Ok so prob last 1 for a while as starting to find things to do!
Wednesday I went into Petes work again (1 of his office guys is off so is quieter that day), and got to help him eat his MASSIVE free lunch - no wonder he is finally starting to get a convex belly! Had a lovely fast ride in his rib round the coast to a few bays down to collect a club member & tow his new (laser) sailboat back. Its so hot that the minute Pete slowed the speedboat down, we'd put up the big garden umbrellas they have strapped behind the drivers seat- was actually clear blue bits of sky & SUNNY for once, yay. After work we walked along the promenade (wide curved concrete path with planted beds, with every single tree having its own number nailed to it {incase they get lost?} on the land side of the shore) until we reached Repulse (?) Bay. Very pricey - even the un-serviced flats there cost more per month than we earn per year! We were surrounded by all the Phillipino 'amas' walking their employers dogs. I like the wee private minibus's that are everywhere- takes octopus card (like Oyster or what ever the electronic thing is in London); only 16 seats; drivers wait till full or fed up and then goes, only stops if he has spaces& can stop NOT at bus stops too. Took me a while but I now realise the people sitting with their hands over their mouths on buses aren't scared of infection/ infecting, they are on the phone! Looks weird. Tiki, the anti-coughing thing is left over from the panics during SARS - they think you will infect/ kill them or something even though in my case its the pollution that gets me. They have now tried to stop people spitting all over the streets which I would have thought a worse habit for germs, though! I also learnt not to buy & attempt to eat icecream lollies, as the insides melt faster than you can eat & you end up with it dripped all down your top, which is eyelevel for most of the public when on me.
Talking of which I feel quite out of place as ALL the tshirts/ tops local wear have to have some sort of logo or message on - plain tshirts/ tops are for film stars and me, apparently.
Tried grocery shopping again - its not too bad, Mum, as we only eat juice, toast & crackers at home so it all fits in a few bags & the wee rucksacks Gee gave us at our wedding, so we can carry it up the hill. Anyway they had wrapped bits of peeled Durian fruit this time - I found it by the weird smell - but Pete wouldn't let me buy it as it stank even in the wrapping! They also sell young coconuts, which look like short fat pencil stubs or spinning tops (I take it you just drill a hole in the tip where the lead would be for the milk), and SMOKED whole peeled coconut which is something I have never heard of! There are barrels of stuff you buy by the scoop that I can't read/ identify but will taste test (the lady always waves stuff at me &tries to put it in my mouth) when I have learnt enough to have a vague idea of what it is. Now trying blackcurrant juice with CRUNCHY aloe vera, Kate - yum!
Mistakenly bought crackers which had burnt sugar on 1 side but we now like them with marge. Very disappointed with all the chocolate, tried KitKats, Maltesers etc - all the UK brands but made in China/ Australia, just tastes wrong. Not had the courage to try pea or squid based crisps (puffy ones like wotsits) yet. Weird local booze is mainly gloppy like treacle, or 'for health/ virility/ longevity' with dark stuff floating in it - 'Glutinous wine' just doesn't appeal, so we hope to try them out in a bar before we commit to a whole bottle! Highlight was a tallish (i.e. near my ear) youngish chinese guy in the queue beside me letting rip a massive burp RIGHT in my ear who looked annoyed when I jumped & stared at him. Found a shop selling pillows (bliss!) AND drain clearer. Tried it in the kitchen sink 1st, luckily - no warnings on it except 'will melt bones', so I poured in a dash, HUGE sizzle & puff of black smoke that woke up Peter, and I swear it flashed. So was a bit more careful using it on the dreaded bathroom floor/'shower' drain.....it worked though! And will also come in handy if I ever need to get rid of Pete.......
I got the no-more-than-5-in-a-gathering thing wrong - that's only in China. So the paved 'park' strip between our dock and the main road of Aberdeen is full of Fan Dancers in the morning - men too- when they all snap them open together it sounds like all the Trafalgar Square pigeons taking off.
During the day the fisher people peel 100s of shrimps etc and carefully arrange them on metre square plastic grids to dry, so neat & symmetrical & closely packed I thought they were tiny tiles - looks like those geometric cushions mum used to embroider satin/ long stitch. They shrivel to little pink strings & you buy them in mini sheaves. Evenings is assorted Tai Chi groups, old guys gambling & basketball. Oh and full of the sampan-controller-madams who scream "SAAAAAMpaaaaaan" at us in EXACTLY the same tones as the nutter chinese lady on the drive-thru burger bar arguement scene in the film 'Dude, Where's My Car?".
Slightly confused, had tea in the veggie buddhist place & half of it had shark fin, (BAD - they waste the rest of the catch& shark), meat or fish in it. Lovely corn soup with my first ever non-green seaweed, clear, & sort of crunchy, looked a bit like the red
frilly edged flat seaweed but bleached out - what the name of that red seaweed, Victor??? Not Chondus crispus - i need my Collins seashore guide, I forget! Pete had been dreaming about omelets but got given a weird concoction of spam, (vege?? I think not) sliced egg whites, beansprouts and clear wispy yellow tinged shiny noodles which reminded me of the cat's intestinal worms. Tasted good, though! Offered peanut soup for pud but was too full. Chefs knives must be FAB here Alex as when you do order meat they basically slice the whole lot including bones into your dish; after our roast duck at lunch we had perfect little rounds of all the bones to line up. Oh yeah, another odd drink a la Lochlans-near-death-nut-experience at Gordys wedding - I pointed at Mango juice, it came; mango, orange (nice so far)....tapioca, hmmm, OK, .....rice, noodles and I THINK egg. Um.
