Pavlova Christmas

I was over the moon to have won 4kg of passionfruit from Cheese Club.  Over the last few years, they had continued to grow in Hong Kong and Asia.  I was a big fan of their service and it made buying dairy products far more affordable in Hong Kong.  Their success had also led them to expand into other areas such as fruit.  With the Christmas period in full swing, they had launched a series of giveaways.  I had signed up to everything I could, and the win of the fruit was a very pleasant surprise.

Still, with 4kg of passionfruit, I needed to think of what to do with it all.  The fruit themselves were delicious, probably the best passionfruit I had ever eaten, but I still had too much of it to just casually eat day to day.

Since it was a festive time, it seemed that the best use of it would be for a pavlova.  This cake from my childhood that seemed to be the specialty of every grandma in Australia was still a favourite.  Making a pavlova was easy, but making a good one usually took a bit more effort and concentration.  I had a good recipe, and now that I had the fruit it seemed to be the perfect time.

Fully decorated, it is a thing of beauty.  After our dinner, Veronica's family all took a slice and quickly embraced it.  Who doesn't love a good pav?

Christmas in Hong Kong

A cold snap had hit Hong Kong at the perfect time just as we all started to wind down before Christmas.  It was certainly not a snowy European winter, but it was still a nice change from the heat of Hong Kong.

Down in West Kowloon, there was a decent sized Christmas market that had been set up.  Again, it wasn't anything near the size of the incredible Christmas markets you can find in Europe, but it was nice to visit on this cold night leading up to the holidays. 

There were stalls all lined up around the Great Lawn area.  For what it lacked in the vibe of the European markets, it more than made up for it with the view.

We made our way over to the large Christmas trees which had been set up on the harbour front side.

They weren't real trees, but instead were ultra illuminated and hyper coloured steel structures.  Again, not very European in feel, but that was fine.  Mere replication and imitation often merely makes you yearn for the original even more.  It makes the imitator seem to be just that, nothing but a poor imitation lacking the soul or uniqueness of the original.  I thought this was far more fitting for Hong Kong.

Bali sunset

For such a popular destination, the Hong Kong flights to and from Bali are at an inconvenient time.  They take off neither early nor late and it means you largely lose both days to travel.  

With that in mind, I wanted to rescue part of the day on arrival.  Arriving at the airport, the immigration processing was quick and we were soon at the hotel.  I had arranged for us to be close in a hotel in Jimbaran.  The location was close to the airport, but I also wanted to enjoy an evening on the beach.

We quickly dropped off our bags, changed and I dragged Veronica quickly over to the beach restaurants.  We were just in time to see the last of the light as the day faded away.  Another hour earlier would have given us the nice sunset, but this was still amazing.

As the evening progressed, the small lights on each of the tables began to shine and the smoke of all the BBQs filled the air.

With all the incredible places to visit in Bali, a beach dinner in Jimbaran continues to be one of my favourite experiences.

Heavy rains

The typhoon had come and gone.  So Hong Kong was now back to normal.

Well that's what we all thought.

Instead we were all in for a big surprise.  As I prepared for bed one night, I could hear the rain outside.  It had been wet since the typhoon, so this wasn't anything out of the ordinary.  The rain was getting heavier.  I could hear the rain coming down hard.  It was still nothing out of the ordinary.  Heavy rain can be common in Hong Kong, so much so that there's a system of warnings in place at the Hong Kong Observatory to warning people when it gets too much.  I didn't think much of it as I lay in bed and closed my eyes.  I could still hear the heavy rain.  It was actually quite a soothing sound and I was soon asleep.

I woke up to the sound of rain.

I wasn't sure if I had slept.  The rain sounded as heavy as it had been when I had fallen asleep.  I wondered if it was still early or if I had only been asleep a short time.  I looked at my clock.  There was no mistake, I had slept the full night and it was the morning.  I thought that maybe it was just a coincidence that the rain had been at its heaviest when I slept and when I woke.  Strangely, in the back of my mind I did wonder whether the heavy rain had persisted through the night.

