Binky is exploring the north hemisphere

Excelsior - Lounge on the 1st

2010-03-26T06:07:00.000-07:00

Very quickly, this was the WORST afternoon tea place we have been to yet. First, it was being renovated so there weren't that many seats and then there were a lot of "si lai" (noisy, asian middle-aged housewives) sitting at the next table and then a man on the table near us decides to give himself a manicure and clip his nails at the table (how are you supposed to have a nice relaxing conversation with people when you can't really hear your friend and you also have the sharp "click, click" of the nail clippers.

Ignoring all that for now and go to the food... the team came in one of those glass pots where you put the tea in the metal strainer. The strainer wasn't fine enough (or the tea was too fine) and so you have tea leaves floating in a very weak looking too (the water wasn't hot enough either).

The Tea Pot

So we ordered the afternoon tea set for two... it was very disappointing...

It "looked" ok but the sandwiches were dry, the cakes nothing special - as testament to that we didn't even finish most of it. I think the carrot cake was the only decent thing in the whole set (and i don't really like carrot cake). There was a ham and cheese quiche and that was just foul (no other word for it, it smelled funny and tasted bad).

Thinking we were going to be hungry we ordered their house salad... nothing special about that either. The pre-made salads from the supermarket tasted better than it.

Overall a very disappointing afternoon (and it considering it was our first in quite a few months, it was depressing)

Conrad - Lobby Lounge

2009-09-12T20:03:00.001-07:00

Well this one is quite an old one and was a buffet.... the only thing we remembered of this buffet was that it wasn't that good... we were hard pressed to even remember where we had it!

Langham Place Hotel Hong Kong

2009-09-10T07:45:00.000-07:00

Stay tuned, we're hitting Langham Place this week! Our first Kowloon afternoon tea (since Intercon)

Mandarin Oriental

2009-08-10T07:41:00.000-07:00

Gosh, it feels like it's been a while since i last went to high-tea. have to get back into the mode but the last few months seems to have been flying.

On Sunday Erica and I hit the Mandarin Oriental (the one on Connaught Rd), we accidentally got there a little early so spent some time at Oliver's doing some shopping, i made a mental shopping list to come back AFTER eating - considering how hot and humid it was, definitely not a good idea to be wandering around with raw meat without any cooler bags.

Back to the reason for this post, at 3pm we headed up to the lounge (reservations are recommended as it can get quite busy, it a 'quiet' way - not like the Peninsula which is a bit of a circus).

The menu. In terms of black tea, not much to choose from they have a wide selection of "asian" tea but given this is good old English afternoon tea, definitely should stick to 'english' tea - so i went for English Breakfast tea while Erica went for Earl Grey. Actually thinking about it, none of the places i've been to so far actually serve "afternoon tea" leaves - quite interesting..

Anyway the tea arrived in nice silver tea pots, the strainer wasn't fineenough to get all the tea leaves though but the tea was nice enough.

Well considering we were there for afternoon tea we hardly had to decide what we were going to order. the benefit of going with two or more people is that you don't have to choose what savouries/scones that you'd like - we had to wait quite a while for the set to arrive:

Tier number 1: the sandwiches: they were pretty nice, bread was a tiny little bit dry though
Tier number 2: The savouries. All were delicious (i was in a savour mood though)
Tier number 3: the dessert - i have to say, we didn't actually finish it off, it was too sweet...
The scones! Verry nice and i just realised i didn't get any photos of the jam and cream. The jam was very tasty it was strawberry but also had a hint of something else... neither Erica nor I could place it but it was like strawberry jam made with rosewater or something. the effect was quite pleasant and the scones were pretty good as well - I can't remember all the scones i've eaten so far but these rank on the top of the list.

Atmosphere: it was quite, conversations were kept soft but that could be because the tables are fairly well spaced. Seats were comfortable as well... unfortunately i'd have to say there is something about the Intercontinental - it's still on the top of my list. I will probably have to do Intercon another go, just in case i'm biased because it was the first one we hit on this High Tea of Hong Kong journey...

On a separate note, the problem with the Peninsula is that ... for such a 'high class' hotel, the lounge is too much of a zoo. It lacks the style associated with the name of the hotel - probably because it's now a tourist trap... I'd have to say that so far, the Mandarin Oriental has been the classiest hotel we've been to - probably because it's a little out of the way, it is really an enjoyable place to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Aside from the afternoon tea buffets, i think we've pretty much done all the afternoon teas on the Hong Kong side - we will start hitting the Kowloon ones next albeit a bit reluctantly since we both hate the crowds associated with the Kowloon side...

Revised High Tea list

2009-06-02T07:24:00.000-07:00

Sheraton - Sky Lounge
Conrad - Lobby Lounge
The Excelsior - Lounge on the 1st
Grand Hyatt - Tiffin
JW Mariott - The Lounge
Langham Place Hotel Hong Kong
The Landmark Mandarin Oriental - MO Bar

So many places! Not enough weekends!!

High Tea #4 - W Hotel

2009-06-02T07:20:00.000-07:00

[I didn't go to this one but my High Tea buddy (Erica) did!]
Verdict: "Don't bother with this one"

From what i gather, there are multiple sets to choose from. Erica chose the Oriental one

I have to say presentation looks good (different to the tea trays that we've had so far)

The experience is best described by Erica herself:

so besides the oriental pastry, you get "scones". It was sooooo not a real scone.. it's the front two in the picture.. yep can be eaten with one bite.. then the cream for the scones were ordinary cream, not the clotted cream style..

We had iced coffee rather than tea, but I saw on other tables that it wasn't the silver teapot style...

Then let's move onto the ambience... well W hotel is a funky retro style hotel so it didn't have the english high tea feeel so I guess for me the food didn't do it and the ambience was way off...

It was the most disapointing high tea ever!!!

High Tea #3 - Shangri La: Lobby Lounge

2009-06-02T06:54:00.000-07:00

Good progress on the journey to tasting all of Hong Kong's High/Afternoon tea locations. This time it's at the Shangri La Lobby Lounge (on top of Pacific Place in Admiralty).

This is the first place to offer the choice of three tea sets: Wimbledon, Shangri-La and Traditional.We had a bigger party this afternoon and so managed to order all three sets. The scones came in their own separate basket and i must say these are the best scones out of the ones i've been to so far. Soft and not too big/small. The condiments were also tasty as well.

This is a single serving of the Wimbledon and Shangri-La set:
My friends tried the strawberries and found them a little sour... i guess it's just hit and miss with fruits...
and this is the traditional set - i opted for this one as it was closer to all the other sets that we have eaten so far (best to compare similar things, to be fair)
What an oversight! I just realised i hadn't taken any pictures of the teapots! But they were tea leaves and steel/pewter things. The tea was nice the only gripe is they explicitly say only ONE pot of tea (unlike the other contenders which have replaced the tea leaves/bags upon request)

The sandwiches were a tad small, just a little bit bigger would have been great. The madelines didn't compare to the one at Intercontinental either.

Atmosphere was good though - instead of havint the tea at the lobby lounge, you can opt to have it at the cake shop down one floor (i can't remember the name) but glancing at it on the way it. it's not as relaxing as having it in the lounge.
Verdict: Intercontinental Tsim Sha Tsui is still the winner for me.

Four Seasons - Afternoon Tea

2009-05-09T04:42:00.000-07:00

Afternoon tea #2 - Four Seasons
Official Site: http://www.fourseasons.com/hongkong/dining/the_lounge.html

Today i hit the Four Seasons Afternoon Tea in Central, Hong Kong. The occasion was an 'beat the rush' mother's day tea with my mum (and aunt).

The servings are as follows:
The tea set (this is for 3 people so don't get excited by the number of servings)

Here's some close-ups of the savouries (the sandwiches weren't worth photograhing - they were dry and bland)

The first is a prosciuto on toast, 2nd is an egg salad concoction with caviar - both were quite nice.
The third was a little profiterole with something that i found kind of bland inside.

The tea set - not much variety of tea to choose from (they had breakfast/afternoon/earl grey and two others for the 'black' teas), unlike the Intercontinental and inside the teapot was ... a tea bag!!! That was a little disappointing. It's nice that the waiters pour the tea for you when your cup is empty but it would have been nice if they actually asked if you would like another tea bag when the tea coming out of the pot is almost the colour of the water they poured in!

Close-ups of the dessert part of the afternoon tea. I found the chocolate mud slice a little on the heavy side (that said, i've had 'heavier' cakes before) It's just a matter of taste/mood. The things in the little glass was pineapple and coconut jelly. I'm not sure what kind of cream base they used but it was my favourite out of section of the tea. I'm not a fan of maccaroons either so they were wasted on me. the little strawberries biscuits with a bit of gold flakes was nice though.

Atmosphere - seating was comfortable and it was surprisingly not crowded. It'll probably be different tomorrow. Tip: If you arrive well before the 3pm starting time and they take your name down before directing you to wait in the lobby, remember to ask for a window seat (if you would like a view of the Kowloon side) - we didn't know and missed out.
There is live music (grand piano + cello) - the grand piano was nice but at times it was a bit loud. We were the closest table to the piano though so if you're sitting at the back of the lounge it may be better. It was still nice and relaxing though the view isn't as great as the Intercon - because the lounge is in the lobby of the hotel you don't get that great of a view, it'll probably be better if the Lounge was on the next level up or something.

Restrooms - very nice - this was one thing that is better than the Intercon. Neat, spacious, dressing tables, multiple cubicles! (most important considering the amount of tea you can drink)

Verdict - Intercon is still my first choice, if you're doing the afternoon/high tea circuit in Hong Kong. Four Seasons is a must-try but i don't think i'll go back (yet).

The outside of the hotel is nice but you have to walk through all the cars parked around in front to get to the lobby and there's no clear pedestrian path leading from ifc One to the front door. The Peninsula is definitely the winner for grand entrances (though that said, you have to walk up the driveway....) :P

High/Afternoon Tea Spots

2009-05-04T06:14:00.001-07:00

Here's the initial list of locations:

Sheraton - Sky Lounge
Conrad - Lobby Lounge
The Excelsior - Lounge on the 1st
Grand Hyatt - Tiffin
Shangri-La - Lobby Lounge
JW Mariott - The Lounge
Langham Place Hotel Hong Kong

The Landmark Mandarin Oriental - MO Bar
Four Seasons - The Lounge

High Tea at the Intercontinental, Hong Kong

2009-05-02T21:50:00.001-07:00

A picture is worth a thousand words, if you're reading this you're obviously curious as to what the 'High/Afternoon Tea' at the Intercontinental Hong Kong offers.

You definitely won't be disappointed with the amount of food they provide (as dainty as it looks)

The presentation was lovely, atmosphere was great (especially with a rare, clear view of the Hong Kong side from the lounge area)

Scones and cakes were light, moist and very tasty (i rate these better than the ones at Peninsula which tend to be big but a bit more on the hard side. The madelines were nice as well, not dry or flaky.

