morning in Hong Kong, evening in Tokyo

I already mentioned what happened after my flight to Hong Kong, ending it by saying I was off for a drink. And that's exactly what I did -- I went to the hotel bar and had a pint of stella, then a wheat beer of sorts. Finished them in double quick time too. The waitresses were dressed in school uniforms.

A few things I've forgotten to mention previously about pre-Japan. Australia -- hoofing great country, but no discernible difference in accents or culture between points 4500+ miles apart. How does that work? We can't even keep things the same 100 miles apart in the UK. Singapore -- everyone's pickup truck has two stickers on the back, one saying maximum speed and one saying number of passengers. What's illegal in a lot of countries is the norm there, as the motorways are full of trucks carrying people in the back. Very odd. Probably more forgotten comments and insights to come.

That hotel in Hong Kong was superb actually, really really good. I had a great night's sleep, the shower was great (but it was only a shower; fine for me but I know some people like baths) and I would have had access to the pool were it not for the fact I was checking out before it opened. Having checked my bags through all the way from Singapore I was only carrying my laptop bag to the airport, which meant my feeling of smug superiority which accompanies all flights on this trip started early as I watched other people checking out at the same time as me struggle with their bags. Mind you if you're going to take 6 bags which looked like they had a combined capacity of my one you deserve everything you get. Turns out there is a shuttle bus too, which I used rather than that local S1.

Ah, I already wrote about waiting for the plane too. This is quite annoying as I understand it; at least two people have complained about struggling to cope with the erratic non-linear timing of the things I'm writing about. Sorry :-( it won't happen again, even though I'm really tempted to write about what's going on around me right now. But I'll resist, except for saying that someone (Bose, Sennheiser, LISTEN UP) needs to invent headphones that cancel out the sounds of 2 year old children running amok and their parents doing nothing to discourage them. I will pay thousands of pounds for such a device.

Finally leaving the stability of timezone H (home to Perth, Hong Kong and Singapore) the flight to I, Hong Kong to Tokyo, was a damn good 'un. Upper-deck and no-one sat next to me, great service (best of all the Cathay legs) probably stemmed from the smaller cabin and it not even being full. I knew what was on the entertainment and decided to watch Election 2... not the best film I've ever seen, but certainly a lot better than that Andy Lau nonsense.

I've never watched an episode of 24 in my life. I understand the concept though: 24 hour long episodes, in real time, telling the story of 24 hours in some guy's life, right? Well, that's what I thought it was anyway. I know I'm wrong now, since the entertainment guide listed 24 as one of the options in the "TV boxsets" section that you could watch. 6 episodes of it, each... 45 minutes long. Are there 32 episodes in a series then?

On this flight I got handed a survey to fill out too, a "what do you think of Cathay Pacific?" thing. Unfortunately it was entirely directed towards things to do with the flight itself, and had no section for commenting on general Cathayness (ie the lounges). And because this flight was so good, better than the previous 3, the answers I gave were very different to what they would have been had I been given the form on an earlier flight. Bit suspicious that -- I wonder if they only give out forms when they're putting in the extra effort to give a great service.

Got off at Tokyo and one of the things I'd researched/been told/thought about Japan was immediately proved: the customs guy's English was awful. Well, that might be a bit harsh I guess. He asked me a question in English, with a very very strong Japanese accent, but when I replied (using only words he'd used) he didn't understand what I said. A bit of nodding and gesticulating later and I was allowed through. First things first I needed to arrange some transport to the airport.

The problem with Tokyo airport is that it isn't in Tokyo. Nor is it in fact called Tokyo airport. It's Narita airport, NRT, and 70km or so away from Tokyo. There is an airport in Tokyo itself, Haneda, but that seems to only handle about 10 flights a day and all domestic afaict. Cab fares in Japan are extortionate and it costs circa 100 pounds sterling to get from Narita, screw that. There's the Shinkansen (the real name for the bullet train, which is a term never used in Japan) but I wasn't feeling brave enough to get that despite having deliberately picked a hotel near Tokyo train station (how mad is that? Imagine having a station called "London" -- not London Euston, London Waterloo, London Paddington etc, just "London") where it goes. No, instead I'd been told on flyertalk, and by Jenny the Australian, to get the Limousine bus service. This is a fairly comfortable coach that goes from right outside the departures area and direct to various hotels, different ones on each service. Bought a ticket at the desk for that, which was a little struggle too -- I don't think people who are expecting English cope very well with my accent tbh -- but a success, especially because they took credit cards.

The English language issue is one of several things my research about Japan had yielded. I probably read more about Japan and Tokyo than anywhere else on the trip because I felt it was the most intimidating place to visit. I was pretty scared of it tbh, and the research had done little to help me. Having such a strong economy and an enforced pacificist constitution since picking the wrong side in World War II they're an insular bunch, not requiring or expecting the influx of tourist dollar and sterling to help things tick along, unlike most other countries in the world. Accordingly the following items were accepted as truisms:

• their English is terrible. Why do you think comedy bad English signs/etc are so often from Japan?
• you can't use western ATM cards because their network isn't connected to the outside world.
• there are vending machines all over the place and they sell everything from food and drink to DVDs and porn and schoolgirl pants.
• western phones don't work. They've got a completely different type of network and you need to get a phone locally.

I managed to test all of these preconceptions in the space of my first 20 minutes. First, the English: yes, it seemed pretty bad, but that's fine. ATMs could cause more of a problem. I knew Japan was an expensive city, but then so are lots of places, and the matter of expense is typically only given in such general terms: "it's expensive". What I really needed to know was what was expensive. Hotels? Doesn't bother me, already paid on a credit card. Food? Alcohol? Public transport? I had no idea whether my pattern of expenditure was going to prove expensive, and therefore no clue of how much to get out. An exchange rate of 222 yen to the pound doesn't make the mental arithmetic required as simple as it might be either. Anyway, I needed some money and was in an airport so went to the currency exchange desk, credit card in hand. They didn't take credit cards, but told me there was an ATM 300 metres away. Went there, shoved in VISA card, was refused. Noticed a Cirrus sign, shoved in my regular NatWest card and got money out. OK so I was in an airport where an internationally-connected ATM may be more expected, so perhaps I didn't really test that preconception properly.

Next was a vending machine. I needed a diet coke and sure enough there were vending machines outside. They only sold drinks though, and the only one I'd heard of was coke. No diet. I bought some watery thing that was quite nice and waited for the bus. Again I figured the demand for schoolgirls pants and non-drinks may be limited at airports, and Tokyo was the place where that was really going to be tested.

Wanting to take a photo I turned my camera -- ie, phone -- on and put it in normal mode rather than flight mode, just to see if it was true about Japanese phone networks not working with European phones. It's not true. I had a choice of 2 3G networks and both worked perfectly for voice and data.

