Can this be for real?

http://rainbow.arch.scriptmania.com/rainbow_tv_episode.html

Don't know if this is real or not, but its the funniest thing I've seen for years! Apart from Ellen trying to do a somersault in the swimming pool that is :p

What's left?

Well so the wedding's over and I have 2 weeks left before heading back to the UK, surely time to take it easy? Not quite....

Pauwah and her cousin Ally arrived the other day, so no doubt there's going to be loads of shopping and eating ahead. Went to the "Char Chan Teng" with them last night and I swear we ordered practially one of everything.

Anita is back from Bangkok and I am incredibly grateful as I think finally that my camera may be fixed. Still a little nervous about it though as on the day I took it to Canon Thailand, the camera behaved perfectly, so not sure if they have really fixed it, or if the intermittent problem was on a good day when they checked it.... time will tell.

Then my parents arrive on Wednesday. Nothing really planned there, but will be good to spend time with them as I barely get to see them more than twice a year these days!

On top of this we still have to go to China for a trip and may go back to Bangkok again! (Pauwah and Ally want to go). Some more golf club shopping still to do and I haven't even got any electricals yet! Most worrying though is whether we will be overweight when we leave for the UK... Kim left a few days ago and she had 40kgs!

Wedded out

No not me, buy all Gary's festivities are finally over. Seems to have gone on for years! Potted highlights are:

Registry

Mad panic to get to the registry on time! Stuck in traffic with 10 mins to go wasn't good! Once we got there though it was in and out all within 10 minutes, it was come in, exchange rings, read this, kiss the bridge and out you go before the next couple arrived! Not exaggerating to say it was a conveyoy belt of weddings, everyone apparently is trying to get married this (chinese)year and the next one isn't good for marriages ("man leen" or something).

After the registry it was back to the village for bai sun, pouring tea and eating "poon choi". All yummy stuff and loads of people came.

Chinese banquet

Held in Maxim's in Sheung Shui, it was actually really really good. The food was amazing... had lobster, sharks fin soup (real quality stuff too no glass noodles in this one!), abalone, etc etc. Even better was that I arrived early to "ding geurk" i.e. play mah jong with the relatives/friends and managed to win a bit of money! Really touching and funny speech from Grandad on behalf of Gary and Angel.

Stag night

Loads of Gary's friends came over from the UK and some 20 of us all went to Macau for Gary's stag do, even though legally he had already got married already! Anyway, it was an early start for us getting the 9am ferry over to Macau, but it was an even earlier start for Gary as we made him drink a shot of Tequila every half an hour as soon as he got onto the ferry. Then we got kitted up. Gary's best man Jimmy has sorted out these excellent t-shirts with FBI on the back and Gary was stripped down to his pants and given a bright orange "Guantanamo Bay" jumpsuit and beanie cap to wear. Then we spent most of the day chasing Gary around Macau town centre, scaring the living daylights out of everyone there. We even managed to get into the new Sands casino and all the triad bosses didn't like our outfits at all! They obviously spoke to management who let us off this time but requested that we did not wear those FBI t-shirts in there again! Even better still was that whilst we were sitting by the bar watching the shows, this fat ladyboy came along and tried to lap dance/kiss/stroke/rub Gary... then whilst the ladyfatboy was being pulled away, he fell and ripped his dress off to reveal a black bra and what can olny be described as a furry animal between his legs.... which he then proceeded to gyrate around Gary's face..... you had to be there, but we nearly pissed our pants laughing. The usual strip club activities went ahead as always, Gary by this time so plastered, he thought he was better than the strippers and swung around the pole himself.

Hotel banquet

Classy affair this one. This was held in the Grand Hyatt with fantastic views of Hong Kong harbour and the Exhibition Centre... well it would have been if it wasn't so cloudy. A nicely sized affair, the whole place was really romantically decorated with candles and flowers set against warm brown wooden furniture (ok that's enough Changing Rooms talk!). Food was good, but not a patch on the Sheung Shui banquet, but the Champagne and wine were plentiful and the speeches excellent.

Even better was that the night continued with 30 of us going on to a bar in Lan Kwai Fong. Gary stuck a grand (honkie dollars) behind the bar and the drinking went on and on... the next morning was not a good one. I was in bed till 7pm and couldn't eat anything until 9pm, yep it was the mother of all hangovers.

Congrats and best wishes to the happy couple Gary and Angel. Truly an excellent wedding.

P.S. For the 10 millionth time this week, I am not sure when it's going to be my turn!!

Nearly wedding time!

Been asked recently if I could advise people on shares but:

1, i'd get thrown into jail
2, you'd get thrown into jail
3, you'd prob lose your money anyway

there's loads of those stock tips magazines magazines now in WH Smith and online. I question though whether they are seeking to ramp up (or down) shares for their own benefit. in HK they actually have programmes on stocks and shares, talking about whats good and whats not and advising people who call in on what to do with their investments! maybe that's a good idea for the UK?

went to play golf this morning, woke up at 5:45am to do it though! played about 10 holes, hit one par, one bogey, but several 7's or 8's!! defo more practice still required!

today is the first day of festivities for ellen's brothers wedding. actual registry is tomorrow, but tonight we have a dinner required for the village. so many traditions and things to do, if ellen's parents tried to do everything perfectly it'd take all week and someone would be bound to still say that they'd missed something!

