Hong Kong: Goldfish, Flower, and Bird Market

We spent a week in May exploring the urban jungle of a city that is Hong Kong. Suffice to say that we took so many photos and even more potential topics about our visit that it's almost too daunting to start this series. But if I get the ball rolling...

Perhaps if I begin by featuring our visit to three quirky markets that were adjacent to each other: The Goldfish, Flower, and Bird Market.

I first heard about the Goldfish market many years ago so when we pencilled in a trip to Hong Kong this was one the first ones I've jotted in as part of our itinerary. Despite the name 'Goldfish' they sell so much more than that but practically anything that is alive and can be kept in an aquarium. So it's an aquatics market, but there's something very quirky about this living pet fish market...

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In Beautiful Brugge

This is going to be a bit of a retro post, rewinding back to the 5th of May when we spent a long weekend in the beautiful medieval city of Brugge.

It is one of those cities that is achingly beautiful and truly lives up to its hype of being breathtaking to behold.

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Déjà vu Marché aux Fleurs

Supposed to be out and about in the garden today but alas rain has stopped play and I'm indoors now keeping myself dry.

So what else to do? Reminisce and write about it! I make it sound a bit negative but it is a wonderful thing to do, especially life can get so fast paced that looking back can become very tricky...

Not today anyway.

Only a few days ago we featured our visit to Marché aux Fleurs on our most recent visit to lovely Paris. Around the same time Loree of Danger Garden has featured it too. Now is my time to wade in as I share my take of this central Paris plant and flower market!

First things first, before we actually got in to the market we checked out one of the quirky knick knack shops we passed along en route and spotted these mini succulents and pots, nice! Forgot the name of the shop though, oops!

Although we can bring plants across the channel, we went away without buying any of these cute beauties. Now on to the market.

With spring finally descending upon Paris then (with London remarkably behind), there were lots of colour already going on in the market. Ahh Paris in the spring time!

And once in awhile you have to take customary 'pose with the plants' shot, with Gaz for scale.

Walking through the pathway I can't help but admire these vistas...

My favourite though were the stalls selling exotic plants and succulents.

I was intending to bring one of these back with us but alas we didn't get the chance to pass by here again the next day, Alocasia 'Stingray'.

Hopefully they'll still have some available on our next visit!

Mark :-)

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Yorkshire Break

As mentioned earlier in the week we had a trip up to Yorkshire last weekend catching up with friends and exploring a little part of this county.

The first stop was the village of Saltaire. Saltaire is a Victorian model village built by mill owner Titus Salt. Salt moved his factories out of the nearby industrial city of Bradford, he wanted a healthier life for his employees and built a huge new factory, homes, schools and other facilities for the people that moved there. The village is now a UNESCO world heritage site. The name of the village is a combination of the founder's surname and the name of the river

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Yorkshire Revisited

Almost five years ago we wrote about friends garden in Yorkshire. Well last weekend we went "up North" for a visit and although the garden is only just waking up in April it was a delight to revisit this gem.

An old beach tree that was removed due to disease lives on as these characters

As you enter the garden a greenhouse that most of us would be very proud of greats you. full of tempting exotics tucked away for winter periods. Bananas were just starting to wake up. Unfortunately I go carried away in talking about the plants to actually remember to take a photo inside.

 

The stone cottage would typically be surrounded by cottage style plantings, however a backbone of hardy yuccas and tetrapanax and an understory of far more interesting plants provide a much more interesting feel.

A brave cat surveys her territory

The garden has a great addition with a valley style portion to the side of the house, with a covering of large deciduous natives, the exotics give a Cornish feel to this garden. Something we remarked on in our previous blog.
 

 

 The dappled spring sunlight filtering through a stand of bamboo.

 

One of the other garden kitties "helping out" by stripping the bark

 

 

Once again we were delighted to visit our friends garden, and we promise not to leave it quite so long for a follow up.

Gaz

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Marché aux fleurs revisited

Having only just returned from Japan, we had another short break last weekend, with two days in Paris to celebrate our anniversary.
 
Paris in the Springtime! We are fortunate that Paris is a short journey for us either via Luton airport or train (just one change from the station five minutes walk from home).
 