The bus came along on time (of course) and about 90 minutes later I was at my hotel, the Marunouchi. Greeted at the ground floor, my luggage was taken from me as I was escorted up to the 7th floor where the reception/lobby is. Escorted in the glass-sided lift on the edge of the building that is. FFHS. At least it was only the 7th floor but having decided to stop with all the height nonsense this wasn't ideal. Checked in, got my room on the 11th floor and was taken to the lift. Which was glass-sided. FFHS. Oh well. The room was tiny, certainly in comparison with my Hong Kong (first time) and Singapore rooms, but it'd do. Out of the window I could see all the platforms of Tokyo train station, including the frequent Shinkansen. Cool! And actually there's another thing about Japan I left out of the list above but was aware of: that toilets have all manner of controls. They sure do.

Booked in for 4 nights I found it fairly easy to convince myself that staying in the room for a few hours, maybe even all evening on my first night, was an acceptable thing to do. No need to hurry around on my first day trying to do stuff in the dark, better to relax after the flight and start properly in the morning, etc. This is a frequent cop-out, one I probably employed in every city except for Singapore and Sydney. However in Tokyo I thought, no, I want a pint, and I'm not going to cop-out. I've got money, I'm in the centre, I should go out. Looked for pubs online and found one called Antwerp Central, a place selling Belgian beers, apparently just within 2 or 3 blocks of my hotel. Didn't bother writing down the address -- Tokyo addresses are confusing anyway -- I vaguely attempted to memorise the map and went out.

Came back about 90 minutes later having gone nowhere. Well, having gone in nowhere. The first thing I was confronted with was a large amount of roadworks directly in front of Tokyo station, making it impossible to go in the direction I wanted. No map in my pocket I took a few detours but made sure to remember at least how to retrace my steps, and eventually I got near where I thought the bar was. Couldn't find it though. Oh well. I did find the Tokyo International Forum, a somewhat impressive set of buildings containing bars and shops and stuff, but none that I had the balls to go in. The vending machine theory was being put to the test though -- there really were bloody loads of 'em all over the place, but I was yet to find one selling anything but drinks (and only non-alcoholic ones at that). In fact it was a struggle to find diet coke, out of probably 30 machines I walked past that night only 1 sold it. Pfft.

I ended up walking a long ol' way, getting my bearings pretty well and doing a fairly thorough investigation of Tokyo station itself, albeit not thorough enough to work out how to buy a travelcard. It had transpired earlier that the best thing to buy for a visitor is the Japan Railpass, and conveniently enough these things can only be bought outside of Japan. I'd learnt this from my guidebook which I was reading on the flight. Sigh. So I wanted something similar and couldn't for the life of me convince a machine to sell me one, even though they all had an English operation mode. Oh well, that could wait until tomorrow, I'd get the concierge to help me out.

Back at the hotel, watered but not fed, I sat around online for a bit more and then realised it was soon time for the AFC Wimbledon game to kick off and I was going to listen to it online, before watching the England vs Macedonia game. I nipped back out to Tokyo station -- full of shops and food places -- to get some solids at about 2145 and found everything to be shut. On a Saturday night, FFHS! No good at all, but I wasn't going to buy anything from room service because it was terrifyingly expensive. Something like 15 quid for a burger.

Oh well. Solids I could live without so long as I had a beer... which I didn't. The hotel room did have a mini-bar, but it only sold whisky. 5 types, all 5 quid each for a miniature, and that was it. No pringles or other crisps, no chocolate bars, no schoolgirl pants, no soft drinks, no lagers. Just whisky. Well, I didn't want a whisky, I wanted a beer, so I looked again at the room service menu. 5 quid a pint? No ta. So I went without. Oh how hard done by am I on this holiday! I can hear the violins already.

AFC Wimbledon vs Hampton and Richmond should have been a shoe-in. We were unbeaten going in, they'd just been trounced 4 or 5 nil in their last 2 games. We lost. Oh well. The real event of the evening, even if it did start at 1am Tokyo time, was England's qualifier against Macedonia. Turned the TV on and no channel had it on. Oh. Well, at least the BBC were streaming the commentary online... except not to people in Tokyo, even those who had spent ages dicking around jumping through various proxy-shaped hoops to try and convince their fucking servers that I was really in the UK. Sigh. I could have entered my TV Licence number as proof being a UK citizen if they'd wanted, but oh well. I searched in vain for other radio channels with commentary and found none, in the end settling for some god-awful show on TalkSport? Something like that. Hosted by Terry Christian, a prime candidate for "people whose middle name is obviously the word 'fucking'" if ever there was one. Left that streaming and laid on the bed, then fell asleep within about 5 minutes. Woke up the next morning and saw that it had been a 0-0 draw and I'd missed precisely fuck all. Scant consolation I guess: I was generally feeling that my first few hours in Tokyo had been a bust. No transport, hadn't found any bars or pubs I was confident enough to go in, but the hotel was too expensive for food and drink. At least I could get a soft drink whenever I wanted, even if it wasn't diet coke.

Singapore of six pints

Ouch. My feet hurt. I'm in an afternoon break having spent a long time walking around this morning and it was hard work. My feet and legs feel like they've done a lot of work, like I've been walking on sand instead of concrete or something. Anyway it's too windy out there atm to go where I wanted to go next so I thought I'd write a little bit about Singapore -- but, damn it, I've still yet more things to say about Hong Kong. Like about the streets being paved with women.

No, really, they are. If you can call the paved walkways that mean you don't need to go to street level in the area near Hong Kong/Central stations "streets", anyway. I read about it beforehand, or maybe saw it on the destination guide on the flight from Perth, but either way I wasn't quite prepared for what I saw. Basically hordes of women, proper masses and masses of them, go and have picnics or coffee mornings or whatever, in groups on the streets. They turn up in the morning, get their pitch, put down a blanket or something else to sit on, get out their knitting or cards or coffee or hampers or books or whatever it is they're going to do with their time. And there's a lot of that time, because I saw loads of women around in the morning on the Monday, and even bloody more in the evening. They were dissipating come the time I headed off back to the hotel but sheesh, it was mental. I saw maybe 2 fellas amongst the whole crowds, and it was really quite strange. Here, this bloke goes on about it too.