I stepped out of bed and looked out the window. 

It hadn't been a coincidence.  It had indeed rained heavily all night.  We were to find out later that this had been the heaviest rain that Hong Kong had ever experienced.  It was a once in 500 year event that had completely saturated the city and left flooding all over.  There was reports and videos of landslides, flooded buildings and general mayhem.

By mid morning, the waters had started to recede.  Veronica and I went downstairs to look for food and to investigate our surroundings more thoroughly.  Everywhere there was mess and filth.  The flooding had brought with it all the dust and dirt in the city, and caked it all over the roads and sidewalks.

At one drain, we found the remains of an early morning noodle delivery.  It must have been left in front of a restaurant by the delivery drivers only to be carried away by the flooding that came later.

As we turned the corner, we found the biggest sign yet of the true severity of this event.  The local McDonalds, the store that never closes no matter how bad the typhoon, had been shut down by the flood.  Being in the basement of the building, we could only imagine how bad the flooding downstairs had been.  Many of the shops and buildings in Hong Kong are raised a "step", which is normally more than enough to deal with the usual heavy monsoon rains.

This was a different case altogether, and the flooding had gone above that first step which meant a long and expensive clean up for many of the ground and basement stores throughout the city.

Amazingly, the resilience of this city was such that by the afternoon, I could already hear the rumbling of the trams rolling along the routes that had been flooded only hours earlier.

Super typhoon days

It had been years since we had felt in the "typhoon mood".   There had been a few big ones since Mangkhut, but none of them had seemed to impact the city in the same way.  The shut downs that normally come with the typhoons had been short.  The coming of Typhoon Saola seemed like a return to the old days.  The observatory had been warning about it for days in the lead up, with a direct hit on Hong Kong predicted.  Everyone seemed to be awaiting its arrival with a strange nervous anticipation.  It was hitting on Friday and there seemed to be a city wide assumption and agreement that there would be no work done that day.  When the T10 was raised Thursday evening, no one was surprised and everyone was already well prepared for the Friday of work from home.  Shops had been cleared out and everyone had stocked up on the essentials for a weekend in.

The storm started to hit and hit hard.  The city was still shutdown, but it seemed to not be too bad outside.  We went out at lunch for some food and we could see some trees had already born the brunt of the winds. 

We were hungry, so we went and partook in some McDonalds.  Even with everything else is closed, McDonalds seems to somehow stay open during the worst typhoons.  I remember also eating McDonalds the last time there was such a big shutdown.

By the afternoon of the next day, it was gone and the city began the assessment of the damage done.

The worst of it hadn't lasted that long, but there was damage everywhere.  It didn't seem too serious, but trees had been felled and there was garbage and debris scattered everywhere.

What was most amazing though was that everything seemed to be restarting already.  Only a few hours had past since the warning signals had been lowered and everyone was already getting on with their lives.  Chainsaws roared everywhere as the clean up crews were busily dealing with the trees.  We had a farewell dinner planned that night for Rachel.  We had been worried it would be cancelled and yet it all still went forward without a hitch.

A comfortable journey home

The trip was nearly over, but it seemed that the fun certainly wasn't.

On our flight from Rome to Doha, we were informed that there was a change in planes.  So with the new equipment, we were given the chance to try the famed Qatar Airways "Q Suites".

We had enjoyed flying on Qatar Airways on our previous trips, but this seemed to be another level of luxury beyond what we were used to.

Comfortably placed in the middle two seats, after takeoff we were able to push down the middle divider and close the doors to turn our section into our own little private apartment.

As with all experiences so extravagant, I couldn't help but think back to the times I had as a younger traveler.  Simply being able to go overseas in any capacity was already something I had never dreamed would be within reach, so to get to this level seemed to be an absurdity.  I was happy, but also incredibly grateful for it all.  I still couldn't help but wonder what my younger self would think knowing this would occur.