My typical day in HK

For any of yous interested (not many I am guessing but tough) here's my day in HK today much like any other:

- woke up at 5:45am to play golf (though today for a change it was raining so we didn't go)
- temperature about 11 degrees, i.e. pretty cold
- chilled out in the morning having some noodles
- went to Sha Tin shopping centre, meeting up with Anita and Alan
- Alan and I mill around whilst the girls look at cosmetics, yet again Ellen buys some werid stuff that I doubt she'll use ever again
- go to watch "Kung Fu" in cinema (really funny, we actually had this on fan-ban DVD but it was so funny after 30 mins we decided to watch it for real)
- get home for 7pm to have dinner, Ellen's mum cooks far too much as usual and I end up trying in vain to finish everything without success (could do with Victor, Holam and Nick to help out!)
- play on the PC and watch TV until late

Found out that my skin is really really dry. The cosmetics shop the girls went to had all this fancy equipment to test your skin and purely for the sake of relieving boredom, I decided to give it a go. Optimal skin has 36% moisture, the girls had 34% whilst I had 30%. The girl at the skin shop feigned shock, but I walked out quickly before she could sell me anything.

Gonna try to play golf tomorrow. My game is sorta coming together, but I am still playing too many erratic shots. Best round recently, over about 9 holes, was 2 pars, 2 bogeys and only 1 lost ball. Believe me I was estatic!

Kim is coming over this weekend, so that means many more shopping trips. I don't really mind, but I am kinda worried about our luggage when we go back to the UK. I have bought 3 pairs of shoes already, 2 suits and a load of shirts.

In terms of other countries to visit, I don't think we're gonna do S Korea anymore, but go to back to Bangkok instead. It's much much warmer (about 30 degrees), the shopping is better, we can go for more massages and everything is so cheap! We'll be doing our bit to help the Thai economy after the events of Boxing day. Still want to go to China, seem to be running out of time though....

then work.... eek!

Supersize me

Watched "Supersize Me" this afternoon and was certainly an eye-opener. Pretty shocking that the guy was killing himself for the sake of this "experiment" by eating nothing but McDonalds for a whole month.

What did we have for dinner later though.... yup.... Maccy D's!

Who else blogs?

Seemed like not many. Main bloggers seem to be:

1, The missus
2, Vicky
3, My sister

The others seem to have given up, or perhaps don't wish to share and be heard like the rest of us. Maybe it's a little self-centred of me, but I like to get my opinion out there in print.

I think in a few years' time it'll be nice to read back and reminisce on some of the events of the past... heaven knows my grey matter is giving out on me.

Damn Canon

Stupid dumb Canon. I went to the Canon Customer Service Centre in Hong Kong today only to be told that I have to pay for not only repairs to my camera but also pay a non-refundable inspection fee.

Rubbish thing is that Canon Thailand don't offer an International Warranty and in any case my camera doesn't have a serial number (it was rubbed off) so any warranty wouldn't be valid anyway.

Ok, I have learnt my lesson. In the future:

1, Get a warranty to cover countries I will be staying in.
2, Make sure that anything I buy hasn't got anything rubbed off.
3, Don't be so rash in buying desirable items.

I reckon that the camera shop in Thailand (which appeared to be a respectable Kodak shop) imported the camera as a grey import from Australia and rubbed off the serial number to cover up that fact.

The fact that the camera messed up in the first place is pretty annoying. Gotta be fair though and say that Canon HK were very good about it. The (pretty) girl behind the desk spoke good English and was very polite (and had a cute uniform too!). Also its only going to take about 2 weeks to fix, much better than standards in the UK. Did I say the girl was cute too? She even gave me her phone number!

Happy New Year!

It's been a mixture of happiness and sadness this year... here's hoping that 2005 will bring prosperity and good health to everyone.


New Year's in Hong Kong was a bit different this year. Instead of following the masses and heading for Lang Kwai Fong or Times Square, we spent the countdown in a swanky bar in Admirality.

First off we went to some really dodgy looking Japanese restaurant above a shop in these really quiet street. Walking down there were garages and warehouses either side and some locals were having a BBQ on the street. We stopped next to a Japenese storehouse full of sacks of rice, walked up these plain looking steps to be greeted by a well decorated Japanese restaurant. Apparantly this is an unlicensed restaurant, hence they cannot advertise the fact that the restaurant exists... talk about private dining or what! Happily the food was excellent, really fresh sashimi and all sorts of tasty morsels washed down by some hot sake.

Moving on the to bar ("1/5") tummies were full but eager to drink. I'd say it was a pretty international bar, not many local chinese honkies there it seemed, but quite a large Asian crowd. Quite a contrast to Club Nu the night before which was packed with underage honky wannabe gansta rappers (though Mei might not wish to remember that place so much due to her "accident" in the toilet and then passing out for most of the night).

Quite annoying my camera is playing up now. The damned thing won't stay on and intermittently (Fai taught me to use that word) turns itself off. Still, I managed to get a few sweet photos... check out imagestation in a few days.

As ever, New Year's is a bit of an anti-climax. Countdown has come and gone and it's all pretty much the same. Just need to remember to put a 5 on the end of my dates!

Sun leen fai lok!