caught up with their own little lives that they don't bother to look out the window or they were probably in bed fast asleep. We didn't see any helicopters or jet planes going about fire-fighting. Maybe we should have taken the cab to the other side of the hills, we could have roasted some marshmallows.

How to take a photo with a forest fire: Wait for fire to heat up then strike a pose.