Pub philosophy. Them Australians in the bar on Saturday had made me wonder if the general gist is the same the world over. It certainly seems to ring true. What I mean is, the basic path through topics that groups of (typically) blokes go through when engaged in a long session on the sauce. The steps seemed to be:

1. the matter at hand (inexplicable penalty miss/decision to use Jimmy Anderson in the last over/etc)
2. the metaphysical or boundaries of science (the unseeableness of God, the edges of the universe, time travel)
3. global (world politics, religion, war-torn regions and how to sort them out)
4. personal (my wife doesn't understand me, i hate my job, i love you you're my best mate)

Is it always like this? I think it might be... not necessarily every step might be present, but I think the order is correct. Hmm. Or maybe I'm just talking bollocks.

I made a note about the above in my phone to remind me to write about it. I also made a note saying "Component is unaware of bug (football errors)" which I'm not at liberty to explain, 'cos I was very drunk when I typed it and now can't quite work out what I meant. It sounds like some insight about software engineering and how it might be analogous in some way to the Liverpool -vs- Bolton game I was "watching" at the time, I guess.

Is that it for Hong Kong? Who knows. I'll come back to it if I have to. But on Tuesday morning I left Hong Kong, having got myself booked on an airport shuttle bus at some ungodly hour, 7am or summat. It was a very nice coach, well airconned and with big comfy leather seats, and I was the only person on it. Until we stopped off at about 4 other hotels and it ended up full, bah. Got to the airport, checked in, went to the lounge. Now I know I was flying early, but still, I'm on holiday and would have appreciated a drink. Didn't get one because the bar wasn't open until 1pm. 1pm! If I'd been flying at 1pm I'd have been a bit pissed off at not being able to get a lager at 11am/midday.

The flight was my first on Cathay Pacific for this holiday. Being Hong Kong based I look forward to flying with them because they show some Hong Kong/Asian cinema, which means I can get a fix of violent-revenge gangster/fighting films. This time around there were about 4 films I wanted to watch (not all Asian) which was going to prove a challenge on a 3h40m flight. In fact there was a danger that watching anything was going to prove a challenge, because my video screen was nearly fucked. See, when I checked in they'd told me there was only one window seat available, did I want that? I said yes, and got given a boarding pass for 11A. On the plane I discovered that 11A might as well be called 1A -- it's the first row, not just in business class but on the whole plane (for this A340 or whatever it was). Result. I also discovered that the screen wasn't working, because they told me this. They also said that the flight wasn't full so I could move seats if it stayed not working (apparently "it might work soon, they're trying to fix it") but not to a window seat, obviously. Fuckin' bah.

During pre-flight preparations, taxi, take-off and the stuff they force you to sit through (UNICEF guff, duty free guide etc) the screen was fucked. Loads of flickering, or even just white noise. Grr. Seatbelt light went off and I was just about to ask for a change of seat when they flicked on the in-flight entertainment system (audio+video on demand on Cathay, hurrah) and the screen worked. Phew. Good.

Can't remember what the food was or what I had to drink. Didn't make any notes for some reason, nor take any photos. Probably because I had someone sat next to me. Oh, I remember, it's also because they took my bag and shoved it in the overhead lockers because there's no underseat storage, and I hadn't taken the notebook out. Ah well. What I do remember is only managing to fit one film in, the one starring Andy Lau. It's called A Fighter's Blues and if you don't want to know what happens because you're thinking of watching it I have two bits of advice. First, don't watch it, it's shit. Second, don't read the next few paragraphs because I'm going to spoil the fucking lot of it.

SPOILER STARTS HERE

Now I chose to watch this film primarily because of Andy Lau. I've seen a few other films of his and they've been good. Like House Of Flying Daggers, Hard Boiled 2, God Of Gamblers, Moon Warriors, Legend of Drunken Master ... but in the same way as Jet Li can make a bad film, by 'eck so can Lau.

It's a shame, because the plot had so much going for it. Upon release from prison for killing someone, a boxer discovers he's got a kid he didn't know about and is about to turn 14 or so. He wrestles with his emotions yadda yadda yadda, tries to bond while, crucially, attempting to extricate himself from his past. It's that sort of thing that generally means a film's going to be large: the past won't allow them to stop being violent until they embark upon a last mission which normally involves beating fuck out of hundreds of people and killing the mighty end of level boss.

Not so in A Fighter's Blues! No, not at all. In this film he boxes a bit, has a romance with a journalist, goes to jail, loses contact, comes out, discovers journo is dead but bore him a kid who is in an orphanage in Thailand. He journeys there, has the typical heart-rendering conversations/etc with his daughter ("YOU'RE NOT MY FATHER! YOU'RE NOTHING TO ME! I HATE YOU!", ... "I LOVE YOU DADDY!", ... ) and takes her to a boxing fight. This, of course, is in the same venue as his last fight (which he threw for money) and features a fantastic young boxer managed by the manager of, of course, the bloke against who that fight was. Who also happened to be the bloke he killed and went to jail for murdering.

So this is a bit odd. The people out for revenge are the bad guys. Except, um, they're not bad or out for revenge. They ask him to leave and not come back, but he says he wants to fight the latest top guy, this amazing guy 10 or 15 years younger than him. He wants to fight fairly rather than throw it. They eventually agree, Lau gathers an old contact or two and goes off on the best training regime available: a montage. Even Rocky had a montage, so at this point I'm thinking, right, he's going to fucking batter the guy and finally win the unconditional love of his daughter and the respect of the people he wronged and he'll do it by having 25 minutes of ace fight scenes.

No. Turns out, not at all. Round 1, he gets battered. Round 2, he gets fucking battered some more. Round 3, he takes even more of a beating. But there's no Rocky or shitloads-of-other-films-style ending coming up, he doesn't summon the energy to fight through the pain and land a massive punch and win the bout. No, he collapses and his face is all fucked up and his body is all fucked up and his daughter and the leader of the orphanage and his corner are all pleading with him to stop. He poignantly stands back up after round 4, staggering to his feet and staying really unsteady, and says "to the end". The previously silenced-by-his-warriorness crowd applaud and the 5th and final round starts. His opponent just stands there, Lau lands punches weaker than gnat's piss. Just tapping him. Then he collapses and dies.

For fucks sake! So, let's get this straight, having served his time for the crime, he proceeded to take revenge on... himself? And had a wholly ineffectual montage while he was at it! Lau, have a bloody word with yourself.

SPOILER ENDS HERE

Ahem. So, yes, that was the entertainment on the way to Singapore. Fucking hell this entry's going to be huge. Ah well.

