Experiment no 1: Walking under the influence

I conducted an experiment today, and here's the result of my research:

Of ten people followed in the street, ZERO walked in a straight line, and TEN blocked my path in a last minute zig zag swerve as I tried to overtake them.

Now I don't know whether it is just people in Hong Kong who have this insanely annoying habit or whether it is because the pavements are so narrow here that I just notice it more, but walking anywhere in Hong Kong (especially during morning, lunch and evening rush hours) is INFURIATING!

At first it looks like everyone is walking on the right hand side, which would make sense and bring a semblance of pedestrian order, but then out of the blue and completely unpredictably, the person in front of you (usually armed with a cigarette ready to blind you and burn you) will vere off course or simply stop incomprehensibly in their tracks, creating a huge human domino-style pile-up behind them. Not to mention the people coming the other way who, on their crazed trajectory, create head-on collisions with no apology whatsoever. In fact, often someone will bash into me and then scowl at me as if it is my fault that I am in their way!

And when it's raining, well, the best thing to do then is never leave home, because hundreds of inconsiderate zig zaggers are one thing, but once they have their umbrella weapons in hand, now that's just a city-wide accident waiting to happen.

Especially when you're just tall enough for the umbrellas' spikes to be at eye-level...

Hens and Stags

So as I was saying, our friends Julie and Jesse are getting married in Switzerland in two weeks. And because every couple deserves a final bash before the big leap, we decided to throw them a party before they left. Of course with the groom being American, the bride being Swiss and the guests being Swiss, French, Dutch and British, there was some confusion as to the intention of the night - for the Americans it was a Bachelor(ette) party, for the French an 'Enterrement de vie de Jeune Fille/Garcon' (which means the burial of your former, younger, more fabulous life - my personal cynical favourite) and for the British it was a Hen/Stag night. Of course the party happened at our house and I was in charge of the T-shirts etc, so the Hens and Stags won.

There is something to be said about being under the French influence though - between the delicious food from Romain, Caroline and John's fabulous French food shop (including home made Foie Gras), Nico's wine and champagne at cost price and Marine's INCREDIBLE cooking skills, we had a very civilised dinner. And of course I suppose there is also something to be said about having a party now that we are older - no more giant pots of pasta ladled straight from the pan and, more importantly, people actually helped clean up at the end! Long gone are the days of waking up to innumerable cans of beer and cigarette butts strewn around the place...

Anyway, we had personalised cupcakes, Mr and Mrs games, and even a girls vs boys challenge planned, but we never got that far, preferring to don the costumes right there on the roof and dance around looking ridiculous instead. You could even say we partied like it was 1999 - as in when Krusty and I still had enough energy to stay up dancing until 5.30 am...

It wasn't our strongest photographical effort, but here are a few examples anyway...

Countdown

In an unconscious stroke of genius, we are flying to Switzerland for our friends' wedding on the first day of the Beijing Olympics. The genius part? In the Central MTR subway station, there is a giant clock counting down the days, minutes and seconds to the Olympics. Or is it our holiday?

Beats crossing off days on a calendar...

L'homme Chauve Souris

We went to see the latest Batman tonight.
The words to describe how much I loved it (and seeing those great Hong Kong sequences) have not been invented yet.
All I can say is - Dark Knight, I'm yours.

Multiple personalties

I would like to understand how I can be such a blushing wallflower and confident cynic at the same time. I can go from being full of self-belief, ready to insult someone to their face, and then within the blink of an eye I become completely needy and self-doubting with a crimson face and sweaty palms. Today I went through the whole gamut of emotions at the office of one of my freelance jobs, and managed to blush a record breaking 17 times throughout the day.

Needless to say, I'm exhausted.

Bang, crash, boom

June was officially the wettest month in Hong Kong since records began, probably due in the most part to 'that' day (our housewarming party of course) when over 145mm fell in just one hour. That's 15% of the normal annual rainfall! In just one hour!!

Anyway, July doesn't look like it's going to be any better, as it has rained constantly with just one little break this morning that has been followed by a giant thunderstorm tonight.

I am alone in the flat, the flat that we loved because of its proximity to the harbour, the flat whose proximity to the harbour means that we get the full brunt of the storm, and I am PETRIFIED! The thunder is so loud I find myself physically startled each time it breaks, with my heart jumping right up into my throat. The walls are even vibrating, too! I know it can't hurt me, but it's still scary.

And actually it can kind of hurt me - the flat that we loved because of its rooftop also has a leak coming from that same rooftop. Seems like the structure just couldn't deal with so much water, so that most of our bathroom walls now look like this:



The flat has aged by 20 years in just a few days...

And it's got me thinking - one of the things that astrologers predict for this particular year of the rat is natural disasters relating to earth and water elements. Now I don't believe in that kind of thing (I think), but what if? Listening to this thunderstorm could change my whole belief system if I'm not careful...

But all I need to remember is that 10 years ago a Chinese fortune teller told me that by now I would have become a celebrated lawyer, been married and have gone through an acrimonious divorce. Of course none of this has come true.

Then again, he did also tell me that the shape of my nose foretold a long and prosperous life, so I'm not about to give up on predictions just yet. I mean, that thunder can't be normal. It must have some kind of cosmic relevance related to my upcoming long and wealthy life, mustn't it?!

Overblogger

Krusty has just come back from his business trip and given me a detailed (long-winded, I thought) explanation of why my Japanese blogging was waaaayyy over the top.

So I apologise for giving you the second by second account of our trip. At least I'll have it in the archives now, as a reminder of how easily I can avoid being succinct sometimes...