The bonus was the little mango pudding that came towards the end - the mango puree was delicious though the mango ball was kinda sour - don't know if that was deliberate but i guess you could say it was a nice kick with all the sweetness but still kinda gave me a shiver.

The service was good, they came around checked your tea pots to see if it needed refilling or even changed the tea leaves when you asked (I found at the Pen you were constantly trying to get someone's attention and they were always busy)

At the same price as the Pen, ($398 for two) it is so far at the top of my list.

They have live music as well and because of the massive windows it's very bright, relaxed and not as noisy at the Peninsula.

The only 'bad' thing is the female toilets... there is only 1 cubicle?! so expect to wait in line...

Not that you would normally do this but Erica and I also felt like some chips (blame the person a few tables over who ordered it) so we ordered it as well:
They were great, nice and crispy - maybe a touch too much salt (but it was still ok). They cost about $75HKD though (though there were tonnes of it - so small price to pay) and if you're worried about too much oil we got to the bottom of it and the paper it was wrapped in didn't have any oil stains so definitely worth points there!

Total Cost: $398 (tea set for 2) + $75 (for the chips) + 10% service charge
= a very nice relaxing afternoon!

New purpose!!

2009-05-02T21:44:00.000-07:00

my blog has now got a new purpose! i'm going to blog all the High Tea places in Hong Kong and review them with Erica!!!

So far i've done the Peninsula and Intercontinental. Erica has done the Mandarin Oriental (MO) and will be doing the Four Seasons today.

I've been to the Peninsula twice (obligatory tourist thing...) and only did the Intercontinental once. So far Intercon is the better of the two, Erica says it she prefers to to the MO as well.

I'll put the details into a separate post though...

Dilemma, dilemma

2009-04-21T09:33:00.001-07:00

So much to think about all the time, no wonder we get white hair - i was gonna say gray but that's not accurate since gray is just the combination of white and black hair (as Polgara says). My most common dilemmas: what to eat, what to wear, where to go, what to do. It's enough to drive you mad (or to drink :P)!
Dilemma for today: to rent or buy but i have since come to the conclusion. I like my freedom too much to be tied down to anything (especially to banks - interest rates and mortgages, shudder!)

Opportunity cost of owning a place, less holidays, watching your budget, worrying about management fees, refurbishments - ugh no thanks.

The only problem is I make a decision and then have second thoughts - it's such a vicious cycle. My problems would be solved if i just won a jackpot :P arghhhhhhh

alrighty then, onto my next dilemma - what to wear to work tomorrow...

better go to sleep otherwise my first dilemma tomorrow morning is whether to get out of bed or not

A Post!

2009-04-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

Oh my gawd, what is this? Bink is actually putting up a post after near 3 months of bludging.
What has happened in this time? I've been to Sydney and back (spent a wonderful 3 weeks back home) but it was gone so fast. What i learnt is NEVER to go back and work from in the local office while you're back home, it is terribly unproductive I was in such a holiday mood and the day seemed to go so fast as well. I didn't fit in half the things i wanted to do (mostly involving, visiting my favourite restaurants). Nothing beats Sydney food, sure Hong Kong has the variety but it just doesn't have the taste. I even prefer Sydney Chinese food to HK though there are definitely things you can't get back in Sydney so it's always worth coming over to HK for a food-orientated holiday.

Ok so that was pretty much February gone. I should make a mention of the little accident that Ben had in Korea the day before i left for Sydney. Ben-Klutzy went skiing with Bev and concussed a girl and did some serious damage to his butt - resulting in spending 3 weeks in the hospital in Korea instead of skiing and getting drunk. (Sympathy for poor Bev who ended up visiting him in the hospital every day, all the while having to do Winter Intensive classes at his school). Anyway, 3 weeks passed and Ben came back and met mum and me at HK airport where he was going to rest a few days before returning home.

Not much happened that week, considering Ben wasn't very mobile on his crutches, and the fact that he didn't have much of an appetite (shock! gasp! Ben saying he was full after a half bowl of rice and a little bit of food) not to mention he looked anorexic from 3 weeks of hospital food (good way to go on a diet people!). Anywayz, Ben returns home for a few weeks before returning to London with the parentals, during this time Bev has finished up his contract and i decide to head to Korea to go for one last round of eating/shopping while i have a free interpreter/guide as well as lend him my baggage allowance for the return trip. That was a fun but extremely tiring weekend, which started with my catching a midnight plane to Korea (after a day of working on Friday) - trying to sleep on the plane, then the bus on the way out to where Bev was gonig to meet me. We made it back to his apartment before we crashed (plans to visit the local fish market, out the window as sleep beckoned) then it was eating , eating, eating (interlude where Bev floods his apartment with laundry water - at least his floor was VERY clean afterwards)

Crap, it's 1am better go to sleep and write some more tomorrow. Unfortunately i have been extremely bad and haven't made it to work before 9:15am for the last week.... will have to try harder. I just don't know how it happens 8:30 rolls around and i still haven't left the apartment... *sigh*

Homecoming!

2009-01-27T18:21:00.000-08:00

I've been home for 3 days now! It's been great and kind of weird.
My return started off with the quickest exit from Sydney Airport, i was out of the airport in less than 40 minutes (that's including customs!) world record i think.
I even beat mum and dad out!

The doggies hadn't forgotten me (which is a good sign) - i was a bit worried Wei would tear my arm off because he didn't recognise me. But luckily he was very happy to see me. Lulu kinda ignored me a little (sily b*tch) hehe

But gosh it's so different coming back to a roomy house, went into the bathroom and was surprised at how roomy it felt (for perspective, our bathroom at home is the size of almost two of my bathrooms in HK). Hell, i think my whole apartment can fit into our living room/kitchen!

It's been incredibly hard to get up every morning the weather is making me feel so lethargic. I don't know how i'm going to be able to get up on Friday to get to work... but geez i wouldn't mind not working at all!

I was in a writing mood before but no such much now... i'll have to think of something else to write

A post for the sake of posting

2008-12-10T07:14:00.000-08:00

i can't believe it's been a month and a half since i last posted - not much has happened though since then, time appears to have gone pretty quickly. bit of 'excitement' at work though i guess it's not really excitement, more like tense, wary, fear - it was kind of strange. you hear of all the redundancies happening and you don't think it'll strike so close to you then arrive at work last monday morning and find that your team has been affected and people you know are out of a job. I can't say i felt sorry for them and although people were saying that they were sorry you can't help but wonder if they're thinking 'thank god it wasn't me'.

i don't know why but i was kind of indifferent, it seemed unreal to me and i was a bit 'shrug my shoulders, oh well' - I like to plan, i had already decided i'd go on a 1 month holiday to Germany first and then perhaps do a nice country tour of Englad and leech off Benny-boy if i got laid off. I guess it is really bad for people who have a family to feed, mortgages to pay off but if it's not happening to you and you are not in a similar situation it's really hard to relate to it... i hope that doesn't sound too bad of me.. :(

I'm feeling a bit contemplative today so i'm just letting my fingers type whatever comes to my head. Karina, her mum and gran are currently staying with me (though they have gone to Japan for a week at the moment) i was worried the apartment would get crowded but we have managed quite well and we don't get in each other's way, i guess it helps i'm working during the day and they go out and come back late.

hmm, i have a shopping day planned this weekend hopefully i'll do a bit of retail therapy (not that i need therapy but what's the point of earning money and not spending it!)

oh i guess i should write about something a little more interesting. Another food place opened across the street from my apartment! It's a miso ramen place, Karina and I tried it the other day after a nice foot massage session. it was pretty late in the afternoon and unfortunately everything we ordered was already "sold out" - either it was really sold out or they didn't have it in the first place. The staff appeared to be quite disorganised, the waiter told us the gyoza were sold out so we ordered the calamari rings - a little while later the gyoza's turned up!?

i guess there was some miscommunications, maybe our order was the last plate and the waiter misinterpreted it.

The side dishes

Then our side dishes came twice, though being honest we said they'd already arrived. The food was ok - nothing too crash hot but it's convenient i guess. i'll have to go down and take a picture of the food places around my apartment it's great for when i come home late from work and can't be bothered cooking.

bit of a lame post (i'm sure ben/bev will have something to say about this...) but not in the mood to write anymore... maybe after this weekend...

My Sunday Dinner

2008-11-09T02:59:00.000-08:00

Mmm, Sunday night dinner.

My all time favourite ingredient has to be chicken wings. So easy to cook and delicious.
Tonight my dinner is quite simple, chicken wings cooked in soya sauce.
Chop the chicken wings (& drumsticks) in half throw it into the wok and through the normal and 'old' soy sauce in with some salt and sugar then toss it until it cooks.
Thicken the soy sauce by dumping in some corn starch and viola!

The Marco Polo German Bierfest 2008

2008-11-06T09:00:00.000-08:00

Erica invited me to the German Bierfest held at the Marco Polo hotel in Kowloon.
Headed there after work, it was actually held at the other end of a carpark the "viewing platform" as they call it (the view of Hong Kong was quite nice from there, and we were lucky that it was a 'clear' night as well.
The tickets were $99HKD and included a "free" bier (Lowenbrau) and a souvenir beer glass.
You had to pay extra for real food - relatively speaking the prices were that steep either.
there was a german band and plenty of beer everywhere - the amusing thing about drinking in Hong Kong is how red the people get after one beer (granted the beer was a pretty big glass, i think bigger than the average schooner.
As a starter we got some... pretzels!
I liked these ones better than the ones in Germany, at least you don't get a sore jaw by the time you finish eating it.

Once the entertain started, we quickly went to get some food.
I went for the Nuemburger sausages (I *think* that's how you spell it... it was N..m.. something sausage)
The guys went for the pork knuckle (of course)... i didn't go for it because it didn't have serious crackling...

Here's Erica trying to get a headstart on everyone:
though she didn't even finish her FIRST beer.

After pigging out, i went and bought a round of Jeiger bombs for 4 of us (Purdey opted for an alcohol free night). the only dumb thing is they give you a plastic cup with the Jeigermeister.... and what happens when you try to bomb it into the red bull.... the cup floats so you end up shooting the red bull and you're stuck with the Jeiger... lesson learnt, next time just tip the Jeiger in an scull.

Ok it's getting late here so i'll just dump a couple of funny videos up for you to enjoy.
The night ended with some competitions, the guys had to see who could yodel the best... boy it was kinda embarrassingly.
WARNING: This is kinda painful...

The girls had to see who could blow the horn... (coming soon it's too big to upload here)

The Verdict

2008-11-04T04:39:00.000-08:00

I was too stuffed to be bothered to post the picture of the end result last night (not because it wasn't presentable!)

So here it is:
It wasn't too bad, probably should have left it to bake for about 10 more mins (since my crappy little oven only goes to 250 degrees instead of the 325 that the recipe asked for) I think i like pan fried salmon more but this was healthy enough.