A familiar Rome

The honeymoon was coming to an end.  We had arranged our trip to finish with a few days in Rome.  We had enjoyed our trip immensely, but there was still an excitement for us to return to Rome.  Rome didn't hold the same type of new and novel excitement for us anymore.  Our seemingly frequent trips to this city meant that each place we went to now had a strong sense of familiarity. So the excitement we used to feel for exploring the new and wonderful had evolved into a satisfaction akin to returning back to somewhere comforting.  We had spent so much time in this city that we now felt a loving familiarity to the place.  Coming back to Rome gave us both a sense of returning to what felt almost like a home or visiting a favourite family friend.  It was a ridiculous feeling to have, and one that I felt very privileged to be experiencing.  How many people could have such a thought?  To be able to visit Rome and to know the place so well as to feel such affinity. 

I still enjoyed visiting all the lovely sites in Rome.  Walking the streets, at every corner there was an incredible historic monument waiting to be seen.  Standing in front of the Pantheon will always make me happy and fill me with a sense of awe.  Veronica loves the beauty of the Trevi Fountain.  But more than anything, what we wanted to do was to eat and to eat well.  

We had our list of must haves planned out.

For breakfast, we went straight to Roscioli for the pizza rossa.  For lunch, we went to Bonci and ordered as many slices of the various Roman pizzas that we could muster.

For the dinners, we wanted Da Enzo and Osteria Coppelle, with all the dishes we wanted already memorised without the need for any menus.

On the Tuesday, we also made a point to go out to the Testaccio district so we could eat at Felice.  The waiters were still a bit curt and mean, but nowhere near as bad as they had been the first time we had visited.  One thing that didn't change was the quality of the food.  It was still the best pasta we had anywhere in Rome.  As we had chosen to come on Tuesday, we were also lucky enough to be able to get the Pollo alla Romana again.  All of it was washed down with a nice of bottle of Italian red that Veronica ordered.

We had extra time on this visit before we went home.  Any normal visit would be taken up almost entirely with visits the the usual places.  You would go to the Vatican, to the Colosseum, the Forum, the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Borghese Gallery and so forth and so forth.  I still liked all of these places, but I had no specific need to visit them all again.  Some of them I would see just wandering around and because we would be visiting places in their vicinity, but not having them on our must visit list meant we had more time to see other things.  One place that I had tried repeatedly to visit over the years was the Basilica of San Clemente.  It had been recommended to me back during my first visit by my friend Pete, but each time I had tried to visit it had been closed.  This time, it was third time's the charm and we were finally able to get in.

Inside, it was nothing particularly special.  It was certainly a lot older than many of the other churches we had visited in Rome, but it wasn't the unique visual experience that would demand a visit.  What made this place special was the enormous crypt located under the church.  We bought our tickets and we went exploring.  The crypt is ancient, with a history dating back to the Roman Republic.  It was also had multi-storeys and felt cavernous.  Veronica felt nervous as we descended further down, with the small rooms in the back being particularly dark and creepy.  At one point, one of the attendants jumped out of nowhere scaring the lights out of both of us.

It was a very worthwhile visit and I was happy to have been able to finally see it all.  The benefit of time is always the greatest gift and I was determined to make use of it.

One of the more touristic places we hadn't visited before was the "Mouth of Truth".  It's strangely out of the way, with nothing being particularly close by.  So given we were heading out to Testaccio for a meal anyway, I thought we could swing by to have a look.  Veronica is ever the romantic, and I loved the movie Roman Holiday, so it was a good spot for us to both visit.  Arriving early, we were near the front of the line.  Within a few moments, the line seemed to grow exponentially and snake far outside of the gates.  The line moved quickly, and soon we were able to reenact the famous scene of Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn without the surprise. 

In the middle of summer, we spent our evenings at the Tiber festival. Wandring along the banks of the river, listening to music and taking in the joy of the crowds.  It was a lovely time and the mood was perfect for us both.

