bc magazine

Playon Squad Full of Internationals

Soccer Sevens debutants playonPROS have confirmed an all-star squad for this month’s Masters Tournament with Emile Heskey, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Mikael Silvestre, David James and Colin Hendry set for Hong Kong Football Club on 26-28 May.

Regi Blinker, Des Walker, Phil Babb, Paul Dickov, Lee Hendrie and Michael Hughes complete playonPROS’ squad, which is comprised entirely of former internationals. Playon is an initiative by former England international Viv Anderson that looks to offer a continued involvement in the game after player’s club careers are over. The team have been drawn in Group B alongside Wallsend Boys Club, Kowloon Cricket Club Veterans, HKFC Chairman’s Select and Yau Yee League Masters.

“The Hong Kong Soccer Sevens is, I know, a fantastic event in a fantastic city,” said former Chelsea and Netherlands striker Hasselbaink. “I can’t wait to take part.”

PlayonPROS are set to challenge defending champions Citi All Stars, who have already confirmed a squad that includes Frank Sinclair, Michael Mols, Luis Boa Morte, Marvin Andrews and 2016 Masters Tournament MVP David Thompson, for the title.

“As a playon ambassador, I’m delighted that the company will take part in its first tournament in Hong Kong, and we are in it to win it!” said former Liverpool and England striker Heskey.

Soccer Sevens

Date: 26-28 May, 2017
Venue: HK Football Club
Tickets: $300 (Weekend pass), $160 (Day ticket), Free (Friday night) from Ticketflap
More info:
26 May (Fri): 6 – 9pm; exhibition youth matches start at 4.45pm
27 May (Sat): 9am – 7.40pm
28 May (Sun): 9am – 6pm

Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra 2017-18 Season

This week the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra published it’s concert schedule for the 2017-18 season.

Sadly the leaders of the widely respected and hard working orchestra continue to venerate CY Leung, a man who has openly derided musicians, with the title Honorary Patron.

As such bc magazine will continue to actively not write about the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra while he remains in that position.

We eagerly look forward to the day 689 is gone. Although we have no great expectations of Carrie Lam, she will be given the chance to show if she respects and has the best intentions for all HongKongers.

Not just those with private drivers who don’t know how to use the MTR! Or will she, after her ‘gift’ of $3.5billion to Beijing, keep her lips firmly on their rectum and allow them to rob Hong Kong blind to fund their massive vanity construction projects.

Megabites Food News – 3 May, 2017

It might be Le French GourMay this month, but there’s lots of good and not so good Italian flavoured news in this week’s megabites.

Sadly at IFC Isola is to relocate and lose it’s gorgeous terrace and view across the harbour. Rumour has it that even after demanding that the restaurant renovate their interior a couple of years ago landlord IFC have decided they can make more money by taking the large space and splitting it into smaller shops, so there will three new restaurants opening soon… More details on those as we get them.

Isola will close in it’s current location (Shop 3071-75, Level 3, ifc mall) on the 31 May and reopen almost directly downstairs on the second floor on the 12 June with a little more upmarket feel and basically the same menu with some new dishes to reflect the slight change in the feel due to the new location. The reservation telephone number and website address will remain unchanged.

A recent Italian food tasting at Isola saw several local vendors showcasing their Italian sourced products. Among those offering sample tastes were Abrate whose imported Tratuf Langhe truffle and pesto crisps are big thick and delicious. There’s a technique to cooking pasta well and it exposes the taste and texture difference between the cheaper brands and the more artisan pasta. Budget is always a factor when shopping, but when you want to impress then choose a quality pasta or all your effort in creating a mind bending sauce will be for naught. As well as pastas Abrate’s web shop also features a good selection of truffle, mushrooms, spices, dried fruits, desserts and other Italian delights.

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Vigne Vecchie produce a wide range of Italian products including pates, sauces, pickled vegetable, oils, and a bc favourite delicious cherry tomatoes stuffed with tuna. Many are available locally through an online store and regular pop-up events give them an email to find out about their upcoming events [email protected]

Pizza Express has launched a new menu for summer with many of the new dishes featuring seafood and seasonal fruits. We’ve yet to taste the new offerings but some of the more interesting sounding are: Crab Flatbread; Hawaiian ‘PizzaExpress – which features pineapple chutney and parma ham instead of the more traditional pineapple chunks and the new Lava pizza which has burrata mozzarella and basil torn over a baked pizza topped with olives and cherry tomatoes. All the new dishes are available at all 19 Pizza Express outlets across Hong Kong.

To celebrate the grand opening of their Citywalk store Emack & Bolio will be giving away 500 free scoops/cones on the 13 May from 2pm. The new store is located at Shop UG19, Citywalk, 1 Yeung Uk Road, Tsuen Mun

Beauty in the Dark

Fireflies are small insects conspicuous by their use of bioluminescence during twilight to communicate, attract mates or prey. Even firefly larvae have a little ‘light’. The insect’s abdomens produce a ‘cold light’, with no infrared or ultraviolet frequencies which is usually a greenish yellow but can even be red. The light can be remarkably bright though, illuminating the immediate surroundings and makes for spectacular viewing especially if the fireflies synchronise or phase their flashes among a big group.

April is the start of the local firefly breeding season and Hong Kong’s green spaces and country parks are home to over 30 species. Fireflies (lampyridae) favour hills and clean streams (for their diet of molluscs) and two of the easiest areas to reach are Tai Po Kau Nature Trail off Tai Po Road and Sha Lo Tung.

