Interview with WaterfallsandCaribous

Let me interrupt my series of Seoul/South Korea posts to introduce you to one of my long-time favourite blogs, which is WaterfallsandCaribous – a weird name for a great blog about travelling and living in Hong Kong. It’s run by Dan and H-J, two Kiwis, who have recently been joined by their little girl Olive.

Of course, there is a great story behind the blog name – it has got to do with Tom Cruise, the movie Cocktail and looking for something new.

WaterfallsandCaribous is a great resource to find out more about travelling through India, living in Korea, drinking coffee, travelling in general and of course – living in Hong Kong!

I still can’t believe Dan and H-J went out to test pineapple buns across Hong Kong and even played mini golf in Shek O. I love that they both go out of their ways to discover areas of Hong Kong that might not be on everyone’s usual route – like their foodie tour of North Point!

So without much further ado, let me talk to H-J about about WaterfallsandCaribous.

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What made you start a blog?
Initially it seemed to be a travel blog, but at the moment, I would consider it a HK blog.

Is that what you intended and/or will it change?
Our blog started when we were tricked into living in small town Korea – it was really as a way of trying to process the absurd cultural differences as well as make us do more interesting things! Having the blog forced us to go out and look for adventures, no matter how random, and also allowed us to ‘talk’ to people about the super weird cultural experiences we were having. It’s never really been a travel blog per se – more it’s been a way to process and document wherever we’ve happened to be for whatever length of time. We’d love to travel without having to work…alas, we haven’t won Lotto yet so have random working expat jaunts with holidays in between instead.

What has been your highlight so far? Or what has made you proud or very happy?
So many highlights…daily picture postcard sunsets in the Caribbean; Dan’s 30th in India with the Taj Mahal and beef burgers; making coffees on the Great Wall; a memorable seafood lunch at the bottom of a cliff in Korea bought to us by an elderly woman diver; having a somewhat unexpected baby in Hong Kong..! Tackling every challenge and coming out the other side smiling (or usually cracking up with laughter) makes us proud AND happy.

Where do you get your inspiration from? What future blog posts have you got planned? Are you thinking of expanding your ‘pregnancy’ series to include tips with a newborn baby?
We get our inspiration from the fact that we never choose the easy way to do things…and accordingly have some pretty odd experiences/get lost/find something we weren’t expecting to. However, HK is a bit of a challenge on that front – we actually wrote a blog post on how difficult it can be to be a blogger in HK with it’s lack of difficulties, haha. Coffee, art, beaches and FOOD are some of the things that drive us so exploring those has taken us to areas that we might not have seen otherwise. We will travel for ridiculous distances with the smallest thing in mind. In recent times we’ve had a strong bent towards writing about food and have a few cool, epic things in HK to exploit on that front!

With regards to the Dumpling blog, that was started as a way to hopefully provide expat women in Hong Kong with information about the public maternity system here as I found it incredibly difficult to source details about anything and, at times, felt a bit lost. I shall continue to write it for as long as I’m here and have tips to share and hope that it helps someone, anyone, everyone!

What three tips would you give to people visiting Hong Kong who have seen the obvious sights (the peak, the harbour, ate all the dim sum and went to Stanley…) – is there something quirky, off the beaten track that people should know about?
Yeah, the touristy stuff in HK can be a bit same-same but should definitely be ticked off visitors’ lists anyway! Our biggest recommendation is not a place but rather a tactic – choose something you’re interested in and then try and sample each and every example of that thing in as many different suburbs and areas as you can. It’s a great way to explore HK and see places you might not otherwise. Plus you get to have a ridiculous amount of something you love. Other tips, hmm…mini-golf in Shek O is the biggest laugh we’ve had. Oh and Yuen Long is a surprisingly good destination for street art, coffee and a funky multi-cultural vibe. The world Siphon Champ holds court at Accro cafe. Who knew?!

What other blogs do you read?
Excuse the language but our favourite HK food blog is fuckyeahnoms.com. We also read http://howsitgoing-eh.com/ for our Canadian fix and “what to expect” baby guff (their bub is just a couple of months older than ours!), http://seoulstateofmind.com/ for gorgeous photos of Korea, http://expatlingo.com/ for Jen’s humourous take on being a ‘serial expat’, http://girlinafoodfrenzy.com/ for inspiring food stuff and http://aboutaddisababa.wordpress.com/ for a fascinating and personal look at the number one destination on our ‘to-do’ list, Ethiopia.

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Thanks H-J, it was nice talking with you and finding out a little bit more about what goes on behind the scenes of your blog!

[All pictures in this post belong to H-J and Dan at WaterfallsandCaribous]

PS: Missed a previous interview with a Hong Kong blogger or expert? Check out my series here & contact me on bluebaluinHK at gmail.com if you want to participate.