Thurs/ Fri Pete had off, so we did a horrible trip into Central to pay for the Cantonese beginners course I persuaded him to get me on. I start Tues, every afternoon for 2 weeks. On the way we stopped off to try to open me an account in the central MASSIVE cathedral like offices of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corp (did anyone know that's what HSBC is???). Felt very out of place, is big business area, talk about power dressing! Foreign women (we are all called gweilos apparently) with legs & heels up to my ears, chinese with even higher shoes and the most designed clothes ever. Huge towering scrapers all marble & shine inside, with shops on the first 10 floors & offices above, but not USEFUL shops - entire floors dedicated to 1 store e.g. Prada, Gucci, Chanel i.e the sort of stuff I wouldn't be seen DEAD in even if I could afford it! The waste of AC around there was shocking - so cold workers had jumpers on & we shivered, then steamed as soon as we hit real air.
Did I mention all the building work? Looks normal from afar then close-up you realise its all bamboo poles, tied together! Pretty sure I read about the high tensile strength etc of the stuff, but walking under 30 stories of it is scary. Whats cool is a lot of the builders are women, and the whole crew wear wee white wellies & gloves, with towels (needed!) under their helmets. EVERYTHING is hauled up & down by hand in baskets, work!!! No 'elf & safety Inspectors here, Mich - we spotted a lovely 'this board must be checked & read EVERY DAY' safety bulletin board, for the road workers, full of important signs etc. When we were on the top of a double decker stuck at lights - it was carefully hung out the back of a portacabin office 4 storeys off the ground! Useful - and who kept it current? Best was a bloke in all his safety gear, harness roped up, buddy holding onto the other end, ready to belay/ haul on his rope from the ground 10 storeys below watching him as he edged along a ledge to fix a massive sign. But we noticed they forgot to put the rope over anything or through a pulley etc so all his buddy would have done if he fell off was to make him hit the ground FASTER.
Petes being hassled to get rid of the elderly boat he scavenged from work by the Harbour Police - because one whiner is hassling them that its "in his way". As it sunk in the last typhoon in a corner of the bay thats too low to climb onto the path from, isn't in front of a house, is in the smelly bit near the bin collection point, etc, I don't know what the bloke usually does there.....so Pete sent most of Thurs digging it out of the sand. To find a SERIOUS hole (apparently the earlier other 15 holes and the fact you can push your finger through the hull easily were NOT serious) so he can't sail it off. So its still there. I'm thinking if having a drink or snack on the tube can get you 6 months, ignoring several direct phonecalls form the police will probably mean they remove both his legs at the knees - or his firstborn son (got them there, ha!).
I nearly had a swim while he was doing this but then saw the water - scummy floaty bits with sub-level layers of plastic bag and 'things', so gone off that. Pete says it was usually clearer but the wind was coming into our bay that day. Not much rock pool/ seashore life as locals follow the tide down & eat everything. No exciting shells either, yet, Pete found 1 for me at work and didn't check it was dead - made the Chinese chef who has the computer beside him jump when he brought it (luckily empty) out of his pocket, as apparently its a nasty one - I TOLD him about that but does he listen??? All the field guides & anything needing you to have the object you want to identify actually in front of you (ie anything useful I want to read) is chained to the shelf in HK library. Petes raving about a live-aboard catamaran again but luckily has nowhere to build one apart from our rooftop.Without plans/ books/ tools/ knowledge. At the top of a hill. After 99 steep steps up the hill to the flat. With tiny enclosed winding stairs up to the roof. On a remote island with no shops (these being my arguments as to WHY he can't build it here). But he's already scavenged his dead boat & started spotting websites and local suppliers...oh dear.
DVDs here I only just realised are mainly bootleg, its hard to tell, they have the seals & everything. The official video cds are often worse! But they have been providing us with hysterical amusement - we inherited a load with the flat & have been working our way through a depressing or cheesey selection, so decided to watch a romantic comedy last night. We put the english subtitles on, as they take up less space than the oriental subtitles and don't obscure the film. About 10 minutes in I noticed that whoever had written them either didn't speak english or had NOT been watching the film.......amazingly garbled words, occasionally actually having nearly the same sound if not the same meaning as what was being said (could I have a piece of cake became 'you have pissed on my fathers grave'), rants about "Edna, shut the door" and "let me in, you git" appeared during a very quiet sad bit in a park, topped off by "ELEPHANT RICE" typed repeatedly when it got all romantic. Sadly the DVD died so we couldn't read more. Tonight we watched Finding Nemo, the cute fish-based cartoon, and the subtitle writer this time COULD speak english but swore a lot & went off on a rant about 'Red Rose', space continuums and metaphysical manifestations which I'm fairly sure was not in any draft of the original scripts.
I have an events company (Latin American themed!) wanting to see my portfolio (yeeks not had one of them since I quit art college! - bodging a slideshow on my laptop) next week, may be nothing, could be good; and am talking to the Rock Festival organiser on Monday. Also a large festival on our island are giving me a stall.annoyingly sounds like i will have to get my own shelter for these, hoping I can get a lighter/ easier to carry one than in the UK as will have to be walking/ public transport/ taxis AFTER I get off the ferry for any bookings!Annoyingly all the roll-up tables & tall folding chairs I have had in the UK are made in China but not sold here unless I want to buy in lots of 1000 so a bit stuck gear wise....
Hope you are all well, will be ringing some of you soon as I only seem to get you lot drunk at 2 am your time at the moment!
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