Chinese Halloween

They came like a swarm of bees. Loud, chattering and giggling away, a pack of 10-15 HK girls flooded our office, rushing towards all married people and asking for red pockets (lai-see)."JOIN US!!” they squealed in high pitched voices, tugging on my arm as I sat frozen at my desk, eyes staring widely back at them. “C’mon!! Come with us!!” Before I could respond - off they went, swarming towards the other end of the office to pounce on all the other married folks down the hall.A few minutes later,...

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Canadian Passport Renewal in Hong Kong

FYI: This is an FYI posting about Canadian passports and the hassles that come along with them.So, the situation is that it’s 2009 right, and my passport doesn’t officially expire until August 11th of this year. I thought that would have left me a good enough block of time to renew it the next time I went home, but nuh-uh.It turns out that most Asian countries require a six month validity on all Canadian passports (sounds familiar, I know) and without this, you’re not able to get past immigration officers of the receiving country. I get this rule and all, but what I don’t really understand is why is it six whole months before the passport even...

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Oooo, dont feel too good

HK's great and all, but it sure does come w/ a lot of stomachaches. You never know if what you're eating is safe, and now that three people in China have died from the bird flu in a month, I'm starting to get freaked out big time.I'm sure you've heard it all before. Bird flu mutating, going from bird to bird, bird to human, and we're now waiting for it to go from human to human. When that happens, we're basically doomed as there are no known cures and it's got a very low survival rate.I watched a documentary recently that enlightened and terrified me at the same time. Apparently, scientists have already created a bird-flu vaccine, but only 250...

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Wanchai Homeless Beggar

It was by chance that I discovered this HK beggar, otherwise known as the Wanchai Homeless Beggar. I was on my way to work along Lockhart Road, eyes on the sidewalk watching out for cockroaches (dead or alive) when I stumbled upon a big pile of sh*t.Soft and spread out, it had a rich, dark brown colour and for a second there, I might have mistaken it for dark chocolate sauce. It was that smooth.However, a few feet away, I found the creator of the 'chocolate sauce' - a dark man with disheveled black...

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Beggars in Hong Kong

If you've ever set foot in Hong Kong, you'd know that there are quite a lot of beggars in the city. They range from being deranged to perfectly sane, anatomically complete or missing some limbs, smooth skinned or charred burn victims, honestly homeless or simply just faking it. To help you out, I'll be showcasing some of the more famous or recognisable ones here. First up is the plastic bag lady who can often be seen hanging at the base of LKF: Covered from head to toe in plastic bag bundles,...

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Bowl of Bitchy

Seen on the sweatshirt of a 30ish chubby local HK woman on my way to work this morning:CAUTIONI HAD A BOWLOF BITCHYTHIS MORNINGPriceless. Totally priceless...

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No turning back

Hong Kong is a place full of choices. Just take one look down any street. There are hundreds of restaurants to choose from, thousands of stores, millions of shoes and handbags. So, how do you choose??For a Gemini like myself, choices = disaster. Every decision is a potential regret, and not being able to do it all is a killer!! But you know what, it's inevitable that I have to eventually make a choice, like it or not.When it's just a shopping purchase, it's reassuring to know that you can always take it back. But when it's a life decision, some things just can't be reversed. I must say now that it's clear that I made the worse-off decision two...

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Monkey Business

The other day I was at the Mong Kok Computer Centre with two friends (S&A), who were both looking to buy a new digital camera. They already had a camera in mind (the Canon 880) so we were just going around comparing prices. At Broadway, the camera was around 2700 HKD but now we were seeing the ‘water product’ version for around 1700 HKD. (TIP! Basically ‘water product’ is a different version of the camera that doesn’t come with a warranty from the camera company itself, but you still get a year...

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