So, I managed to be the first person off the plane when we landed (bloke in 1B was dicking around with his bags so I shuffled past him) and to my shock there was a woman holding a piece of card up with my name on it, at the gate. As far as I know people are only met at the gate for one of a few reasons: they're VIPs, they're disabled, they're criminals, they're in danger of missing their connection, or perhaps their luggage has gone missing. I wondered which was true of me and thought the last was most likely. As it turns out, it was the first. I was treated like royalty! The woman was there to escort me all the way through the airport, from the gate through immigration and baggage reclaim and customs right up to the waiting limo, there to whisk me off to the hotel. The last bit was expected: I had indeed booked airport transfer, but I thought it was going to be like everywhere else, where you get all the way airside alone and find a driver with your name or the hotel's desk. Not a full escort like this! Fucking ace. Then, when I got to the hotel there was virtually a team of people waiting to greet me. A woman opened my door saying "Welcome, Mr Foreman" while a porter said "Hello Mr Foreman, I will take your bags" and took my bags from the boot. The woman took me to the check-in desk, except it was more just a welcome desk as I got handed over to another woman who handed me a gift (scented candle) and led me to my room, where check-in was conducted. Holy fucking moly! I tell you, the wonders of having bought status with the hotel chain.

The room itself was fucking ace, too. Big, with a flat screen TV on a rotating base and connected to an iPod thing so you could use it as speakers (or even video? I dunno, I don't have an iPod). Free fruit and water, big bathroom with separate bath and shower cubicle, comfy seats, and .. a shit view. Ah well, can't have everything. As it goes I thought my bought status had entitled me to a room upgrade too, but then I couldn't remember what room type I'd paid for so it didn't really bother me. The only quibbles I had were the lack of pay TV (I was entitled to a free movie) and Singapore's government having banned some of the sites I wanted to visit on t'Internet. But I could live with that.

Stayed in the hotel room resting for a couple of hours, then decided to go explore. It was about 6pm come that time and hot out, but not desperately unpleasantly so. I had a guidebook with a map in it in my pocket but decided not to use it - everything's in English and I wasn't planning on going far, maybe just finding an ATM and then a bar or two to sample. In the end I took a bad turn immediately outside the hotel and walked for quite a while before eventually finding a subway station (with ATM in it), and a shopping mall. Walked all the way through that (supping a diet coke) finally ending up at Esplanade, a fancy theatre building miles from my hotel. Venturing back out onto street level I took a little wander around the grounds and along the side of the river, then went back inside and into Harry's Bar for a pint or two of Guinness.

Like in Hong Kong, a lot of bars in Singapore have a happy for the latter part of the afternoon/early evening, and refer to it as "1 for 1" rather than 2 for 1, meaning for each 1, you get another 1. I saw a sign on the outside of Harry's saying "1 for 1" but didn't study it beyond that, making the wrong assumption that I would be getting 2 pints for the price of 1 inside. I didn't. Guinness wasn't on the list of valid things. In fact, beer wasn't, I think it was only wine. I only worked this out after paying for the second pint (which I was automatically served) of Guinness. A better Guinness than in Hong Kong but still way behind Dubai.

There was Premiership on the TV in Harry's. This was no surprise. Every sports channel seemed to show non-stop replays of entire games, or at least highlights, on all the days when there were no games actually being played. They are fucking mad for it.

I really wish the pints had been half price, because as it is I paid SGD12 each for them. That's about 4 quid. :-(

Leaving Harry's I decided against retracing my steps (wasn't sure I'd be able to anyway) and just using the force. I had a pretty good idea of the rough direction I needed to go in and was too obstinate to use the map (and too unequipped by experience or tickets to use the subway or buses). Turns out I was wrong, as I ended up on a very extended walk through loads of bits of Singapore I didn't see in subsequent days, being completely out of the way for anywhere I'd want to go. Yes, I was lost. I finally gave up and referred to my map while waiting to cross the road at some point and discovered I was now only 2 blocks from my hotel, so it wasn't all bad.

Changed my shirt and then went to the hotel bar, my final destination for the day. While sat with my Hoegaarden forbidden fruits I pondered the idea of rescinding my "tell the truth" policy and start telling everyone who asked (cabbies, hotel staff, airline staff) that yes, fine, I'm travelling on business, fine, OK. And I'm scoping out hotels and airlines for who to give millions of dollars of business to so treat me well (the corporate sales manager of my Hong Kong hotel had indeed sent me an invite to have breakfast with him, and an application form for opening a corporate account. pfft!). I was getting more than a bit fed up at the surprise everyone was expressing whenever I said I was on holiday, see, even though such a reaction was entirely understandable. Ah well.

I've written down "licensing and temperature". What did I mean by that? Perhaps I meant that it makes some sense that our licensing laws have historically meant places need to stop serving at 11pm, if only to make us go home before it gets proper fucking cold. That doesn't ring a bell though. I wonder what I actually meant. Hmm. Ah, perhaps not going home before it's cold, but being able to have a decent night out even though you can't sensibly go to the pub before 8pm or so because it's so bastard hot in the day/evening. Singapore's record lowest temperature ever: 19.4C.

Anyway. My feet feel better. The Japanese grand prix is finished and it's just coming up to 3.45pm. I'm off to see if the wind has calmed down. If it has, the palace beckons. If it hasn't, I think I'm going to have a pint or two.

Pier and loathing in Hong Kong

So here I am at 0825 sat in the Pier, one of Cathay Pacific's flagship and supposedly wonderful, amazing lounges at Hong Kong. Wasn't going to blog from here at all as I'd decided to instead sit back and listen to some music, or watch some TV, on the in-lounge entertainment system here called StudioCX. But I've tried this 3 times now and it never works. In The Wing (the other amazing lounge) the one at the table where I was sitting didn't work, constantly saying "touch the screen with your finger to start" but just displaying a "no entry" icon wherever I touched. Now in the Pier I tried one whose screen worked, but only had audio coming out of one ear in the headphones (which made listening to anything aggravating in the extreme), and the second refused to react to my finger and now is displaying an IE "page cannot be displayed" error page. Great.

The annoying thing is that this is a good lounge. Quiet, good lighting, views of the planes, loads of information, helpful staff, decent free for all food and drink... but the problem is I had way too high expectations, I think. People on flyertalk rave about Cathay (in the BA forum!) and frequently express a whole "this is how an airline should be run" thing about their service, on the ground and in the air. But I've never had it that good. :( Missing out my BA number so I've got to chase them up later for the miles I'm earning, broken stuff in the lounges, no alcohol until 1pm(!) in the Wing, constant attention when I'm trying to squeeze 2 short films into a 3h40m flight, ... I think they hate me. Oh well. This is my last flight with them on this section of my holiday (the flight from New York to Vancouver next May is also Cathay though) and at least I'm on the upper deck.

Oh, and I can't keep an ssh session open for longer than like 5 minutes on their wireless network either. FFHS.

