Finally, more crazy things happen.

So, yesterday, I decided to take my camera, head into town and just go wherever my feet and the tube took me. Never a good thing with my sense of direction. I got off at Oxford Circus, decided to avoid the crazy post-xmas shopping stuff of Oxford St and headed away, grabbed a coffee and then spent the next 20 minutes finding buildings I wanted to photograph and trying to juggle my coffee and the camera. I found putting the coffee down was quite useful. I did manage to spill coffee down the front of my new jacket. Not quite sure how. Got photos of the Church of All Souls, a gorgeous little church next to a BBC building, all art deco and fab, apparently sound and stuff happens in there. I then spent quite some time wandering through Regents Park, and this is where the first bit of craziness happened. I got attacked by a squirrel. Almost. I was taking a photo of one and it came at me a bit, but I got away, but a bit further along, I came across another amongst a bunch of pigeons and it ran at me so fast, my only thought was to boot it... luckily for it (and me) it stopped! Ever since seeing a whole bunch of feral dogs in HK and Som telling me that they have rabies, all I could think was "Rabies!" I got away safely.
Second craziness - people in the park. Most were tourists, or people just out for a stroll, a lot of dog walkers. But there was one person in the middle of a field practicing discus, (not sure on the spelling, I don't mean like an exam question. Practicing. Discuss.) and later, they were doing some crazy martial arts and then rolling on a giant shiny ball... I got photos, but they just don't do it justice. Then, a person doing some kind of warm ups before exercising in a grey track suit - with red underwear over the top and a red mini-cape thing! Superman in training?
Not sure if there was much more craziness. Wandered out of the park and past some mews. Very impressive buildings. Made my way back to Oxford St. Actually, my sense of direction went crazy here... I kept leaving Oxford Street, going to Carnaby Street, then ending up back on Oxford St, so left, heading toward Carnaby st, then back on Oxford St... oh, too confusing. By the time I made it out of the loop and got to Picadilly Circus, it was too dark for photos so I headed back to Chingford. Oh, and Oxford St xmas lights? Not sure if it because of all the financial issues, but not very impressive this year, in my opine. Watching a doco in the evening - Stephen Fry on the Gutenberg press. Very interesting. Also, in my opine.
Poor Dylan has bronchitis, and his cough is getting worse, but he is on antibiotics, so hopefully he will be getting better soon. Ah, I've just spotted the spell checker. That may take the pain out of reading these, somewhat!

London, England

So, I'm here. I had a great (despite the 2 1/2 hour delay - boo, baggae handlers!) flight from HK and a very quick path through customs and etc. to get out of the airport. I couldn't see a sign with my name on it, and my phone was dying, so I went to the info counter where, after struggling through my big packpack, I found the charger and got it charged up for 5 minutes. When it was charged, I checked to see if Claire had messaged, she hadn't, and so I decided to try to find Kev on my own. I eventually saw someone who didn't appear to be a driver with a sign, and so sidled up next to him (like a HK suit salesman) and looked at his sign. He spied me, and turned the sign around and lo and behold, it was Kev! And thank you, Kev, for coming all the way to pick me up and take me home, I really don't know how I would have done it at that time of night. We had a delightful drive home, and Claire got up to have a chat before we both crashed. I'd kept myself awake for most of the flight to try to avoid too much jetlag. Seems to have worked a bit!
I spent Sunday (have figured out what days are what... at least for the moment) hanging out with the family - Dylan is fabulous, so expressive and chatty and absolutely delightful! Kev and Claire generously took me to a shopping centre, braving post xmas sales, to get a warm jacket, and I succeeded - got a great jacket for £60 (which I think is about $120Aus) and it is so nice! Spent the rest of Sunday at the British Leagues club with Kev's family, before Claire and Dylan and I came home - and we were all in bed by 9! Nice!

