Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Jan 08 - Back to work!

The next few days we were mainly fixing & decorating the new boat. Pete was sulking as Middle Island was all being scraped and repainted too so he couldn’t avoid fumes!
I gave up on finding funky handles and bodged my own.
Pete & Brian managed to remove the massive useless TV
(very like that kids TV show with the useless brothers- whats it called? To me, to you, that pair).
They finally got the old termite-eaten sliding door out but we can’t get a new one in without deconstructing the boat. Poor Brian removed the wall panel again to fix the mess the door had made, then screwed it back on to realise he’d lost the cat. After he had crawled through the bilges, engines etc searching for her and even checked overboard, she finally deigned a few small mews. And of course was screwed into the wall panel which had to come off AGAIN. Pest she is sometimes.

Brian took us for dinner in Stanley 1 night, and we ended up at a traditional banqueting hall. The table are always round with straight backed no-armed chairs, and Chinese families can pack a huge number around them. We hadn’t a clue what half the stuff was and the manager was a bit concerned about what we had ordered.
We didn’t know why until it turned up – duck for 1 was a whole duck and had us all stuffed! The bubbling pot thing with the side dish of veggies we liked until a horrified waitress came over to show us how we should be cooking the veg in the bubbling sauces, etc.
Another night we went to the lovely tapas place above the Stanley maritime museum which is in a historic building they moved brick by brick from another site. I had that Wagu (?) beef they are always on about which was ‘nice’ but not worth the hype/ price.
They had a BRILLIANT Philippino band doing Spanish-styled songs. They had done most of our faves by the time we were asked to pick one, so Pete got them to do “felis navidas’ which is sort of our song from the 1st Christmas we had together in Belize/ Mexico. I asked for Hotel California as I always recall how that quiet dweeby Army sailing instructor could cut dead a riot in the bar at Cottage colony by pulling out his guitar and singing that. So Pete is inspired to learn it – one of our entertainments in HK (as we have only the dvd player at night) is for him to play & me to sing and we run out of stuff we both want to learn quite fast!

Then one morning Pete woke up at about 6 and went off. I dozed to be woken up by a very worried cat and weird bumping noises.

He’d moved the new boat and tied it up to the cat, so I could start moving onboard! Which I began to do, dragging stuff over with the cat experimentally leaping back and forth from boat to boat.
When I started sorting out the new bedroom she came over with me and it all went ominously quiet. When I realised I went looking, and found her in the new kitchen with a small unfledged baby bird in her mouth.
I don’t know who was in greater shock! I rescued it and sat it in an open box with water in the catamaran (it died and got a burial at sea). Any suggestions? Maybe a black kite dropped it – think they often grab each others meal?At any rate the cats chitterings at birds in rigging has taken on a new level of desparation now she knows there are mall eadible ones she can actually taste....

Saturday I got booked for a bodypainting gig a couple of days later. I wasn’t happy as that wasn’t enough time to order the paint colours they wanted from the UK. I pointed out that plain matt coloured bodies look rubbish unless its white or black, metallic is better, but they did not book me early enough to arrange it all properly. I also didn’t have an accurate colour chart from the strange photos they sent of what they wanted – all they had done was photoshop scenes (a woman in a bikini in a bath, with a red layer put over it, a man in an office in a suit, all made to look silver etc). I asked the agent for actual samples but that didn’t happen so I had to go as close as I could from my laptop printout which I TOLD him was probably totally different from theirs. I knew paints I could get in HK were not good stuff – safe, yes, but horrible to use and rubbish at staying on. Plus in the end I could not get enough to do a whole body AND clothes in each colour…..despite myself ( and all the other body painters, I expect) complaining, the shop only keeps 1 or 2 of each in stock! They wanted 4 models to match 4 new cameras being launched on the Star ferry Pier. We pointed out it was freezing and they couldn’t expect models to stand in just paint & bikinis for several hours. They emailed pics of an all in one shiny lycra gimp suit which made me pee myself, but luckily decided on leotards with short legs in the end. These had to be made to measure and did not arrive from China till Tuesday. 2 of them I coated with bodypaint that night, which was very streaky and not the same colour as it would be on skin. Oh dear...

