I joined the library! Yay! So I'm back to reading 12 books a week which shows how busy I'm NOT. Sadly they are all hardbacks, I didn't see any english paperbacks, and there is a very random selection. They seem to have every Mills & Boon ever written, a lot of University or higher degree level factual books, and then best-sellers and unheard of fiction. So I'm reading stuff about Egyptian history, dracula, science fiction (never bothered with that author before but they have 30 of his books) and odd stuff that looks less boring and less heavy to carry home up that hill! Not the romance, though - I tried them when I was about 14 and decided I could write them better anyway at that age! The huge central star-trek style main library had sofas and chairs everywhere with 100s of people sta reading in them - much more welcoming than in the UK.
Victoria Park being decorated for Moon Festival, Hong Kong. Wierd thingys, no idea......
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.
Makeup is odd in one way here - most of the products advertised or displayed are to make you WHITER. Talk about the grass being greener - in the UK most of its meant to make you look sun-kissed, and here where a glowing tan is easy to get for real (unless you hide inside like me during this humidity) , its a sign of not being posh I think. I have heard a few comments about prices being layered by the colour of your skin/ origin - 1 for local chinese, next level is Europeans etc, next is darker asian countries. Another wierd thing is that so many of the products are again very familiar - but made more locally, so they have chinese pictograms instead of romanised letters but on the same packaging & background. Oddest of all is they have entire shelves of stuff from Boots, with the same shelf labels just, again, illegible to me. Slightly worried - keep meaning to buy more shampoo so have been glancing in passing, and I swear the stall I passed today had 'placental shampoo' on its bottles!
Jake replied that it is the shame of having a criminal in your family that stops most petty crime, but I have been hearing about the organised crime through Peter, from his local colleagues. Is it Tongs they call the big gangster families?? Anyway there is a big scandal this year as some bloke who was the bouncer on the door of a local club (don't know if he was ex-pat or local) was really rude to a woman who wanted to come in. I think he said she was ugly etc are refusing to let her & her party in. Anyway, turned out she was the girlfriend of someone high-up in the local Tong, and he was furious when she told him. So his 'mean' went back that night and totally sliced up the bouncer at the club with big knives. They later discovered there had been a change of shift, and the rude bouncer had finished work and gone home, so it was an innocent bloke they diced. So, when the poor guy wakes up, he's in a first class private room with all his medical bills paid and some very nice flowers!!!! It's all a bit Terry Pratchett (if anyone reads Discworld) - crime with a conscience! No idea what happened to the original target though!
That all makes me a bit wary of looking too hard at some of the interesting tattoos on blokes here, though! No idea if they are more common on gang members or not, but I won't risk staring / admiring food ones like I did in the UK!
Victoria Park being decorated for Moon Festival. Hong Kong Is Queen Vic eating an icecream or is it just me?
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.
Chandeleirs must be very desireable - there are SO MANY shops & stalls selling them, from fairly modest lamps to huge dangling affairs bigger than our entire kitchen! Still, some of them almost tempt me - sparkly, glittery, ooooooooooooo!!!! Bling is VERY much the thing, on hats, clothes, shoes, accessories (including phone dangles) - you name it, if it can, it WILL be sparkling - Ali G would love it! Even the bathroom tile district is mainly massively garish displays of shower stalls coated in gold and cut-glass effect wall tiles! Although the black marble floors with rainbow sparkle chips in them are quite fetching....
Petes boat has been removed! Efficient harbour police! As we predicted, typical - after he finally found somewhere to store it! So he's now dribbling at build-your-own-live aboard-catamaran kits on the web. We could just about afford the kit if we used all our savings, but the manpower, labour, stuff to stick it all together with, as well as the costs of having a massive dry space to build it in rented for several years, are not do-able yet. (Phew I think!). I think he is also coming round to the idea of us maybe moving, especially as I keep having tantrums about ants/ the loo. What is it with blokes - he makes 2 sandwhiches and uses both chopping boards, both plates (not that he eats off a plate) and most of the utensils, leaving crumbs over the 'work-top' (way too low for us) and the top of the fridge (our height of work-top) - and don't get me started on the bathroom! Plus I am pretty sure all the mosquitos that get us at night are coming up the floor drains in the kitchen/ loo as there is no other way for them to get in. He probably will not move off the island, as the size of the flat here is HUGE compared to what we could afford on Hong Kong Island, and it IS quiet and less polluted, i suppose.and apparantly anywhere else he would consider living is at least a 2 hour commute for him, so thats out the window. But maybe we can go to a place I'm not embarressed for guests to go into the bathroom/ kitchen - and as for the raved about roof terrace he has - I have been here nearly a month and I haven't even set foot on it yet!!!!. So hoping I can get a look at the 'nice' flats (above the ice cream shop & accross from the bakers - wow, food we don't have to import to the island - people - SHOPS!!!!!) in the main village on the other coast of Lamma. Bet he just lets me buy a microwave instead in the hope that actually being able to cook stuff that ISN'T toast or pot noodles will cheer me up about this flat.
My visa has been approved in super-quick time - Petes took a few months, and as we had to fax over a bunch of stuff just over 2 weeks ago that he forgot to include when he applied for mine, I was expecting at least a month's wait - but its ready! Collecting it is another thing though - apparantly will be lots of fun joining different queues on different floors of the dreaded immigration tower. Then I have to take a trip 'out' of the country (accross the water to Macau) which cancels my tourist visa & somehow 'starts' my dependents residence visa. AND after that at some point I also have to go back to the tower & make an appointment to get all my details & stats (I know I get fingerprinted but are they up to retinal scans yet or is that just in Tom Cruise movies?) taken for my smart ID card. (Not sure what it does apart from being another library card & meaning I don't have to carry me passport around). So I am nearly official!
I must register my business here soon - I expect they are stricter than the UK in tracking down people who aren't doing it properly! What is annoying is not being able to source all the bits I need that I couldn't fit in my suitcase - like the big tall folding directors chair that means I don't need to bend when painting whoever is sat in it. All the UK suppliers said 'oh its from China/ Hong Kong', but can I find them here?? Or anyone who will let me import less than 100 at a time form China? There is even someone on UK ebay selling them dirt cheap - one at a time - from Hong Kong!!!!! Urrgh. I can't read HK ebay as there is no translation button, which is odd. SO I am getting Pete to print off pics of what I want at work in the hope a lot of pointing at them will eventually let me find a local stall who knows what I'm on about!
Halloween Cat face paint - things to do during a typhoon when your'e bored in HK - www.cats-creations.co.uk
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.
Also business cards are THE thing you must have here, handed out like confetti, but again even though all the guide books & everyone goes on about all the places that do them, I have yet to find them! At the moment I have been handwriting my HK mobile number onto the vistaprint ones I had done before I left the UK. Still, the one really pricey place I found here online does business cards which can even have raised glossy bits or shiny foil or be cut in funky shapes - oooohhh... if I can work out how to submit what I want as an Adobe file, which is a programme I have never used! (Going to be getting a lot of emails from me, Jake/ gee). I have got 3 weeks before my 1st booking to get all sorted.
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