Central Adventure.

Hong Kong already feels like a lifetime ago, this year has swept over me so quickly it's hard to even think about everything that's happened but I thought it would be a shame to have so many photographs from such a great trip and not get around to sharing them with you. At first I put it off because I didn't have time, then it was because my old laptop was too slow, now, I guess I haven't really got an excuse.

Because I have so many pictures, I always had an idea to blend these posts in with other content but when I didn't get around to writing much else, I just put them on the back burner.

These are from a long day in Central, the main part of Hong Kong island. It included a visit to a temple, discovering my new favourite place in Hong Kong, the PMQ, taking in street art and hiking up to the Hong Kong Zoological & Botanical Gardens before taking it all in again by boat.


[Man Mo Temple, 126 Hollywood Rd, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong]
There are lots of Man Mo Temples across Hong Kong but the one on Hollywood Road is the largest. It houses hundreds of huge incense coils which were great to photograph, we did have to mind the falling ash though!









I love that despite being so dense and urban, there are still nods to Hong Kong's almost-tropical roots and rather than chopping some trees down, they're still there, making themselves known.

Wipeout by Invader.

During our visit to the PMQ, we stumbled up an exhibition from the semi-well-known street artist, Invader.

Not only was it a nice find, it was also a pretty interesting exhibition experience. It's one of the few gallery spaces that I've been to that has not only allowed photography, but actively encouraged it. Such is the nature of Invader's work that you can actually see it better with a little help from a small screen than with your naked eye.

Tail-end.

It would appear that I can't keep away from Bristol, twice in one month - apparently this is what the convenience of having a car has done to me. Coinciding with a visit from my sister and a need to pop to Ikea, we chose to pop to Bristol for the day. Here are some photos from then, and a Sunday afternoon spent carbooting. They're a bit of a mish-mash but I wanted to share them all the same.






Pretty excited to pop back to Bristol for the Gromit Showcase in July.

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Oh hey, Friday, what took you so long? I'm off to Ireland tomorrow for the Bank Holiday Weekend, which is a little odd because it feels like another country because you have to go on a plane but not for very long. We're visting Moon's dad and Moon's showing me the sights. I've got a lot of ties to Ireland so I've been before but never to this area, I'm excited to be by the sea, but I know it's going to be chilly, I sure hope we see some sunshine.

I'm going to use the extra time off to do a bit of designing but I'm looking forward to a bit of touristy stuff even if we're only there briefly.

Drizzle in Brizzle.

After being called 'country bumpkins' by two different friends on two separate occassions, Moon and I took our country mouse-selves into a new big city over last weekend. As I mentioned when I talked about King Charles, we were there initially for the gig, but I wish we'd stayed there longer than just a night. I have a feeling we won't get as good a deal as this time (thank you, eBookers for a 4☆ hotel for just £40 for the night), so I'm not sure when we'll stay again but there's so much more I want to see so I'm really pumped to head back there for Dot-to-Dot Festival at the end of May.

I guess I've been away from a city for a bit too long but it was great to have so much to do and go out in the evening and have things happening, good things, not weirdly lairy things as apparently is the case for Newbury on a Saturday night. We spent just under 24 hours there and that just wasn't enough, plus because we weren't there long and we were rushing off to a gig and then to our friend Simon's so there wasn't whole lot of time to generally mooch anyway.

Here are a few snaps I took over the time we were there, we weren't lucky enough to get any of the sun that everyone else seemed to get, but at least it wasn't so cold and I did manage to pop my shades on first thing Sunday morning. I think my favourite part (other than the King Charles gig) was getting to see all the street art as part of the See No Evil Gallery on Nelson Street. I've never seen such great street art, Shoreditch pales in comparison to the scale they have it there and it felt so clean, and I fell in love a little bit.

Our bargain hotel room and bathroom, we stayed at The Grand. It was right in the centre and we mainly chose it due it the proximity to The Fleece but it was pretty good. The room was so dark in the morning, a pretty nice treat compared to our daylight-bright bedroom in the little flat.

I definitely want to find the rest of the gorillas on my next visit.

St Nicolas Market was right around the corner from the hotel, it made me reminiscent over all those weekends spent visiting Spitalfields.

I spent a lot of Saturday afternoon looking like this.

Being cold and damp, we stumbled across Swinky's Sweets and their claim about 'best hot chocolates' isn't far off. It's decorated really nicely, I definitely hope to head back there once it's warmer to sample some of their fancy ice cream.

I'm a huge fan of independent gift shops so I was so pleased on Park Street.

Rise Music was a great 'stumble across', it was full of records and CDs for him and clothes and books for me, the perfect marrying and such nice interiors, looking forward to see what they have going on for Dot-to-Dot.

Might be nicer than Corona :O

There was such a great choice of places to eat but we opted for the All Bar One round the corner from our hotel though. It was mainly for the nachos, but they ended up not having any and Moon didn't want to move on so I had soft shell crab after seeing it on Saturday Kitchen that morning and he had Phad Thai

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I can't wait to go back again already, it seems so silly that I've not been before, especially seeing as it's only just over an hour away. More trips to The West are definitely needed, sometimes you forget how much there is to see that's already here in England. It seems silly that I've been all the way to Hong Kong (more than once) but I've never been to Bristol before, I think Bath is next on the 'day trips' list but we'll see...