2012 Flower Show

Last Sat. we went to the annual Hong Kong Flower show.  It is  a great way to bring on spring! 

 This year the weather was beautiful and so even though we went early in the morning, there were

 still plenty of people out, with everyone taking pictures of either the flowers their kids, or the many

 helpers posing like crazy!!

As you walked in, the scent from the flowers just hit you head on.  Major attractions from around the world, made out of flowers ran the length of the display area.

Easter Island stone sculptures.

The Totem Poles.

Cute goose.

Liked these water tubes surrounded by hyacinths,and impatiens.

The theme this year was called Floral Delights, with the Hyacinth as the theme flower.

I think these are called cleome.   I used to grow them in Loreburn. I think they are also
called Spider flower.

Totem poles display.

Orchids of different colors along with impatiens.

Part of the Ocean Park display.

Kind of a weird sculpture made from thinly sliced wood.strips.

A helper doing the pose thing!!!!

Hydrangeas.

These tulips almost look like they are fake, but they weren't!!

Cute ballerina with a flower tutu.

Beautiful orchids.

Thought these little round houses were so cute.

Field of tulips.  Look at the amount of people taking pictures!

This next section was called Tropical Delights and was made up of all kinds of fruit.

Pineapple!

Bananas doing a pole dance.

Chinese dragon  panel.

Pyramids of Egypt

Not sure what he was!

Sydney Australia with  kangaroo in a field of tulips, daffodils and hyacinths.

This one was very pretty.  The green shapes in the background are 
the skyline of Hong Kong and Shanghai.

I'm not sure that dandelions would be romanticized in quite the same way as the explanation
 below when we see them growing in our lawns back home!!

Chinese medallion.

The Great Wall.

Aren't these bikers interesting as they ride along a petunia roadway?

For some reason this program isn't working right today and l can't remove the pictures
that are similar, so you'll just have to see more great wall pictures!  Sometimes the printing is all crazy when
l post it.  Don't know how to fix it so bear with me.

 Can't remember where this lady came from!

This is for Keegan.  He used to like Elmo.!

These were part of the bonsai display.

We went out to lunch at Tony Romas which is in the Times Square complex.  Looking down 

on the street below.

World Badminton

Outside the arena for the Hong Kong Open Badminton.   Never thought I would have a chance to see the top players in the world, only a 10 minute taxi ride from my home.

The arena was much like a smaller hockey rink in Canada where they just used one end.

Yonex had a big display of merchandise for sale, you could hardly walk down the aisles.

Yonex racquet.

Kylie, I and three other teachers from the school went to watch.  Because it was in a larger venue tickets were much more available than they were last year when it was in a smaller arena.

The merchandise building

In the waiting area outside the arena.

                          Kylie purchased the tickets and we had an excellent view of the games.

A lot of pregame ceremony and show with dancing dragons

I don't know how this crew got in the show. They were a bunch of middle aged ladies who looked like they had had one practice in the parking lot before the show.  I'm sure we could have thrown something together with some students and done just as well.  It was good for a laugh though.

Because this is an Olympic year the best teams in the world were here.  This was the mixed final between Denmark and China.  Denmark seems to be the only Caucasians among the top players.  China won in 3 games.

Medal presentations for mixed doubles.

You get some idea of the seating arrangement in the arena.

This was the player we all wanted to see, Lin Dan(In the yellow shoes).  He is the defending world and Olympic champion, and one of the Danish players just recently called him the greatest player of all time.

Lin Dan was playing another Chinese player in the final.  He won easily, and seems to have another gear when he needs it.  Hard to imagine how good he must be when he makes other top world players look ordinary.

He is treated like a god in China.

Kylie and two others from our school.

This was the ladies doubles final, again both Chinese.  The Chinese are now dominating in badminton.  When the boys were playing there were a lot of Indonesian, Malaysians, and Filipinos.  China dominates 
in many of the sports now.  With the amount of people here to choose from l guess it's not
hard to find good athletes!

By far the most exciting match was the men's doubles between Korea and China, again won by China.  They won all 5 finals.  The Koreans are in the pink shirts.

The smashes and returns you have to see to believe, and even then it is hard to believe at times.

Incredible returns!

The Koreans changed shirts to the purple, put up a valiant effort but couldn't  pull out a win.  It will be exciting to watch many of these players in the London Olympics this summer.