You can visit the areas yourself, take water, or take a guided walk. Wouter van Marle’s Adventure Tours offers two firefly walks at Tai Po Kau and Sha Lo Tung both last for about two and a half hours and cost $130. The Sha Lo Tung walk also offers the chance to see bats. Ecotourism HK offers firefly walks at $80.

Located five minutes’ walk from Lantau’s Tai Long pier, the Hong Kong Firefly Museum was founded in 2010 by Mark Mak Siu-fung to study, breed and protect the local firefly population. Since starting his research in 2008 Mark has catalogued more than 30 types of firefly locally including five of which are unique to Hong Kong.

The free museum features a “day and night reversal room” so that fireflies can be both seen and studied during the day as well as exhibition panels, interactive games, ecological boxes, seminars, workshops all focused on increasing awareness of fireflies.

However you go to see these fascinating creatures remember to respect the environment, other walkers and take home your rubbish.

Hong Kong Firefly Museum
23 Tai Lang Village, Sai Ma Wan Peninsula, Lantau Island, Hong Kong
Tel: 3488 6100 email: [email protected] www.hongkongfirefly.org

Hong Kong Adventure Tours
www.adventuretours.hk [email protected]

Hong Kong Ecotourism Society
www.ecotourism.org.hk [email protected]

Le French GourMay Opening Celebration – 30 April, 2017

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Le French GourMay 2017 started with a champagne tasting hosted by Cru Magazine at the Renaissance Hotel. Over 70 different brands and vintages were offered to guests. The food festival which runs in parallel with the arts festival features a wide range of gastronomic delights – see the website for full details.
Click on any photo for more images.

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Womens Cricket Squad Announced

As the domestic season draws to a close HK Cricket’s selectors have announced the 19 players who’ll form the Hong Kong women’s squad, as they prepare for two key international tournaments later in 2017.

The squad will participate in the ICC Women’s World T20 qualifiers (East Asia Region) in August/September and the East Asia Cup, which will be hosted in Hong Kong. New full-time head coach Richard Waite is looking forward to the challenge.

It’s the first time Hong Kong’s women cricketers have had a dedicated women’s coach and Waite has been impressed with the talent available in his first two months in the job. “We’ve had open sessions to put all players through their paces. During the process of the open sessions, the level of commitment and hard work shown by all players involved has been terrific,” Waite said.

“The belief within the squad is extremely high and we are hungry for success. The next 4 months sees the squad step up their training, and I am extremely thankful with local cricket clubs for showing their support by enabling various fixtures to be played to give them as much game time as possible. This along with a potential training camp in Sri Lanka will put the girls at the peak of their performance and will be a hard side to beat. Our goal is is to qualify for the Women’s T20 World Cup and to win the East Asia Cup, we will work as hard as ever to achieve this goal.”

The team again will again be captained by Mariko Hill, with Waite happy with the balance of experience and youth. “Players like Emma Lai, Kary Chan, and Annie Ho can provide exciting role models for local girls to look up to and give them the passion to go out and play cricket. We have seen that the standard of women’s cricket is constantly being pushed forwards and we must ensure that we have a structure in place that produces a continual stream of talented players, with this in mind we have created an open development squad that will be beneath the national squad, giving us players for the future.”

Hong Kong Women’s Cricket Squad 2017

1. Mariko Hill (Captain)
2. Jenefer Davies (wicket-keeper)
3. Kary Chan
4. Jasmine Titmuss
5. Emma Lai
6. Shanzeen Shahzad
7. Yasmin Daswani
8. Keenu Gill
9. Natural Yip (wkt)
10. Ka Man Chan
11. Ruchita Venkatesh
12. Pull To
13. Mary Henderson
14. Chan Sau Ha
15. Marina Lamplough
16. Annie Ho
Development selections
1. Ashley Hung
2. Lemon Cheung
3. Mehreen Yousaf

Additional reporting photos: HK Cricket

Ice Hockey 5s Fast and Furious

The action will be fast and furious at the Ice Hockey 5s, now in it’s twenty third year and celebrating it’s tenth anniversary at MegaBox. Over 1,600 players from nearly 90 teams and 14 countries will be participating in the frenetic action.

The original 5s tournament began in 1994, when due to the size of the available ice-rinks the number of players per team was reduced from the traditional 6 to 5, hence its name. The MegaBox ice rink is of international size and the tournament reverted to 6 player teams in 2008.

This year’s Youth Division tournament takes place 24-29 April while the Adults are skates down from 1-6 May with the finals streamed live on youtube for those who can’t make it to Kowloon Bay.

Ice Hockey 5s
Date: 1-6 May, 2017
Venue: Mega Ice
Tickets: free

Photo: Ice Hockey 5s

I, Wu Song – A One-man Chinese Opera

Chinese opera has often been seen as an art form that tells historical tales, and that of Wu Song’s is one of the classics. Yet in this new production by The Gong Strikes One, Wu is no longer the protagonist, nor does Chinese opera take up the task to tell his story.

Instead, Wu’s story is transformed into a medium for Chinese opera to explore itself as a theatrical form of body movements and musical gestures. All utterances have been removed and Wu now becomes no more than an anonymous man on stage, called “I”.

I, Wu Song – A One-man Chinese Opera
The Gong Strikes One
Date: 8pm, 10-11 June, 2017
Venue: HK Cultural Centre, Studio Theatre
Tickets: $180, $160 from Urbtix