Traditionally, a junk is a sailing boat of Chinese origin, designed and built to go out into the open ocean. Modern day junks tend to be pleasurecraft built with powerful engines and room for plenty of beer. Many of the big firms located in Hong Kong own a 'corporate junk' as a treat for employees, and for entertaining important clients and, on this occasion, two aid workers from Westest Africa on a dashing mission to fill their faces with molluscs and crustacea on the island of Lamma. All aboard?
Yung Shue Wan in Lamma is famous for its row of seafood restaurants. Families and junketeers occupy large round tables with a Lazy Susan at the hub, and are encouraged to inspect the seafood living in nearby tanks, before it goes into the pan.
Not that much encouragement is required. I'm never happier than when tormenting a cuttlefish. If you poke them, sometimes they go purple.
Some of the prawns are a bit lacklustre, but razor shell clams in black bean sauce are a treat. Chilli crab, or rather CHILLI! crab is forehead tinglingly hot. All is well.
Fondling some sea snails below. In the basket below my right elbow are Abalone, a rare mollusc prized for both its meat and its sometimes iridescent shell.
Previously these expensive delicacies had been on my mental list of 'things to eat', but I'm reliably informed that most of the abalone sold in Asia come from a nefarious trade with South African gangs. Drugs for molluscs and smiliar unpleasantness, so they're quite rightly off the menu today.
Soft Italian red wine sees me through the voyage back into Hong Kong harbour, and things started to get a little blurry.
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