So, hmm, Tokyo here I come. I've got no yen and the ATM network there doesn't work with European cards. Hope there's somewhere at Narita I can get some currency before going into the centre, or maybe my hotel can sort me out. I tried to get some here but I guess the bad vibes extend beyond Cathay Pacific and to Hong Kong airport as a whole. Went to the Travelex desk and said Hi, I'd like some Japanese Yen please. Certainly Sir, how are you paying? Credit card. OK, with a credit card there will be commission charged. That's fine. OK, do you know your PIN, Sir? Yes. OK, then I would recommend going to an ATM and drawing out some Hong Kong Dollars then changing those for Yen, it will be cheaper. Yes madam can I help you...

Err. Excuse me. I wanted some fucking yen. I said OK to commission. I don't care how much over the top it costs me. I'm not going to draw out some money in HKD and then convert that to JPY because coping with one exchange rate at a time is all I'm good for. Sigh. So I came to the lounge to relax... :( I guess the best thing about this morning was getting the free shuttle bus to the airport half an hour earlier than I'd booked for, the feeling of smug superiority as everyone else struggled with their bags while I knew mine was already checked in, and grabbing a whole bunch of free nosh (and diet coke) as soon as I got here.

Oh, yeah, one last bitch and whine and moan: The Wing is by gate 1 and The Pier by gate 64. I'm flying from gate 32. Good one. In fact, shit, I need to go get on that flight come to think of it.

Missing out Singapore for the moment..

Just arrived in Hong Kong for a one night stay before flying to Tokyo in the morning. Some things I forgot to comment on about Hong Kong from first time round, primarily to do with money. First, when waiting for the ferry to central on Monday I was really thirsty but fresh out of cash. Octopus card to the rescue, the vending machines accept it as a form of payment. Diet Coke ahoy. Secondly, Hong Kong ATMs have their 0-9 keypad in a different order to every ATM I've ever used in every other country ever. Finally, the money is branded. Notes of the same denomination are all the same size, but different designs and colours depending on the issuing bank. I was very confused to get 4 different HKD20 notes in the change from my first ever HK purchase.

So now I'm here again and I just did the least fatcat bit of the holiday yet. I checked my bag in at Singapore all the way to Tokyo so I've just got hand luggage at the moment, just one bag because I didn't need to buy a new one after all. Because of that, and because when getting off the flight I was a bit drunk, I thought I'd get a regular local public transport (ie, non-hotel-shuttle) bus from the airport to this hotel. It's just off airport island and easily visible, and I thought the S1 bus went right outside it.

It doesn't. It goes to Tung Chung subway station. Which is supposedly OK, because I read my hotel (Novotel Citygate) has direct access to that station. Unfortunately when I got there it appeared quite vividly that the hotel was across and uncrossable road and I couldn't find any signs. But then I did! So I followed it, and the next sign was greyed out. OK, I figured, busted light, I'll follow it anyway. Then the next one was greyed out too. And the next one. But I perservered and here I am, in my hotel. After public transport and a walk through a shopping centre I checked in and got upgraded to a room on the top floor, one of the business floors, and it is swish. I think the bottle of wine just over there is free, shame I don't drink the damn stuff. I have a fairly good view, cordless phone + aircon control, the widest range of free toiletries yet, and am just generally a bit... annoyed that the only room upgrade has occurred in a hotel I'll be staying in for less than 12 hours. 0730 shuttle bus to the airport tomorrow morning, would normally have gone a bit later but (a) I want to go drink some more (b) I'm already checked in -- with an upper deck seat, no less -- for the flight to Narita.

Tian Tan. Cantonese for "fucking huge".

Hong Kong island
Originally uploaded by Darren Foreman.

I always knew I'd leave most cities, if not all of them, with more things left to do than stuff I had time for. For this reason I hadn't really bothered to make any lists of things to do, certainly none that I was going to beat myself up over for missing out. It is after all a whistle stop tour. So because of this I woke up on Monday morning in Hong Kong with a full day ahead of me and only one thing on my list: to go visit the hoofing great Buddha at Ngong Ping.

This Buddha status holds a world record for some convoluted set of circumstances, something like the biggest one made of bronze and outdoors and seated. It's almost as stupid as the stats they come up with on cricket coverage, stuff like "highest second innings partnership for the 6th wicket against Pakistan on a rough wicket with cloud cover at Edgbaston in August in the 3rd test of a series with a South African umpire". But anyway: it's fucking huge, and I wanted to go see it up and close and personal.

Being the sensible type I'd picked a national holiday to go on and didn't leave the hotel until about 1045. Turns out it was pretty crowded, eh. The reason it was a national holiday is only partially related to the previous day being National Day and falling on a Sunday: it's actually a weeklong bank holiday in HK.

As it goes it took me a while to realise the scope of my fuck up. The star ferry was busy, but that was going the wrong way, Kowloon to Hong Kong Island, so I thought it was full of people going shopping. The local rag the hotel had given me had a news article going on abuot the number of people entering HK from the mainland and a tiny interview with one of 'em saying how they wanted to visit the Buddha too, but that could have just been coincidence. The MRT ride all the way to Tung Chung was pretty full but lots of people got off at the Disneyland interchange stop, and Tung Chung is a destination in itself anyway 'cos there's a shitload of flats and shops there. No, the time I first entertained the thought that I'd fucked up was when I joined the queue to the cable car ticket office. It was fucking enormous.

But yeah, I joined it, because I thought, look, this is the one thing on my list. What am I gonna do if not this? And besides, maybe it'll move quickly... half hour later with no movement I had the first serious "fuck this, I'm sweltering and need to piss off" pang which was followed within seconds by a mass surge forwards as they let shitloads of people up and through. Being caught up in this I ended up near the front of this section of the queue when they stemmed the flow again, and decided I was now in it for the long haul.

cable car view. Buddha in distance.
Originally uploaded by Darren Foreman.

It took another 75 minutes to get to the ticket office and 15 more to get on a cable car. In the final queue (there were many different ones) an Indian guy had looked at me, shook his head, taken me by the shoulder as he fixed me with his gaze and loudly said "Had I known... HAD I KNOWN!". Um, quite.

Cable car ride was fun. Despite the weather -- shock -- being cloudy and misty and smoggy, the view was actually quite nice, albeit not very photogenic. We went over the water to Lantau Island, had a good view of the airport, then turned 60 degrees to go up and over Lantau country park until reaching Ngong Ping. This place is a kind of theme village, with newly built traditional architecture showing how yer country folk, peaceful statue-building buddhists that they all are, live. Seems they live by shopping in 7-eleven (2 diet cokes and an ice cream) and eating in a variety of overpriced western-food selling restaurants. I bet.

Walked from there to the Tian Tan Buddha. Stood and stared at it for a bit. The decision not to climb the 268 or 286 or whatever it is steps to get up to it was a pretty easy one to make. After all, I only had 10 minutes until my first tourist-trap show ("Walking With Buddha") was due to start. Also, fuck that! Have you seen them steps? Have a word.