The lovely NZ guy was on time, but his leotard hung off him like a sack despite his bulging muscles, so he agreed to wear his underwear (we had to sew up a ripped seam) and let us paint him all over. (I had 3 assistants who had never done body painting beofre but were keen to try). I started turning him silver, and handed him over to an assistant when she arrived. Sadly I was not able to get enough of the good silver mixer & powder, so said to do his body with that and his clothes with the cake paint I had to hope the difference did not show too much. I told him he could paint his own crotch area if he liked (he preferred that)
but what I didn’t get a chance to check, as time was so short, was how she did the rest of him. Not up to the standard I like, it was very streaky, and as he had obviously had time to concentrate on his ‘bits’ and she had to rush over the rest of him, his crotch looked like a silver codpiece with the rest of his underwear having far less paint on it. Ooh dear!


Then the 2 female dancers turned up and we began painting them – their leotards fit and were the red and blue I had done the night before. The last male, who was actually a fashion model, was very late and had no underwear on when he arrived. I got the girls to start painting him black from the waist up and Zani’s assistant ran out to buy black underwear as soon as the shops opened. Worst was that as I suspected it wasn’t red at all but a sort of burgundy colour the camera was, our girl clashed beautifully.
The blue paint was awful and continually rubbed off around the seams and joints. 10 minutes before launch the client said he wanted the JVC logo painted on and I reused unless THEY made a small stencil (which they did and I used).
So not exactly smooth gig!


Our models had to pose on a big stage for 30 minutes – weird, no cameras or anything, just the JVC logo in the background – the press were a bit bemused!
They were hustled off, zipped round the back and set up along a balcony lined up along the waterfront with all the cameras and gadgets. Without the promised heaters!
( I got a bit worried a couple of them were warming up with free drinks when they weren't on show!).After a stage show with 4 more models (a wee girl in a blue wetsuit with the waterproof casing for the camera, a guy in a black suit, a poser in a burgundy ball dress and a young woman in a silver dress so short her knickers showed whenever she had to use her hands to pose the camera and let go of her hem) strutted a bit then they dropped the curtain to reveal the cameras along the balcony.
We were given lunch, then I had to repair the paintwork This was repeated later for the VIPs.
Hmmm. Strange. I had to spend a while cleaning off the multicoloured fingerprints all over their beautiful white loos! Still, the client was very pleased with the men, a least, and we did the best we could at short notice....


Oh and the pro photos from the body I did in the UK last summer finally arrived. Must adjust the colours, seem a bit pale...

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Monday, February 04, 2008

Christmas Day, Hogmany, New year Day, 2007

I worked right over Christmas.


Christmas Eve I was painting until late in a totally empty Soho (bit pointless!). The morning we opened our prezzies on board though I know I have a few more to find that various people posted/ I brought back with me - they will turn up as we move I expect! Thank you all, btw.


The day itself was quite funny – I had to paint at the Football Club (next to Happy Valley Race course) all day. Getting there, despite my worries, was easy – deserted streets but loads of empty taxis!

I have done a few parties in their function rooms before but hadn’t realised how large their site was. I was on the 3rd (?) floor landing, between the corridor that led to their main café (and a huge buffet around the massive swimming pool), and their posher restaurant. As it was a gig I was doing for Zani I couldn’t hand out my card, which was a pain as people kept asking for my number, and his assistant would just give them a scrap of paper with his number scribbled on which I think looks awful! But then again a lot of people knew me from other events of the newspaper.


