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Hong Kong, Thursday 5 November

My travel time is up, I fly home tonight. Like all good students I have some learnings to take home:

• Your heart is not the colour of your black tee shirt when you do not buy something from a hawker in Fez

• There are worse things to call someone than a mixed salad

• The shoes you bought which you thought would ‘give’ never will

• Looks like a rip off artist, talks like a rip off artist…

• Bathroom attendants in Morocco don’t always deserve the measly tips they get

• Speaking Spanish in Portugal gets you about as far as speaking English

• Pastry with egg custard is good

• If you are a tourist you are ripe for a fleecing

• You can ask any price for anything some idiot will pay

• Shoving a snake in someone’s face doesn’t mean you will get some action

• Sensible shoes and cobblestones are not necessarily a match made in heaven

• It’s ok to be called an Australian if the only other alternative is American

• Drinking plenty of bottled water in hot countries is only good when you know you will find a bathroom

• Shopping can be a hobby

• If you plan to stow away under a bus don’t wear your good shoes

• Trying the local wine is not always the a good option

• It’s important to give back, massages and manicures help the local economy

• If a taxi driver grunts when your luggage is tossed in the boot it will cost you

• Marcus Brutus and Marcus Aurelias lived 300 years apart

• Don’t believe everything the tour guide tells you

• A girl can never have too many handbags or pairs of shoes

• Modern hotels have the best music

• Four wives is three too many

• One husband is one too many

• You don’t need more than five words to communicate in another language

• You can walk further in 35 degrees than you think

• When it’s a beautiful day, you are on a boat, and the scenery is fantastic it will be even better when you get where you are going

• There are big black butterflies in Hong Kong

• Being friendly to North African men means you want to sleep with them

• North African men fantasize

• The experience of carrying your own bags anywhere involving stairs does not make the journey more fun

• Pretend you know where you are going and you will get there

• Daytime television in Spain can stop a nation

• A beautiful church does not mean it has had a beautiful history

• A good chef can still be a git

• Nothing is free from a gypsy

• It's best not to lose track of the date when its a flight day

• Chicken that looks like cat can sometimes be dog

• English football supporters should stay in England

• Paella will always take longer to cook than you think

• Horse and carriage rides and not soppy

• Someone will always have seen your bargain buy at a better price

• A man on the street with a passport in his hand probably stole it

• Shopping at your table could be a workable concept for franchising

• The best hotels have free wifi

• Italy really is good at everything

• Best to not be one of the 71 per cent of people that don’t wear all of the clothes they packed when they travel and to leave more room for shopping

• Stinky wet wipes actually do have many practical uses

• There will not be huge international demand for Camel head soup

• More women walk on their knees than men

• There is such a thing as the big quake

• Maps are a waste of time

• Tired shoppers can be bitches

• Taking on a tired shopper is stupid

• Food re-distributing is bad when it is in a five star hotel in Morocco

• A couple of puffs does not make you a smoker

• If you can convince yourself an 80 cent glass of wine is good you have had too much

• It’s pointless spending too much time looking for the right hotel, the one you choose will be right

• Being on time will always be late to the early birds

• Plain old charm will distract airline staff from reading the scales

And last but not least...

• October is always the best month of the year not be in Wellington :-)

Escalating priorities

Hong Kong, Wednesday 4 November

I took my weary eyes to the sun terrace for a couple of hours and opened them long enough to see one or two stimulating poolside sights that brightened them a little. Sunglasses are under rated as a girl’s best friend.

Inspired, I caught the bus into town and headed to Causeway Bay for a bit of a dig around. I made it as far as Sogo, a department store of notable brands and good value, before a re-arrangement of plans meant I needed to get to Central. I jumped onto the MTR and was where I had to be in 15 minutes. There is no Metro etiquette about letting passengers off first here; when it’s busy it is a free for all. I am still amazed how quickly a little pushing and shoving becomes ‘natural’. It is the only way to ensure you are not the only left standing on the platform when the doors close. I guess with 7 million people and the majority of those living in the new Territories, which is where I am, there is lots of commuting to be done. Time and space are precious commodities and neither is given away lightly.

Central is the commercial hub of the city and where there are business people there are shops for business people. Shimmering glass fronted office buildings tower over slick shopping Plaza’s and also little pieces of Hong Kong’s history. There is not a lot of Colonial architecture left in Hong Kong but one or two of the remaining buildings down town remind me that much has changed here. The Central Police Station is a brick monstrosity slap bang in the middle, built in 1859. It is currently being gutted and will become a high rise with a three storey Victorian façade. It is completely latticed in bamboo, the scaffolding of choice still used here. I guess ACC practices have a little way to go yet.