My feelings in Rome had reached a ridiculous level.  I felt almost guilty.  I never expected my life to reach such a point of privilege that I could not only come to visit Rome, but that I could come to this place with a knowledge built on so many repeated visits.  This was a city of incomparable splendour.  It was filled with wonderous things.  It had incredible food and drink.  It was a city of history, that had stamped itself on the world.  I wasn't a Roman, and I never would be, but I was thankful for the good fortune to be able to live for brief moments this beautiful Roman life.

Beaches and Isola Bella

Taormina isn't actually on the beach.  You wouldn't necessary guess that with the videos you see of people lazing by the water on the beach whenever there are shows based in the town.  Instead the town sits far up in the hills and along the cliffs that overlook the long stretch of the Sicilian coast line.  From the high vantage point of the town, you can see far off into the distance, as far as the southern part of Calabria on the mainland.  It's an imposing position for a town.  I can only imagine that it would have made for formidable defences back during more turbulent times.  Nothing would be able to approach in secret with the view stretching out unobstructed far off into the distance.

From the top of the town, you could walk down to the beach, get a car, or take the far more scenic option of the cable car. The lines for the cable car were long, but the trips up and down did give some incredible views.  Each trip was quite short, but it gave a great perspective of the region far off into the distance.

Once we reached the bottom, we found ourselves a nice beach club and settled for the day.  The beach itself was pebbly.  The water was clear.  The mood lively and happy.  Off to the side was the famous island itself.

The beach arched around to the island from two sides.  Both the beaches forming a point towards the island.  Depending on the tides, there would be a small bridge across to the island that was either entirely submerged or only slightly above the water.

There was a constant flow of people heading too and from the island.  There was something strangely unique about being able to walk across from the beach to this island.  It felt special.  Something different and beautiful.  I thought back to my travels when I was young with my family in Thailand and how we could walk from island to island across the sandbars.  This seemed like the smaller and more compact Mediterranean version of that experience.

On the island itself were the remains of an old villa.  It had been maintained to a degree, with some small art displays inside, and only a hint of the grandeur that must have once come with living in such a place.  Looking out the windows, you could look out across the sea and back towards the main beaches and the long coastline.  It didn't feel entirely real.  It was almost as though this was part of an elaborate movie set for a glamourous movie about a gilded life in the Mediterranean.

We floated up and down between Taormina and the coastline over the next few days.

Every moment spent on the beach was a joyous time of relaxation and comfort.  The sound of the waves, the warmth of the air and the back and forth into the water was a lovely rhythm that I knew wouldn't last forever.  I wanted to embrace and remember it for as long as I could.

On our last day, we went to a different beach to the side of Isola Bella.  It was equally beautiful, though a bit calmer without the big crowds seeking out the perfect picture of Isola Bella in the background.  The hotel had arranged with the beach club for a car to pick us up, but it seemed to get lost on the way to us.  When we finally arrived, the very apologetic beach club took us straight to the front seats and gave us complimentary granitas as an extra apology.  It was a nice gesture and I was more than happy to accept. 

There wasn't much reason to be unhappy or annoyed.  A slight delay here and there is fine.  When you're in a place with such beauty and calm happiness, I thought it was best to be more relaxed in all my responses. 
 

Taormina

Taormina has always been a famous tourist destination, seemingly more so now that it is one of the locations of the show White Lotus.  However, it still doesn't have the same name recognition as Positano or Cinque Terre.  Yet even without this recognition, it is a resort town that seems to be the premier destination in Sicily and it holds a beloved reputation with Italians.  Whenever we were asked about where we were going in Sicily, the answer of Taormina seemed to illicit dreamy eyes and responses of longing for this seemingly magical place.  It was a good sign for what were to experience.

We had arrived late in the afternoon.  In the heat of the day, we had gone straight to the hotel pool to cool off and to relax.  It was a beautiful location to lounge and to cool off.  There were families and couples all enjoying the pool, perched at the top of the cliff overlooking the coastline.  Children laughed and jumped around the pool, whilst the couples lay on the sunbeds next to one another sleeping and tanning.  We found our own sunbeds and I dragged an umbrella over us to provide us with some respite from the blazing sun.  Veronica fell asleep as I jumped into the pool and waded up and down.  It was a big pool, but it wasn't really for swimming.  It was more to splash about and to cool off.  I waded up and down the length of the pool, my eyes constantly turning back towards the lovely view of the rising hills above.  