The black sauce is, of course, my white truffle balsamic sauce -not bad. BTW, it's sitting on a bed of rice.

Here's the recipe:

Baked Salmon Fillet
place salmon on foil
spread onion on top
drizzle with lemon juice
bake @ 325 degrees for 25 mins

- i obviously mucked around with the order of it and added salt and pepper..

Think i'l just have bread tonight and the soup i made a couple of days ago...

Tomorrow will be fun, going to the bierfest at the Marco Polo Hotel in Tsim Tsa Tsui!

my first cooking experiment

2008-11-03T03:46:00.000-08:00

Why experiment? you say. that's because i've never cooked something like this before. I guess i should briefly add i did a spaghetti bolognese last night - delicious as always but tonight i thought i'd go for something a bit lighter.
So i headed off to Apita after work and bought the following:

I bought other stuff (of course) but they're not relevant to this particular meal so i won't mention it for now. The 'white truffle balsamic' was a bit of an impulse buy, i heard/read somewhere that it's supposed to be nice so i guess i'll find out.

Ok,

so first thing first - wash and debone the salmon - unfortunately didn't have any pliers (or fingernails to be able to grab the bones out quickly, need to put one on my shopping list)
anyway after that, pat it dry then sprinkel some salt and pepper on it then squeeze some lemon juice over it (ok not really squeeze coz i cheated and bought lemon juice because Apita didn't have any lemons, that i could see)

Get a piece of foil, dump the salmon on it and pour the pepper/salt/lemon juice over it (from the plate)
Thinly slice up the onion and dump it on top then voila
Pop it into my poor excuse of an oven and wait...

Next, is to make some rice (well, enough for my lunch tomorrow as well) and wash the sprouts.

Damn... mmm 5 day old rice in the rice cooker in humid weather - totally gross!!!! i had to disinfect the rice cooker bowl, that's the problem with living by yourself. You eat out a few days are you have all sorts of weird science experiments. I left some bread and a kiwi fruit in the office overnight and came back to a full blown mould colony - thank god it was in a zip lock bag...

Anyway... just tried some of the white truffle balsamic - yummy!!!

Next post... the end result!

Disneyland

2008-10-27T21:00:00.000-07:00

Ingrid and I headed off to Disneyland today, it was a pleasant day and i had fully recovered from my bout of i don't know what, from Friday/Saturday/Sunday morning.

We started kinda late and got to Sunny Bay around midday anyway we were greeted by the Disney MTR.. which is kinda cute!
But what really gets you is the statues inside the train - gosh if there were less people on the train i'd probably walk up and down just to see them all. Here are the ones that were closest to us:

Can't remember how long the train ride took but before you know it we'd arrived at:
It was a bit of a walk to the front entrance, and before we got there -there was a massive fountain that was playing all this Disney music and the water moved in time with the music, Ben will probably love this:

We bought our tickets (which are cheaper if you go between Mon-Thu) and headed through the gates.
First stop was the "Main Street Haunted Hotel" which didn't open until 1pm so we had to wait around for it (but since it was still early there wasn't much of a line and we got in pretty quickly)
There was a group of Japanese children with a few mothers looking after them, they got to the front of the door and a few chickened out (because you enter the mansion through this massive door and the park people actually rap the big door knocker thingy before you enter - i really should've taken a picture of that). No pictures allowed inside (of course) but i have got to say that it would've been pretty scary if we weren't kinda rushed through it (and of course, the group of kids in front were so petrified by the first room they were screaming the heads off - there was a little boy in the group and he had to be carried thru the whole house, poor thing). Back to the house, it was pretty good except it was too dark so you were squinting to see anything. It would've been scarier if they spread out the groups more and brightened up the room a little bit more so you could see (= you could see what would be scary the sh!t out of you)
the decorations were extremely well done - i'd rate it better than the Ocean Park scary houses actually but again, lose points for being too dark.

After finishing the house we headed back outside and surprisingly, all the screaming Jap kids seemed to be fine after seeing daylight (i guess they have the rest of the day to get over the "horrors" they saw... but after "The Ring" i have no idea why they would be scared.)
Anyway, off to Adventureland next

and another Haunted House "Adventureland Haunted Trail" - i think Ingrid found the port-a-loo's more disturbing than the 'trail', i can't remember much of it so i won't talk about it.
We started to get hungry but instead of food we got side-tracked by the "Festival of the Lion King" which Ingrid tells me i'd appreciate more if i had actually watched "The Lion King" but still it was nice. I did get teary in one of the sections, can't remember which bit though...

After a nice relaxing 30 minute show, we heading to the "Jungle river Cruise" and i did have my doubts but the ride actually was pretty fun:

elephants, spiders, crocodiles, pirahnas, cannibals, hippos etc... and more, but i won't say anything b/c it'll ruin the ride.

Finally! Breaktime, though the girl at the snack store managed to somehow think both of us wanted 2 serves of curry fish balls and a pasta cone.. what is a pasta cone you ask?
Yup, a waffle cone with spag bol in it... weird...
what's even weirder is Ingrid finished it all. Adventurous of her to try a fish ball, though it only got as far as her mouth before she spit it back out (didn't even get a bite of it) - they weren't that good... i don't seem to be having much luck with fish balls these days...

Next up was "Mickey's PhilharMagic".... it was brilliant!! that is all i'm going to say about it otherwise it'll ruin it.

Now, with the heat i think i was starting to suffer serious dehydration - we were pretty clever had brought a bottle of ice water and a bottle of just water and mixed the two to get ice water but still i was feeling a bit off after "Mickey's PhilharMagic" so what did i do to fix it?

Yup, we went on the tea cups that spun around in crazy arcs.... Ingrid nearly chickened out for some reason but she did eventually get on and we both had tonnes of fun - though i think the attendant thought we were a bit drunk by the end of it.

I'm surprised we didn't POUR out of the cups by the end of the ride.

Reminiscent of our 'Temple of Heaven' trip, there was this giant cup.....

I guess these photos aren't as blasphemous as those ones...

I was still feeling 'off' after this so we headed off to "It's a Small World" - i don't know what Ingrid thought this was but i figured it'll be something like that cockington green (is that the name?, that miniatures place in Canberra?) anyway. i thought it'll be like that but boy was i dead wrong...
We started the ride, sane and relaxed enough
then came the "Small world"

If you still don't understand what i'm going on about....

Arghhhhhh!!!!! I think it would've been safer for us to stay outside... we were completely traumatised by the end of the ride

Next was the Winnie the Pooh ride, surprisingly fun - totally not whta i expected. it was kinda whacky (again, my (Disney) deprived childhood is being exposed - i don't know any of the pooh stories)You know, sometimes not being able to work out camera, results in the coolest photos!

This picture reminds me of Lulu

Alrightly, Tomorrowland. I must have been tired coz i made the worst call... "wow it's so futuristic!" .... *sweatdrop*

Ingrid tried to get out of taking this photo- no idea why, it turned out pretty good.

We then jumped on another ride, can't remember the name and it was fun but too quick so i won't bother mentioning it - after that we did "Space Mountain"... all i'm going to say about that is:
We went on a few more rides after this, one was some driving track... and Ingrid probably had it worse than me but we both got stuck behind... a putt putt driver!!!!! arghhhhh and i had a little nitwit of a kid bumping me from behind while we had to keep breaking because the old man(!) in front of us couldn't work out how to accelerate. Road rage in Disneyland! They should have separated the lines into two, one for kids and people who don't know how to drive and the rest of us 'normal' people. And this was a ride we waited the longest for too!

We went on Space Mountain again, then the Buzz lightyear ride (i have got to say that was the most fun, you'd definitely have to do it a couple of times though!)

Next on the list was souvenir shopping, i didn't find anything that i liked - Ingrid did though!
good thing i brought a backpack along :) before we knew it, it was time for the Halloween Parade

That was pretty enojyable:

See facebook for all the photos

The finale:

It may have been nice to see the fireworks but the thoughts of the crowd rushing to the MTR afterwards - Ingrid and I bolted after the parade.

Headed home and had hotpot/steamboat and a bottle of beer... ahhh!

Relaxing end to the day.

Halloweeeeen!

2008-10-11T11:05:00.001-07:00

Well this is going to be my first 'exciting' post in a long time. Tonight I went to the Ocean Park Halloween Haunted House. Basically it consisted of 8 'haunted' houses that you went through. I went with Jessie, Suki, Erica and Nigel.

We arrived around 5:30pm and being suckers bought halloween themed headbands
then headed straight for the first haunted house, which also happened to be the 'scariest' one of the lot.
We bought privileged tickets which meant we were fast tracked into the haunted house but we still had to wait for while to get into this one (since it was one of the closest ones to the entrance). Poor Erica was already dreading it... (and we hadn't even gotten in yet)
The theme of this particular house was based on the old Chinese village houses - strangely enough i can't remember too much about it except I found everyone screaming really quite funny. It was probably luck that the 'ghosts' all came out and scared the people in front of us so I knew it was coming. Erica didn't fare so well, i think she screamed herself hoarse... There was a really good ghost at the end though, he kinda made me jump at little (in surprise though, not in fear). It was funny to hear people screaming, they were actually scaring themselves more.
It was great seeing the whole park decorated up with Halloween stuff, some people come dressed up as well.
We went to another Haunted house after this one, the Ghastly Entertainment City - I actually can't remember much of it - again it was a pretty funny one. There was a video showing what was happening inside and there was a button you could press to activate the 'scary' thing in the room and watch the reaction of the people - that was really funny, we waited until two guys had just walked into the room and hit the button. The panel of a painting in the wall shot down and flashed something at them and you could see the guys back out the way the came to hide... very amusing..

After that we took a break and went for a roller coaster ride on the "Mine Train" - thank god it was at night you didn't see the scenary flash by you as you went up and down - i've got to say though, for the length of time you line up the ride is terribly short. Jessie was funny, she kept her head down for most of the ride while i was going "OH MY GOD!!!!" Suki, Erica and Nigel totally enjoyed it (Nigel was sitting by himself at the front of the train... crazy man!)

We then moved towards the next Haunted House "The canton case" but convinced Nigel and Suki to go have a go on "The Abyss", a freefall ride... Nigel was eager enough to go

Erica, Jessie and I waited around - watching people get frightened by the various 'ghosts' that were wandering around the place

Anyway, finally it was Nigel and Suki's turn on the Abyss, we were obviously eager to see what their reaction was. Suki had fun but Nigel...
Man, what a funny reaction! Now, you couldn't PAY me to go on that thing.

