Tuesday, May 01, 2007

End of April Diary

Well, what can I say....


I went to the library the other morning, as I got the dinghy to shore with Pete, then we jumped on a minibus to Causeway Bay. He went to work, I ended up watching a queue 3 blocks long waiting to get into the main library. Amazing - 4 people at least wide, ropes and poles and security guards and everything! Don't ever recall having to do that in the UK - or expecting to see that! And the ones for the students wanting to use the desks in the study room was even longer AND they can only get it if they book in, for a set length of time. I imagine many have small or noisy or packed flats......


Anyway a 'red' rainstorm (not the most severe code, the middle of 3 - only over 50mm rain/ hour) had started by the time I wanted to leave, so I ended up wandering around the library shop. They have some really nice stuff in there - all seemingly souveneirs (is it on the tourist trail then?) but interesting. I bought a huge sheet of tiny 3D ' masks', some of which I recognise form when I was researching oriental opera. Some I hope to practice & offer as new designs.

Chinese opera mask stickers
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.



It had stopped raining as I left and I did have to laugh at the 'wet floor' warning cones put out - they'd been inches deep when I was watching from inside! For such a wet city you'd think they'd use less dangerously slippery surfaces than the marble and smooth tiling that abounds. Hordes of housekeepers were already out sweeping puddles into drains and mopping madly.
It was as I reached street level (the library is several floors up on its own plaza) that I noticed how MUCH rain hits at once - even modern drainage can't cope. Most of the crossings were flooded, and many business men had taken off their socks & shoes, rolled up their trousers, and were wading determinedly to work. (YUK). The chandelier shops in that area had had their cleaners doing a King Canute thing and trying to hold back the flood tide with mops, and were almost sand-bagging their doorways.
I had on flip-flops and 3/4 length trousers, so I wasn't much better off but at least had a surface between me and the new river beds! Saying that twice I lost a shoe and had to splash after it as it floated off. Its hard to see in my photos (using the all weather mini cam!!), but several of the puddles were over my shins heading for my knees. And I'm not exactly the shortest person around here! There was a lot of co-ordinated crowd movements along the pavements, as in; stopping, waiting and then - run - to avoid being splashed by vehicles passing huge kerb puddles. I got into the Yacht club and washed me & my shoes & trousers in the showers. After a towel dry and a bit of hair-dryer heat my clothes were actually dryer than when I was outside at least! And I had used my brolley...

Funniest was, after lunch we went back to the boat (Pete was teaching at Middle Island there in the afternoon so dropped me off as he changed). The cat came hurtling out to meet us, howling in outrage as usual, and when I picked her up her tummy was so fat & tight I told her she was turning into a piglet. It was only when I went over to the kitchen cockpit I realised why! The rain was so strong it had actually flooded in despite the big biminy tent stretched over everything. And had filled her litter tray! There was a tiny peak of sodden litter rising out of the trays' 'lake', with a tiny poo poked out the top like a palm tree! I couldn't stop laughing and as soon as I gave her dry litter she scrambled in and performed lots!

Coming back on Monday night was totally different - a lovely, calm (though full of mosquitos!!!) night, when it all looks really pretty. The Outward Bound group seem to be keeping their huge 'traditional junk' in Deep Water Bay, and most nights they put up their fake sails and turn on their fairy lights.

It looks gorgeous but my mini cam can't cope with night shots, especially as were were scooting home on Pingu, so I'll need to try again with my good camera at some point. I must look up about phosphorescence, actually, I have forgotten the details. Some nights it glows neon off the dinghy wake. And as we are now flushing the loo with sea-water (to save fresh water) I feel quite guilty to see these sparkling blue lights in the pan!


Domino is half rat, its official. Not only did she rapidly chew the end off my phone charger, 1 night she reduced a wire stretched along the end of the bed to small 2 inch sections. Luckily it wasn't live, or important (we THINK it may have been for the already defunct speakers), but we keep finding small jabbing sharp bit everywhere now. Then there was the arguements over who hadn't been replacing the loo roll when it ran out. Luckily I then found a wad (slightly nibbled) of it hidden amongst the towels in the loo area shelf where she likes to sit. Only after changing the bed sheets did I find the rest - she had been stealing lengths of loo roll and stuffing it down the side of the bed foam so she could dig and scrabble at it and reduce it to confetti............