Walking With Buddha was quite fun. You get a headset in your language (assuming you understand English, German, Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese or Japanese, IIRC) and it seems to have some kind of spatial-awareness proto-GPS type thing going on... or maybe just a radio receiver... anyway you're taken from room to room by the guides who otherwise remain silent, the entire commentary coming through the headphones, always making sure it plays the right bit at the right time. Neat. At the end you're taken through a few rooms full of plaques showing a bunch of stuff Buddha came up with, like how people should think right and live right and how there's an end to suffering and all that stuff. Then you take a leaf with a message on it and offer it as an, err, offering to Buddha by shoving it in a little slot on a statue of him and watching a mini-light show go off inside as it rises up to his head.

Half an hour to waste after that before the 2nd show I'd signed up for, A Monkey's Tale. This is a high-def cartoon show with no talking, the message all being in the behaviour and experiences of the monkey. There's a very deep and spiritual message coming through, expressed by humour, and I can't remember what it was. Something like giving being better than receiving, I dunno, heh.

There were no cable car tickets left for return transport for sale by 3pm despite the last one leaving at 6pm, such was the popularity of the place. Thankfully I'd bought a return and with little left to do thought I'd go back already. That took about 90 minutes because once again it was a festival of queueing. Sigh.

If you see Siddartha, tell 'im
Originally uploaded by Darren Foreman.

Once back at Tung Chung I decided I needed a pint. No bars in sight around that area so back on the tube I got, to Central. Got hopelessly lost and wandering around car parks and service areas until finally making my way to them escalators which I took halfway up before a swift left turn to get to Lan Kwai Fong. I wasn't looking for any bar in particular but stumbled across one whose name I forget (but it's in my book), a German place where apparently the beer drinking is taken very seriously. So I had a plate of chips and 3 pints in there.

Sat in that place I was wondering, am I being a bit dumb here? I come halfway across the world to Hong Kong and go sit in a German bar? That's not experiencing the culture, is it? And then I thought, no, actually, I'm doing it right. Where am I? I'm in the middle of a huge city. What do the locals do around here? They come to this district and drink in this bar and other bars like it. If I wanted traditional chinese society I'd go to some crazy-ass province by fucking mule or whatever transport and sit drinking hooch with the rice farmers. But I don't. I'm touring big cities and living big city life. Take that, me.

Anyway. In that bar I also had a conversation by SMS with Chris. Various topics, primarily how I could really do with travelling and writing about it for a living but that'll never happen, and how I was a bit drunk in the middle of Hong Kong island with the last ferry back to my hotel just gone and not enough cash left on my Octopus card to get the subway. Undeterred I stagged back down through Central to the star ferry terminal and happily discovered that I did have enough credit to get across to Kowloon, specifically Tsim Sha Tsui rather than Hung Hom. From there it's a short but entertaining walk to the place where my hotel's shuttle bus runs and I was back at Harbour Plaza in no time.

Actually it was good that I got that ferry, because I got my best (um, only) close-up views of the island skyline at night. Photos at full size look a bit rubbish, but at 240x120 or whatever the default size on flickr is when browsing my pics by page they look pretty good I reckon.

Anyway. Last night in Hong Kong (this time), a little bit pissed, but too early to go to bed despite having a 6am(!) start the next day I thought I'd give the Waterfront bar another go. This is the place I got shitfaced on and don't remember leaving on Saturday night, and when I'd failed to discover a receipt for all that I had consumed the thought did occur to me that I'd done a runner. Fears were initially allayed -- not about whether I'd done it, but about whether, if I had, I'd get caught -- because none of the staff on duty were the same as on Friday. And the guy that served me was very friendly indeed. About 20 minutes later though one of Saturday's barmen did appear and he was nowhere near as friendly... but he still served me, so I could only assume I was in the clear (as it happens the next morning I was happy to see that I had indeed charged an awful lot of beer to my room). Just a couple of drinks there and I retired for the evening. 6am on the alarm clock and a place on the 0715 airport bus wasn't something I was particularly looking forward to, ho hum.

Nags

here they come!
Originally uploaded by Darren Foreman.

Hungover on Sunday morning, breakfast sorted me out, etc. Now on Saturday the bus down from the peak had taken me past Happy Valley, so before going to the bar I'd looked up whether there was any racing on that night. Hong Kongers love a punt -- the races bring in 10% of all tax revenues IIRC. No races on but I discovered the "Come horseracing" package, a tour which gets you return coach transfer, free food and booze in a private box for an entire meeting. As luck would have it Sunday was National Day, a celebration of the formation of the People's Republic of China back in 1947 (I think) so there was a special day of racing at the other course, Sha Tin. Went to the hotel's tour desk and they got me on the tour, the very last space there was. Sorted.

So on Sunday morning after breakfast and blogging I got on the shuttle bus to Tsim Sha Tsui, had a diet coke, then went to the meeting point in the YMCA's foyer. Registered there and sat down, ended up chatting to an Australian woman called Jenny who arrived soon after me. Turns out she's just been to Japan and stayed in the same hotel that I'll be in, and is also in Singapore for the last half of this week. Coincidencetastic.

The tour bus arrived and we all piled on, got a bit of history and guidelines and stuff before getting to Sha Tin, a 30-minute or so drive north into the New Territories (ie inland, not on Hong Kong island). This racecourse holds 83,000 people and has the biggest diamond screen TV in the world. It's a posh place alright. We were all escorted up to our box on the 6th floor and seated, most of the western types all on one table. As well as me, on table 1 there was Jenny the Australian, Keith the Australian and his wife whose name I forget so I'll assume it was Sheila, Ian the northerner (I guess Lancashire from the accent) and his wife whose name I also forget, Oscar the Colombian and his missus whose name was never mentioned, and two Americans neither of whose names I caught.

Betting at a Hong Kong racecourse is a bit different to the UK. The mainstay bets you place are win, place, quinella, and quinella place. Quinella means selecting 2 horses to appear first and second (but not in order), quinella place means selecting 2 horses to appear in the top 3. But for every type of bet you can pick any number of horses and the cost of the bet is adjusted according to the possible permutations. That's just one type of slip -- there are 3 or 4 other types of betting slip you can use for different, ever more complicated and unlikely scenarios that I steered well clear of.

