Big Wave Breakfast

Being beach dwellers now, we dine at the beach from time to time. Usually picnic or pizza but today we hit our breakfast venue. Our breakfast place is called The Blue Room, run by a Canadian I think, at Big Wave Bay Beach. Though quality is slightly in flux, one can get pancakes and fruit artfully arranged on stylish plates. But food comes secondary to the fact that the place is really right on the beach. Just us, one tourist couple and a bunch of local surfers.

To get there, we drove about 15 minutes out on a peninsula of sorts, the southern most part of Hong Kong Island. All driving (on what is the opposite side of the road for us) is nerve wrecking but this drive really was. To get to Big Wave Bay, we had to pass over Quarry Bay Road, a section of Tai Tam road which is really the retaining wall of the huge Tai Tam Tuk reservoir. This section of the road is all water on one side and sheer drop-off on the other and very very narrow to boot. While half way across the reservoir road, we came upon a large municipal bus. Phil slowly inched past it and we learned why our new minivan has a motorized function to retract its rearview mirrors!

After, or actually during, breakfast, we hit the beach along side the surfers. The kids wanted to swim but luckily for me, there was a sign up stating that the shark net at the beach was down for repair. Tori’s ability to read the danger signs is coming in handy! We played and tried to assess the level of cleanliness compared to our last visit when we did swim. Last time, the water was full of floating garbage and the beach was not much better. This time it looked clean from afar and we just opted to stay afar.

Instead of swimming, we walked up hill to view some ancient rock carvings. The walk was steep but all kids made it. The rock carvings, just a small section on an outcropping of rock, were discovered in 1970 and made into a national monument in 1978. The geometric shapes and lines have not been definitely dated but are generally thought to be Bronze Age Era, about 3, 500 years ago. As all kids did drawings during breakfast, and brought those drawings with them on our hike, it was pretty easy to see that, despite thousands of years, some human continuity remains.