Anniversary of Wood

Today is the fifth anniversary of my first date with Krusty. Five years... I don't think either of us would have guessed back then that this is where we would be now...

And since I am counting the years, it also occurs to me that I spent the first half of this year counting down the days to the wedding, and the second half counting upwards from the conception of our child. What will we do when the baby is finally here?! Start counting how few hours sleep we have had no doubt...

Until then, I'll just count my blessings. I know it's soppy, but I'm just so happy!

Tomorrow, boum boum

Our contractor, Mr Fok, has been working in our flat for five days now. And yes, saying his naming without smirking is even more of a challenge than putting up with the white dusty footprints on our black shiny floor.

Knocking through to make a new bedroom and baby room was supposed to take two days according to Mr Fok's original estimate - although he doesn't speak English and I don't speak Cantonese, so I realise now that that might have been a miscommunication. In fact, when I asked him yesterday when he thought he would be finished, he answered "tomorrow, Friday, three days, tomorrow, boum boum". It's anybody's guess!

Meanwhile, being the former British colony that it is, Christmas is in full swing in Hong Kong. (I write this sitting in the building where Krusty works as the Cirque du Soleil take over the atrium in a strange display of Egyptian bellydancers, Victorian ladies and Red Indians flying away towards a Santa on stilts...)


Giant trees, skyscraper high light displays and kitsch midi carols are everywhere, and overbearing as it is, it has put me in the holiday spirit. We're having Christmas in our flat for the first time ever, and my parents and brother are coming over to celebrate. We've bought our first ever tree (which of course, as I was the one who chose it, was judged not to live up to the Krusty standard once it arrived in the flat) and I have decorated it with the strangest ornaments I could find (courtesy of those Scandinavian weirdos at Ikea). Krusty complains every day that it is just too odd, but I like our underdog tree with its huge holes, bent trunk and floating bearded heads... I even knitted a star to put on top, which doesn't really look like a star unless you squint at it from a distance. It's the thought that counts, eh?!

Maternity clothes

Jean-Paul Gauthier has created a collection for the lady with a passenger on board. Yeah, this is EXACTLY what I feel like wearing right now...

Cause and consequence

Three Christmas parties in two days = hangovers for Krusty and ear infections for me.
So not worth it... (OK so it was actually worth it - at the first party we got to watch my boss get so drunk he let a girl put makeup on him, at the second I got to see my favourite lecturer for the first time in 10 years, and at the third I got to remember who my real friends are. So overall, very worth it... But I could do without the infection)

I love this city

Yesterday evening, after work, we went out on the town for the first time in months. We started on a rooftop for a small xmas fair (I was only wearing one layer, in December!), then on to dinner in Mid-Levels, en route to which we bumped into three people we knew.

I know you can get the exact same experience living in a village somewhere, but which other city offers the chance of all the excitement with the small town relationships?! I love it.

More scenes from Hong Kong

When we moved in, we had a lovely view of the sea from the kitchen. In true HK style, another skyscraper has sprouted up to spoil the vista, but at least it has provided us with another form of entertainment - watching the fearless workers assemble and dismantle the bamboo scaffolding, swaying in the wind with cigarettes hanging from their lips, as if they did realise that they were actually 20 floors off the ground...


And in other craziness spotted around town, here is Krusty shopping for a bathtub in his lunch hour...

Turkey Fest 2009

As a couple of our friends are going back home for Christmas soon, we decided to hold a pot-luck Thanksgiving/Christmas last weekend. And it was perfect.

The Swiss-American contingent brought starters (beautifully presented fusion bites), Krusty and I cooked the main course (turkey and trimmings) and the Colombians brought dessert (panna cotta and pecan and apple pies). Our British guest and resident wine expert provided the vino for the occasion. It was eclectic, delicious and so much fun, just like our lives here.

We played Secret Santa, too, and Krusty got a brilliant toy baby and pushchair to practice his daddy skills with. Of course it didn't take long before the silliness to start and Krusty popped the baby's head off... Should I be worried?

After the stuffing, as we all vegged in front of an episode of Fawlty Towers, I realised how precious these people have become to me. They really are our adoptive family, without whom Hong Kong would be rather hollow.

Now I am feeling all Christmassy and thankful, and I can't wait for our Christmas tree to arrive in preparation for my parents' arrival. Two turkeys in one month? Yes we can!

