It was beatiful weather on Saturday and so we took a trip to Pui Oh beach, on Lantau Island.

It’s only a good couple of hours hiking from Discovery Bay and really the beach is one of the best in Hong Kong.

We spend the whole day sitting in “Ohlala restaurant” and the kids had fun playing in the beach and in the waves.

With this kind of a beach near by there’s no reason at all to travel to Thailand!

Yesterday was a dog’s day; it’s been raining almost continuously.
As a result, the weekend has been one without much outdoor activity. We’ve only been outside to travel to the nearest restaurant to have lunch.
We hooked up with some of Matthijs’ friends and as you will see from picture below the gang of three enjoyed themselves in Zaks restaurant.

What’s happening to my tranquil and quiet beach? Well the local property developer - The Hong Kong Resort Company Limited (HKRC) - is trying to promote their recent redevelopment of Discovery Bay’s central area (”the plaza”) into an “Alfresco Dining experience” called “Water Margin” (??). In this supposedly 100M HKD redevelopment (sounds low?) the plaza is renovated, restaurants added, and indeed the place has improved a great deal.

So last Easter weekend HKRC organized a “Golden Easter Egg Hunt” on the beach and it was buzzing and swarming with lots of parents and children from around Hong Kong - all digging up the sand in search for Easter Eggs. In hindsight it’s no surprise it was this busy as transportation to Discovery Bay was free with both ferries and buses offering complimentary rides.

But it was scary to see this many people swarmed into the area. The beach was black with people, the plaza full of people and kids, and people lining up for buses in long lines.

I’m sure all the new restaurants have welcomed this initiative - which in the end is the reason for HKRC to do this, and rightly so, as I wonder how all these new restaurant will survive just on the DB residents. But, looking at most families that visited I think that McDonalds and 7-Eleven must have benefited the most from last weekend’s campaign…

So a different strategy is required to attract spending families from around Hong Kong to dine in all these new restaurants. My feelings are dual: I hope all these restaurants can get sufficient clientele to stay open and profitable, but I surely hope that Discovery Bay will stay the relaxing escape from town it currently is.

If I’d wanted all this activity on my weekends I would be living elsewhere!

The year of the pig started on Sunday - and we had a few days off for the annual Lunar New Year celebrations.

Fortunately most of the new restaurants around DB are now open for business and in fact I had a great weekend just hanging out in ‘da bay’.

Here you can check out what’s going on in the plaza live.

Heck - I just saw my ferry leave, missed it!

In the top right you can see Hong Kong Disneyland. You can even watch the fireworks if you watch this page at the right time (8pm evening mostly).

(The image may take a while to load - give it a minute…)

http://www.marcdelange.com/2007/01/15/live-webcam-discovery-bay-hong-kong/

Live Webcam Hong Kong
Discovery Bay Webcam
Hong Kong Disneyland Webcam
Webcam Disneyland

Folks - have a very good new year.

Ours started with a beautiful day - clear blue skies and a pleasant 25 degrees. We’ve spent it lazing around in Discovery Bay while getting over the mild hangover of the eve night’s champagne.

Matthijs was feeling ill but in the video you can see he’s happy to be outside the house for a while and enjoy the sun.

He’s now starting to say more and more words, and for instance every time he sees an airplane, he’ll point at it and yell “a ba”. Which indeed is the right baby language word for airplane I believe.

Somehow this tree on the Discovery Bay plaza looks a bit sad. It’s just not big enough is it? Or is it the dodgy decoration?

Subway is open again in DB. Great so we can have meatball sandwiches again.

And next door is the good old Ebeneezer’s so we can eat roast lamb and kebabs again.

It’s taken a good year since all the DB renovations have been done and these great icons of Hong Kong / Dbay take-out food could return. For the most part of the past year we had just two options to go out for diner; resident’s club, or Jaspa’s. You can imagine that after a year you get pretty bored with this selection, so it’s great to see choices such as Hemingway’s, McSorley’s, and the old Ebeneezer’s.

There’s also a “Cafe de Paris” (a tiny place) and “Wildfire” but I haven’t tried those yet - soon will!

Discovery Bay is shaping up well with all these new restaurants.

A nice band is playing here today, and there are lots of stalls around in the plaza selling various stuff and food.

Update: Unfortunately though I think I had a bad satay somewhere coz Sunday / Monday have been sick and miserable!