And she goes totally mental for bits of cooked chestnuts! Not that she can chew them as they get stuck in her teeth, but she growls and scrabbles at the bag (fresh OR vacuum packed - aside from the gross red beans, chestnuts make up the majority of traditional sweet-based baking etc here) or the nut untl small bits break off. Oh and she loves sultanas. Odd creature. She terrified me on Tuesday by continually attacking 1 of the biminy ties I hadn't tied off - of course it only flapped, on the edge of the starboard roof, whenever there was a strong breeze. She would leap at it and as it was so choppy (Tuesday was a bank holiday so there were waves made by many annoying people on jet-skis, wake-boarding in the bay, and - how dare they- on & using the boats which are usually deserted that we moor amongst) that often there were splashes so I kept thinking she had gone overboard again. That evening when Pete got back, she realised she could actually get ON TOP of the biminy and run around clawing ripples in it. I think she thinks its a huge duvet cover, but bang goes any cover it gives her from the black kites if she keeps doing it in daylight!


The papers are talking about issuing warning codes for the pollution too, like they do in Vancouver. On the worst days there government workers are asked to walk to work or work from home, and asthma etc sufferers are warned off. Here they want to ban 'old' light-bulbs, though a lot of locals already use them due to the reduction in electricity bills they cause. Plus the air here is apparently off the scales used in Europe etc, so a 'good' day here would be the worst ever in the UK! Still no real sign of anyone kicking the Pearl Delta factory owners into gear, the main culprits. Did I say they will shut down those same factories before & during the Bejing Olympics though? If they can close them totally for that long, why not do something to reduce pollution but still keep them in production??


Oh, another 1 is all the things Bejing is introducing to 'train' its inhabitants for the Olympic trade. The 11th of every month is now 'queuing day', as it looks like 2 people standing in line (-um, ok!). They have to queue nicely for things all day rather than using their elbows to pile in (not a huge problem in HK due to colonial pasts). They even have queuing 'practice lines' which police can round up passers-by into! The other 1 I heard was when they started introducing toll booths on the new roads built for the olympics; they were all ready to start but weren't due to be manned until next week. A taxi passing through the empty toll gate screeched to a halt to avoid a policeman who leapt out and stopped him. His fascinated passenger then watched as the driver was ordered to go back and pay. When he pointed out to the police that there was no-one in the booth, no other way to pay, and that the toll wasn't opening until next week, he was told that IF there was a booth there, he HAD to stop and pay. So he reversed back , rolled down his window, and under police instruction, took out his wallet, pretended to remove money from it, which he then handed to the imaginary booth attendant. He was about to set off when the policeman reminded him to collect his imaginary change. Only when he did pick up invisible coins were they allowed to go on their way......


Read a FANTASTIC story in the national paper. Apparently a website in Japan had been selling expensive pedigree poodles to rich people there. One client, an actress, was being interviewed on TV and mentioned she had just got a new pet. She complained she couldn't get it to eat its dog food, sit, or bark, and when asked produced photos. The stunned TV host turned to her and said, "But that's not a poodle its a SHEEP." It seems another dopey customer only found out she'd been duped when she took her 'poodle' to be groomed. The beautician complained she COULDN't trim its claws as it didn't have any, it had hooves.........
You really do wonder about some people, don't you? Fair enough maybe they are city bred, but every kid sees books/ cartoons with farm animals in at SOME point!

What else. I got sent to 2 different physio's by the hospital, to do with my arm. 1 of them worked in a therapy room that reminded me of my pre-O'levels design & technology rooms.
It was all wooden work benches with old metal G clamps and fixed saws..... I'm hoping for physical therapy/ exercises rather than removing limbs! Still, my wrist is finally improving after 2 months, so they think it was ripped tendons or something. I'm still supposed to wear my splinty thing but apart from making locals extremely helpful & polite when I'm am out in town, its a pain in the backside. I found a wing from what I'm pretty sure is a lychee lantern bug on the steps down to the ferry skiff on my way home. As discarded wings usually mean a big spider has flicked them off to get at a juicy bug body, I didn't search for the rest of it too hard! but they are amazing bugs - Pete saw a tree (famous for it) coated in them when he was living on the other side of Lamma.