Boxing day - part 1

Another delightful day in Hong Kong, started with a lovely stroll along Hollywood Road with Som. He and Carrie are mostly occupied today, but he was able to show me some stuff before heading off to do his thang. Hollywood Road has a lot of antique shops and Art Galleries, but Hong Kong moves at its own pace, and so very few places were open. When we parted ways, I had intended to get back there (and get a better look at SoHotel... So... Hotel?) but strange things were afoot at the Circle K. I and stupidly excited at a lot of small things here in HK, one of the very least being the existence of Circle K, which I only know from Bill and Ted, and consequently, often strange things are afoot. See the movie if you don't know what I'm talking about, but it is of little interest to most people, so probably don't bother.
I accidentally kicked out the Internet connection at Som's and lost the rest of this post... I've asked him to email it to me, so stay tuned! Stuck at HK airport, hope my plane does board at 5:30. It was supposed to leave at 2:55. Tedious!

Christmas in Honkers

Not to be mistaken for Christmas in Yonkers, may try for that next year... Had a Christmassy breakfast with my wonderful hosts in the heavy shade of the 7cm flashing Christmas tree the building gave the dwellers (well, someone at the counter downstairs...)

Carrie was not feeling well, so she rested at home, whilst Som and I went to visit the giant buddha.  Tian Tan Buddha Statue looks hundreds, maybe even thousands of years old.  It was opened in 1993.  Som and I had a race with an Indian family through the hour+ queue.  Of course, they didn't know this.  I don't think.  Som asks "Why is it relevant that they knew?" and too true! Essentially, people here are very sneaky with their queue jumping (Phillip Ruddock would be appalled), and this was a group of 6 and a child.  3 plus child pushed past without us realising, then I blocked their passage (Phillip Ruddock would be proud) and the race was on.  At the ticket window, they overtook.  But, we were on the first cable car.  Once in Ngong Ping Village, suddenly they were in front of us... and the race was won.  We looked for them on the way down, but we think we lost them in the battle of Ngong Ping.  The cable cars were scary as... Som was not overly happy, I just ignored the fact that there was a million miles below us and we were held on by only a few small wheels.  Eeek!  The cable car ride was about 25 minutes long, and there were about 10,000 people in the queue (Som's estimate - I have no idea on crowd size, could have been 240, could have been a billion). The statue was amazing, very, very huge and serene.  Not so serene was the tourist atmosphere around it - although the touristy-ness abated slightly at the buddhist temple in Ngong Ping.  The monk's chanting was broadcast via microphone, and there was a lot of incense in the air - looking from a distance, there was quite intense smoke from the courtyard of the temple.  Once we'd viewed this, there was another queue for several hours and then back to Tung Chung to catch the train back to Star Tower.  Carrie cooked a beautiful meal, then downstairs to have Hagen Daaz and watch some figure skating.  Som and I commentated on one girl's lessons - she just wasn't getting the necessary speed and lift, surely that is exactly what her coach was saying. Som practiced his reverse pikes the whole way home.  Not cool.  Merry Christmas!

Day two in Hong Kong

Hello blog-world! 

So, arrived in Hong Kong yesterday, may write something about that at a later stage, but for now, let's stay in the present.  Started off the day for a bit of reading - read my camera book from front to back, couldn't figure out why my photos were so dark.  5 minutes with Som this afternoon, and problem was solved.  La.  

Most notable moments of the day?  Discovering that the tag line for a cosmetic company called Sasa is "Everybody's pinking about us".  No idea what that means.  A strange man sidled up to me asking me if I wanted to have a suit made. Twice.  I think that's what he was asking.  A man from Guinea in a very small lift telling me he saw me here last year. Went to the Fun Pub of Hong Kong (since 1972).  It's called Ned Kelly's Last Stand and features live jazz.  As does Glen Rowan. And photos of Som in front of Som (an actor called Takeshi Kaneshiro - he is currently advertising Armani)(and one of Som's clients thinks he looks like him.)  And live entertainment?  Since arriving, I have seen a hip hop dance show at the airport (welcome to Hong Kong, here's some American music and Hong Kongese kids with their hats on backwards) the Can Can (initally, I thought it was a crowd watching music on an empty stage.  My mistake - Christmas Can Can!) and a choir singing US christmas carols.  And a Christmas Saxophone (not playing). We went to a supermarket called ThreeSixty last night, and I had to get a couple of photos of the mood lighting and the cool kid trollies, and was informed by security that "There is no capturing here." So, I have been capturing everywhere else I possibly can!

I may at a later stage add photos or write in more detail.  Or not.