The Chinese calendar resembles the Jewish calendar in being primarily lunar but with adjustments to keep the seasons at the right time in the solar year. So the Chinese New Year is always on the same Hebrew date: Rosh Chodesh Adar (I), the new moon in February. Who knew?
In practice, this meant the presence of large numbers of people taking off the rest of the week for an extended holiday period, hence our more than two hour queue for the Victoria Peak tram on the Friday. We could have walked up and down at least twice in the time, despite the one in two gradient in places! The tram itself was most impressive, though the single cable mechanism was a concern.
The view at the top was marred by low cloud but it wasn’t as cold as the following two days: we had not expected it to be only 15oC.
After a pleasant Shabbat at the JCC, we went to a much-hyped, overpriced, and disappointing vegetarian restaurant on the Saturday evening. Maybe we made the wrong choices. We spent Sunday morning wandering around mid-levels and visited the Dr Sun Yat-Sen museum in former Kom Tong Hall. We then visited the National Maritime Museum, at Pier 8 in the harbour, which was quite interesting, and had lunch there at Café 8 (run by an NGO that trains and employs people with learning disabilities http://www.nesbittcentre.org.hk/social-enterprises/cafe-8) before catching the train back to the airport.
Jenny & David's trip to New Zealand 