Treasure hunter

Bambino has been awfully kind recently. Not only have I been able to eat meat these last few days, but instead of murderous sprees and terrorism, last night I dreamed that I had found an incredible treasure of hundreds of antique books hidden behind a partition in the flat.

Has the baby just grown out of its rage, or has it finally understood that Mummy is boss and it should try getting on my good side?

Yet another Bridget Jones moment

Hong Kong has got to be the only place I have ever lived where, when something is to be delivered to your home, you don't get a 12 hour delivery bracket but a two hour one, and the delivery guy actually calls you 30 minutes before arriving to make sure you are at home. You can go about your normal business and just pop back for the exact time the delivery arrives.

Or when your internet provider contract runs out, instead of just continuing to charge you until you cancel, someone comes to your home to inform you that you will now be paying less money each month...

Last night, just such as thing happened. As we were quietly watching Into the Wild, waiting for our supermarket delivery to arrive with the goodies for our early Xmas feast tomorrow night, there was a knock on the door and Krusty opened to find a representative from our cable/internet company, here with the good news about our fee going down.

And then began the most surreal evening of our lives.

At this point I should warn you that I am about to embarrass myself immensely by telling the story of what happened, but it's not like I have ever shied away from looking ridiculous on this blog. And since I found out that I only have about four readers anyway, the damage won't be too extensive...

Anyway, as the cable guy was taking quite a long time to explain and update our contract, I decided to get a head start on the cranberry sauce. That's the beauty of having an open kitchen.

As Krusty was waiting for the guy to fill in the necessary papers, he asked how the sauce was going, to which I replied "you know, I don't think I'll ever be able to cook on with electricity again, gas is awesome."

At this instant, my unborn child, who has turned my entire body into a gas machine, decided, without warning, to make me produce a very audible fart, right in front of the cable guy. That's right, after saying "gas is awesome" I managed to provide my audience with gassy bodily proof. I was mortified.

Not sure whether the guy had heard me, I ducked into the bathroom, half crying with laughter, at which point the guy asked Krusty if he had said something wrong.

I finally got over my shame and came back, at which point the door knocked again. There stood a very sweaty man, carrying the dozens of bottles of water that I had ordered. "Next time, only order half as much please," he panted. At this point, I started to think I might be in a dream.

The cable guy had almost finished, but of course now he started trying to sell us more channels. It was too late though, Krusty had already stuck his hand up the bottom of the turkey on the counter to extract the giblets in time for the stuffing. At 11pm on a Thursday night, our cable guy was negotiating with a man who had his hand inside a turkey while the supermarket delivery man continued to curse us for ordering so much water.

Then of course, as Krusty washed his hands, he realised that the shopping had come with a stack of dry ice, and so as he rinsed his fingers the sink filled with a mysterious smoke that awakened the childish scientist within.

We ended the conversation with the cable guy with me licking cranberry sauce off my fingers and Krusty holding a cup of smoking dry ice as he waved with a stupid grin on his face.

I'm guessing this particular cable guy might not come back at the end of the next contract!

(On a separate note, I think that the protagonist of Into the Wild was a selfish, ignorant idiot who did much more harm than good, and he really shouldn't be glorified in any way. Not only did he close the door on every single person who ever tried to love him, but he destroyed his life and that of his parents for no apparently justifiable reason. Just because you can quote Tolstoy, doesn't mean you're intelligent. I don't know what I'll do if I end up with a son who does the same thing. I might literally follow him into the woods and feed him poisonous berries myself...)

World of pain

Any girl who receives a coupon for a free eyebrow wax just because she is a member of the press should feel pretty lucky, and so I righteously did last week, when said freebie appeared out of nowhere.

This feeling of joy occurred, however, before I had ever had an actual eyebrow wax.

All giddiness swiftly disappeared when the first strip of hot wax was ripped from my forehead. I squealed as the beautician giggled, saying "First time?" Why, oh why do women submit themselves to this torture?!

The nice lady asked me to close my eyes as she continued (I was probably scaring her with my look of wide-eyed shock) and soon the pain and throbbing starting acting like a drug, making the room start spinning in my head. Daft Punk's Around the world came on the radio, and I sat trying not to spin away from the dominatrix's tweezers as my own world of pain went on.

And then of course I had to go back to the office and pretend nothing had happened as my colleagues pointed at my red, swollen forehead.

I'll keep the next coupon for my worst enemy.