With only a short stay planned we decided not to have too much of a plan and just enjoyed being there. A favourite haunt of us both is Marché aux fleurs, a flower market on Île de la Cité (one of the two islands in the Seine in central Paris), close to Notre Dame.

Its quite an eclectic market, with produce aimed at both tourists and locals alike. After all there's not many tourists that could take home a large bamboo or yucca as a souvenir.

Although most of the weekend was bright and sunny, we did seem to manage to visit the market during the only overcast period in the whole weekend!



Notre Dame

Shortly after we had left the market the sun was back!

Gaz

 

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Japan 2018 - Part 2

Following on from yesterdays post on Japan we continued our trip with an organised tour to Mount Fuji. We tend to avoid organised tours, usually preferring to organise ourselves and be able to flex how long we visit somewhere, or change our plans mid way through a day. However for Mount Fuji we decided we would be better joining a tour group and leave all the planning to them. This worked well, and having a local guide definitely was an advantage, although I think I would be tempted to hire a car for such a trip next time we are in Japan.

Mount Fuji

Fuji is a couple of hours coach drive from central Tokyo, and we were given tempting glimpses on the journey there - its such a large mountain that even from Tokyo you can get a reasonable view if elevated.

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Japan 2018 - Part 1

As mentioned yesterday we had a return visit to Tokyo at the end of March. This trip was planned for some time and we had hoped to see the cherry blossoms, it was always a risk with only one week as to whether we would be there at the peak but fortunately we were very lucky!

On our first morning, we had a tempting glimpse of what may be ahead with a small park outside our hotel full of blossom.

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Meguro River Cherry Blossoms

We are just back from a trip to Tokyo to see the Cherry Blossoms. As many people will know Japan has a love for the flowering cherry and the annual flowering is a time for celebration. Signalling in the new season in spectacular fashion.

One of the highlights of the trip was an evening at Meguro River in Tokyo, this is a fairly small tributary river lined with trees on both sides. At night the trees are illuminated which made for a magical experience. With food and drink stalls and a party atmosphere this felt more like we were at a music festival than a botanic event!

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Upper and Lower Barrakka Gardens, Malta

 

Last weekend we had a short break to Malta, staying in the capital city of Valletta. As a weekend destination Valletta has a lot to offer, lots of history, architecture, great places to eat as well as various museums and grand churches - lots with historical connection to knights and the crusades.

 

Whilst there we had to get a little garden fix, and took in the small gardens of Upper Barrakka and Lower Barrakka.

 

Both are free to enter public gardens, with plenty of tropical plants to whisk us away from the late wintery weather back home.

 



Lower Barrakka Gardens provides a great view of the Grand Harbour and the neighbouring city of Vittoriosa. At the centre of the garden is the Monument to Sir Alexander Ball, pictured above which is a neoclassical temple located at the centre of the garden. 

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Tokyo 2016 - Part II pink swans and skyscrapers.

Our third day started out with a very relaxing morning in Ueno park a park surrounded by towers, immediately reminding us of New Yorks Central Park albeit on a smaller scale. Our approach into the park was met with a sea of brown 'reeds' that really seemed quite off putting. Surely the super clean Tokyoites wouldn't tolerate such a messy lake. We quickly realised however that this wasn't a lake full of scruffy reeds but actually a huge lotus pond associated with the temple located in the centre of this section of the park. This must look stunning in the summer time.



Heading round the park the larger body of water was home to a floating armada of pink swans (and blue, yellow, green etc), how could we resist!

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Tokyo 2017 - Part I towers, temples and neon!

After two flights, the first for three hours followed by a nine hour flight from Helsinki, we were somewhat relieved to see all the airport signs were in English. We were both amazed at just how smooth everything ran, disembarkment, immigration and baggage reclaim all dealt with in 20 minutes or so. If only that happened back home!

First task finding and buying train tickets into Tokyo, we had flown into Narita airport which is further out than Hanira(Check spelling) and a 40 minute journey into the centre of the city followed. Arriving at the hotel late morning we opted to fight the jetlag induced tiredness and set out to explore the bright lights of Ginza. 

Mount Fuji from our hotel

Stores in Ginza

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