Seniors with stickers

I saw her from a distance. Disheveled grey loosely permed hair. Sunken eyes. Missing teeth. Stumbling forward with a 4-legged cane.

Politely, I moved out of her way so she could have more space on the sidewalk, but she directed her crippled walk towards me again, coming closer and closer. When she came close enough for me to hear her frail voice, she asked me to please give her some money in support of something or other, in exchange for a little square sticker I could wear to show off how generous I was.

I said no nicely but for the next 2 blocks towards the office, I zig-zagged around old lady after old lady with a sheet of stickers in her hand asking for donations. All of them were painfully old, sad and pitiful. If she wasn't walking with a limp, she had a droopy eyelid, or just a really bad perm.

I was shocked. Whose idea was it to put old seniors out on the dirtiest street in Wanchai (Lockhart) to ask for money, knowing that they will most likely be cruelly rejected by 90% of passerbys? As if their lives weren't rough enough being old, frail and alone!! :(

Sure enough, it might be a good tactic in getting pity donations from people. But it didn't work on me.

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Xmas Eve Parties in Hong Kong

With such a "great nightlife", you'd think it'd be easier to find out what's happening on any given night here in HK, especially Christmas Eve and Day.

Nuh-uh.

But after digging around, I managed to find a few confirmed party details for those who are interested:

Volar
Xmas Eve Rockin' Party
DJ Thomas C & Leman on Club side
DJ Gruv & Yeodie on Lounge side
$500 for arrival between 10pm-12am
$300 for arrival after 12am
Open bar between 10pm-1am
On guestlist $300 (incl. 2 drinks)

M1NT
Ministry of Sound presents Femi B
House
$200 (non-members)
108 Hollywood Road, Central

Beijing Club
Xmas Eve Snowy Party
House/Hip-Hop/R&B
2-8 Wellington St, Central

Club No.9

Xmas Eve Special - Countdown with Cash Prize

Xmas Day - Ladies Night Free cocktails and entry

3/F, The Galleria, 9 Queen's Road Central

Billion Club

Xmas Eve Costume Party

3/F On Hing Building, 1-9 On Hing Terrace, Central

Vertigo Snow Queen Party

Unlimited Snow Queen Vodka and Standard Drinks

R&B/Hip Hop

Men: HK$450 and Ladies HK$350

Dress code: White

26/F, QRE Plaza, 202 Queen's Road East, Wan Chai

In no way is this complete but there's not really that much info out there! I'm guessing that the whole of Lan Kwai Fong is open for partying and for those who wanna wing it, I'm sure you'll still have fun!

IMPORTANT!!

For those attempting to go to Lan Kwai Fong on Xmas and New Years Eve, they will be blocking off the areas (I assume) which is why there is this map available:

LKF Map (click to download)

Make sure you check out how to get in and out of the area as it's sure to be packed!! Apparently there is no entry between 11pm and 1am on the 24th and 31st of Dec!

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I won!! Not really...

It seems that I've had pretty good luck since arriving in Hong Kong, at least when it comes to random lucky draws. At a Canadian Chamber networking event, my name card was drawn for (no, not the Manic Street Preachers concert tix) but a 6 month subscription to Quamnet, some kind of stock price analysis company (yippity doo dah.)

At another networking event by HK mag, I won a bottle of Baileys Creme Caramel (now, we're talking!) and just recently, I got an SMS from my yoga centre saying that I won some sort of prize worth HKD 800!

The next time I'm there, I happily go up to the counter and ask for my prize, thinking it might be HKD 800 of Sogo gift certs ^_^ but instead, I get handed a small box and sat down with a membership consultant, telling me that if I sign another contract or extend my membership, I'll have an instant discount of HKD 800.

@_@

"So... this box is empty...?" I asked. He chuckles and goes, "No no... there's a gift in there."

Turns out it's just some AquaFresh whitening trays. Quite useful I must say, but I woulda preferred Sogo gift certs :) These HK people sure are sneaky with their marketing tactics!

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Bad blogger

Sorry all, I've been missing for a while cuz I was computer-less! But now, I'm back on a shiny new Mac, and I plan to post a lot more from now on.

Stay tuned!!:)
E

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TMV: Too Much Visual

This morning as I was drying my hair after yoga, I saw a woman behind me making some rough motions between her legs.

I couldn't help but notice her, because she was wrapped in a bath towel, squatting low with her legs spread, one hand holding up her towel at the chest and the other wiping her nether regions back-and forth, back-and-forth at least 10x in a very rough manner. Staring at her with wide eyes, I was even more shocked to see her finish off by taking a stack of wet paper towels out from her crotch and chucking it into the garbage bin.

I know with hot yoga comes a lot of gross things (people burping, farting, pointing my finger right into someone's butt crack, etc.) but it's all been taken to a whole new level here in Hong Kong. From seeing Sasquatch-like hairy legs on little HK ladies to being next to the belching-with-every-sit-up Santa Claus pot-bellied lookalike, I've really had to adjust my comfort zone.

However, what I saw today, I can and will not accept!! If she wants to dry her crotch, she should do it in the toilet dammit!!

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It's raining...acid??

It's not uncommon to feel a few sprinkles drop from the sky when you're walking around in Hong Kong. Normally, it's just condensation from the millions of air conditioning units hanging from buildings above, but today, a bottle of corrosive liquid dropped from the sky onto the busiest street in Mong Kok : Sai Yeung Choi Street!!!