Toys

I thought I had seen Krusty get excited before (we did get married only a few months ago, after all), but nothing could have prepared me for the 48 hours of woo-hooing and jumping up and down that our brand new kitchen appliances could have caused.

After the DIY extravaganza, now the festival of kitchen toys... My, my how we have changed. Is this what is called growing up?

Krusty Does-It-Himself

Now that we have decided to stay in our current flat, Krusty declared that we need a dishwasher, because doing the dishes made him very unhappy. He's only really ever done the dishes once or twice (and don't we remember about those times...) but who am I to say no?!

Of course getting said dishwasher entailed plumbing it in, and although I wanted to get a contractor to help, Krusty insisted on doing it himself. He actually seemed quite excited by the whole thing, and I think he saw it as a way of asserting his masculinity a bit and proving that even if I do have his balls in a box (as he likes to say), he is more than capable of claiming them back from me.

And so he got some pipe and a saw, and got down to work with a lot of "I know what I'm doing"s. Those transformed after a while into some not so reassuring groans, followed by "Ah, I know what the problem is". There is a problem? No, no, no; saw, saw, saw.

"Oh no, that was a mistake" came the follow-up. I was determined to stay zen. "Maybe the sink will be out of order for a while..." Oh really?

Ensued a series of "I just need to glue it" and "Oh what if I melt it?" swiftly joined by "it's that Cantonese man in the shop's fault" and "there's nothing on the market that fits".

Followed by dinner. By this point, I was actually rather enjoying the show. I have a bit of a cold at the moment, so I didn't have much energy for anything apart from watching Krusty at work, and remembering why I and some of our friends call him MacGyver.

"I'm working out some solutions" he said after dinner. "I'm just going to recreate everything". And so he did. Armed with some gasket, bbq gloves and a chicken madras, Krusty solved all of our problems, and sent me back down memory lane to London, when I woke up to find him doing some major drilling work in his dressing gown.

And then I had one of the those moments where you realise that you are witnessing a future memory. A life with Krusty is full of those moments. And no DIY job is small enough not to be entertaining...

Parenting without a pushchair

Winter has arrived almost overnight in Hong Kong. A few days ago we were walking through the streets in shorts and T-shirts, and today I am still shivering under my three layers of cashmere. It's not that cold in terms of temperature (18 degrees) but in contrast to what we are used to, it might as well be the ice age.

This drop in degrees, coupled with the flu vaccine I received on Saturday, is not making me want to leave the house much. I have to force myself to go to work, but if it were up to me, I would spend my days curled up under a couple of layers of blankets at home instead.

Our little tigger seems similarly lazy – actually the word that the doctor used is "uncooperative". We went on Saturday to get its nuchal translucency measured, something which apparently can determine the risk of Down syndrome, but the little nausea-inducing vegetarian was not willing to assume the correct position, instead choosing to curl up even further each time the doctor poked and prodded it. We're back tomorrow for round two in Determined Dr vs Stubborn Sprog.

In the meantime, the flat hunt continues, and in our search we might just have found the ideal abode - otherwise known as the place we are living in right now. Our landlord has offered an extension of 25% in size for only a tiny bit more money each month, so we'd have the biggest flat among the people we know, with the smallest rent to boot, which is saying something in this ridiculous real-estate mad city. Staying put comes with plenty of inconveniences of course, but then doesn't every flat?

We hashed it all out yesterday night (distracted mid-conversation by a Trivial Pursuit-off provoked by Krusty declaring that I was useless in every topic bar literature - I won) and came to the conclusion that the only actual drawback in our current flat were the stairs leading up to the lift.

Now this is a major drawback, I admit, but after extensive research, it seems doable. In fact according to numerous testimonials online, there are many, many mums climbing the same amount and many more stairs than I will be. Not to mention that climbing a few stairs each day is a recommended exercise for pregnant ladies to keep fit.

We first thought about getting a lightweight, foldable buggy which I would carry down the stairs while bub was in a Baby Bjorn-style carrier. Doable, but tiring on the old arms. Then we thought about getting a high tech buggy with wheels specially designed for stairs (yes, this exists - über-trendy Stokke has come up with an amazing buggy design, 2 of the 4 wheels of which retract at the click of a button to allow easy transit up stairs, over sand and in snow...) but that costs a small fortune (literally a month's rent).

