Hong Kong - Nov 13th 06

I must apologise for a couple of days absence, I’ve been deeply ensconced in the land of the busy, and too tired to catch up with the blog in the mornings.

Super markets here are very informative places. I was wondering around our local the other night whilst two voices over the speaker system told me how to remove fishy and onion aromas from my hands by washing them with a lemon or a stainless steel spoon. All in perfect English: “Hello this is Susan here, and I’d like to share with you some tips I’ve come across…”

Then it’d switch in to Cantonese, and they’d just repeat numbers at each other endlessly. Very odd.

Well. Friday night was spent in a very pleasant style in the company of Giles and Amanda and two of their friends, round at their apartment in Gold Coast, near Tuen Mun. It was so nice to finally eat some food that totally agreed with my taste buds. Lovely. Giles had crafted a cold watercress, garlic and ginger soup to start with and then we proceeded on to roasted potatoes, roasted meat, and all sorts of lovely salad things. Oh yeah!

This lovely evening of tasty food and good company was in total contrast to Saturday night. I tried to cook here in the flat in our grossly unequipped kitchen. Argh. I don’t think I’ve sworn as much as that in a long time. It’s funny how all your frustrations at a place can become vented on to a rubbish chicken stir-fry.

Another factor that’s a bit odd here, is that all the work surfaces are a wee bit lower than where you’d expect them to be.

So imagine me, hunched over a quickly blackening frying pan like thing, swearing whilst brutally prodding the worst cut of chicken you’ve ever seen with a bamboo spoon.

Of course that didn’t work a jot so I went out to get a microwave meal.

On returning I found out that the microwave was a big pile of poo.

So the curry took ages to cook properly, on both sides…

Cue the ice cream. What can go wrong with the ultimate comfort food? Not much. Unless of course, you have a freezer that’s not that good and a fridge door that refuses to shut properly (unbeknownst to you).

That’s right. I had chocolate soup for pudding. Oh well.

After that I just sat on the couch and watched the third episode of the fantastic “Blackpool” serial that I’d brought with me from home. It’s a really original piece. There’s a superb moment when a lad gets lifted by the police, whilst they all perform a dance routine based around the Smith’s Boy With The Thorn In His Side.

And boy oh boy is David Tennant a good actor. He’s really amazing in this, but then so are all the cast. A cracking show.

So. Sunday. Stanley Market.

What a place. So much tacky rubbish. And some really good deals. After much scrabbling around I finally managed to get two pairs of linen trousers, much as what I’d been searching for, for ages. I also managed to get a small pair of binoculars for the car back home, which should come in handy as I traverse the highlands in the coming year.

There were so many shops that I could see my Mum and Aunty Kate and Ileen digging around in admiring the shoes and so on a few years before. I did laugh.

I managed to get a few wee knickknacks for people back home there too, buts shall definitely be making a return trip before too long for more presents from HK.

[The first Human - Dog Tongue Transplant, as seen at the Stanley Market]

I managed to pick up an interesting mask from Tibet there too, a happiness demon, whose name I don’t know. It’s strangely charming.

After Stanley, Amanda, Giles and I headed up to our roof where we had a few drinks and watched the city go by, above and below.

A very fine way to spend an evening.

It’s amazing how much pollution hangs in the sky here. You can really see it when there’s a neon light blazing its message across the sky.

Last night I ended up helping Beatrix, my land lady, move a monitor for her computer across the city. During which I got to meet several cats, one called Sau Mau – Silly Cat.

We then went out to dinner at a local Japanese eatery. Very pleasant, but I shall spare you the foody descriptions – enough for one blog already.

On Saturday night the Star Ferry terminal closed down, and Bea was there to protest.

As many of you will know the Star Ferry is an iconic image in Hong Kong. It’s one of those things that you have to do when you’re here, to take the ferry across from the HK terminal to Kowloon side.

Well, the city decided to close it down, and move it on to a new terminal down by the other ferry terminals to Macau, Chung Chau and so on.

That all seems fair enough, but then when you view it in line with the rest of the city, it does start to show a worrying trend.

Everything has to behave like clockwork here, it all has to fit in to the machine that is Hong Kong. Everything it seems has to be together. All the ferries in a row. As Bea pointed out, that’s what is going to make Hong Kong loose its character. It’s just going to become a giant functional place, without any character. The tatty old Star Ferry pier was perfectly functional, and had lots of character, but now there’s a shiny new one not far away with lots of chances to buy your favourite souvenirs. More so than at the old pier.

It’s funny because you can see that in a way being a real mind set here. If you don’t function in line with every other cog of the machine here, there’s no place for you. Either adapt or go away.

Interestingly, yesterday was the first day that I noticed any disabled people on the streets.

[pollution in HK as seen from the roof]