Friday, December 28, 2007

Working and witchy Time - October 07



The cat had an annoying habit for a while of scrabbling on the hatch (from our side or from above us) at dawn as birds were greeting the sun from our mast.
She never caught the tiny birds but was luckily too scared to go chase the huge kites so usually woke US up to hold her at a safe position in the hatch where she could chitter at them but duck if they moved.....


The first big gig I had was the Dream Catcher workshops for HK’s Youth Arts Foundation.
(The one that inspired my face for the World Face Awards this summer). A corporate sponsor raises money & PR for itself and Orbis (the eye charity) by giving YAF money to create a crafty event all HK schools can enter for a token amount (which also goes to the charity). I wrote, resourced & researched the teaching pack (not the Cantonese translation though!) and gave training sessions over several weeks to up to 50 teachers at a time. This was in one of YAFs wherehouse workshops. I'd had a day going round all the factories outlet stalls (that area I love with 1000/s of shops of beads, ribbon, etc) collecting samples of the right sort of stuff.

Rainbow dreamcatcher for YAF
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.

The teachers were given starter packs with specially made plastic rings already wrapped in suede, (and beads and feathers) as luckily YAF realised displaying up to 20,000 hand-made wire rings would be too heavy/ difficult to maintain minimum sizes, and got a factory to do the right size & weight rings instead! Some of the teachers were amazingly good, and the final display which was exhibited around various HK malls, looked fab!
Would NOT have wanted the job of sorting out all the (hoepfully labelled) rings to post back to the kids though!


The houses I mainly work in just seem to be too grand for anyone to afford. One I was at for a lovely Indian family on the Peak had the most amazing views (over their pool) to our catamaran!


Another party I did was arranged by an Event Organiser and was themed on a Venetian Ball. He had decorated the (HUGE & AMAZING) house on that theme, and given us all gorgeous costumes to wear.
As well as me painting, staff were making crafts with the kids (crowns, etc), a mermaid in their pool helped them do jewellery, there was a clown, balloon twisting, a jester, and the food was amazing.

(The mermaid made me laugh, she had a 6 month old baby and said being in that costume was the best rest she’d had since it was born as she couldn’t walk at all for the entire party!) I think the twins were 4….

Often I paint in the 'function rooms' or club houses many of the apartment blocks have. One at the Bel Air development in Pokfulam was interesting. The whole place seemed to have bits of sculpture or useable art all over it, and we were in a princessy room.

Talk about fiddly decorations - and with loads of kids running riot with icecreams in it!
Luckily the chendeleirs survived, no idea how long it took to get the balloons out of them though.
. Scariest was the kids/ adults on the indoor bouncy castle - the ceilings were fairly low and the chandeleirs got hit a few times!


Another party was in a valley on the Peak Park, lovely but a bit full of mosquitoes.

View from Victoria peak park
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.

Hard to find - my taxi dropped me off at the top of the park and after worrying for nearly an hour as there was no sign of a party and the host wasn't answering her phone, she finally turned up to drive me to a secret valley for the party.


I tried out the alternative market’s new extra venue over on Discovery Bay (on Lantau Island where the airport is but the side facing HK) as well. Bit hellish getting there as the Middle Island ferry doesn’t start early enough (usually I can wait till it does as the market venue is closer in Pokfulam). So Pete had to drop me off - luckily he was teaching sailing early so had a rib ready.
Then a taxi to the Central catamaran ferry, then drag gear to set up in a baking ‘square’. Seemed like a very family area – I understand no cars are allowed there, etc. I was painted off my feet in boiling sun, and wanted to go early as my paints melted, but had been specifically asked to go by the market team as a TV crew were filming there that Sunday. I was asked to paint a nice young Chinese man and persuaded them to let me do something better than the crappy cheek art most people want/ expect (as that seems to be all other painters offer – and they use felt-tip pens or acrylics!!!!). So, I was trying to do a nice talking dinosaur on him but as I couldn’t follow the crews Cantonese instructions, kept reaching in front of the lens just when he started talking, etc. Shame I won’t see it but we don’t have a TV!