Then I went to Mothercare, initially to test run the Stokke converter buggy. As I was practising going up and down the "stairs" of the display in store, a mum walked past with a tiny bub in a Baby Bjorn. Then another. Why weren't these ladies pushing prams? I asked one, and she unequivocally answered in favour of the baby carrier, saying that she didn't have stairs in her building, but that Hong Kong was such a stair-crammed, pushchair-unfriendly place that she found this solution the best and most adapted to her lifestyle. The second mum agreed, saying she had a pushchair, but only used it on longer excursions with her husband on the weekend, preferring the hands-free practicality of carrying bub around close to her body.

And then, as if on cue, a third mum chimed in, saying that I should look around next time I was in the street - most mums opted for the baby carrier option in Hong Kong on weekdays. For shortish, city-based activities, she was convinced it was the only way to go.

Anyway, all this to say that I spent a lot of time chatting with these ladies, and they all agreed that 2 x 15 steps to get home was very far from an obstacle to having a baby. And they added that they had lost weight much faster by carrying their babies this way! I'm tempted to agree with the mums who live here and have been through the whole process.

Speaking of Trivial Pursuit, did you know that should our progeny be a little boy (which, let's face it, its annoying behaviour seems to point towards), its testosterone is currently at the same levels as those of a 12-year-old tween. Thankfully they will drop by a fifth by birth, but still...

Testy

I have been way more tired than usual these last few days, probably from lack of sleep because of the weirdest dreams I have ever had.

In fact last night I dreamed that I was a man - does this mean that it's a boy? Krusty reckons so...

Fun facts for foreign families

The best thing about living abroad is that you get to interact on a daily basis with people who have a completely different culture and be surprised each time you learn about their rules and superstitions, which you wouldn't have thought up in your wildest dreams.

For example, in Hong Kong, working in an office full of local people, I now get to learn a new thing every day about the rules of pregnancy.

First I was told that for the first three months I should be laying down at all times, and that I should never leave the house. Strangely my boss did not agree. Then, as I mentioned to everyone our plan to move, I was told that this was really bad luck during pregnancy, and that we should wait until after the arrival of the baby. Finally I was told to avoid using a hammer and eating watermelon, or another other "cold" fruit. It's fascinating!

Of course this led me to ask more questions about what I could and could not do; here are a few choice tidbits for your cultural pleasure:

- Pregnant women should be as happy as possible at all times, as each of their emotions is passed on to the baby. Others should cater to their every whim – you can imagine how much I agree with this, although I am getting a bit tired of people in the office insisting to help me downstairs with my handbag.... I'm not handicapped!

- Light-coloured food will make your baby fair-skinned, and foods such as dark soy sauce will lead to darker skin – I'm pretty sure that with my disposition to sunburn and Krusty's Northern Irish origins, I could eat only dark chocolate for 9 months and still get a bub as white as snow...

- Absolutely no renovation work should be carried out around the house, no matter how minor, as anything that involves drilling, hammering, chopping, sawing etc could lead to miscarriage or deformities – I am a bit worried about this one, since we have a few changes planned for the flat if we stay...

- Pregnant women should place a knife under their bed to ward off evil spirits – hmmmm

- Don't use glue as it results in difficult labour – depends how you're using it I guess!

- Don't utter any swear words while pregnant, as your baby could get cursed – oops!

- Don't rub your bump if you don't want a spoiled child – but that's the best bit about having a giant bulge full of life!

Needless to say that there are many, many more. Which I will follow, I don't yet know...

Thump thump thump

Giving birth in Hong Kong is all a question of status – as is everything else. On one hand there are the wealthy families and lucky expats who can afford private hospitalisation, and then there is the rest of the population, who roam the corridors of the city's quality public hospitals.

Being a member of the latter, yesterday I made my way back to Tsan Yuk Hospital, the central registration clinic for pregnant ladies, where the first steps towards choosing a final hospital are taken for you.

After last week's experience of watching a video of babies with down syndrome and umbilical cords falling off to a backdrop of sweeping chords of heart string-tugging music, I wasn't too keen to return to Tsan Yuk. But this week there were less screaming toddlers around and more mums with ridiculous grins.

Of course the grins soon disappeared, after about three hours of hanging around and being carted from one medical student to the next – Tsan Yuk and Queen Mary (where I will give birth, hopefully) are both teaching hospitals, so that means there are plenty of students/interns/residents hanging around trying to learn.