So, all morning I was decorating kids outside their main restaurant, dribbling at the smell of 100’s of pre-ordered Christmas dinners which were being collected in big cardboard hampers by members who had pre-ordered them, as well as getting whiffs of the stuff being eaten next door to me. Pete & Sue climbed over the Hong Kong ridge and then met Clemet somewhere. When I got my lunch break, I hid my gear in the store room I was told to and had Clement (on my mobile) direct the taxi driver to a small café in Wan Chai where he had taken Pete & Sue. I climbed put of the taxi, still in full Xmas fairy face, dress & wings, to a packed street with a huge queue waiting to get into the café or to collect food orders from it. The only spare seat in the tiny place was beside Clement, luckily. But I got a chorus of ‘WAAAAH!s’ (local version of ‘OOOh!) and a round of applause from the queue & café as I came in. Which had me blushing under my paint but was very sweet! And there was lots of surreptitious photo taking of me as we ate the awful strong milky ‘tea’ they like and lovely hot egg tarts. Clement teaching Pete to order in cantonese amused them as well...


Then we walked to a Mexican for our very late ‘lunch’. It was freaky as even along the main roads the crowds were sparse and you could actually see PAVEMENT around yourself – most unusual! The Mexican did lovely but HUGE portions and the best lime sodas I have had in ages. We liked the bubbling stuff in big carved lava pots they did! Pete liked the ‘ladies’ loitering outside all the ‘dance clubs’ along that street too…
I had to dive into a taxi and head back to my second shift at the Football Club. They had put me in a deserted corridor behind the café this time, which was annoying, as people couldn’t find me; I had to trawl the tables for customers quite a lot! At the end the café manager said we could help ourselves, so we raided the massive buffet they were packing away. I DID manage to get a bit of turkey & cranberry, but no potatoes were in sight. The others were diving into all sorts of sushi and cooked fish but I wanted traditional! I did manage to find Christmas pud too and was stuffed. Of course this was at about 10pm so not great for my sugar levels! There were lots of taxis again – I love HK when it’s as easy to get around as that!

Sue left a couple of days later, and Brian arrived. I was still painting most days for the Tourist Board, including several up at the Peak Tower.
I mentioned to the tourism staff they they could do with checking out their sites – a couple of days running I was in a mall in east Kowloon, which seemed to sell mainly posh suitcases. So it was not exactly brimming with children.
- this is the only child we met there in 2 days! Or customers of any description. I ended up getting the management to let me decorate the hands of all the wistful mall ‘info’ ladies who had been gazing sadly from their booths after 1 manager said not they could NOT have their faces done.
The second day all the tourism staff decided they wanted full faces
and we hung around outside the mall entrance like some sort of face painted tong wanting to mug passers by….


Pete’s cousin Tom arrived the same day as Brian – he’s been teaching English in China for years but now has swapped to Korea. he needed shoes (Korea having even less choice for big feet than HK) so he & Brian hit the shops whilst Peter & I worked. We had a look at all the events on for Hogmany. There were to be fireworks & a piper at Petes main club but you had to book & pay for it.
There were loads of very pricey 'special' nights on in dance clubs. There were special public dance displays
, but to tell the truth nothing grabbed us and most needed us to have posh clothes, lots of money and a tolerance for huge crowds and loud noises. So, New Years Eve when I finished painting, they were waiting in a bar on the same road as the Mexican we went to for Xmas day dinner. Which had a large open front above the street where they were admiring the view.
Of the same dance club ladies…… but the music was great, it was just so nice to hear normal old rock etc hits, my fave! I hate they way they always get converted into mandarin/ Cantonese and then warbled by some drippy Chinese female singer, which is how most western sings get played here.


So, we had pub food, beers (for them) and nice views (for them)
until it got VERY cold and Brian was dancing with my granny shopping trolley full of kit.
As we had dozens of bottles of the cheap rum Pete & Tim bought in the Phillippines onboard, I managed to sped over a tenner on cola and chocolate (quite a feat in HK) to take back to the boat. We huddled out of the wind but then I went off for a snooze, and the 3 boys decided to crash the party being held at Middle Island. That was in full swing until the small hours, but the cat & I huddled under our sleeping bags until they came back a bit the worse for wear. We stuck Tom in the kitchen hull, and Brian, being used to boats (Tom isn’t) had the honour of the first nights sleep on Naughty Boy.

