To the Doctors, to see some trains and strange foods and some wonderful Orchids

Thursday 6th June

Today we all went out after breakfast to visit amongst other places a train museum.  You may remember when we were on the Trans Siberian Railway Tone was very interested when we saw some of the beautifully restored engines at the stations in the middle of Siberia.  He was no less interested in the railway museum near to where Karen and Ruy live. Tone and Ruy were like two small boys!

Ruy used to use the line we were on when he went to school as a boy and the trains were very similar too!

There is a steam engine there that had been used in Hong Kong and then sent to the Philippines where it had been fitted with a spark arrester (like you do!) and used in the sugar plantations.  When it was rediscovered it was brought back to Hong Kong and restored and with great ceremony put back where it had started!! The things some people will do!!

The ticket office was not unlike the old one at Barry from where we had come so there was a certain continuity to it all.

But before all this Tone went to the doctor with his dreadful cough which was not getting any better.  Dr Wang Yu (I think) said Tone has bronchitis and infected sinus and gave him six different pills. Some were to be taken three times a day, some twice and some once so we needed to prepare a flow chart so he could get it right!  Hopefully this little lot will help.

From the train museum we visited a wonderful market where there were all sorts of things for sale including chickens feet and some weird fruits and vegetables

We tasted some lovely peanut and toffee sweets plus some other delicious sweet treats made by the stallholder. He heard me coughing and offered me something out of a jar!!  "Don't eat that!" said Ruy.  It was of course ginger and it would have been me going to the 24 hour vet  or Dr Yu next if I had eaten it!!

Our last stop of the day was to Kadoorie Farm and Botanical Gardens. This farm had been started to provide training for farmers in organic farming and then it developed to help local people, particularly widows to farm by giving them various animals and by training them too.  Today it  is more of a botanical garden and has some animals and birds, mainly rescued ones, and they do research too.  There is a Gloria Barretto Orchid Sanctuary which Ruy was proud to show us. Gloria and Ruy both discovered new orchids and last year Ruy discovered a butterfly that is new to Hong Kong.

After lunch we drove round the farm which covered a huge area and give wonderful view over the mountains and jungle of this part of the New Territories.

Fabulous butterflies and birds as well as flowers and trees.  A wonderful opportunity so see this part of Hong Kong. One that tourists probably do not see. Thank you Ruy and Karen