More from the Cliffs of Moher

Hong Kong and home

Two items caught my eye as on the menu of  Yat Tung Heen, our hotel restaurant in Mongkok, Kowloon, Hong Kong. The first was a tea, called ‘Monkey Picked Teguanyin’.  Could there be anything more evocative? I pictured quarrelling macaques, eyes darting, ranging through overgrown tea plantations, picking the juiciest leaf tips as their handlers lazed in the shade below. Google tells me that monkeys might have been involved once, but not any more.

The second was a soup. It was called ‘Double-boiled Pig Lung with Fish Maw in Almond Juice’. Somewhere in my childhood (not long after the war), there was currency for the disparaging notion that Chinese people (or was it Japanese?) eat anything that moves. Here, I thought, was conclusive evidence. I didn't order either, but, like whales, I was glad they existed.

Hugh and I had just returned from a food market, tucked in among high-rise buildings and racing traffic. It is a typical Chinese street market, full of fresh and dried foods of every description. We watched the butcher singeing  hairs from pig’s feet with a blowtorch. He was standing on the footpath alongside his stall, with his meat, mostly pork, on display. The sound and the smell unique.

Next door, fishmongers were hard at work. A man hauled a huge carp onto his chopping board, dispatched it with the back of his cleaver, then expertly cut the flapping fish into precise chunks.  The heart of the fish, exposed by the knife, beat on interminably. The pieces were laid out shiny and dripping on a mesh table, where his wife weighed and wrapped the fish to order.

Hong Kong, Kowloon-side, has all the bustle, smells and sights of China. The Island is much more about shiny high-rise, commerce and exotic cars. Shopping is the main game here for everyone. I overheard an expat explaining to a visitor that you can spend as much, or as little, as you choose in Honk Kong – for food, clothes, anything. Indeed, there is not very much to do other than shop, or eat.

The two most popular tourist activities are to look at the city from the harbour aboard a Star Ferry, or to look at the city from the Peak. We did both, reflecting on the curious vanity of a city that sees its reflection as its main attraction.

Food here is fantastic. Cantonese cuisine, simmering, grilling, roasting on every corner. We ate noodles at Mak’s Noodles, slurping up beef brisket and wonton with noisy abandon.

We have wandered the bird market, Goldfish Street, Temple Street night markets, the Ladies Market, the Flower Market, Harbourside and the Jade Market. On Goldfish Street, exquisite tropical fish wait in bags to be bought and taken home. Discus that cost sixty dollars in Australia are four for ten dollars here.But we are tired of markets! It is time to go home.

Leaving Dordt

I turned left out of our apartment and walked the twenty paces to the Kuipershaven this afternoon. There, the beautiful old boats chafed patiently at their moorings in the familiar, frigid harbour. I was rugged up with coat, scarf and gloves, comfortable in the fading light and light breeze. I felt a sudden sense of loss to be leaving.

We have been here two months now. I have walked this route perhaps thirty times through late summer, the greying autumn and into the depths of winter. I have watched the boats at harbour, seen them come and go, be covered with snow. I have admired the old houses, red shutters open, leaning into the street, peering past each other.

Our apartment has been a cosy second home. We have mastered the terrifying ladders that the Dutch call stairs - with just a few bruises. We have learnt how and where to provision the house, to stock up on Saturday, because a calvinist heritage still closes the place down on Sunday. It has been our base for journeys to the surrounding cities and into Belgium.

We have hunted down the fast food treats of Dordrecht. We have noshed on broodje rookworst - rolls with smoked sausage and mustard from the Hema, crisp patat frittes with mayonnaise - a paper cone of hot crisp chips from Bram Ladage, kibbeling - deep-fried fish with a salty curry dusting from the market stall, and ollebollen, massive hot donuts without a hole from Ron's stand at Centrum.

We have found and favoured coffee shops, whoops, sorry - cafes. A coffee shop sells dope, a cafe does not. For us, La Place in V&D has offered delightful coffee and cake, chocomel and free wireless. In September, we sat outside and watched the market below in Statenplein. In winter, we have snuggled inside with the locals and peered into the snow and ice outside.