I picked up a couple of items from favourite shops and our plan was to go to Mongkok as the Auckland Girl had seen my favourite Salomon walking shoes in some shop at the back of an alley off a lane up a side street . By early evening though I had lost the stamina necessary to take on Mongkok (I will just have to use the shoes I bought in Rome more) so instead after a gin we took the infamous escalator to the Mid Levels. I have never been all the way to the top of the escalator, Robinson Road is not far from the Peak, there is usually a distraction, and then walked back down to Soho (South Of HOllywood Rd) for a look see.

I like Soho. It is basically a street per level of shopping, restaurants and bars and is popular with Chinese and expats alike. As the night progresses patrons spill out onto the picturesque streets heading to their next stop. We ended up having Italian for dinner at a place neither of us had been. (A shot of walnut and mushroom soup to start, compliments of the chef then veal wrapped in pancetta with jus served with a square polenta cake and grilled eggplant lightly mashed and something else I have forgotten followed by what can only be described as chocolate Eskimo Pie doused in cocoa with fresh orange segments and orange syrup all harmonized with a light Pinot Grigio from the Veneza region :-). It was OK. And then it was time for home.

We walked back into Queens Road and caught the bus home. A lot of people sleep on the bus home and a few are always on their phones. We talked and again nearly missed the stop and because we were on the upper deck were propelled towards the staircase as the bus slowed to stop. I was glad to be getting off right then after the shopping bags in my left hand which I used when I lunged towards the hand rail swung out of control, the corners straight into the face of a sleeping commuter. Ouch. Naturally he was stunned; I was graciously apologetic but could see it was time to go and flew down the stairs before the eruption of his distress caught up with my ears. I suspect I can read what he said to me on my Tee shirt.

Pic is Peel St, Soho.

and Anne and Euan's big big day yesterday...

Happy Birthday to you two too...I could do the Birthday calls on the radio this week. In fact I'd like to do that, I wonder if there are any career opportunities for good news girls :-)

Happy Birthday Steve xxx

The best thing about your birthday is that I will always be younger than you :-) Hope you are having a great day, see you Friday for Birthday dinner.

GOD almighty

Hong Kong, Wednesday 4 November

Have I mentioned I love GOD. When we were there the other night I bought a signature T shirt. It fits like a glove and is the perfect colour and you would need to know about GOD to even know that is was a GODly product. Carmel mentioned the clever marketing used by the good GOD store to a work colleague yesterday and described my T shirt only to learn that the wording on the products which make perfect sense in English have dual meaning, this aids their popularity with certain Chinese stylistas but also creates tension with some others. It seems that in Cantonese my Tee shirt also means F*** your mother (!) Ah. A little inside knowledge goes a long way. What to do? As well as brushing up on my cross cultural communication I think I will promise not to wear it in front of my mother or anyone else’s …nor I think will I wear it around any Cantonese friends...

It was a big day yesterday. I walked 500 metres and across a bridge to the shops and suffered a manicure and pedicure. I then walked back. The day just flew.

Today I am paying the price. I woke just after 3am and have not been able to get back to sleep. At four I learned that the upstairs neighbour who I knew was a flight attendant is also an aspiring chef - who likes chopping - not slicing or dicing - authentic Chinese chopping. Chop/chop/chop/chop chopping on a sonorous wooden chopping board that is positioned just above my head. I think preparations must be underway for a major family celebration; there was enough chopping to feed at least 50.

So watched the sunrise. But I couldn’t see the sun, just the slight brightening of the dull haze and now there is a veiled blue sky. Beautiful big clear full moon though, I am sure I read somewhere that bodes very well for excellent shopping.

The city that really never sleeps

Hong Kong, Tuesday 3 November

One of the things I love about Hong Kong is that it is a full on, in your face, like it or leave kind of city. The buzz of the neon seems to emit excess wattage into the streets and the waves of people rushing to shop, eat, shop are relentless. The other thing I like about it is that having a friend that lives here means I know where to escape to take a breath in stylish serenity before I take on the next wave. Not that I have had a hard time off it I assure you.

Lisbon to London, airport lounge, movies and little sleep later, touchdown (The Time Traveler’s Wife – cute, a bit Benjamin Buttony but relatively faithful to the book; Julie and Julia – fun, Meryl Streep is big as Julia Child and it’s faithful-ish to the book; and I hate Valentine’s Day – the formulaic follow to My Big Fat Greek Wedding with the same leads –ok for a rainy day and when there is little DVD choice at the shop).