In theory this is wonderful. I like being a part of someone's education, and helping young hopefuls become fully fledged doctors. But in practice, it means having many conversations (usually answering exactly the same questions) in back rooms, with the spotty students nervously flipping through your charts and mumbling worrying analysis that could either mean you are perfectly well or that your baby has hepatitis.

This is all very enjoyable when you're watching Grey's Anatomy and can't understand what medical jargon Izzy is using or when you laugh at O'Malley screwing up, but when it's your own health and your own time at stake, somehow if feels a lot less glamorous.

Not to mention the atmosphere it created. Scared, darting looks across the room were made even eerier by the sound of the nurses' plastic soles screeching across the plastic floor. The bleach was almost too much to bear for our heightened sense of smell, and every time someone coughed, the whole room stared to see if it could be swine flu...

Now, I'm not sure I made clear enough what happens in the private scenario of this process. For those ladies, it's all plush carpeting in the waiting room, fresh flowers in the examination rooms, and gourmet meals in the private maternity rooms after delivery. I daydreamed about this hotel experience while I zoned out the sickly pink walls and baby pictures from the 70s...

...until one of the nurses called my name, and then tugged and pushed me down on to a bed. She didn't speak any English, so I wasn't at all sure what was about to happen. But then IT happened...

The doctor came in, whipped out a little torch-like machine, placed it on my belly (from which the clothes had been rather aggressively removed by the nurse) and let me hear my baby's heartbeat.

The cacophonous plastic, the poor interior design, the nauseating smells... Nothing mattered anymore, as the little life inside lived on, and the thump thump was there to prove it.

Plus, once I had understood what was going on, the lovely doctor let me film the whole thing. Who needs carpets, flowers and gourmet food when you've got this...:

The oddest thing...

If I get too close to my desk and it presses lightly against my belly, my incredibly strong and fast heartbeat, channelled through the bump, makes my whole body bounce back and forward in my office seat... Such a strange feeling!

Nest hunting

While Spongebub Fetuspants continues to live the life aquatic in my uterus, we have been on a frantic flat search to house the bundle when it arrives.

It's a bittersweet process, as we love the flat we live in at the moment, but it has very baby-unfriendly stairs to climb, and a rather polluted environment to chill in. Not to mention the flying bags of dried seafood to dodge each time delivery day comes around...

And so we have had to ask ourselves a few questions – do we compromise and submit our little'un to the unsavoury life of our current place? Do we submit ourselves to the market's sky-high rental prices and find another tiny flat in the middle of town? Or do we move out to the middle of nowhere with no friends to get the benefit of a garden? Just thinking about it is exhausting.

And exhausted I'll be, no doubt (I googled "typical day with a newborn baby" and almost threw myself out of the window), so perhaps being a million miles from any sort of cultural or cerebral stimulation would be relaxing. Then again, maybe it would be a mistake - I'd be too tired to move myself to see my old acquaintances, and ever keep abreast of what's going on around town. Not great for an editor – it would be best for me to actually know what was going on...

In any case, we are keeping our options open. We have seen village houses in a field, with wild dogs roaming and cicadas singing; we have seen Mordor-style towers with 2,000 flats piled up high; we have seen tiny rabbit cages with lacquered floors... None of it has grabbed me yet.

How am I supposed to know what I'll want when little chickpea arrives?

Canto life continues

First we discovered that the mythical "wagon" that you can fall off actually exists!


Then we discovered that Krusty's language skills have not improved at all since we arrived - when he gave the taxi our destination in Cantonese, our driver replied "I'm sorry, my English is not so good"!

The rat, the monkey... and the tiger!

Now that the unwritten laws of motherhood have allowed me to lift the shroud of secrecy, I am pleased to announce that Krusty and I are... expecting a tiny Tiger next year!

Of course I could have blogged about a multitude of other things in the meantime, avoiding all hints, but when something this big happens, it's hard to think of anything else to write about. And in fact for some reason, all I see in the streets now is pregnant woman after pregnant woman, if they are not already carting around their bubs. Where had these ladies been hiding until now?!

So far "being up the duff" (as Krusty poetically calls it) has not been a walk in the park, and I have felt none of the glow and "ooohhh your hair is amazing" and more of the heavy eyelids, bloated belly and "ooohhh how come you still have acne at your age?" But they say it is going to get better, and as I have hit the three-month mark, I should start feeling human again soon. I hope.

Hopefully I'll be able to eat normally again, too. At the moment, every morsel of meat that comes near my mouth makes me feels retched - I think the baby is a vegetarian. Which makes sense I guess, when you consider it was conceived in Amsterdam...