Ok so we continued to head towards The Canton House, there was a 'quiz show' going on in front of the house. Suki went and had a go but didn't do to well (the questions had really stupid answers). Like "There was a Lobster, Prawn, Crab. Why did the prawn always lose?"... the answer because "ha llo ween" (ha 'no win', ha being prawn in cantonese... *sweatdrop*)

Anyway the line for the Canton Case was quite long, even with a fast track ticket we had to wait 30 minutes, i feel sorry for the people on 'normal' tickets. This House was basically you go to those old colonial/imperial houses, sit down in a 'dining' room where there was a cup and saucer in front of you. You are then instructed to put on some headphones and a recording starts playing, the sound is really bad so the 'guide' says he'll just go outside to check on the recording - of course, no one believes him ( i actually didn't know whether or not to believe him actually), anyway people are like "don't you DARE leave!" and he's like, well what am i supposed to do? so finally he leaves and then the lights go OUT! you're all sitting in the dark and the recording starts playing (you can choose your language, english/cantonese/mandarin) anyway you hear conversation snippets, then you 'hear' people getting killed and you're splashed with something - just as someone is getting knifed. Eeek! it was fun though. That happens a couple of times and then you hear thunder and lighting and the lights flicker as if it were really storming and you 'see' things - all in all it was pretty cool. the kicker was the things that come out from under the table and swipe your legs .... ughh freaky (but not scary). It was too short though...

Next up was the "Gruesome Green House", again the privileged line was non-existant and we went straight in. This was one of the best houses, Japanese style garden/greenhouse. except human heads are used as the pots, then you realise one of the heads is a real person - THAT was excellent. This one has to be one of my favourites.

We then went to "The 4th Dimension"
this wasn't really a 'haunted' house more like a psychadelic house, it used mirrors and wallpapers with 3D images and flickering lights. The people were also were fractal clothes - it did really wacky things to your eyes but it was REALLY cool.

How's that for an entrance?!

Well after this one we only had 3 more houses left and they were all situated in the lowland area of the part so we jumped on a cable car and headed over there.
I have to say these were the most 'disappointing' of the three - they were pretty much the same and not even scary (except i think Erica may disagree for the "Deadly Doll Factory" one) A guy was standing on the gangplank that everyone has to walk past, Jessie, Suki and I all say him and said hello or laughed at him. Erica and Nigel were behind us, she totally didn't see him so when he faced her she screamed, we all had a good laugh and the 'ghost' even had a go at here - considering he had been standing there for so long - that was pretty funny. There was also a terracotta warrior bit, i went through and saw a guy on my right, he sunk back into the shadows. Jessie followed and i heard her say "Ah i can see him!" i turned to my left and caught sight of another 'ghost' on my left. I figured "Drat, no scaring them" but then the first guy i saw walked out and scared them! They only saw the 2nd guy and didn't see the first guy. hehehe

Ahhh it was a lot of fun and the weather was actually really pleasant probably a bit on the misty/humid side but that is preferable to hot and humid. I don't know how the people on normal tickets would be able to do ALL the houses in one night. As it was we finished at 11:30pm and the park closed at 12pm - definitely recommend doing this again next year (it's a different theme every year)

And here's my favourite 'ghost' - well considering she's probably a cult icon

Check out my Facebook profile for more photos!

Absentminded

2008-09-23T00:51:00.001-07:00

I have just discovered that there is a disadvantage with leaving your shoes under your desk at work and wearing joggers to work.

I only wear slip-ons at work and with slouching at your table... i ended up walking away from my desk with two different styles of shoes on = how embarrasing.

At least i don't think anyone noticed (advantage of working with all males i guess...)

11am

Woohoo! Typhoon signal 3, pity they're only thinking about upgrading to 8 around dusk which is home ... which means the possbility of being cooped at home for dinner. Noooooo!

1pm

Mmm i think the guy cleaning the front door when i went to bathroom noticed my mismatched shoes.. i caught him checking out my shoes just before... at least he was good enough not to make a comment about it

3pm

How disappointing, Typhoon HAGUPIT has decided to give HK a miss... So much for an early mark. *sigh* oh well at least that means i can go out for dinner phew!

6pm

Woohoo!!! Typhoon signal 8. Home time people!!

After Korea

2008-09-15T08:13:00.000-07:00

Well, dad's been here to 10 days already and we've been to Korea to visit Bev and come back. I will get around to posting pictures and adding details to my blog sometime this week but be warned we actually didn't get much sight-seeing done. Our time was spent mostly eating and doing random shopping.

Insight!

2008-09-05T01:17:00.001-07:00

Well, thinking about the utter lack of things that i have to write on my blog since my day consists of work then home i figure i may as well write about the books i am reading since I have bought more books in the last 3 months than i have in the last 2 years. Let's see... I started with 2 of Patricia Cornwell's books one of which i'm sure i had read before but couldn't remember when (& i forgot who did it anyway so it was a good read). Next, I was good and bought some 'career' related books. One on Soft Skills (which was a really good read) the other an easy read but I didn't benefit much from it called Flip!

After returning from London I also went through a Henry VIII fascination and since I saw it in London and it looked interesting enough I bought all of C.J Sansom's books about Matthew Shardlake and even started to watch The Tudors with Jonathon Rhys-Myers but it got kind of annoying after a while - being to preoccupied with his bedroom exploits and obsessions... oh well.

Then Fona told me about Mr Darcy's Diary that she found pretty good so off to the bookstore to look for it, but i couldn't find it instead i came across two other books "Me and Mr Darcy" by Alexandra Potter and "The Darcys Give A Ball" (need to check that title). I found "Me and Mr Darcy" very enjoyable to read though initially i really hated how 'American' the main character was and it was a bit slow to start - though as you get into it, it's really quite a good read. The rest of her books seem to be similar, I think i'll go get them just to have a something to read - i have such a bad habit of finishing a book in one day, it really leaves me with nothing to read very quickly.... if only someone would design something like Amazon's Kindle but allows you to transfer e-books onto it directly (that'll save a look of trees, long-term money and of course, bookshelf space - which i seriously don't have much of, the shelf I do have can't really be called a shelf, more of a half-shelf).

Ohh i'm so excited dad is arriving in just over 12 hours!!!! Four weeks of fun and lots of eating... (plenty of time to lose weight once mum & dad leave :P) and we're off to korea next week to visit Bevvie....

Typhoon Nuri

2008-08-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a while since i last posted and the only interesting thing that has happened is Typhoon Nuri. Though by the end it hit Hong Kong it had weakened into a Tropical Storm, but the typhoon signal did hit no. 9. If it hadn't weakened it would probably have been a number 10! Woo that would have been interesting - funny how it doesn't stop people from going out though.

The other good thing about it was we had another day off work and it was a Friday, so long weekend, yeah!!

Been looking at potential places to rent, concentrating on Heng Fa Chuen since it's so nice and quiet and relaxing down there (the phase that's near the water not the mountain side coz apparently there are some apartments on the mountain side that are a bit 'unclean', mainly because the area they were built on used to be a cemetary or something along those lines)

I hit my '3 month' probation last Thursday as well (just before the Typhoon hit) - what a good way to celebrate, giving me a long weekend. No complaints and i have been escorted out of the office so it's a good sign eh?!

Dad'll be here in 1.5 weeks, ohhh poor doggies left at home ... gosh i miss them.

Tropical Cyclone Kammuri

2008-08-05T23:40:00.000-07:00

Ohhh i'm on the early shift this week but there was a tropical cyclone warning and the signal was increased to no. 8 at 6:47am so that means... no work today!!!!

Yippay! And the fact that the cyclone wasn't going to be nearest to HK until 12ish meant that the HK market wasn't going to be open - so no chance of having to go to work in the afternoon!

There was a loud sound of glass breaking this morning, i figured it was someone's pot plant falling from the window but then i saw on the news a building where a window appeared to have broken and fallen to the ground and i thought 'gee that looks familiar' turns out it was our apartment block!!

Out of curiosity, headed downstairs to see what happened and it was actually the office building across the road. Two glass panels had fallen off the building and hit one of the apartment windows on the way down... there were so many news crews downstairs as well.

The glass had even bounced half way up the street:

Guess it was bit of excitement for a rainy day

Ani-Com & Games

2008-08-04T05:21:00.000-07:00

Ohhh, I thought i'd be good and go to a "Honkie" event and lo and behold there was the 10th Annual Ani-Com & Games Exhibition at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Entry fee was only $25HKD... so off i went on Sunday afternoon. Mum mentioned that on the first day there was like 60000 people there and i'm like ok, cool whatever - those were the hard core fans who went in to get the limited edition things i reckon. So i headed down there and boy was i surprised there was a massive group of people heading a certain direction (guess where THEY were all heading...) luckily since i'm by myself it was easier to slip in between groups of people but i hit the front driveway of the convention centre and you have to form two lines: one with pre-paid tickets the other none. So, ok i'm not THAT well prepared, i have to line up. You can't really call it a line it was just a mass of people funnelling into a doorway.
I have to give it to them, it was very efficient (i didn't even wait there for that long, there must have been over 100 people in front of me) - it helped that it was a single ticket price and they didn't take $100 or $500 notes so get in line whip out your money and then off into the hall.
I was verry surprised at the amount of people there, the showbag hall at the easter show had nothing on this crowd, i can only imagine the first day would have been 2-3 times as bad. This is only one tiny little section of the exhibit.
The only main problem with the crowd was, it was a hot day. Everyone is crowding around and people are sweating.... stinky city..

Now, an anime/games convention is not complete without at least half of the exhibit made up of absolutely adorable stuff - i feel sorry for the kids who go and see all the things they want to buy. I overheard a boy saying, "Oh i have $100 at home. Gee, i'm really regretting not bringing that extra $100 out..."

So here are some of the cute stuff on show:

You know, i'm really kicking myself for not getting the other monkey. I bought the monkey with the smug look but both ben and mum said i should have bought the set of 5 kittens, i rather i got that other monkey with the x for eyes... but you know, i was actually looking at them and thinking... "Mum will kill me if i came home with that - doh!"

And of course, there are mini toys as well

And of course, cos players

Then there are the Bandai girls etc..

Boy, was it weird taking pictures of these girls (everyone else was male... the things i do for my brothers... i hope they appreciate it...)

The other thing you don't see if how organised the kids are, they were all pulling mini suitcases so that they can put all their purchases (i.e. manga) in them and then they go and sit down off to the side to take stock of their purchases (and pack the suitcase) then they go back into the crowds and buy some more stuff. Gee i'm going to be better prepared next year (if i'm still here)!!

Anyway the rest of the photos are on my facebook page, it was a fun afternoon (though gee i really wish i'd bought more soft toys...) next time i'm going to go full hog and buy everything i like and worry about the consequences after ^_^ i could always sell the unwanted stuff on eBay

gee i'm almost tempted to run down there during lunch break and do some more shopping...

Fish ball noodles and dessert

2008-07-26T05:12:00.000-07:00

After an incredibly good sleep-in, mum and i headed out to Aberdeen for some infamous fish ball noodle soup at a place called "Xie Ji Yu Dan" 謝記魚蛋

Once there we ordered the fish ball & slice soup plus fried fish skin - these guys don't waste the fish. For those not in the know, fish ball and slice is made up of fish mince and since they need to use so much fish they definitely need to do something with all the fish skin. So they fry it and you can eat it just like that or throw it into the noodle soup for a bit of a crunch.