Once I pulled my knees out from nostrils and got my legs to work again after being squashed in Pacific class, we went straight from the airport to a local hotel to catch one of the Auckland girls coincidentally also in town. Surprisingly after two stiff gins I was not on the floor (but really should have been) and so after a couple of hours headed out to the glamorous sounding Gold Coast where I am staying.

Time on my hands and an Auckland girl in town…the only option was lunch in Tsim Sha Tsui (TST) in Kowloon which meant I got to talk and talk and talk and to sip my second kiwi chardy for weeks, I was on Cloud 9. Nothing, nothing, nothing tastes as good as our own home brewed. Then with a flight beckoning we said our goodbyes and I headed up to Nathan Road and ventured into some unknown shopping streets for an hour getting completely lost. The thing about being lost in Mongkok or Wan Chai (the world of Suzy Wong) is that it all looks the same. The landmarks are hidden by the same looking buildings displaying the same looking signage and the same looking Chinese characters. I tend to just look like I know where I am going (which is what often gets me into trouble) and in this case used my now honed and toned intuition and found my way back to the harbour side…which turned out to be only three or four streets away. I walked the couple of k’s up the Promenade, dodging hundreds of Chinese tourists, to catch the Star Ferry back to Central to meet Carmel who had finished work for the day.

After a restorative gin at the top of the very calming IFC, we headed to Causeway Bay. The first real stop (there were some distractions on the way) was the fabulous Hong Kong style shop GOD. Stands for ‘Goods of Desire’. I have previously spent some time in the Soho store – it is very funky - but this the mother ship was much bigger and it would be easy to spend a couple of hours just pottering around it (in fact we almost did). If I lived here I would be an investor. An induction into other local highlights and how to get in and out and home leaves me well prepared to re-visit.

To celebrate life in general, no other reason required, we went to a lovely Chinese restaurant called Ovalogue. Old Hong Kong, old Hong Kong building, modern fit out, modern Chinese fusion food. Asparagus skewered prawns, duck pancakes with special sauce and beans with spicy ground pork. Yum. Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. (Apparently I have not given enough detail on the food…for those of you interested in more I will update you further when I see you, suffice to say I am having Vogel’s toast for breakfast). We joined the other content locals on a late bus home and managed to stop talking long enough to throw ourselves onto the road before the doors closed at our stop.

I have noticed a couple of changes in Hong Kong since I began coming here:
1. The central area has become cleaner than clean comparatively. The sweeper upper people are everywhere and someone always has a little sa sa brush ready to sweep the leaf away from your feet.
2. In the little shops many many more of the shop staff smile and say hello. They still insist on following people around the store and advising the colour range and style options of items that are of absolutely no interest but that’s the arm twist of Asia – a little friendliness is a big deal.
3. Just like Europe there are some major city revamp underway. The area where the Star Ferry used to be is now completely demolished leaving a big brown hole across the central waterfront as it waits development. The Central Ferry Terminal has moved a few hundred metres and is all new and clean. In the end the cash strapped talk of 2009 seems to have made little difference to municipal spending everywhere I have been. Perhaps that’s the point and local authority funding injections are timed for easier transition, then again maybe such decisions were cast two or three years ago or that life just goes on allowing opportunists to point to impending economic hardship elsewhere to strengthen their case for change. I doubt lifestyles here have suffered looking at the size of the boats moored in the Gold Coast marina, just a shame that the Annual Pollution Index (API) is necessary and no doubt indicates the toxicity of a great day on the water.

Pic is the Hong Kong Gold Coast… and the neighbours’ place. Pollution is the haze in the background. Last week the API was 170. Today it is was between 64 and 71 (Central was 113). This is considered high. Anything over 101 is considered unhealthy to sensitive groups.

Groundhog day

Lisbon, Friday 30 October

Oh how organised I was. The room maid knew when I was clearing out. Avelino my friendly taxi driver was on time to collect me. I even had time for a much needed coffee at the airport. Turns out though I have lost the plot: I have my days wrong and am a day ahead of myself. My flights are for tomorrow not today!

In any other mode but the very relaxed, chilled out, just been hanging around the pool mode I seem to be in, I would have been highly miffed at my own mistake. The checker inner at the airport thought I was completely stupid, she was right; not checking my arrangements properly has cost me a day in the sun. Today though I just laughed.

I am now occupying a room at the Roma Hotel which is reasonably close to the airport for a quick getaway tomorrow. Seemed like a sign, finish as you start. Now though I am bored. Watch out Hong Kong I have a day to make up.

Pic is one of the works in Lisbon’s Gulbenkin Contemporary Arts Museum that took my fancy - seems the right moment for this one.