As the sun set, we went back to our room and changed for the evening.  We were refreshed and relaxed and wanted to see the town itself.  The hotel was the on edge of the town.  Walking out of the front door of the hotel, we couldn't see Mt Etna clearly anymore.  We walked around and into the town.  Taormina is a long town.  It stretches along the hillside, with the main street through the town hugging along the length of the town.  The side streets up and down are usually stairs leading down or up towards the smaller parallel streets that also run across the length of the town. 

In the middle of it all was a large open space, the Piazza Aprile IX.  The square was surrounded on three sides by churches and shops, but on the other side it opened up out towards the ocean.  Perched on the side of the hill, the view was entirely unobstructed and even in the early evening you could see how into the distance.  It wasn't the largest square I had been too, but it felt very grand and opulent.  The checked tiles on the floor seemed to give the feeling that the whole square was a ballroom rather than just an open space outside. 

For the next few days, we enjoyed the good life in Taormina.  We wandered and explored the lovely town.  WE walked in and out of the small shops.  We had coffees and cakes, lounged in restaurants and relaxed.  The town wasn't an enormous sprawling place, but there were lots of small lanes and streets to be explored and enjoyed.   Around each corner, there were new places to be discovered, and of course the constant views that opened up towards the ocean and Mt Etna.

For a place completed inundated with tourists, many of whom would day trip in from the region or the much larger city of Catania, we found we were able to easily find places of quiet and calm.  Of the main street that crossed the entire town, there were secluded spots where we were able to enjoy a meal or to simply sit and look out at the scenery.

The shops we entered all felt distinctly "Sicilian", though not in a very traditional way.  There were the tourist knickknacks available everywhere, with the presence of the strange and at times intimidating "Moors Heads" being ubiquitous.  It was all a bit Sicilian Disneyland at times, but it was something to accept rather than fight.  At the very least, it all added to the mood and atmosphere of the place.

Part of enjoying this town was of course sampling as many foods as possible.  I wasn't sure if what we were eating was truly Sicilian or not.  It all seemed a bit too perfect and well put together.  There was definitely the taste of the region in everything we tried which was something to be appreciated.  There were some more avant garde dishes we tried.  Italy seems to have a deep reverence to its past and traditions, so all of these dishes seemed to be twists or adaptations of local classics.

As much as I enjoyed these more unique creations, we were ultimately drawn back to the tradition of Italy.  Maybe there was something to be said about keeping a closer adherence to the past in Italy?  We ate the traditional cakes, ate the red prawns and tried the granita.

All of it was amazing.  I'm sure there was an element of the location adding to the enjoyment, but the quality of the produce used in everything was apparent in everything.  

As with many of the other places we have had the good fortune of visiting, it seemed that the evenings were the best time.  There was still an incredible liveliness and energy in the place, but the slight decrease in numbers and the heat made the whole place more welcoming and friendly.

The mood of every street seemed to be buoyant, as travelers and locals alike gathered in the restaurants and cafes.  We continued our walking up and down, stopping in and out of the stores.  Eating the gelato.  Trying the granita.  Having a drink.  Browsing the shops.  Over and over again, without any feeling of repetition or boredom.   It was a lovely and idyllic time were were having.

Approaching Mt Etna

The time spent at the beach in Cefalu was great.  After being confronted by Palermo, it had been a lovely respite and chance to calm down.  We were now well and truly into the second half of our trip which would be focused more on a slow relaxation.  I hired a driver to take us to our next location on the East coast of the island.  Had we had a bit more time, I think I would have liked to have hired a car myself and driven around the island, but given we weren't going to be moving too much and we wouldn't be finishing at the same spot, it seemed to make more sense to only get the car when it was needed.