I've got to say the fish skin is much nicer that the stuff you get in the typical noodle soup in the busy parts of Hong Kong - those are just mass fried and delivered to the shops - this place does everything themselves.

So managed to stuff ourselves a fair bit, but we walked past a dessert place on the way to the 'main' meal so obviously we had to stop there for some dessert on the way out.

Mum had a "mai mai sa" which was made up of three types of rice, mine was a coconut, papaya (or is it paw paw) plus a fungus thingy that us asians like to eat - it was supposed to be cooked inside a steamer etc but they didn't. Instead they microwaved it, unfortunately they nuked it a little too much and the initial taste was like something you had over microwaved. Still it was enjoyable but would have been sooo much nicer if it hadn't been over-nuked.

Anyway afterwards we were sufficiently stuffed and wandered around the streets of Aberdeen checking out shops. Mum and I went a bit handbag crazy at one of the shops but we were still quite pleased with ourselves afterwards (it wasn't that expensive considering 2 of them were leather handbags - no way we could have got that price in Oz.)

Couldn't resist and had to sms Erica about it - will have to take her over there to check things out sometime.

After we had shopped ourselves out, we found there was a free shuttle bus taking us over to one of the housing estates over there - so we jumped on and headed over there to check the area out. It was nice, more suited towards family though here are some pictures of the area.

But first, here's one of mum showing off two of our purchases...

The one on the left is an 'environmentally' friendly bag, the one on the right is my new lunch bag!

Ok, back to the estate - this is what she was pointing to

So i'm also using today as a chance to test out my new camera an Olympus mu 840. It is really cool and has all these preset options including documents, taking photos of things behind glass (that would have handy in Europe & London) plus sunset options. The photos were pretty good as well

Another thing i had to test was the macro settings on the camera...

The verdict is... i'm quite pleased with the camera but the embarrassing thing was the reason i bought it was because i was sick and tired of the 'dots' appearing in my photos from my old camera but testing with the new camera i found out it was because of my ISO setting - doh! oh well my old camera has an excellent zoom so i'll still use it, too bad it sucks the batteries.

Ow....

2008-07-23T07:37:00.000-07:00

I have just returned from a 50min foot/leg massage session and the only word that describes it was ow.... In the last couple of years of going to get massages i have not yet had a massuese (is that how u spell it?) how can make me cringe with pain but man, tonight the guy who massaged me made me twitch...

ok so i have massive calves... (it has to be genetic - as bev's friends have noticed...) but geez the guy was like "i haven't seen calves like that on a healthy person - it only takes one or two presses before his customers scream out in pain" - I am kinda proud i held out for a long time but i think he was deliberately massaging me harder to see how long it'll take before i gave up...

It was seriously the most painful massage session i have gone through, but afterwards i have to say i'm not hurting... maybe i'll take up his offer of being my massuese when i decide to go for a back massage hehehe - glutton for punishment...

the only good thing that came out of it was he hit all my accupuncture points on my feet and proclaimed me quite healthy (internal organ wise) - for those who don't know the feet have pressure points which are linked to all your internal organs so that the guys can actually tell if you're having problems sleeping, got a bad liver, get headaches, can't sleep - it's quite interesting.

And compared to Australia, this place is pretty cheap and clean as well - trying to relax during a massage in the middle of Westfields just doesn't cut it. Of course, it doesn't beat Dragonfly ... ahhh i could do with one of their 2hr massages...

We'll have to see if my legs are all bruised tomorrow morning...

Quickie Post

2008-07-21T06:41:00.000-07:00

Weell just a short post on my favourite subject... food!

And because i'm in serious Aussie beef withdrawal...

Well i should mention something other than food. So how about work... arghh it was such a long day today but not stressful or anything. Just ultra busy (so that time flew by pretty quick) but seriously had so many issues i haven't had a chance to look at all the issues that have been assigned to me *groan*

The weather is getting hotter here, i think it's going to get really bad in August *sigh* - if only they'll send me back to Sydney for training for a month (that'll be cool, avoid the heat for a while). Though it's not the heat that gets to me it's the damn humidity - waking up in the middle of the night all hot and sweaty is so annoying!

And the weekend rolls around again

2008-07-12T07:04:00.000-07:00

Well after a nice sleep in on a Saturday morning, mum and I headed out to North Point for some traditional chinese congee, dough sticks etc.

Afterwards we wandered around the back streets of North Point to check out the shops (the area is good for people planning on doing renovations - tonnes of interior design stores, electrical, furniture and lighting stores) Then we headed over to the local markets to get the ingredients for dinner - it is a bit worrying that some of the stores are selling cooked and uncooked stuff right next to each other and they're not really stores but stalls...

The other weird thing is people buying frozen chicken/meats... ok when you buy fruit you tend to give them a light squeeze to make sure they're ripe but what is the point of squeezing frozen meat/chicken?? Bizaree...

The other nice thing about North Point is the little stalls selling craft stuff like scissors/elastics/lace - unbelievably cheap as well. Mum bought this really cute fold-away scissors that i can use for my cross-stitching it's really cool!
Check it out:

Oh well, that's it from me. We're going to go out and have a look at display apartments tomorrow - just out of curiosity...

A blog for my brother

2008-07-09T06:50:00.000-07:00

Well bevan is quick to complain that i haven't written a blog since June (which is only about 2 weeks ago so it isn't THAT long) but anyway I am posting just for the sake of shutting my dear little brother up.

Reading my last post i realised i actually had passed my first month at work (only 2 more months of probation left!) I just finished a weekend of on-call support which was actually quite painful considering i didn't have a clue what was going on and there were scheduled changes that i had NO idea about which caused problems for me. So i ended up having to stay up until 3:30am on both Saturday and Sunday night, luckily I am on the late shift this week so i don't start until 10am (which in retrospect isn't all that different from starting at 9... except for the extra 30 mins of sleep i manage).

I have to say whoever works the early shift has 'the short end of the stick', because eventhough you can actually leave by 5 you never do because everyone else is still working so you feel weird/guilty/lazy if you leave before 6 - which is kind of unfair and the only reason you need to come in early is to perform a few checks which you could technically do at home - but anyway.

I am learning more (i haven't fallen asleep at my desk this week, but i've only worked Monday & Tuesday this week - since today i had off as in-lieu for working on a public holiday last week)

Update on my purchases, i didn't end up buying a TV - i think i'll put it off for a couple more weeks - it's not like i need it at the moment. So i went and bought a nice little Olympus camera instead. Now all i need to do is learn how to use it properly (that's the problem with technology, and with these new cameras having more than 6 different ISO settings u need to know when to use what otherwise ur shots look terrible). This camera is really cool, it even has a special mode to take picutres of things behind glass (so now more 'ghosts' of you and your camera when you sneak shots of things in shop windows!)

I have also been spending a bit of time with Erica (my cousin's maid of honor in the UK) and her husband Nigel (usually ends with us drinking wine at their place , i am soooo turning into an alcoholic, i don't think i've drunk so much in such a short period of time) - we have watched so many movies recently, Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones, Wanted and probably Hancock tomorrow) pretty much a movie a week.

There's another one that i'm really looking forward to: "Red Cliff" a John Woo production, good cast and it looks impressive (and the only reason i'm more interested in this movie than usual is probably because of all the Dynasty Warrior games i've been playing over the years)

Today, we headed out to Ching Chun Koon to 'visit' my grandfather then we went to Tuen Mun where we met up with mum's friend and wandered around the shopping centre for about 4 hrs. Bev/Ben/Dad, there is a restaurant that we'll have to try there so you can help mum try all the eel dishes they have there (*shudder*) - you should see the eels they have just sitting in the aquarium at the front of the shop (*gross*) one's like a moray eel. I should have taken my camera but anyway i'll remember to take photos when mom and dad go and eat there in September. The restaurant is called "Siu Shun Village Cuisine = 肇順名匯"

Oh well that's it from me, i'm drinking wine at the moment and it's making me sleepy...

Where the memories have gone...

2008-06-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

There was a lot i wanted to write (when i was vegetating this morning at work, it was freezing in the office and I wanted to sleep for about 2hours) but now i can't remember what i wanted to write - bloody typical.

Today was my first typhoon warning day (only a no. 1) and it pretty much bypassed HK anyway - the only sign of it was the dark clouds of pollution that hit the sky - i really have to buy a compact camera so i can take random shots like Bevan said.

Also my next purchase is going to be a LCD TV (26" Samsung)... gotta get my spending out the way and start saving!

Another week gone...

2008-06-19T06:22:00.001-07:00

I don't know what's wrong with me. I woke up this morning and couldn't remember what day of the week it was, had to check the calendar on the computer to confirm that it was indeed Thursday - surely you're only supposed to do that when you've had a prolonged holiday not when you're working day after day after day..

Maybe because the days at work are still full of confusion and me being clueless about everything??
Oh well tomorrow is Friday so that's good, casual dress at last!! (but work is kinda casual anyway)

Bev says i should post some pictures but that means i need to go buy a decent (& smallish) camera - oh well i'll start having a look, maybe i'll find a nice one.

You know it's going to be one of those days when...

2008-06-16T06:00:00.001-07:00

you wake up and think "what time is it", check the time on my mobile phone and it reads 8:54!!! Shit (i'm supposed to be at work around 9), jump out of bed, brush my teeth, quickly check my computer for emails or messages and then see the clock on the computer which reads 7:00...

Ok so my mobile phone time actually said 6:54 not 8:54... great start to the morning and now my head's spinning from all the rushing around - back to bed for another 40mins (that's the good thing about HK, you know how long it'll take for you to get to work)

Head to work and you know it's going to be one of the stinking humid days (we've had rain on and off for the last week) but it's still humid.

One of my colleagues was taking a day off in lieu (he had to work the public holiday) so it was only me and my other colleague and as soon as i sat down and checked my email i knew it was going to be one of those busy days... now i'm not worried about it being busy but what's really frustrating is, it's busy and i have no idea what i'm doing and i can't ask my colleague coz he's obviously swamped as well.. It's sooooo frustrating - i hate being so unproductive... Another irritating thing about support is when people ask you for help you provide it instantly and they don't get back to you for days and out of the blue it's "i still have the problem can you fix it urgently!"

Um hello!!! I offered my services days ago, not my fault you sat on it and have only just remembered now that you need it... that really puts me in a bad mood (you could at least have the decency to say, "oh just had the chance to try xxx and it still doesn't work. Can you please have a look again. i need it by xxx"

a little courtesy goes a long way (i feel bad about being rude, especially since i don't know the stuff but seriously!). at least not all of them are like that.

Keeps life interesting i guess, i actually finished work kinda late today (i think it was around 7:20pm) the thing is i wasn't actually that busy by the end, just sitting around waiting for people to get back to me...

What did i do after work? Headed home to have dinner ( i have an annoying ache between my eyes at the moment...)