I was looking out for a copy of the nail decorating magazine I promised I would send to Gran Fin's housekeeper/ friend, as her daughter is into nail art. Finally got 1 and OMG the extreme designs are MAD. Admittedly there are loads of more normal, pretty ones (if very detailed, elaborate and on freakishly long false nails). But have a look - HOW can you do anything with pompoms, large rings or stars stuck to the end of your fingers?

Going to the loo, putting in contacts or even glasses must be dangerous, let along nose picking (a VERY popular habit out here). Why would you want replicas of SUSHI stuck on your hands?? Weirdest of all is definitely the ones painted to look like sores, scratches and - YUK - as if the nails had been ripped out. Um........no.


I have been trying to get some new faces done for a bunch of competitions I am in - am still trying to think of 1 for the convention/ face painter of the year this November - 'Wild in the Jungle' is the theme. I have had a few tries at painting myself onboard. As the only chair near a work surface is the funny swing out stool at the 'chart' area (which can't be fixed in place and lurches unexpectedly) I was not doing me best. Added to that were waves and a small cat who was desperate to 1) drink the paint-filled water, 2) eat my (expensive) brushes, 30 steal and shred my sponges, 4) sniff and stand in all my paints.
Some of the colours are not coping well with the heat & humidity & have gone a bit gloopy. I went to get clean water and returned to find multi-coloured paw prints over the entire starboard hull - work-tops, loo, books, floor.......luckily she had settled down on the end of the bed and tried to lick off her culpability before ruining my new sheets....


I had a lovely if financially useless booking on Thursday. A pupil from the school I did a Mardi Gras fair at rang up asking if I could decorate her & her fellow dancers for a cultural fair. I quite fancied it and hoped for some new pics for the competitions/ magazines, so agreed at a rate they could afford (bet they conned me!). As it was raining/ we had nowhere except her house or the boat to work, I went round to her flat at South Horizons. It is a 'garden city' development on the west coast of Ap Lei Chau, the tiny island attached to Aberdeen by a bridge that our old ferry from Lamma would cruise by on its way in. There are about 16 towers with beautiful landscaping, pools, plants, playgrounds and a swimming pool etc, at their base. I was shown into her flat by their helper - the smallest flat of any I have visited so far, but lovely - and waited until the girls arrived from school. They were doing an Indian dance and had on gorgeous saris - shades of Gordy & Ishi's wedding!
They (well, the resident mum!) just wanted small things by their eyes to match their clothes AND each other, which I did. 2 of the girls also wanted tattoos on their tummies. Luckily I have a brilliant new thing, a waterproof cosmetic glue I paint on free hand. They stood around until it dried and went clear, and then lay back on the sofa so I could apply cosmetic glitter. It lasts at least a week and is fairly stunning!


My new rainbow dyed T-shirts and bags for face-painting arrived, I'm really looking forward to wearing them!


Even if they do look a bit hippy - colourful and cooler by far than my tight black ones! Love the sparkly writing - got the lettering (face painter and my website, or face painting fairy, etc) larger on the back, and lower down so it won't be hidden by my wings. Sammy & I are going to do a weekend in a stunning old house in gorgeous woodlands with the people who made my green wings, Fairylove.com. I saw their website years ago, when the creator still worked out of a magical looking house in the New Zealand rainforest, and they inspired me to make my own wings. But I had such a good time with them/ loved their stuff so much, that when I finally met them at Latitude festival last year, I bought some. Sounds a bit happy clappy some of it, but you get to dress up and be mad all weekend, make your own wings and have an amazing fairy photoshoot too! So, I thought, well - its around my birthday...? Never growing up! If anyone else fancies doing it too, do say!

Chinese opera mask stickers
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.




Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)