The next morning as I was getting into my fairy dress, there was a splat and a sodden ships cat leapt down into the cabin looking like a bit of dead rat and started washing herself in a vain attempt to dry off.
When I yelled, a very surprised Pete said he’d just been drinking a cup of tea in the other cockpit when the cat had zoomed past him, SWIMMING along the side of the hull, nipped round to the back of the hull and dolphin-leaped out of the water and scurried away. He said she looked as if she knew exactly what she was doing. We asked the coxuns who run the ferryboat all day, and they said yes she does it a lot. They don’t have/ know cats so they thought she fell in for fun, it was a normal thing! So I am feeling very guilty as she doesn’t, and it isn’t and thank goodness she must have only done it when the wind and current were slow enough to let her get on the back of the boat! We took her over to have a look at the new boat in Pingu that evening, and though she didn’t like the ride she was soon exploring under the floors…luckily she came out again!
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Saturday, January 05, 2008

Dec 07 In Between Festive Festivities - Boat Hunting!

In between all this work, I was trying to look at boats for sale. We went round a bunch of wooden junks in Aberdeen harbour, half converted the others not, and all were tiny or very badly designed to live on, with most of the space taken up by a massive engine room – still not sure exactly WHY they are built that way! They were also quite rotten in patches, and several not tall enough for Peter.

Our ‘landlord’ who we rent the mooring from even brought round his tiny ancient junk. Which he said was well built but would cost more than he could sell it for to do up – a definite no from me as you had to clamber up the side then edge along a pathway narrower than my foot to get to the back/ enter the main bit.

Yup she needs antifouling!
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.

Then he announced he'd found somewhere to scrape and repaint the bottom of our cat (Pete had been trying to do it but it got away from him, and he hadn't been able to find a boatyard to cope with size of the cat). Grreat - but it would go in 3 days, when Sue was due to arrive! Queue a scramble to find a hostel or whatever to take us, at short notice in mid December.... and book the furry cat into the SPCA for 2 days (she sulked).

Ships cat chillin, Hong Kong
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.


So, back to bat hunting....
My list of 'demands' included:

* Being easier to get on & off - one whine about the catamaran is the difficulty I have getting my kit on & off it – lifting and balancing heavy stuff between 2 moving boats on a slippery sloped bit while trying not to stand on the solar panels had given me SO many bruises and I dropped my wings in once!

* Head space - much as I have improved, we both often dent heads and necks getting in and out the cabins

* I would LOVE a table - either to have breakfast on, or to do 'stuff' like accounts (yeah right) or art on

* a PROPER BED wide enough for 2 and long enough for Peter, preferable with a real live mattress - even Pete was getting fed up of squishing into the single coffin on the catamaran

* a separate loo so we could sleep without being disturbed by leaky whiffs from the holding tank

* useful sheltered deck space we could sit out in in shade without whacking heads on booms, etc, and have actual proper chair on rather than the deck/ plank on the steering as we have now

*storeage cupboards I could get at without having to shift everyone/ everything off beds/ seats

...and just somewhere a bit more presentable I could bring people back to or maybe even body paint in......

Pete just wanted a non-wooden thing but secretly he also agreed with my list, I reckon......