Where am I?

2008-06-13T20:43:00.001-07:00

It's so strange, it doesn't really feel like i'm actually "working in HK" - i don't know why. Maybe it's just because i'm not living at home anymore or that the nights are just so relaxed here? But you know i need to get a serious massage, i'm so stiff everywhere (worse than before i started yoga in Sydney...)

I'm finally a bit more productive at work (didn't feel like falling asleep in the office over the last few days)

You see the strangest people in HK, i'm sure people do it in Sydney but you're so rarely crammed into public transport (except for peak hour) that you don't notice, anyway I was on a tram from Quarry Bay to Sheung Wan and a woman got on at North Point, she sat down and pulled out a mini mirror (about 5x4cm) and just looked at herself... ok a quick look to make sure your face is in order is reasonable but she looked at herself, turned the mirror to the side and looked at herself, then turned the mirror and looked again... all the way to happy valley (that's a good 15-20 min tram ride)... she wasn't extremely pretty but ok looking i guess but seriously... who does that??

You know, the people are quite civilised on the MTR - it's amazing. In Sydney, expect to be pushed and shoved in a crammed train but here they all just quietly pack themselves into the carriage and no one gives you dirty looks if you actually elbow them or hit them with your bag or whatever. It's quite an experience to see how they all find the best way to pack themselves in and the trains arrive every 4 mins (1min during peak hour) it's great!

2008-06-11T05:19:00.001-07:00

Well it's been over a week since my last update. Not much has happened except work and a little bit of going out (and eating) but let's have a recap.

There were about 2/3 days where i nearly fell asleep at my desk at work because nothing was happening. Luckily that improved as the week went by and i had more work to do (but by more i mean only a little bit more than nothing).

The weekend was, like Australia, a LONG weekend (not bad for my 3rd week at work). Saturday was rainy though, thunderstorms and parts of Hong Kong Island flooding - i slept through it all (but by sleeping in I meant waking up at 10:30am). The thunderstorms sound weird here, it's not the crisp crack that you hear in Sydney - it's more like rumbling and there isn't a crack more like you're in a cave and hearing the thunderstorms from the back of the cave. Anyway since it was raining pretty bad mum and i decided to go and watch Prince Caspian down at Tai Koo Shing.

Not a bad movie but the seats aren't as comfy as in Sydney and it was kinda cold in there as well - not to mention at the end of the movie we have to leave via the 'fire exit' which basically takes you out to the street, not very good when it's just starting to rain as well. Afterwards we headed to Wan Chai's computer centre so i could get some speakers for my nice new desktop (a Dell XPS420) then it was back home for dinner.

Sunday - went out to Kowloon Shing for a bit of shopping, got a couple of outfits (yes!!!) and took mum to this place that is 'famous' for beef pan-fried dumpling (it's a islam restaurant - yeah go figure, an islam restaurant in HK) but it's really good. After Kowloon Shing we headed back and i went for a nice 50min foot massage (though the woman said i need a much longer massage to lossen my 'tight' muscles - oh well, will have to go back and do 1.5hr massage next time)

Monday - Make-up Tseun Ng Festival holiday. Went out for a wander around Central, Lan Kwai Fong, mid-levels an then down to the iFC Mall before heading into Sui Sai Wan to the Lee's where we then went to Yuen Long for dinner - that was a massive feast! fish, abalone, oyster, prawns, mantis prawns, goose, razor shells, cockles and a nice bottle of red wine (2004 Wyndham Estate, merlot). After we were sufficiently stuffed, Dorothy took us for dessert (yummy!!) i had my usual yan zhi kam lao (grapefruit, manga, saigo)
The others got similar desserts,

BTW - i've been collecting menus and cards so if any of you visit, i know where to go!

What to say...

2008-06-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

An interesting day at work, i was actually kept pretty busy. Left around 6 and felt a bit bad since the other guys were slaving away... though not my fault someone is assigning all the work to them (someone in Sydney must think i'm still clueless - oh well)

Met up with Yan, Erica and her husband for dinner at Yung Gee (duck, roast pork, tofu, scallop) very nice meal then shopping with Yan and Erica.

Gee not very motivated to write anymore.. got a couple of cable channels so now i'm watching Monk - ahh he's so amusing!

I'm a netizen again!!!

2008-06-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

After a week of silence i am officially a net-user again!!! Woo-hoo, internet connected at home and the speed is awesome - i don't know how we're going to be able to use the internet connection back in Sydney when we get back (at least for Bevan and me at the moment) it only took a little while to download a <200mb file. Absolutely loving it! Catching up on my US shows. All that i need is for my new toy (a brand new gaming desktop with a 24" monitor) to arrive and i'm all sorted.. side note, i ended up ordering a DELL online coz i couldn't be bothered shopping around for the 'best' deal and i've been sooo out of touch on the hardware side. and the dell is good enuf, don't have to worry about delivery and everything...

ok so what have i been up to since i last wrote... mmm work was pretty unexciting for the first week, it has picked up and i'm getting excited now coz the work is pretty challenging (= day goes much faster, and i'm not falling asleep at my desk hehehe)

mum arrived on sunday so she's been running around shopping and cleaning so my apartment feels more homey as well.

nothing much as been happening otherwise, haven't been pigging out too much. still getting used to the weather but the humidity basically means i don't leave the office all day coz it's so muggy outside.

the good thing about HK is the transport esp. the MTR you can actually be pretty accurate about how long it'll take u to get from A to B. There's an MTR every 4-5 mins and since i don't have to change lines or anything it takes me about 25mins to get to work (door to door) pretty good!!

i have to say i do miss Sydney (and my cute little doggies... *sob* *sob* lulu!!! wei!!!)

hope work will send me back to Sydney for training - that would be great! hehehe

2nd day of work.. and surviving (thank god it's Thursday)

2008-05-22T08:02:00.000-07:00

Well day 2 of work and instead of a sleepless night i just didn't have enough sleep. Guess that's what happens when you stay up an extra hour to play Crash Bandicoot... Anyhow, i forgot to mention that i experienced by first peak hour crush on the MTR, it wasn't too bad (meaning that it could have been worse) people are actually pretty good on the train. You're not packed like sardines, you still have enough 'personal' space (if you know what i mean). I can still remember getting stuck on a packed City Rail train once on the Cronulla/Sutherland which had decided to skip Rockdale station so by the time it got to Kogarah people were throwing people out of the way to get off (pfft, so inconsiderate!).

OK, back to my second day of work. It was a promising start, got into work and found that my boss had given me something interesting to do - investigating and sorting out the transitioning of support of an application into our team (my specialty!). That killed a couple of hours. It's about 1pm at the moment so the day still has a chance of getting boring but we'll have to see.

....

Evening update, you know I spoke to soon. I ended up spending the rest of the day 'dawdling' over the work my boss gave me, coz the next thing i had to do was get him to check my plan (he was away today) and then talk to the gurus of the application... started to fall asleep around 4:30pm and i still had 1.5hrs to go - i guess i could have left but i felt sorry for my team mates - 1 of whom is a work-aholic and can't say no to people, the other is like me but he's been there longer so is actually expected to support systems he knows nothing about...

The strange thing i noticed is people know they don't know but don't appear to be doing any troubleshooting it's sooo weird and not very productive, can't wait to get my hands dirty and start learning stuff...

You know i've really decided that i like Sydney food better, at least i like the Sydney supermarkets betters. It's more suited to my tastes - I mean not being able to read a lot of Chinese doesn't help but still i'm just never in the mood to go out and actually buy anything particular to eat. Instead i just stock up at the supermarket with 'western' stuff which ends up costing more than if i'd just gone and got a bowl of noodles...

For example, after bolting from work at 6pm i headed to causeway bay and did some shopping at causeway bay. my shopping yielded: a block of cheese, sliced bread, korean/japanese cold stuff to eat with rice and then i headed home and made rice, fried some dumplings up (which didn't turn out so good - definitely need to get a new frying pan and saucepan) and sat down and ate most of it... not so much fun eating by yourself. It's all the little things that make you miss home and the fact that work hasn't picked up makes me feel like i'm wasting my time. Next week on i'm going to spend less on food (i actually think i may be putting on weigh argh!!! - definitely cut down on food... but it's so hard - the only good thing is that i'm not snacking... much)

I really do need to get off my butt though, these people rarely get off their chairs - i'm surprised not many people suffer from 'office butt' - oh well only i more day to go (and it's casual dress tomorrow and there are friday drinks as well BONUS!)

My first day at work

2008-05-21T05:00:00.000-07:00

Well after another restless night, i had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 7:30am. Gave up though and went back to bed for another 10 minutes.

Finally dragged myself out of bed, got dressed, drank some tea and then headed off to work.
Turned up at 8:45am (i figure that was pretty safe) met my new boss who says that there isn't a set time to work but he comes in around 8am and finishes at 8:30pm (huh!!!)
Anyhow was shown around my new office and found out that there isn't really that much for me to do at the moment because access to applications haven't been sorted yet so... read the intranet!

Ok, it really doesn't take long to surf an Intranet site - there's only so much that is relevant to you (e.g. finding out when you have public holidays, what kind of leave you can take, how much sick leave you can take etc etc - BTW HK has publich holidays every single month except for August and November. May has 3 holidays! ) Cool!

Ok back to work, i was taken out to lunch and met a girl from the Sydney office who was visiting for a week - poor thing has been working late and hasn't even done any shopping!! But during lunch it was discussed that there is a lot of 'exchanges' planned between countries and that the support team (only 4 of us including my manager) will swap with people. So looks like i may come back to Sydney in a couple of months for a bit of cross-knowledge transfer (or whatever you call it)... mmm checked the travel policy we fly business class for anything over 5hrs (yes!)

Ok now to the important thing, the office is a bit far from the other business area (it's near the water) so in terms of food there isn't much to eat around my building. But in true investment bank fashion what they provide us goons is AMAZING!

Massive kitchen with comfortable seating area and here is what they have. Couple of sandwich presses, four different types of sliced bread, snacks(biscuits, chocs etc), fridge has fruit drinks, iced tea, soft drinks, milk, water and most importantly alcohol!! I think there's even fruit but i didn't notice (obviously there were more appealing things to look for). Oh of course there was tea and coffee - couple of types of tea as well probably about 6-8 types

Take that, Graeme hehehe

Anyway i'm going to be better prepared for work tomorrow, going to lug a text book to work so i can read it (but it's probably going to put me to sleep... oh well)

Last day of freedom... and a foot massage

2008-05-20T04:33:00.001-07:00

After a really crappy night of trying to fall asleep but not being able to i dropped off and didn't wake up until 10:30am - went back to sleep and finally go up around noon. There were still a quite a lot of things that i had to do, open a HK bank account and get an iron (to iron my shirts before i turn up to work tomorrow) and a bit more shopping.

