The Quest for BOPs

While we were in NQ, Baby Jane bought two rather nice paintings of Birds of Paradise - the flowers not the birds or the Regency era prossies - here! let me show you some ...

... but despite her knowing exactly where she planned to hang them, we ran around her house trying them in different spots, and everywhere we put them they looked exactly right.

"This is a house that's crying out for BOPs."  I told her.

She agreed.

She also lives right next to many BOP plantations (I once spent a very pleasant morning with Other Jane - "Over-the-hill Jane" - driving around these plantations picking up a host of subtly different-coloured BOPS so Other Jane - an artist - could make up her weekly spectacular household flower arrangements.) so we decided it's only right, yes?, that Our Jane pay artistic tribute to her immediate locality!

So to this end we hunted around Cairns and environs for more paintings but, alas, BOPs were nowhere to be found so that's when I undertook to both travel up to Dafen to find more BOP paintings and to also search HK for fake BOP flowers, to act as sculptures of sorts!

Thus, in lieu of a trip to Dafen, last week I BOP-hunted around HK but without success.  Ovo - absolutely my current favourite shop - had some, only they were all in black-and-white, which really begs the question WHY????  I mean, the whole point of BOPs is the clash of colours so WHY, WHY, WHY????

Anyway, the other night, I brought up this knotty BOP-absence-problem with friends.  "Why don't you try the Mong Kok Flower Markets?" everyone suggested. "The WHAT???"

No, seriously.  I had never even heard of the Mong Kok flower markets!  It made me rather cross because at some point, Keith and I stopped exploring HK because we believed, stupidly as it turns out, that we'd seen everything.  No, seriously! That's what we thought.  "Denise, you ARE a worry." said Wendy!

So yesterday, Keith and I had a big new HK tourist-style adventure, jaunting through the Mong Kok Flower Markets ... and yes, they had BOPs, both real and fake ... so I bought up the entire market's stock of fake BOPs and here they are ...

... honestly, after a four-hour search, that's every single fake BOP in Mong Kok. Since I had visions of a house with BOPs galore in every room, this was desperately disappointing.

But it was hardly what you'd call a wasted jaunt - although I did discover I'm a tad over orchids, which came as rather a shock because they have always been my favourite plant, both because my mother grew them and also because they are practically impossible to kill - because we came across a plant we'd never seen before ...

 ... that they are currently promoting as "the latest fud" - "treasure to give, fan to get." - which I fell deeply in love with, although I have no idea what they are nor what they're called because apart from the sublime comments above, everything about them was in Chinese.

So after those many hours of sheer jaunting-pleasure, we went up to the Mong Kok Goldfish Market, and then the Mong Kok Bird Market ...

This pretty baby had the most 

sinister "evil villian" laugh!

... but those are other stories.

In the meantime, the quest for a household full of BOPs continues.  Any suggestions?