Ah, the word "scenarios" reminds me of something. How is "nachos" pronounced? Both Kevin and Sally insist it's "natch-oss", even after my claim that it's a plural of nacho and thus obviously "natch-oes", with the supposedly missing 'e' just an anomaly. Is it an anomaly though? "Scenarios" looks like backing me up a bit here. Sal had actually attempted to get some backup by accosting a dog-walking man in Randwick but as luck would have she'd picked on a Brit who can talk proper. ;-)

Anyway. Betting. Ian and his missus travel the world visiting betting courses, a trip to Sha Tin (and maybe Happy Valley) being their entire reason for being in Hong Kong. They've been to every course in the UK, to the Kentucky Derby, the Melbourne Cup, all over Australia where they lived for a few years, just generally all over the place. My word did they know how to bet. In fact everyone did, myself included. Where I fell down was that I didn't know how to win, as I didn't get a single dollar or cent back all day, even when I picked the runaway favourites. Gah.

Mind you, I only lost about 25 quid overall I guess, much less than I could put in a fruit machine over the course of 5 hours. As it goes the whole trip was superb, really really enjoyable. The racecourse is wonderful, and huge. The weather typical and the tower blocks grim and grey but inside the food was great (international buffet, fill yer boots of chinese and other stuff, plus desserts, for 2.5 hours), the alcohol never-ending (the waiters refused to let any glass drop below less than 1/3rd full... for 5 straight hours) and the company a lot of fun.

boats in Hong Kong
Originally uploaded by Darren Foreman.

The most surprising thing was that the course was relatively empty. There may well have been 30-odd thousand people there but it holds 83 thousand, it was a Sunday (and public holiday with a special racecard) and we all expected a far more raucous atmosphere. Still good though, and there were sections of the course that were crowded and atmospheric.

One of the races was telecast from Japan and after that one our party was escorted to the paddock where people were studying the look of the runners in the 6th. Lots of people. Lots and lots of people. From there we were led out front to watch them race from right by the winning post. That was pretty large really. A few photo ops by the winners' enclosure then back up to the box for more booze and stuff. A little later there was also an excursion to the gift shop, where everything was so fucking cheap (and made even more so by the 10% discount voucher we'd each been given). But it sucked that they didn't have any shirts left :-(

That was it really. Drinking, betting, losing, drinking, betting, losing. We left before the last race (not including the Arc de Triomphe that was being telecast at 11.30pm!) to avoid the traffic and got dropped off back at the YMCA in Tsim Sha Tsui. Just missed a shuttle bus so I went to buy a diet coke (that was all the money I had left, $7, about 48p) before the next one. Got on and there were the northern couple, turned out they were in the same hotel as me.

Back at the hotel I had a couple of hours doing not much prior to the evening's entertainment. Being National Day there was a huge fireworks display in the harbour going on at 9.15pm and I had a ticket for the rooftop bash at my hotel. 21st floor with yet more unlimited free booze and nosh and a corking view. Well, a fairly good view... the fireworks themselves were partially obscured by a raft of satellie dishes on a neighbouring building, but just watching the harbour from up there was superb, as shitloads of boats came along to take their positions for the show. An awesome sight. The photos I took don't do it justice really, but I did get a couple of OK self-portraits I thought.

After 90 minutes up there (the fireworks lasted for 23 minutes in the middle) I was a bit drunk, and had eaten too much. So I went to bed with my last full day in Hong Kong ahead of me.

A foray in 4A

Right, I'm off to Singapore. Flight leaves in a little under 2 hours. I'm in seat 11A, not 4A, but because I shoved the Perth-Hong Kong flight in the last entry I failed to use that title then and I didn't want it to go to waste. Bah.

Hong Kong's a weird place. I love it and hate it. By day the heat is stifling, the weather awful, the streets drab and the skyline ugly. But by night the heat's wonderful, the streets a fantastic neon-fest and the skyline amazing. I'm probably suffering a bit from most-recent-place-is-the-best-place and need some more time to reflect (plus take in Singapore and Tokyo) but by the end of last night I really did think I could see myself living in Hong Kong ... but only from about 5pm each day. Perhaps there's somewhere nearby with a less nasty climate that I could commute to, heh. Mind you it's pretty arrogant on my part to even think like that. Here's me, from a fantastic country which people the world over flock to to live, and a country which many of the natives are starting to feel like the borders should go up, and I'm blithely hobnobbing it fatcat style around a bunch of the world's major cities and going "yeah, I could come here" as if it's a right, not a privilege. Pfft.

English Darren had told me I'd be mad if I didn't go out on my first night in Hong Kong, straight down to an electronics shop to buy a camera. Sorry Darren, I guess I'm mad. True to form I'd arrived at the hotel with no local currency nor any means of transport. I knew in advance that buying an Octopus Card was the right thing to do, and previous experience should have told me to get some bloody cash out at the airport 'n all, but I did neither. I didn't stay in the hotel room all night though, first off I went for a harbourside wander and had my first night time view of that skyline. Like, wow. Also loads of locals practising tai chi, or fishing over the side, some with rods and some with just lines. Took that in for a bit and then went inland, looking for a bank and something to eat. Found both: an HSBC and a 7-Eleven where I bought a sandwich and a diet coke. For about one pound twenty. Bargain. Explored a little bit more, the area is called Whampoa and is on the Hong Kong mainland (ie, Kowloon side). I don't think I knew until about a month ago that Hong Kong wasn't purely an island.

A few more misconceptions were laid to rest during my time here too come to think of it. For example, not all Chinese people look alike. In fact they range from slightly to massively different, all of 'em. Funny that, eh? Mind you they are short, and they do sound alike. That's because as well as having a fucking ridiculous form of writing (font manufacturers must hate the Chinese, there's almost fuck all you can do with it) the Cantonese language seems to have it in for accents. The tone of each word is so important that the meaning changes -- not subtly, as in variations on a single meaning, but the entire bloody word. So you could get a book with pronunciations in it, rubbishy Romanised versions of the words, but if you were a typical westerner who automatically attached the intonations you'd use in your first language, you'd probably end up talking total bollocks. Meanwhile the locals all sound the same because they have to use the same intonation as one another.

Oh for fucks sake. Flickr is really pissing me off these days. If I didn't already have 2500 photos on it I'd consider moving somewhere else like photobucket, or even reverting back to using gallery. No, wait, I wouldn't do that. But fucking hell. I've finally got a decent upload speed in this 'ere lounge but flickr still kicks me off midway through sending up 150-odd photos and now I've got to work out where it stopped, remove all the ones it managed from uploadr, and kick it off again. Gah!

Anyway. Yes. Chinese. Sound alike, short, don't all look alike. Also, I know some fellas have got a thing about yer Eastern women, in general and not just specific ones, but I've gotta say guys, it's not all Lucy Liu over here y'know. There's as many heifers as there are fit ones, it is -- shock horror! -- once again much like back home in terms of proportions.

*cough* That's enough anthropology to be getting on with, I think.