Considering that we hang out there 80% of the time we're out, I feel SO lucky to not have been there today. I mean, about 20 people got burned by the unidentified liquid, and who knows if their wounds will leave them scarred for life?! :( and what kind of person would throw acid out the window?? Hopefully it was all just an accident...

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Big Eyes = Beautiful

I was talking to one of my colleagues the other day when I noticed there was something strange about her.

Was it her haircut...? No. New mascara...? Nah. Upon closer examination, I noticed that her eyes were eerily dark and extra large. It wasn't until I noticed it on a few other girls in HK when I connected the dots (or pupils, haha).

Turns out that there are contact lenses here that actually make your eyes look bigger! Similar to colour contacts, these ones feature an extra wide diameter to expand your pupil and make your eyes more 'alluring'... They come in pitch black or winsome (whatever that means) brown, but most girls I've seen have the black ones, which actually look pretty freaky.

Out of curiosity, I bought a pair of brown ones and tried them for a day. The verdict? DRY, oh so dry. Vision was also impaired and I could barely use my computer, things were so blurry. By the end of the day, I didn't know if my eyes had gotten physically bigger due to the contacts or the all-day strain!!

Oh, the things women do for beauty...

PS. If your eyes are already pretty big, it's not really necessary to use these "big eye" contacts... :p

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The Dreaded Toilet

It's never good to hold it in, but you would too if you had to go all the way out of the office into a deserted, dingy stairwell, with a big-a** toilet key in hand, into a freezing cold, air-conditioned double-stalled toilet where none of the flushes work.

Yes, that's right. One of the toilets DO flush but if you're unlucky enough to be using it immediately after someone else, you're just as doomed to have to fill up (using a slow tap) a very used 4L Watsons plastic water jug and slosh your doings down the hole manually.

That's not all. The automatic soap dispenser is usually empty, the 'handtowel' is actually just another roll of toilet paper (that disintegrates as you use it, leaving bits of paper sticking to your hands) and the hand dryer is just strong enough to suck in the tail end of the 'handtowel', again getting wet and leaving bits of paper stuck to your hands as you dry them.

How could this be? I'm still wondering myself! Not only is it inconvenient, but it's totally unsanitary and uncivilized. :( As one of the most successful companies in China/Asia/worldwide, don't we employees deserve working toilets, at the least? I'm so thinking of starting a petition... :p

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Going Veg

Last night, I was shooting chicken invaders out of the sky in a symphony of 'ba-caws!' Could it have been a sign??

Looks like the bird flu is back again in Hong Kong. Just 18 minutes ago, news broke that three dead chickens tested positive for the H5N1 virus, prompting the immediate slaughter of 80,000 birds (poor things). Poultry imports are also halted for 21 days.

I've always thought of trying to become vegetarian, but never got very far, thanks to beautiful pieces of BBQ pork dripping honey and crunchy, juicy pieces of hot fried chicken. I don't think it will be too hard now though, since half of the food I normally eat has a chance of potentially killing me here.

• Chicken? Bird flu
• Milk? Melamine
• Eggs? Melamine
• Beef? Gave it up in 2006
• Lamb? Fazed it out many years ago
• Veggies? Sprayed with pesticides

Guess I better be more careful, and stick to eating soy products! Maybe it'll even do my waistline some good :D

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A Weekend with Work

When I first saw the email, I must say I was shocked. Office teambuilding, over an entire weekend?!?! O_o The whole thing was very mysterious at first, and none of us were told where we were going or what the activities would be until the very day.

No wonder. The first night, we were told to walk on fire.

To be honest, I was somewhat curious but I definitely didn't feel that it was ever something that I had always wanted to do... I had heard that it was a magical experience, "mind over matter" and everything, but that didn't stop me from feeling the fiery hot pieces of blazing wood sear right through my foot soles. I actually ended up with four mini blisters!! :(

Biggest takeaway? Fire is HOT :p

The rest of the weekend was spent in Macau, where we went on a treasure hunt (similar to the Amazing Race), got to know each other better and drank/gambled at night. All that "work" has left me in ruins on this weary Monday morning...

***
PS. This morning the HR lady writes to me:

HR lady: 昨日有無暈船浪 (Did you get seasick yesterday?)
Me: no, i was okay, how about u?
HR lady: come back HK meeting billows
HR lady: Mary & me spew

Lol... yuck!

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Oops, I cut it again...

The other night I was in Mong Kok after work when I realised I had a couple hours to spare. I had just confirmed my plane ticket to Koh Samui for Xmas (yippy!!) and was feeling rather happy, free and didn't feel like going home yet. So, I shuffled into the crowd towards Sai Yeung Choi street, thinking that I'd maybe have a look at some electronics or something.

While walking down the street, I came across this hair salon that I had visited the year before when visiting HK and thought, "Hm, why not go up and see if that guy who gave me a pretty good 'do is still working, maybe he can give me a quick fix and help me get this hair under control..."

Unfortunately... this was the result:

Even though I said: NO short layers, NO shaggy do, NO mullet, NO short bangs that leave me looking mentally retarded, NO haircut resembling an 8 year old girl, NO cutting on the length, etc. I ended up with a super Honger hairdo, complete with the thin layer of hair around my neck, thinned out so badly that it has the consistency of cotton candy. It's literally a paper-thin sheet of hair that is super straight that yet still flips out at the shoulders(!!).

I'm never going to that hair salon again, and for anyone out there who might be at risk of this crazy hair butcher, try to avoid the VOLUME hair salon in Mong Kok!

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