Two weeks later, the organiser who did the Ventian party, Robert, arranged for me to fly to Shanghai for a bodypainting gig. It was all a bit fraught as the weird lump on my back swelled up, got horrible and turned into an abcess so on Tuesday night I had to get it cut out under local anesthetic. And at the same time arrange a Chinese passport visa, and paint supplies. Yuk. Rather painful getting home but I had a day to lie in our berth and after that the pills they gave me were great, hardly felt it! So at 6 a.m. that Thurs, I met Rick (actor currently touring China as a human glitter ball hosting parties for JB whiskey) and Ada (ex businesswoman form London back home in HK to teach yoga, belly dancing and perform fusion dancing in clubs). Getting to our seats on the plane we were heading towards a woman who had the last 3 rows of 1st Class to herself, and I knew I recognised her. I’m rubbish at names so was about to stop & say hi & try to work out how we knew each other when I realised it was the actress Kristen Scott Thomas (from the Uk – was in the English Patient, 4 Weddings & a Funeral, etc). Whoops! Rick is an extra in a film she will be doung in HK soon. She was whisked off the plane before us but collected by a chauffeur with a huge indiscreet sign – apparently there was a big Mont Blanc thing going on in Shanghai.
We arrived late, and waited for the Maglev closer to where we were to work. It went at over 341 km/h! Quite scarey!
Then into a taxi (with TV screens in the back of the headrests showing adverts, tourist info (in Chinese only) and games. Lots of traffic jams and we drove through the city. Unlike HK it kept a lot of its old colonial buildings, so parts looked like Paris or London. There were some amazing modern structures (tripods piercing huge spheres) but generally it seemed far less developed than HK which was a nice change. I even saw people on bikes and in rickshaws! The Hyatt on the Bund, where we were to work, was stunning – brand new and absolutely massive with HUGE atriums.
Our rooms were equipped with evey possible thing we could need, and decorated in solid wood and stone. Sadly as we were hours later than expected, I immediately began painting Ada in Robert’s room. Due to Shanghai rules, she had to be in a skin-tight bodysuit so I painted over it, and her hands & face, to match the dryad/ tree hat and podium she would be in.

Then I did a very quick easy watermelon face on Scottish John (lives on Lamma when not singing in an Irish pub in Shanghai).
He had a helmet that matched and was fitted with his head poking through the fruit buffet as a sort of animated cannibal display.
Lastly I did a bit of ageing on Rick who was a living table. Not a naked, crawling on all 4’s table as I saw years ago on Rapido, but a sort of kingly fancy dress table…. Odd but the Bank of Paris loved it!
By the time everyone was de-painted and ready to go it was nearly 10pm, but we went to Times Square Shanghai on an errand and then started looking for food. John & Rob were on a mission to find a place they went to drunk last visit, so I ended up hypo-ing as we walked through quaint walled housed- streets.
Eventually we arrived, just as the all-you-can-eat Sushi & Sake bar was closing – but they let us in. Rick the actor mistakenly ordered just about the entire menu which was mainly amazing (all cooked in front of us) but too much AND totally lacking in carb.
Fighting through really insistent beggars (1 almost got her babies head stuck in the taxi door – she would NOT leave). I crashed for all of 3 hours in my luxury room before getting a taxi back to the airport at 5am. I noticed all the lights on their big buildings were switched off before midnight, unlike HK which is almost as bright as day all night!


Despite the plane reaching HK late, I would have been on time except the client gave me the wrong address! The other girl from YAF was trying to direct me in by phone when she finally found it, but it all went well. I was doing a training session for YAF – corporate sponsors also ask staff to volunteer to learn to do some skill to amuse the public at YAF’s big Art in the Plaza event. I did 2 (very short!) sessions for 2 companies on basic face-painting and glitter tattoos.
Sadly its not really enough time to teach them much at all!
The Stanley plaza event that Sunday went well, with 100’s of volunteers running everything from puppet-making to balloon modelling stalls, whils dozens of assorted youth dance groups put on ance show after dance show in the arena. I just painted!

Halloween is quite big here. Ocean Park puts on a spooky spectacular for weeks beforehand (their cablecar was still running at midnight quite often), many adults get dressed up to wander the streets of the Lang Kwai Fong bar area, and lots of kids parties go on. After seeing signs I was wondering who the Aberdeen Marina Club (very posh boat club) were using as they advertised face painting. Turns out it was me they just booked very late and luckily I was free that night! Also luckily, I bumped into Caroline as I was leaving Middle Island to get ready for that gig, and she offered me a lift. Not in a car parked at Deep Water Bay as I expected, but on their ‘little’ yacht, which they motored round to Aberdeen Marina Club where she moors and lives on the luxury one I painted her at before.
I had bought a cheap witch dress, ripped it up and added my own skirt etc, as a change from being a face-painting fairy.
Bliss - nice easy trip, and the Marina Club was decorated fantastically, even the bread was bone shaped!
All very Day of the Dead and rather atmospheric, around the club’s big swimming pool. I painted in the pool house with a guy making decorated pumpkin bags, and there were lots of other activities going on too. On Halloween itself, I had a kids party then 3 housecalls (to decorate party-going adults). In the middle of that I also had to go to the hospital for the doctor to see how my back was healing (fine) which caused much amusement amongst the nuns and nurses there!