That was it for Friday night though. A wander around Whampoa and along the harbour front, then back in the hotel. Saturday started badly, as previously blogged about. Ridiculous weather, drenched in sweat after a walk, etc etc. So after that tiny hiccup I thought, look, sort it out Foreman. Fucking get out there, get some transport, go fucking sightseeing you arse. And I did. Firstly I got on the free hotel shuttle bus to Tsim Sha Tsui, the region on Kowloon side where there's a whole lot to do. Shitloads of electronics shops, people on street corners offering tailored suits or fake Rolexes, loads of other shops and bars and restaurants and hotels and museums and stuff. I just walked around taking it all in for a bit, then navigated to the customer service desk in the MTR (tube) station where I finally bought an Octopus Card. It's just like an Oyster card, except you can use it all over the fucking place, in shops and McDonald's and stuff.

With that in hand, loaded with HKD100 of travel, I returned to street level and walked to the Star Ferry terminal. You can get across to the island by tube, but where's the fun in that? The walk goes through a huge complex full of museums and stuff and I got stopped by a fella who wanted me to take his photo with the island side as a backdrop. I obliged but, really, the island side in daytime is fucking ugly.

Got the ferry across and instantly spotted the bus that goes to the Peak Tram. The Peak Tram isn't a tram, but a funicular railway, the steepest one in the world at that. It does go to the Peak, though. For someone without sea legs and who doesn't like heights this holiday appears to be a bit of a wrong 'un, but bear with me. I don't like boats that lean over or use, nay require, wind to operate, and there are only certain types of heights I don't like too. For example, going up this non-tram was great -- it's so steep the floors aren't flat, because people standing would fall over, and the seats all face upwards because you'd fall out the other way -- but once at the top I started to go up the escalators to the viewing platform, and it was those that fucked me up. In fact I didn't get all the way to the top because the ol' legs were giving out again and I thought I was going to rip the handrail off such was my grip on it, so I just went back to the ground floor and explored the little area at the, err, Peak.

By "explore the little area" I do, of course, mean "find somewhere to buy a diet coke". That done, I wandered around and took a few photos but really it wasn't that impressive a place. Just a few normal, western restaurants and shops. I'm sure the view is superb when the weather's clear and sunny -- in fact the tourist advice all says to visit the Peak on a clear day -- but I, along with everyone I spoke to on my days here, am convinced that the weather is never clear and sunny. Just smoggy and nasty. Even the local rag reports the air pollution level and uses "high" as the middle rating. Turns out that I went on probably the clearest day of my trip anyway (today it's raining).

I came back down from the top just by a regular bus rather than the tram again, saving myself nowhere near as much money as I thought I would, but it proved a good idea because the number 15 takes a proper windy route, heads past Happy Valley racecourse and through Wan Chai and lands me right back at Central station, which is exactly where I wanted to be because the next thing on my list was to ride the Central/Mid-levels escalator.

This is an 800m escalator that links, err, Central and the Mid-levels. It's not one long continuous thing, but a series of 'em. Nonetheless it's still fantastic. You can get halfway up into the city without ever going down to street level by using it, and the gaps are at handy points for big roads full of shops, reflexology foot clinics, or bars and restaurants. Take a look at how busy they are on the way up, pick your spot, and walk back down to the one you fancy at the next hop-off point. You have to walk down because the escalator only runs one way, up. Actually that's not strictly true: it runs down from, I think, 6am to 10am, because it's also a commuter route(!). Great fun though.

From the top I walked back down, zigzagging my way through various streets chosen not for any particular reason other than them looking interesting from the intersections. Eventually made my way back to the Star Ferry terminal and got a boat across to Hung Hom, the terminal just round the corner from my hotel. The Star ferries are ace -- the rows of seats can be changed to face backwards or forwards just by moving the back. I've a photo of it on the way up to flickr at the moment which will make it easier to explain and understand.

Back at the hotel I dropped me stuff off, shoved a different shirt on and went to one of the hotel bars. Goddamn happy hour, from 5pm 'til 8.30pm every drink was 2-for-1 and I got totally wasted, chatting to a welshman whose name I don't recall. Before his arrival I had been entertained by the pissed Aussie party across from me, who must surely have been drinking all day (probably watching one of the Grand Finals that was on that day) and were in full-on philosophy mode. Religion, war, the universe, the unseeableness of God, how alcohol should be banned, all kinds of stuff was going on over there.

Oddest thing about the bar was getting waiter service. A waiter would ask me what I wanted, and then tell the guy behind the bar. This wouldn't be odd if I hadn't actually been perched at the bar.

Bloody hell this language is odd. It seems to me that the speech and writing are so disconnected that things like learning a new place name must be ridiculous. You can't just tell someone on the phone what it's called, can you? 'cos you'd not know the signs for it. Would you? I need to read up on how Cantonese works. It confused me a lot when I saw two estate agents next to each other, one called HONG KONG PROPERTY and one called SUNRISE PROPERTY. I recognised the symbols for HONG KONG in the first one and thought, therefore, I'd be able to deduce the one for PROPERTY and spot that in the second one... but the non-Hong-Kong symbols weren't present. Sigh.

I have a question for believers. When you die, and go to heaven, are you stuck at the age you died at? Bit naff, that. Like, people who have the misfortune to lose a child when they're still a proper nipper, they must be looking forward to being reunited in heaven, but what if they're now a baby in perpetuity? So many nappies. But if they age, then, what, is heaven full of REALLY REALLY old people, just constantly aging? Or do people get to pick an age at which to stop? "I quite like it here, this'll do ta Lord"?

Hmm. It seems the philosophical nature of the drunk Aussies rubbed off on this drunk Englishman. Right, that's Saturday done and dusted, and I'm off to the service desk here to find out why my BA card number didn't make it onto this booking. I want my fucking miles, damn it. And a diet coke too for that matter.

Hong Kong, phooey

OK, beginning to think I've cocked up here. Just went out to explore Hong Kong on my first full day. Put on a loose fitting, light, short sleeved shirt, and after 30 minutes walking I'm drenched in sweat and high-tailing it back to my hotel room for some aircon. Erm. Not really sure what to do now. The heat is oppressive and I'm not even in a built-up (by Hong Kong standards) area, not even on the island. I've got at least 3 things to do on my plan for today but before I can do any of them I need to buy an Octopus Card, the nearest outlet of which is about an hour's walk away, and if I attempt it again I'll die of dehydration. I think the hotel has a free shuttle bus to somewhere useful but the concierge wasn't helpful earlier. Not yet 11am and I feel almost imprisoned, Dubai style, by the weather :-( Time to have a sit, a think, and put on a darker shirt I guess. Nice.