The drive took us through the middle of the island.  The journey seemed to take less than two hours, and in that time I saw the landscape change dramatically.  It was an interesting journey that took us from the dry and at times almost desolate parts of the Northern part of the island, through the centre and towards more lush and fertile areas towards the East.  At the start, I couldn't help but think of back home in Australia.  There was a harshness to the landscape and a colour palette that seemed ripped from a pastoral image in country NSW.  This was an island with an incredible history as well.  For such a short journey by car, it seemed to belie the struggles and pains of those who had come and fought through these lands in the past.  Recently, this was of course the first location of the Allied reinvasion of Europe during World War II, as Patton and Montgomery both raced up through the island.  Going back far more years, this was the location of the failed Athenian Sicilian Expedition.  One of the turning points in history as the finest of Athens died or were sold into slavery after they unsuccessfully tried to take the island.  The suffering of those men would have been immense as they struggled through the valleys and the gaps between the imposing hills and mountains.  Yet now, we were able to glide effortlessly from one side to the other in a morning.

Since the drive wasn't too long, I thought it made sense for us to use the opportunity to visit a winery on the slopes of Mt Etna.  Our driver had helped us to arrange a scenic spot for both lunch and a tasting.  We reached the city of Catania and looped past on our way up to Mt Etna.  The road started the very slow climb up, and we could soon see the various vineyards that sat on the slopes.  The car entered into a region that seemed to be almost exclusively vineyards and wineries.  The car turned down a small road and led us to the vineyard.  Through the old stone walls, we walked through into a beautiful open area shaded by trees and overlooking the rows of vines.

It was a breathtakingly beautiful scene.  I struggled to think of the right word to describe it all.  Pastoral?  Bucolic?  Neither of those terms seemed to fit.  It was a scene of refined elegance.  It was a highly curated natural beauty, but it was lovely.  Walking into the breezy open area, I felt this sense of relaxation and calm.  We were led to our table underneath the shade.  We were being served a tasting menu paired with wines grown in the vineyards we were sitting opposite.  As the food came, we sat deeper into our chairs.  It was simple food that was cooked delicately with produce from the area.  Eggs, dairy and seafood, all served of course with various pasta dishes.  With each dish, a wine was paired.  For all our happiness with our situation, we looked at one another a bit with each wine.  There was no other way of describing them, except as not good!  I thought I would give them some time to breath a bit more before making my final judgment.  It didn't work, more time seemed to make the wines worse.  There was a sour sharpness to them.  It had been something we had noticed since arriving in Sicily, and I would be educated more later by sommelier and wine merchant friends that the myth of the great Sicilian wines was limited to the truly exceptional wineries.  For all others, it was apparently best to stay away. 

It was all fine though and it was nothing to be complained about.  Just another interesting quirk and experience of travel.  We both sat comfortably and satisfied with where we were.  The sun was up, and we could feel the warmth in the air, along with the cool wind that blew across.  Looking out from our table, there were the usual couples like ourselves, but also some large families who seemed to making their grand tour of Italy together.  Maybe it was a return to an ancestral home, an attempt to connect with the past?

Well fed and full of wine, we found the driver and got back in the car.  The final drive to the hotel was short but scenic.  We were winding along small streets and seemingly innumerous small towns that surrounded the slopes of Mt Etna.  Our driver lived in the area and explained the lifestyle of the area to us, the family life and the lovely benefit of having access to such fertile soils for their personal gardens.  The road became steeper and we began to climb.  Not too far away, we could see small towns that dotted the tops of the hills and high points.  One of these was our next stop, Taormina. 

We arrived in front of the grand old hotel.  We checked in quickly, and I immediately took Veronica with me down through the hotel garden to the pool with the spectacular view.  Perched out at the very end of a cliff, it had a commanding view that looked out towards the ocean.  I jumped straight into the water, wading up and down gazing back and forth towards both the sea and the mountain.  This would be a good place to spend the next few days.