But at least I am over my water revulsion - in the beginning, even my favourite brand, Evian, tasted of dust. I could smell damp and humidity and dirty water everywhere, and my mouth was always full of saliva.

I also can't STAND noise anymore, probably because I am so tired. I often give the wrong amount of money to taxi drivers, forget entire conversations and have to ask people to repeat sentences several times... I even had a daydream about standing up and leaving the office forever because of the music in the lobby... Not to mention the weird coincidence that every time I type in a website on my browser I accidentally type .vom instead of .com...

But then we go to the doctor's office, and we get a scan, and all of the bad stuff goes away. The last time we went, we even saw the little tiger's arms and legs moving really fast - it was magical. Krusty is worried that our bambino has inherited his dancing skills (brilliantly described in babymomma's babypapa's excellent wedding speech as "a carefully contrived fusion of African tribal dancing and Robotics. Or just a rare, hitherto undiscovered form of epilepsy") and that its hair will start receding as soon as the umbilical cord is cut, but I know it will be just perfect whatever happens. Thankfully we'll have our parental goggles to shield us from any of its shortcomings.

I am posting below a picture from our last scan. Bambino measured 3cm back then, but by now it has already grown to 6cm! We're going back for another in 8 days, so we'll be able to track its growth very soon. Very exciting.

Anyway, now the secret's out, perhaps I'll be able to think (and talk) about something else. Time to get my life back! What am I talking about, my life as I knew it disappeared forever three months ago... So why do I feel so happy?!

The tiny tiger:

Dishwashing marathon

This weekend, Krusty broke all of his records by agreeing to do the washing up, and taking a record total time to do it of... 48 hours! Incredible.

He spent most of the time explaining to me how his method meant that everything was actually clean, while my method (which only takes a few minutes) only cleaned the surface. Meanwhile what seemed like the entire contents of our kitchen lay spread out on every surface in the process of being cleaned - there were many different stages to this undertaking.

Quite a feat.

Now that the cleaning marathon is over, only one question remains: genuine washing up inefficiency from Krusty, or genius method of never ever being asked to do the washing up ever agin?

In front of our house today

Just the usual roadworks (that have been there for a year) and some lovely dried fish, strategically placed to soak up all the goodness of the bus and taxi fumes as well as a coat of dust from the jackhammer action next to it. Bliss...

Moan moan moan

I was going to sit and write about our honeymoon today, but I am just too angry to - last night Typhoon Koppu destroyed most of our roof furniture, filled our living room with water and now, this morning, I am the only one sitting in the office.

When Typhoon Signal 8 is hoisted, people are allowed to leave the office or not come in. But as I read this morning that the signal should be lowered to 3 by 10am, I imagined that everyone would be in anyway, keen to get on with the day and not stay at home for the sake of an hour. So I rushed in so as not to be the only one who sat at home while others toiled and of course, I lose. I'm more than a little miffed. I could have had an hour's extra sleep.

Not to mention the fact that Krusty left on a 10-day business trip last night, so I was left alone to affront the storm, and now I am alone to clean up the debris.

Harumph.

Actually, this is not dissimilar to a few moments of the honeymoon, in terms of ranting. In fact Krusty started calling it the honeyMOAN at one point...

Crude awakening

We're back from the land of rolling hills and people who talk with their hands, and oh how different this morning's stalls of dried shrimp, oysters and sea cucumber were to the bounty of tomatoes, aubergines and courgettes we left behind...

The last meal we had in Italy was on the terrasse of a pizzeria overlooking the Colosseum. It has been there since 1956. Back in Hong Kong, a new restaurant called Modern Toilet has just opened, with seats shaped like, that's right, toilets and drinks served in cups designed as mini-urinals.

Now where would you rather be:

Here?


Or here?

Out of office

The rat and the monkey are off to Italy for the rat's brother's fairy-tale wedding followed by a honeymoon in a fiat 500. They estimate to return in around 10 days with around 1,000 photos.

Arrivederci!

This week on my crappy camera phone

Another one of my favourite Hong Kong habits: people who stuff a dirty tissue down the handle of a taxi door - there's just nothing quite like putting your hand in someone else's wet mucus handkerchief. Gross.


A more agreeable Hong Kong hobby: the mani-pedi. Bliss.


And in other news, leafing through a guide to Italy led me to realise that Krusty is in fact the spitting image of... Roberto Benigni (in the bottom left hand corner)! It's a wonderful life? Er....