Then I had a lady who was panicking as she tried to book me for her daughters birthday on the Jumbo 2 weeks before the date, in December, to find, as I warned, that myself and every other entertainer in HK had been fully booked for at least a month. She got so upset I eventually offered to teach her to paint faces and imported a beginners kit for her. In the end her sister did it, so I travelled to Discovery Bay for a 2 hour lesson. DB is on the south of Lantau and is a ‘sleeper settlement'; mainly for families, which is hilariously labelled an eco community. Mainly as there are not supposed to be any private cars (there still seemed a lot beside the bus terminal!). Wee minibuses go round all the streets all the time, and I think you can hire a shared taxi bus too. Anyway I noticed DB Marina out of her window, and arranged to meet up with a boat agent there. Oddly he had gone to Derby Uni just after me! He showed me a small but beautifully fitted new-ish motor boat, a HUGE wooden junk called Wet Dreams, and an even bigger fibreglass houseboat called Big Kahauna. That last was too big and gorgeous – live-in maid etc, massive Smeg fridge-freezer in the beautifully appointed kitchen, 4 bedrooms….oh, and $2 million. I preferred the wooden junk –half the price, it had a huge main room and 2/12 bedrooms. We went back to see them again a week later with Pete & Sue, and she agreed with me. Pete said no, it was wood……




It seems the floating restauraunt is far sale. Not a bad price for the size, but they had converted the insides from dorms to big banqueting rooms, it was all made of wood (rots/ bugs eat it) AND the only way on was up a tiny staircase on the sides. So we didn't go look at it though Peter fantasised about running pirate parties on it. He decided it would be too expensive with sails, doing the Captain Jack dagger-down-the sails dismount all the time....


Johnny, who used to work in the Boat department at Middle Island, knew we were looking for a houseboat and told Pete he had one for sale that would be perfect. Typically we never had got round to seeing it, until one morning Pete borrowed a rib and took the three of us round to Aberdeen. ‘Naughty Boy’ was old (over 30) and full of mouldy brown carpet (even on the walls) and fabric, but perfect. A big back bedroom with a double bed platform, a sitting room/ kitchen with a nice sofa bed we coulkd keep, 2 tiny bunks in a space leading to the loo in the front, and best of all a sheletered wooden deck we could sit out on. And it wasn't made of wood!

Sue and I were doing the poker face thing as instructed but could hear Pete on the top deck saying ‘yes, great, we want it, how much, when can we take it?’ so that was pointless.

Yay we bought a boat!!!!!
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.

A couple of days later I had a day off, so Sue & I collected paint and cleaning stuff and got a sampan round to ‘NB’. We started ripping out the disgusting fabric which mainly disintegrated in our hands, then I had to keep calling Pete about stuff as we couldn’t get the water to work etc. Johnny came round to collect a last few bits and panicked as we looked like we were gutting the place (we were!). We uncovered lots of nasties – a puddle on the bedroom wall where the roof leaks (he told us about that – if we buy rainscreens as we plan for the upstairs porch, it will protect it), a rats nest under the 2nd cooker, etc. LOT of cleaning required and I wanted to paint the whole thing white. Pete disagreed but apart from the nice but knackered parquet the rest is being painted.....


OK, a walk through - you get on the back of the boat where there is a wee wooden platform - much easier as at least I can rest my kit trolley on there - we will work out a way to hoist it up to the main deck later (Pete even mentioned a ramp).
You climb a short ladder (top rung missing!) to the main back deck which is wooden floored with the top deck above sheltering it.

Back deck
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.

It has a wooden rail with sections that can be folded back for access from other boats, and a rather ineffective string barrier. Theres also a dead laser tied to the back - I hope we can get rid of that as doubt it will be used!

Back deck looking forward
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.

In the middle to the right as you look forward is another ladder up to the top deck, which is just behind the main deck steering bit and electrical control panel. To the left is the stair down to the main cabin.

Down the (4?) steps to the main cabin, the breakfast bar/ kitchen is directly in front of you, with the sofa on the side wall to the right.




Continuing forward trhough the hatch and down a couple more stairs is a small 'room' like a square corridor, with 2 bunks to the left and a fold out table below a big mirror, with a tiny wardrobe and several drawers to the right.