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Aug -Sept 07, Out & About in HK

OK so I have got a bit behind with these but all for a good reason – been really busy (yay!). I got back to Hong Kong and a not-entirely-happy Pete. A daft ruling by the government after a small shark was spotted off Hong Kong had meant ALL sailing & watersports were cancelled. Paranoia – no-one has been bitten or killed for years. And anyway how long would a shark last in local waters before someone caught it and whipped off the poor things fins for soup?


I must admit until the middle of October it was not pleasant at night onboard the catamaran – both of us lying there in 100% humidity and at least 36 degrees, gasping and waiting for daylight so we could go to his office, the library or anywhere else with air conditioning. The poor wee fans were not coping and the cat chewed through both the fans in the loo hull. Pete wasn’t loving all the pollution/ office work at the posh HQ so much either.



To give an idea of the heat; Pete rang and asked me to bring him some chocolate back 1 night after I had a late booking. I got it from the chilled cabinet in a supermarket, jumped onto a bus with a/c thank god), did the 5 minute walk down the steps to the ferry and was on the boat within about 20 mins of buying it. He unwrapped it but had to eat it with a fork!


And with most days flat–calm, no wind, there was no relief! The water has been very clear apart from after downpours though– even had a ‘smack’ (recalling my Natural History museum research into collective names for creatures) of odd jellyfish that looked like blue metal bottle tops…..



It also rained a LOT. OK I suppose except the cat litter kept getting soaked (the old-litter-island poking out with a cat-poo palm tree on it). And the hatch above our bed leaked in heavy rain, so we got woken up being dripped on and had fairly damp bedding/ foam matress bits for a while!


One day I had a party in the next bay (sadly no coast path to it so I had to do the usual walk from the ferry steps to get a taxi from Deep Water Bay and back). It had been monsooning all morning, and just after lunch stopped - and I could see clear across to the bay I would be working in, so decided to risk an early dash in the dry. Of course the rain hit again before I was half way to the taxi bay. Despite a brollie and mac on me and 2 bin-bags and a rain mac over my kit, I was sodden…..when it got too heavy to see I gave up the non-existant shelter under the trees and dashed for a taxi. As I reached the steps up to the road a torrent of cool (but fairly clean!) water was roaring off the road, launching off the top steps and basically hit me at chest height. But there was no other way up to the road so I had to wade through it. To find a puddle over knee deep but a taxi waiting over the other side of the road from it.
I had already tucked my skirt into my knickers (not that it was remotely dry) and waded though, dragging my kit trolley. I dumped it beside the taxi and went back to retrieve one of my sandals which had been washed off me. Luckily all the taxis here have those leathery seats so I was dripping onto that while being handed loads of tissues to mop my face until I could actually see/ speak enough to tell the driver where I wanted to go! I realised how hard the rain was as I’d painted my face before leaving the boat but the tissues mopping me up had no trace of paint left on them……
Anyway I spent an hour before the party in their loo trying to dry off! And very carefully only sat on my own chairs as my skirt had dyed my underwear blue and I was terrified of leaving bum-prints everywhere….Still, I picked up another booking from her neighbour!



We actually went out one night (sort of) to a fundraiser for Petes predecessor who is hoping to sail in the Olympics. It was held in the home of Sam Chan, a Chinese business man who often hosts events.
Apparantly the house has been filmed a lot as the ‘ultimate bachelor pad’. Shoes off at the door, and up stairs into the open plan building. The lL-shaped pool and garden had a fab view over HK to Kowloon. You could climb huge seating ‘teps’ at the back of the pool and walk around on the ‘roof’ which was also a bridge to the upper house. We left fairly early – I won 2 prizes in the raffle and Pete sulked as I graciously waved the second one to be drawn again – and it was a pair of sailing bootees he would have wanted!



Another day we went up to the New Territories (mainland) and finally managed to find the Kadoorie Botanic Gardens. It was a pretty awful trip - we tried a route avoiding central which meant trekking through teeming bits in the North of HK. Definitely a novelty for the locals!
Then we stopped where we were about to get on a final bus, starving, and finally found somewhere to eat - a KFC....still, the signs in it made us laugh!

New Territories KFC sign. Um.
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.


Still it was a relief to get on the bus and start seeing some 'country'. We passed the place that ancient tree is that people used to chuck orange with wish-banners (all red and gold) into - I think thats been banned as a heath risk now!

The garden site was impressive, a steep terraced bowl going up the moutainside with assorted aviaries and animals at the lowest region.
As we arrived Pete either stood on or was attacked by a large lizard. There were some amazing plants (finally I can ID some as they had labels!) and we took a free bus up the hairpin bends to the top of the mountain.
It was slightly cooler on top of the peak sheltering the gardens, but not much!



It came down with short stops to see the ‘Hot Pots’ on another peak, which turned out to be some sort of natral vents that steam in cooler weather, and other points of interest.
It had bits trying to educate people on sustainable living/ gardening which is a first for me to see over here.


And some lovely jungle/ water garden bits.

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