Pop up

Today we're having a bit of fun in the office creating a pop-up layout for my Oriental Express story.
Some days work is good...

The magic dragon

The best thing about Hong Kong is, without contest, its hikes. You can wake up to the sound of jackhammers building the next skyscraper to ruin your view in the morning, and within just 30 minutes, be surrounded by lush tropical trees and breathtaking sea views. Makes everything else worthwhile, without the shadow of a doubt.

A shadow would have been most welcome on Sunday, though. We seem to forget our lesson every time we embark on a new journey, and end up at the summit at midday, when the sun is at its gnarliest. One day we'll learn to leave a little earlier, or later.

But oh how it was worth the heatstroke - we hiked along the Dragon's Back, a mountain ridge within Shek O Country Park, actually on Hong Kong Island, as opposed to other hikes on the mainland. What's so amazing about this hike - apart from the fact that you are on top of a mountain, with views down on both sides - is that you can literally see the city below (and in fact the new ICC building that is still under construction on Kowloon is so high that its head pops out from behind Victoria Peak) while all you can hear is the rare breeze in the leaves, and all you can smell is the salt from the sea surrounding you (and that bead of sweat rolling down your, well, every part of your body really).

You couldn't be closer to the city, without being further away.

It was hot though. And if you don't believe me, check out Krusty's face after huffing and puffing up the first hump. It's a whole new shade of red...

You know you're in Hong Kong when...

...you open the office fridge to find a bag full of chickens' feet...

Literary genius

The problem: mutant mosquito bites



The solution: Mopi dick

Creepy crawlies

This morning, I took a shower. So far, so "why am I reading this blog again?" But when I exited the shower and went for the towel, I discovered the biggest, scariest, most disgusting, monstruous, indestructible cockroach Hong Kong has ever seen.

At this point I should add that I am completely katsaridaphobic (that's right, there's a name for it - that's because cockroaches are SCARY... don't ask why) and that Krusty, who usually guards me against these intruders (quite commonplace in these humid climes unfortunately) is on a business trip.

So it was just me, my towel, and this monster.

Our eyes locked as I decided what to do, and I swear I saw evil in its stare. Considering the consequences of karmic retribution, I opened the window to allow it to leave by its own accord (actually I just didn't want to touch it) but no such luck. It stood its ground, defiantly.

I flew into a sudden frenzy, threw kind caution to the wind and grabbed the Biokill spray (my new best friend), chasing the beast while it scurried all over the place. Those things are FAST.

As it was cornered in the shower (actually even Biokill can't kill cockroaches, as can't nuclear explosions, or putting them in the microwave), I started aiming water at it, but it just started jumping out of the stream. Jumping. A JUMPING COCKROACH.

Anyway, it finally disappeared down the plug hole, who knows whether it was alive or dead, and now all that I can think about is whether it will come back with all of its mates to seek vengeance. I am wearing a long dress today, and every time my hem touches my foot I squeal in fear.

What if it tells the cockroach police and they decide to come and bring justice to this house?!

Muzak

The office torture continues, with tunes so boring they didn't even get the singers to suffer through an entire song - they just got them to sing 5 notes and then pressed copy and paste about 100,000 times.

At least it's better than the phlegm concert accompanied by the dispatch lady screaming orders down the taxi radio this morning.

I read today that in Chinese culture, and especially in Qi medicine, phlegm is called "sou", or "productive cough". I call it "rrhhhhuuuuhhhhhhk".

Kitchen confidential

With Krusty in town for just one night (back from a week in Australia and off for a week in Singapore) I thought it was high time for a dinner party at home. And by the same token, a great opportunity for the first installment in P and I's cook-off.

I can't say too much here, but my fabulous Colombian friend P and I have a secret project on the burner that involves a hobby we both very much love - food. So on Saturday, for the first time since our little plan was hatched, we whipped out our aprons and cooked to our little hearts' content.

My brother was in Hong Kong for the weekend too, so a total of nine of us - including J, who brought a selection of wines to conduct a tasting at the same time - enjoyed the results: my mother's traditional lasagne, a courgette and ricotta lasagne twist, a bitter mango salad and a berry cheesecake with mangosteen sorbet. Eclectic, yes. Delicious, double yes.

More details as the project evolves, but for now, a few photos!