Straight through that is the OK sized loo (still with a tiny pump action marine toilet of course) which takes up the triangular bow and has a skylight.


Back in the main cabin, to the right as you climb down from the main deck, is the stairwell to the bedroom. It had had a sliding wooden door but termites destroyed that and it caused as a major headache getting the door fragments out! (yes the boat had been bug bombed since and that appeared to be the only bit of wood they had liked). To the right as you step down into the bedroom the boat walls had been 'stepped' rather than left flat & sloping, and covered on all surfaces with mouldy brown carpet. we ripped it off and painted it white.
That side ended with a tiny shower cubicle (which used to be a toilet) and a sink/ shelving unit at the back of the boat.

To the left was the bed platform with not-very-helathy wood panels over engine bits and bilge water. Brian brought out an inflatable mattress for us which fitted it perfectly.
There are only 2 'steps' on that side, and it ended in a 'dresser' unit with another big morror. hough only the 2 drawers in it work as the cupboard had no floor inside and bits of working engine in it.


The floor here is a bit knackered - its better in the main cabin though a bit precarious feeling as the whole thing is basically hatch covers to get at machinery! plus Johnny left us an enormous old TV that we couldn't use (no mains electricity where we moor) and had a crap screen anway. That took some moving and is now taking up most of the main deck until we find a way to get rid of it!


The 'top deck' is basically just another steering position with a curved bench in front of it, and has a blue canvas sunscreen that can be raised up above it.

Sue on op deck
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.



So that's about it - Sue and I cleaned like mad until she left on the 26th, but I still have loads to go. Its not like decorating Tim & Heathers house in 2 days - you need to sweep out old rat poo, scrub, let it dry, then paint up to 4 coats of white anti-mould anti-bacterial waterproof paint. As while the walls were mostly cream, the horrible brown venerr and the dark blue slatted doors take a bit of covering! Inside and outside...no idea when these were last decorated/ cleaned, its at least as old as me!

Sold - Naughty Boy
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.



I'm really missing B&Q etc - there is 1, very pricey, newly opened miles off in Kowloon, but nothing handy! I found 1 tiny corner shop selling a few naff brushes and 1 sort of paint, but after a trawl through the length of the decorating zone in Wanchai, realised there are no interesting handles for sale in HK. Either spend 1000's on cut crystal handles or nadd plastic ones for peanuts. So I improvised with the original wooden ones some cupboards had and a few old chinese money coins I had. Now I need to find more wooden handles to replace the rusty metal ones the rest of the cupboards have......


So we didn't quite make it onto NB for Christmas as we were having rat issues. I don't mind rats - I had pet ones and loved the ones we worked with at the zoo, but from the size of the poos this one was a BRUTE and i thought it more likely to carry off our cat by the scruff of her neck rather than the other way round....As I think I said, food we left onboard whilst ripping out stuff at Aberdeen Harbour was re-distributed and nibbled. I spent a day wandering Wanchai miming horrible rat deaths and drawing rats in traps, with no luck. Even going back with a toy rat from ikea didn't work...one of Peted barman said he'd find us one but to tell thr truth we are hoping the rat got off in Aberdeen as no signs have been seen since Pete brough NB round to MI.....Stil, we introduced the cat to the rat to start her training....



We did Xmas Eve on the boat, with me arriving back late after a Winterfest gig in Soho.
I didn't manage to get out last years decorations - the tiny tree wouldn't work without mains electric anyway and I thought the cat would eat the tinsel. Still, had more than enough of seasonal decorations at all the malls I have been working in!


Tree lights , Hong Kong Mall
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.




Christmas decs IFC HK
Originally uploaded by wildcatfin.



We did buy a load of Chinese New Year decs tho, maybe I'll get those up in time on NB! I was confused (by lots of illegally non-copyrighted lycee envelopes with Micky Mouse on them) into thinking its year of the mouse, but someone emailed me its the year of the rat, actually.
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