I must be some kind of a masochist. Every single day, when the alarm clock rings at 7am, all I can think of " I can't wait to be Saturday, and sleep in". Comes Saturday, and what do I do? I wake up at 7am to join a CSR event (corporate social responsability) at Lamma Island.
Lamma island for Christ's sake! Meeting point : Pier #4, at 9am. Hopefully, I won't get seasick. Well, I chose to come, didn't I?
Why is that again? Oh right, I had a very good time, at the last CSR event I joined in Tai O.
Suddenly, I'm glad I woke up. Plus, it's a wonderful day I might add. Hot and sunnny. I meet up with CSR ambassador for SG, his daughter, and other SG volunteers at the pier, and we embark at 9:10am towards Yung Shue Wan, Lamma island.
What's today's event all about?
Organized by the Hans Andersen Club, today is dedicated to a sand sculpturing competition. At first, I joined as a volunteer to help out building up the tents, and dismantle them after the event is over, as well as packing up everything and cleaning up the beach.
But I was soon to find out that we had to participate to the competition as well. Hummm interesting... I had never built a sand castle before, and haven't played in the sand since I was 5. I'm curious to see how this will turn out!
SG group was eventually divided into 2 teams formed by 3 and 4 people respectively. It's only 10am and the weather is already extremely hot. I'm wondering if sun block 50 will be enough.
Our competitors are very well organized. At least some of them. They brought tools, instruments, boards, pots etc. We're suddenly look like such amateurs! The team next to us is planning on building a train. They already have a cardboard train station, all nice and pretty. They appear as real professionals!
Here's SG teams:
Our team plans on building the Tour Eiffel. No more, no less. :) Our allies, a few fields away, are working on a giant turtle. In order to impress the "jury" they come out with a environmental oriented story behind this choice.
It's kind of funny, because they joke about it, but there's some truth in it. After all, giant turtles are endangered species.
Their final piece of work is quite impressive. Both adults and children seemed to love it.
We worked hard on our project, but it might have been sighlty too ambitious. But I guess in the end, you could guess what it was. Sort of. In any case, I had, surprinsingly enough, a lot of fun doing it.
After an hour and a half building and sweating under the excessive heat (wheather forecast was expected 33C, but it felt like 45C), all teams were done.
Themes were aquatics (a giant lobster, turtles, sea shell, etc) or more peace-oriented messages (one of the sculture was entitled "endless love", to say the least), and others, more diffcult to categorize. But there was a lot of thoughts and involvement in each piece.
As you can see
After lunch, there were 2 nice entertainments on stage. A drumming band, then children performing a dance. Quite enjoyable moment.
Then they eventually announced the competition results. We lost. Both our teams! We'll have to do better next time!
We helped out packing up, then returned to Central.
What a day!
Une baignade agreable, meme si l'eau n'est pas aussi claire (ni claire du tout dailleurs) qu'on aurait pu l'esperer. L'eau est chaude par contre. Dans le fond, une usine nous nargue et nous rappelle que quoique l'on fasse a Hong-Kong, on ne pourra jamais echapper a la mordernite et a la pollution. Puis nous poursuivons notre route, en plein cagnard, admirant la mer a perte de vue (et l'usine), quelques criques inaccessibles se degagent tout en bas, loin.... Impossible de se perdre, nous suivons la route bien betonnee, pas de doute, la nature ne l'emportera pas sur l'Homme ! On passe dans des chemins entoures de bananiers et de feuillages un peu sauvages, puis a flanc de colline. C'est diversifies, vert, et ca fait du bien. une autre plage nous est indiquee. en bravant le chemin entraves par les toiles d'araignees geantes (ce sont les araignees qui sont geantes) nous atteignons une petite plage en plein soleil, sable fin et peu frequentee: le reve ! 
le reve, oui, jusqu'a ce que nous voyions le panneau nous avertissant que du petrole ou je ne sais quel autre substance avait ete retrouvee dans l'eau et que par consequent, il etait interdit de se baigner. Nous avons donc repris notre courage a deux mains, et poursuivi jusqu'au dernier village de pecheurs, qui consiste en une succesion de restaurants de poisson et fruits de mer. (les memes que dans le port d'arrivee, mais a mon avis moins agreables) Cela dit, le choix de produits de la mer est particulierement impressionnant, entre les differents poissons, homards, crevettes geantes et j'en passe. Je n'ai pas eu le plaisir de faire mon choix dans l'un des aquarium, mais je garde l'idee dans un coin de ma tete (cela m'a ete fort recommende!)