Rain

It has been non stop rain since last weekend, with a typhoon coming through and another potentially on its way. What I'd like to know, though, is why are typhoons only strong enough to force us to stay at home on weekends or late at night?

Beauty and the beast

With a glass of champagne in one hand and a madeleine in the other, I give you the beauty of HK – for those of you who thought that our adoptive home was just a harbourfront of skyscrapers such as this:



I give you the same skyscrapers at sunset:



Aaaaannnnd another sunset on Cheng Sha beach (albeit taken at a very low resolution on my rubbish camera phone):

Murder on the Orient Express

There has been a murder on the Orient Express. Or rather on the Express' Asian sister, the Eastern & Oriental Express, which travels from Singapore to Bangkok.

The victim: my waistline.

The culprit: the French chef who manages to stuff 130 people with five-star, four-course meals twice a day, with breakfast and afternoon tea thrown in for good measure.

The scene of the crime: a velvet armchair under crisp white linen in the dinner car.

It's not fair, really – first the Important Travel Information for Passengers booklet informs you that “gentlemen will feel comfortable with a minimum of jacket and tie” and that ladies should know that “the train provides a marvellous opportunity to display some glamour and style, and dressing up is encouraged.” So you arrive at the dinner table feeling very British-aristocrat-on-important-colonial-business, surrounded as you are by sequins and satin gloves.

But then, the food... Everything on the menu is irresistible – pan-fried goose liver tatin with pineapple chutney and savoury kaffir lime leaf, tom yam vichyssoise with quail medallion and vegetable tagliatelle, steamed seabass laqué and beetroot on lemongrass risotto with mushroom and asparagus, vanilla ice cream bombe drizzled with warm dark chocolate sauce with poached pear...

J'accuse monsieur le chef, in the kitchen, with the warm scallop soufflé!

Of course, it's a good thing the menu is spectacular, because there's not much else to do apart from eat. You're on a train, limited to roam the corridors (and wipe the walls with your best dress as the train rocks on the Thai tracks) or settle into the reading room before heading back to your cabin (albeit your verrrrrry comfortable cabin, with wood pannelling, gold fixtures, a private bathroom with Bvlgari toiletries, a monogrammed dressing gown etc etc).

You can watch the countryside go by, wistfully gazing at the water buffalo as they wade to the backdrop of lush tropical trees, you can sip your local tea served in heavy silver teapots and fine bone china teacups, and you can chat with your fellow passengers about how rich they are (actually, they were fascinating – I met the owner of a major French vineyard, a British astrophysicist on his way back to Japan for a work reunion, and a German man with a crazy moustache who has retired to a property in the Seychelles that provides fruit to the local hotels). And it's all punctuated with...that's right...food.

And drink – much champagne was consumed to toast the young honeymooners on board, as well as one lady's 60^th birthday, another couple's 30^th anniversary... It's a trip for special occasions, really (don't ask about the price...) and for people with plenty of time. In other words, retirees!

That's it, it's like a very stylish, very British retirement home on wheels.

It's really romantic though, too. In every sense of the word: not only is it a great place to sip champagne while gazing into each other's eyes, it's also a great setting for romanticising, in the sense of gossiping and inventing stories about complete strangers.

Apart from the obvious Colonel-Mustard-in-the-reading-room-with-the-candlestick thoughts that went through my mind, I spent most of my hours trying to freak out other passengers by looking mysterious as I read Murder on the Orient Express (punctuating my read with evil cackles seemed to achieve maximum effect) and gossiping with the other girls in my group (most fervently about one man who had two tickets but arrived alone, looking gaunt and never eating in the dinner car, just suspiciously gliding through the train and averting our glances).

And yes, the aforementioned champagne might have contributed to making the trip more fun (well you wouldn't want to sip red wine on a rocky train and be responsible for the big red stain on the immaculate white satin dress of your fellow diner would you?). In fact, champagne is responsible for me suddenly feeling the urge to accompany the train's INCREDIBLE pianist with a heart felt rendition of Sinatra's My Way... Not sure how pleased the other passengers were that I was in the bar car with them at that point...

All this to say that apart from two stops (one in Penang, the other on the River Kwai) during which I was not allowed to walk – only to sit, once more, on trishaws, buses and ferries – I had a great time on my trip just eating, drinking and chatting with strangers.

But that's what it's all about really. And brace yourselves, as there are times when only a cliché will do:

On trips like the Eastern & Oriental Express, it's not about the destination, it's about the journey.