In the Vriesestraat we have noshed on hot appeltaartje met ice met slagroom - apple meringue tart with icecream and whipped cream and an airy hazelnut tort. Many times! Two doors down,we have lingered in the GertJan Kaasboer - Dordrecht's prize winning cheese shop, always welcoming us to try and buy more kaas than our fridge would hold.

Dordrecht's streets and harbours have been an unending delight. Just walking the cobbled streets and standing watching the boats has been an ongoing entertainment. The scale of the old city invites you to go back to places, revisit outlooks, houses, bridges and boats that caught the eye.

In late November, Dordrecht re-opened its magnificently renovated museum for us. Although our names were inadvertently left off the opening night celebrations, we secured a viewing the next week. It is a beautiful gallery with a focus on 16 to 18th century Dutch art.

The extended clogwog family have been so warm and welcoming from the moment we arrived. Api, Renee, Joyce and Gerard met us at Schipol and whisked us to Dordrecht for celebratory hazelnut meringue tort and coffee before delivering us to the Schijverstraat. We have been invited into so many homes and celebrated the birthdays of Heidi, Lisa, Maud and Nick, the christening of Phenix. Caity and Hugh have discovered a huge extended family, made friends and played into the night.

I have slowly picked up bits and pieces of Dutch, not much. Social events sometimes leave me exhausted. My brain expects to understand everything, but can't. I feel like a mobile phone searching for a network for three hours!

Api has cooked every traditional Dutch dish for us - pea soup, stampots of all sorts, with endive, kale, cabbage, hashe, all served with superb wines from Italy and Alsace. Delicious! Short visits to Joyce and Gerard invariably turned into meals. This was not negotiable - if we said no, the food arrived anyway! Erna welcomed us to her house in Hoek van Holland and showed us the delta works and port.

We saw Sinterklaas delight the kids and we travelled to Hoek to watch him leave, amid fireworks. We walked the old city with an ancient guide that Api arranged, who taught us a great deal more about the long and layered history of Dordrecht. It was a painfully cold, grey afternoon that began, in a very Dutch way, at a cafe on the Voorstraat, had a pit stop in a cafe at Jongepier and ended with dinner back on the Voorstraat.

So, we leave Dordrecht in two days for the delights of Hong Kong. Staying here over two months has been a great luxury, a rare treat for all of us. We have seen and done so much, yet only scratched the surface. Now, when can we come back?!

'You must tell it to your children'

The number ten bus that takes us to the railway station, rolls down the cobbled Wijnstraat and past the imposing Staadhuis.

The Staadhuis dates from the 1600s. It has a more modern 1800s front, with two very large lions on guard. They are slightly sleepy looking, more like labradors really. Everyone in Dordrecht marries in the Staadhuis. Mark and Ellen were married there. Wedding cars and carriages regularly pull up and people stop to watch. I have been among the well wishers.

As the bus passed the Stadhuis last week, I noticed an unusual monument out of the corner of my eye. It sits on the corner of the building, above head height, in marble, with a Jewish star and an inscription in Hebrew. I went to investigate. It is a smallish marble block, with the inscription in dutch on the other side. It reads 'Je moet het je kinderen ver tellen'  which is  'You must tell it to your children'. Tell them what, you might ask.

That while nowhere was safe, Holland was one of the most dangerous places in Europe to be a Jew. That Adolf Eichmann presided over the eradication of Holland's Jews from Amsterdam and was ruthlessly efficient. That there were about 140,000 Jews in Holland in 1940 and over 100,000 were sent to German camps. That about a thousand survived.

That the Dutch were divided in their attitude to Jews, some turning them in to the Nazis, others providing shelter and escape at great personal risk. That the people of Amsterdam went on strike to protest the treatment of Jews, infuriating the Nazis.

That Dordrecht had a substantial Jewish community dating back to the 1600s. That the Staadhuis lists the names of 221 who died in the second world war, probably the majority of Jews living here. That after the war, the once busy synagogue was quiet, because nearly all who had worshipped there had been murdered in Germany. That the unused synagogue was demolished and a memorial erected to the 'almost disappeared Jewish community' of Dordrecht.

Winter scenes from Dordrecht

We are enjoying sub zero temperatures. After good snow falls that entertained the kids and us for a week came rain, which turned the snow to an icy slush, which then froze into a slippery slide. Canals are freezing over - skating soon. More snow forecast. Cool!