Sunday, October 01, 2006

Very many people very stressful

Today I went to Lamma Island with 6 kids and three women. We took the 9 a.m. fast ferry, which was half empty, as was the beach when we got there. But as noon approaches, it started getting ridiculous. The beach was one tenth the size of Repulse Bay, but with as many people. Heaps of them. It wasn't even sunny!

We left the beach at around one to walk to the other side of the island, taking the main paved path. I would have preferred to go on the trail up the hill but not everyone in our group was up for this type of "hiking". The path was around three four feet wide, and there were hordes of people the whole way. It's like bloody Causeway Bay. You have to stop to let people coming from the other direction to pass. You get the urge to overtake and maybe even punch the slow joes in front who were blocking you. You stop at the pavillion for a good view (unfortunately the only view you get is of the power station), but it was full of people. So full that people didn't even know where to stand.

At one point my kids wanted to climb over the railings and head down the rocky slopes. There were plenty of ooooh-aaaaaahs from well-meaning strangers who thought me a terrible parent for letting them do so. One of the kids in our group fell on the path at one point, scraped his knees, and no less then five passersby stopped to offer band-aids, tiger balm, foot massage, and plenty of unsolicited advice about how to prevent kids from falling over.

To cope with the stress of being in a high density environment, we stuffed our faces with junk food. Tofu fa, curried fish balls, siu mai, ice lollies, cookies, instant noodles, fried egg, minced fish dumplings, chicken wings... man! We were like incinerators working at full power.

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