The bank account was surprisingly simple, would you believe HSBC have 'pre-made accounts' so all they need to do is grab an envelope with an account number and it contains ur key card, atm pin and phone banking pin - unbelievable. Though the keycard doesn't have your name on it, which isn't that secure (anyway...) another thing is they have cash deposit atms so you don't have to queue in the bank - it's a bit slow try feeding in 10 bills one at a time (i'm assuming it's so it can validate each note) and a line is forming behind you... sorry people.

They have a similar thing for passbook accounts as well - Australia could plagiarise some of these processes.

ANyway with my account all sorted the next thing was to buy an iron. Now i bought an ironing board the other day and it's not your standard australian sized ironing board - u can call it a mini-board (basically it has these little fold out legs and you put it on top of a table) - now i obviously have to consider the size of the iron when i consider the size of the table, it'll be pretty silly to buy a normal sized iron for such a small table. But then you have to consider the features - i ended up running back and forth trying to decide on which iron to buy - and i thought 'hey i'll just buy the cheaper one' but then it turns out it's the last one in stock and that one has a scratched plate - definite no-no right... so back to Broadway and i just picked a decent looking one which ended up costing me about $45 AUD - good enough.

Last thing on my list was a foot massage, there's a place called the 'Foot House' just down the road from me which specialises in massage and reflexology - Ben gave it a go the last time he came back and said it was ok so i figure i'll give it a try. They also have an introductory offer atm so that a 50 min massage only costs $104 HKD (divide by 7, you aussies!) and damn it was a good massage - the people are really good coz they ask you whether you've been sleeping well or if a particular section hurts and that the side-effect is xyz etc... Needless to say i was feeling very good afterwards, didn't even realise my foot was that stiff until i walked out and felt like i was floating.

So, i paid for my massage and also paid up-front for an 10 massages (normal price of the massage is $168HKD - which is still cheap by Sydney standards). Also booked a massage for mum and me this Sunday so as soon as she arrives she'll be treated to a nice relaxing massage.

Seriously suggest a foot massage to anybody who's been travelling/walking a lot and/or having trouble sleeping - i'll let you know tomorrow if I get a good night's rest (though if I have problems sleeping it's because i'm nervous about my first day... incidentally i actually don't know what time i'm supposed to show up... mmm 8:45 sounds safe but i'll feel stupid if my manager wasn't actually in by then hehehe oh well early is better than late right)

Going to eat out with Jessie tonight, Shanghai-nese... yum yum

Back to Hong Kong

2008-05-19T01:56:00.000-07:00

Going to skip the details of my UK/Europe tour until i get my own internet connection and can type about it in detail.

Today i went to pick up my visa from the office and then had to make a trip over to macau and then back into HK. The trip takes about an hr each way and the ticket guy was shocked that i was buying a 11:45am ticket to macau and wanted a 1:30pm ticket back (he convinced me to get the 2:00pm ticket in the end) - in any case i caught the 1:45pm TurboJet back. Not bad and i got to sleep on the way there and back.

After that it was a bit of home shopping, got myself some chopsticks (there's chopsticks in the apartment but not the ones i'm used to and it feels weird using someone elses stuff eventhough ithey're kind of mine now), an ironing board (all i need is to get an iron...)

couple of bathroom related stuff for washing clothes etc.

But there are a couple of other things that i figured i need to get. A new frying pan - the frying pan in this apartment is about the size of a bread plate (it's even smaller than the 'small' frying pan i had at home!) i may also think about getting a new saucepan as well coz the one here is 'smallish' though it does fit a packet of instant noodles quite nicely so it's not crucial but still...

hehe may just leave all the kitchen stuff to mum when she gets here - i also need a washing machine/dryer... at the moment i'm washing stuff by hand after my shower hehe

The Day After... and Berlin

2008-05-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

Ok, as i mentioned i had quite a bit to drink the night before (but obviously not as much as the MOH) Needtheless to say i didn't exactly have a good night's rest. In addition to the time difference causing me to automatically wake up at 730 in the morning i was royally screwed. I did manage to get back to sleep until 830 when Ben knocled on the door to check on the MOH (who was semićonscious at this stage and really feeling the affects of the drinking, she didn't remember the events of last night) except she was feeling absolutely crap. I staggered up and stumbled back to my room to brush my teeth finish packing and then going down for breakfast (i was feeling ok, except for a slight empty 'weird' feeling in my stomach - i figured i shouldn't shock my system so settled for simple toast and marmite. )
Ran back up from breakfast and finished packing and Yan, kindly offered to drive Ben and me to the station but after 'losing' my wallet and checking out we had missed to the 1013 train (they only come every hour) then the 1113 train was 30 minutes late getting into Waterloo - i was supposed to catch the 405 plane to Berlin from Terminal 5, only JUST missed the check-in time but since the flight was closed i was forced to get the next flight which cost and extra 105 pounds (ouch!) - now i knew i was cutting it fine with the 1113 but i seriously had no choice and the train was bloody late!!!! arghhh, the stress of rushing to try not to miss the flight and the after effects of the alcohol had me shaking in hunger (or whatever u want to call it) by the time i was booked on the next flight so next thing on my to do was to feed my queasy stomach. I found a bar-restaurant and indulged in a 8oz rib eye steak with chips. feeling a little bit better but my stomach was still feeling queasy... got on the plane and then found out i had an 'emergency exit' seat (and the BA guy didn't even warn me, to top it off the button on the seat was broken so it wouldn't tilt back, turns out none of the seats at the exit could tilt - it's like torture, thank god the flight wasn't that long but seriously i was not feeling good by the end of the flight. the only thing i can say is that the german airport was verrry efficient in getting us through. i was surprised that the immigration/custom guys are actually stationed outside the gate that u arrive at so as soon as u get off the plane u are at customs before u pick up ur baggage, really cool .

decided to take a taxi to the hostel (only cost 20 euro!) and was surprised at how cool the hostel was. i'd definitely recommend it to people coming to Berlin, it's the Meininger on Shoenhauser Allee, the rooms are clean, bathrooms are decent and breakfast is nice - walls are a bit thin but thats ok). As my first experience in an hostel i'm very happy. The rooms are a little stuffy but can't expect everything to be perfect.

The Wedding

2008-05-12T13:52:00.000-07:00

Ok it's 2 days after the fact but this is the first opportunity for me to write. The wedding was prettz uneventful (aside from the ceremonz, if u know wat i mean) the dinner was nice as was the castle (side note: lulworth cove is a reallz nice place to visit if u like to hike and go on a kayak tour around to see 'jurassic age' cliffs etc (see photos when i get around to posting later)

Back to the wedding, dinner was finished and the dancing started. People were kind of slow to get dancing so anywayz i got drinking with the maid of honor and another friend of hers (& Pat), his name is Yan (? i think thats how u spell it=... we polished off about 3-4 bottles of red and white wine and danced for a while when the maid of honor (hereafter referred to as the MOH) sat down on the dance floor. Ben, Yan and I picked her up and lay here on 3 seats. Her feet slid off so i thought i#d put them back on the seat. but as i was doing so her head/shoulders somehow slipped off and her head hit the chair on the way down. (cameras flashing in the mean time). Afterwards she started getting sick so Ben picked her up to take her down to the girls' toilet (which was in the lower level of the castle) so with me leading the way we were taking here down but my cousinsä in-laws were standing at the corner of the stairs so ben tried to walk by them (unfortunately that was where the stairs turned and the steps were very narrow so ben slipped and nearly dropped the near comatose girl. We finally got her in to the disabled toilet where she let loose for the next hour or so. The 3 of us looked after her the best we could as we stuck coz the coach wouldnät arrive to pick us up until 12 and the chances of a taxi willing to drive her back to the inn was almost zero (not to mention that around lulworth and wool there is almost no reception for most mobile phone providers).

[I'll flesh this post out with more dteail later when i get to a keyboard where the letters are where they're supposed to be, iäm using a german keyboard atm]

Tower of London and .... Wool

2008-05-09T15:42:00.000-07:00

Well, my last day in London proper involved getting up bright and early so we could make it to the Tower of London and then catch the 2.5hr train down to Wool (which is near Weymouth, past Portsmouth for the uneducated ^_-).

The tower was interested, the crown jewels impressive and we managed to spend over 3hrs there (way exceeding our initial estimate of 2hrs) - by the time we returned to Bond Street to get our luggage and went to Waterloo we had missed the 3pm train (the next train was at 4) - I used this opportunity to go to Monsoon to try on some dresses they were nice but alas, either too small/big or there was something wrong with the cutting of the dress. So result of London shopping (aside from food and souvenirs is zero) NOT FAIR!!!!!

Uneventful trip down to Wool, ben and i half-played a game of scrabble. I kept dropping the letters, spent about 10 minutes trying to flick a letter out of the side of the seat, some old guys was wondering what i was doing. Luckily i managed to flick it out - imagine losing a letter in a game of scrabble. It's tragic!

Anyway Ben typically started to nod off so we stopped the game and had a snooze until we reached Wool. There were only 2 taxis at the station when we arrived and they were quickly taken - had to wait ages for a taxi to arrive but once we got it we arrived at Lulworth Inn fairly quickly. There was confusion about the place we were staying once that was sorted we settled in and headed downstairs for the pre-wedding meal.

Dover Castle

2008-05-08T15:20:00.001-07:00

Ben and I headed down to Dover Castle today, the 2hr train trip to Dover Priory meant that we didn't get to the castle until 1:30pm (it was a 20min walk from the station to the castle itself, uphill no less grrr, i wasn't happy - the alternative was a £6 taxi ride up but Ben felt like walking)

I recovered from the walk fairly quickly and we were booked in for the 2pm tour of the World War II underground tunnels, and they were really cool!! I think they're the highlight of all the tours i've done so far. Dover Castle was interesting but there weren't a lot of rooms accessible and they were pretty much bare (unlike Hampton Court) - nevertheless they were interesting enough and since we didn't have enough time it was good that they weren't too furnished or we would have spent a lot of time looking at the furnishings.

The only drama of the day was when Ben and I got separated and wouldn't you like to know that there wasn't any reception at the castle - not that it would have mattered, it turns out Ben went to look at the Battlements which were UNDER ground... grrr I search all the paths leading from the keep for him and was about to give up when he finally came back aboveground - and it didn't even occur to him to see what was taking me so long... typical Ben.

I have also realised i haven't actually bought anything in London and our time is running out, we need to head down to Wool by 2pm at the latest since it takes almost 4hrs by train to get there. So tomorrow we're going to rush down to the Tower of London @ 9am spend a couple of hours there, get our bags then go to Waterloo and catch the train. There are some dresses at Monsoon that i like so i'm going to squeeze in a fitting of the dresses there, hopefully i'll get some last minute shopping down otherwise i'm going to be mad...

Pity there's nothing around Lulworth Castle worth seeing, we're basically spending 2 days in a place where there's nothing much to do...

PS: We had a cornish pastry for breakfast, interesting - Ben's one was tastier steak and stilton cheese, my traditional one was boring by comparison - i think there was only 1 piece of meat in it. We didn't really have lunch but had afternoon tea up at the Keep Cafe (the tea was nice but i didn't like the cakes too much). Dinner was a nice steak at the American Steakhouse near Victoria Station, it was surprisingly good.

Ben and I then decided to walk back to Jim's place from Victoria Stn, using this opportunity to take pictures of Buckingham Palace when there weren't a flock of tourists. After that we walked through a badly lit Green Park (but it still seemed surprisingly safe) and then decided that we had to visit Hyde Park. The park was unbelievably badly lit but there were quite a few people there walking, jogging, having a moonlight picnic (don't know how they can see what they're eating though...) we gave up a quarter of the way through and went back to walking along the fringe of Hyde Park then up to Oxford St. It was a nice walk and the train ride gave us sufficient resting time so that our feet are not aching at the end of the day.

There are so many things that i haven't seen in London, i didn't even make it to Harrods (i did walk through Selfridges though nothing really struck my fancy, or the things that did were over £400 - i must have good tastes hehehe). I think i need a couple of more days in London, which means i'll have to come back next time... bugger. Oh well, if Ben's still here i'll save money on accomodation at least.

It's strange but if you think of things in pounds and now Aussie dollars, things definitely seem cheap. For example, a Zone 1-2 ticket for the whole day costs £5.30 - translate that to the Aussie equivalent of a day tripper and London transport is definitely cheaper, especially considering the number of trains available and the efficiency... i guess it's only when you compare the prices that you realise when something is 'better value'. BTW i suggest you read the book 'Predictably Irrational' - it makes a lot of sense.

London (Part 2)

2008-05-08T00:56:00.000-07:00

It's Thursday morning and once again the weather is fantastic. Ben and I went down to Hampton Court Palace yesterday and spent about 4.5hrs (and even then it was rushhed) - so if you even decide to go there, make sure you get there earlier than 1:30 in the afternoon.

The Palace is beautiful, it's amazing how they're restored it and kinda hard to believe that people used to actually live there. Life seemed more straight forward back then instead of now, where everyone is consumed with working and making money...

Anyway continuing on from my post yesterday, the London Eye was cool - the funiest part is when the photo was about to be taken, they didn't actually tell us which way to look so Ben, Ingrid and I had our backs to the cameras when we struck a pose. The resulting picture is quite amusing and i will have to post it up when i get the chance to scan it in.

I also got my work visa for HK approved yesterday so that means i'll be starting work in two weeks!!! Arghhh, that's going to be a shock after a month and a half of doing nothing, waking up late etc...

London!

2008-05-07T02:57:00.000-07:00

I've been in London for two days and the weather has been fantastic.

Somewhat surprisingly, i haven't been overawed by the tourist sites. Sure they've been nice but nothing worthy of 'ohhh ahhh'.

Let's see:

Day #1
arrived after a 1hr delay at HK international because 1) we were waiting for passengers from another flight that was delayed 2) china decided to close off their air space due to bad weather. Ben and I wasted time playing scrabble (bastard won..., i was sooo close to winning until he did a bingo grrr)
Anyway we got on one of those newer Boeings (the ones where the seat doesn't move but the cushion does so that your bum shifts forwards and you back slides down the chair). Granted this means that the person if front doesn't shove the monitor into your face but seriously it's terrible for your back. I got into such a huff over the seats i thought i'd better sleep so i don't take it out on Ben (unfortunately it was a full flight as well so we couldn't spread out). The good thing is i managed to sleep for most of the flight (>12 hrs, skipped all the meals as well), the bad thing is i found out in the last 1.5hrs of the flight that there wer some really good movies that i could have watched (bugger...)

Arrived at Heathrow and was half-interrogated by the customs person who wanted to know why my stupid HSMP visa was rejected (after explaining a couple of times it was because the Home Office try and make it extremely difficult and confusing for people to enter and in the end 'i couldn't be bothered with it') she allowed me access. Then i had to wait ages for my bag to turn up on the belt (took so long i was thinking it was 'lost' by the ever-reliable Heathrow airport) Luckily it did turn up in the end and Ben and i took the Heathrow Express to Paddington. Gotta love the train, it's cheap and fast. Why can't Sydney do the same - quantity not quality and they'll earn more money in the long run... common sense isn't it.

From Paddington it was to Bond Street Station and just around the corner at Davies St is our accomodation! It was also a Bank Holiday so the tube and streets were still empty (at 9:30am)

We met our 'host' Jim and he was kind enough to show us around Mayfair. Then it was off to Buckingham Palace to catch the end of the changing of the guard (... 3 mins until my time is up at the interet cafe so if i get stopped halfway that's why)

Met up with Ingrid there and headed down to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben (you'll see photos later). Spent a couple of hours there then bought tickets to the London Eye and went in search of food near Waterloo Station (unfortunately we missed Waterloo Stn completely and found ourselves at Lambton North). Anyway eventually ate at Strada down near the Tower Bridge then headed back to the London Eye. [The photo we got taken there is hilarious...]

Run out of time, will continue in my next post

2008-05-04T00:55:00.000-07:00

Geez not even 1 week in and i'm already getting complacent about writing in the blog.

Let's see... did a little bit of shopping yesterday but the thing that took up most of the time was eating (surprise, surprise)

We didn't eat until after 12 but went to a nice place down near Kowloon Tong where they had Islam food meat buns, nice curry (?!), hot and sour noodles. Followed by a drive down to Sai Kung (we passed the place where a bus crash killed 18 people just two days earlier) and it was really nice down there (it was cooler and the air much nicer) what was really fun were the independant fisherman who were selling their catch from their boats (fish, prawns, crabs, squid, starfish, conch etc) to locals who were standing on the dock - they shouted prices to each other. Money was placed in the stretched out net and the goods were delivered back the same way. The prices were cheaper than buying it at the shops along the waterfront where you would buy the food from them and then give it to the restaurant to cook it for you. Very novel nonetheless.

Cousin Dorothy then took us to a dessert place which had some nice durian sweets (for Ben, not for me). I had a nice "yan gi kum lo" ben had a durian ice drink and was then talked into having durian mochi ( i was roped into eating one of them... it's not that i don't like durian. i just hate burping a couple of hours later and the 'fragance' of the durian comes up and nice fresh ugh...)

After this dessert we headed back out towards Jordan for dinner with family friends. This consisted of fish heads, eel (not for me though), lettuce and fish meat in banana chillis (these were hit and miss, some were hot and some weren't). The dessert was what i went for, they have this wong kum gou (yummy stuff)!!

I've got to put the name of the restaurant down (later) but it's next to the Kings Park Hockey Centre.

Anyway, today was nice and relaxing. Sleep-in a little then head down to Tai Koo Shing for some last minute shopping then back to the apartment for packing in preparation for the flight to London (@00:35). We have organised to meet Dorothy for dinner to each roast goose first though (mmm yummy)

From Macau

2008-05-02T07:58:00.000-07:00

I was too exhausted yesterday to post. Insufficient sleep and too much food. Then today i had an early morning in order to catch the 9:00am ferry to Macau (that's 11am Sydney time) - my prolonged lack of sleep is definitely catching up to me - what i need is a nice long relaxing massage... ahhh.

Anyway Macau was an experience, so many casinos so little money. (i did walk away with an extra $35HKD from the pokies, probably beginners luck)

We visited the Venetian, very nice shopping area - reminiscent of Venice (not that i've been there) but the atmosphere is nice and relaxing and the people steering(?) the gondolas along the canals have great voices (opera style) - shops are the same as those in HK so you probably won't buy much there (not to mention the fact you'd have to put your shopping in all the casinos you visit). The casino itself is too crowded, i personally liked Wynns best, it wasn't too crowded (at least when we were there it wasn't but that was around 10:30) but the Venetian casino floor looked like a market. We also went to Lisboa (but it's old and I didn't like it very much), the Emperor Garden was also boring and stinky (from cigarette smoke), also the dealers looked very bored - wouldn't make you want to play much.

I'll post pictures later (when i'm using my own computer and internet connection)

The day was filled with food (again):

beef wonton noodle soup
some kind of pancake thing
shark fin soup
some chicken thingy
veges
a pot of tofu/mushroom stuff

The good thing about HK is that you can stuff yourself and after you walk around a bit you're hungry again Q(though, that could be a bad thing in the long run)... i shall have to keep a track of my waist line to see if it expands or shrinks...

2008-04-30T06:17:00.000-07:00

Well my first meal of the day was at 12pm (i was sooo hungry by then)

Would you believe that you have to pay $44 HKD at Jusco for 7 thin slices of beef (the ones used for hotpot) - guess i won't be having a decent hotpot for a while... (mm brings to mind the all you can eat shabu shabu place in Hiroshima I went to in April 07)

Anyway back to my brunch, had a very yummy sampan congee at the "Food Republic" food court on the top of Taikoo Shing. THe foodcourt is set up similar to the food courts in Beijing (except they don't have the 'food' cards here).

Congee was served nice and bubbly, unfortunately i forgot my camera otherwise there would be pictures.

After wetting my appetite it was off to Causeway Bay to sort out the French Rail pass for benny boy and then followed by hours of wandering around looking at clothes. I lost my sense of direction and couldn't find my way to Times Square, had to wait for my 'aunt' to take me there.

What followed was more eating:
Around 5pm, a bowl of beef tripe noodles - in a small shop near Times Square
Then off to Jordan and wandered around Yue Hwa and then it was off to another restaurant for
1) fish head
2) 'xing' zhi
3) a tofu hotpot
4) almond egg 'tea'

Very full, thank goodness i'm walking alot otherwise instead of losing weight i'll be gaining it.

Culture Shock!

2008-04-29T06:56:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how your perception changes when you arrive in a country where you plan to work (vs for holiday purposes). On the drive in from HK airport I viewed the place with different eyes. My first thought is, "Damn there are a lot of asians." ^_^

There are definite advantages to HK though, places (most importantly, restaurants) are open late and you definitely won't be bored. It's about 26 degrees here at the moment not too humid or hot. A nice change from the sudden cold snap in Sydney. I haven't decided whether i like the cold or hot weather yet.

I've decided i hate flying, the only reason is because of the really bad air 'conditioning' they have in there. I find travelling by car/train/bus more comfortable probably because the motion tends to put me to sleep but planes are another matter, the annoying constant drone of the engines is hardly soothing and the air conditioning is stale and disgusting. Why can't they design a plane where the air isn't dry and stagnant... If only i was engineering oriented, wouldn't it be great to design a plane that is comfortable or at least can get from A to B so fast that a little discomfort is worthwhile. [Argh, i still have the HK to London leg to survive.]

I do have a HK mobile number for those who want to contact me. The number is 64326043

My first

2008-04-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

Oh!! My very first blog.
Less than 8hrs and i'll be on a plane to Hong Kong.

And then in a week i'll be in the UK.

So much to do, so little time...