what to do when you go to Hong Kong

just back from Hong Kong and well...there are things to do and things not to do.

Things to do:
1. Go to Sam the tailor and get a suit stitched. It will take about 3 days but the result is perfection at a great price ( 200 pounds for really good fabric.). I happened to pick up a brown and gold suit..I know that sounds worse than a rapper's outfit, but my shopping companion Helen insists I look good in it. She herself, of course, went in for something far more subtle. Sam can be found at 92 Nathan Road, TST is the closest MTR
2.Have dim sum at the restaurant right next to Sam. The dim sum is great value and they have an English menu. If you are jet lagged, take heart in the fact that they open really early.
3. Walk down from Sam to ChungKing mansions and bargain shop for all sorts of bags and suitcases. As my friend Heather says, always quote a third of the price and settle for half
4. Walk to the first floor of ChungKing mansions and go to Swagat, an Indian restaurant. Yes, you must eat their chicken tikka - it is the best Indians have found anywhere, including Ludhiana
5. Walk down from Chungking mansions to the Hotel Peninsula. Ride up the elevators to Felix, take in the view, have a glass of the house red and then take a wee in the loos, which are the best thing about this place
6. Get out of the Peninsula and then walk to the TST Star Ferry terminal. Pay 2 $ to ride across the harbour and see spectacular views.
Thats all for now. Once you reach Hong Kong island, you are left to your own devices.

The Death of Dreams

One day...One day I will open a restaurant. One day I will be rich. Or live by the sea. When this happens ( I get rich, pay back loans, become a US citizen), then I will start acting on my dreams.

One day...is the death of dreams. Start today, work now. Ifs, buts are death knells - like clouds that keep growing, they cover the sky of dreams till nothing can be seen nor remembered.

Japan is my favorite

I love their exports to the States. first sushi. and now saki

Too Much

it is too much sometimes and you want a break. You want to stop being nice. being kind. smiling, being on time, being sweet. it doesnt hurt to be like that but sometimes you want to close the door. shut the world out. and growl at whoever knocks

Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life

Hang on to the small bits. The small things that get your laughs and smiles. the mini masturbation orgasms and the big sex ones. lol. ( which means laughing out loud if you are really ancient)
when the rain pours after a sultry day, give thanks. when you manage to laugh throatily in the middle of the office day, give thanks. ditto for beautiful eyes, swaying nice butts, etc.
its a world of big problems. but it is also a world of small mercies. and if you cant find one today just put on yr favorite music, it will come.
enjoy being useless, if you really have nothing to do. spirituality is not only a deep meditative state. loud obnoxious laughter often works as well.

Ant Crawl

one of those days which cant pass soon enough. so humid you want to have another bath as soon as you step out of the shower. sultry enough that flies are buzzing between me and this screen. air conditioning is cranked up, but my room mates are doing the same. so it trips every 10 minutes. our solution is to fix the fuse every ten minutes. even if it means going down to the laundry room for that. its not our solution. its my solution. because they have fallen asleep. or pretend to, knowing that i will fix the fuse anyways. which i do.

last few days i have lost my zest for drinking and smoking. i havent stopped but it doesnt feel good any more. and when i start i want to stop immediately. it is a little bewildering. from where has this come?

solution for sweltering heat is plain old water with ice. twist of lime and sea salt. actually, it sounds quite exotic. but it does the trick. and keeps your mind on more important things like blogging.

i had sushi today. first time outside the office cafetaria. and first time outside Hong Kong. It was not the best but i am so in love with soy-wasabi-cold-raw combo that its very hard to get on my wrong side. eating with chopsticks was a pleasure. andreas, do you still have my chopsticks-peanut video. i have come a long way since them - i remember in zhu hai i won the contest for picking up 3 peanuts with a chopstick. no video of that unf but trust me.

heather is incommunicado. latest i heard was she walked in 1.5 hrs late on her job. it was supposed to start at 6, and she waltzed in at 7 30. of course she was embarassed but i found it awfully funny. imagine heather waking up at 6 for a job. sometimes she would wake up at 8 45 in sha tin to make it to her school by 9. which really explains how her hair could look sometime. but i should shut up because i love her hair when it is like that. plain old messed up. i have to spend $10 to buy some hair putty to get the same effect. and by 11 am i am back to looking like a turkey nest.

at work, the latest joke is "are you wearing a gap shirt". trainees dont have a tough life in america but it does get peculiar sometimes. the fact that everyone earns the same salary, enough to live decently but not so good that you can buy a car has interesting implicatiions. one of which is that you can only shop in areas serviced by public transport. add common budget, common shopping area, common age group and common employer: you get GAP. The one store that satisfies everyone's needs. And funnily enough the only one. Some (Banana Republic, Express) are too expensive. Others (Old Navy etc.) too run down. So among us 4-5 guys (of a group of about 20) it became a little embarassing when we started showing up simultaneously in the same shirts. not plain blue shirts, those would be ok. but stripes and checks which are very distinctive. now we cant wear them - cant show up at work with them. cant show up at parties with them. maybe salvation army is the right answer.

for those who have latched on to gmail i highly recommend the desktop notifier. the smart blue envelope keeps you from opening yr browser - a glance is sufficient to tell you how many mails, from whom and what are their beginning lines. its a little depressing though because it deprives you of justified latop use excuses.

so long, i can feel the sweat building up under my knee pits. is that what they are called? small mercy they dont have bushes of hair growing from them too. how funny would that be

saurav

2 minute hummus

1 can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained
juice of half a lime
2 small green chillies, chopped finely
5-6 olives, pitted
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp red chilli powder/ paprika
3 large cloves of garlic

blend everything with 1/2 cup water. remove. drizzle with 1 tsp olive oil. eat and post compliments.

So, what is Madeleine upto

Madeleine Albright on why she is writing a book on her numerous brooches:


"I have a lot of different pins ... and it all kind of started as a joke," Albright said. "I do like jewelry, but when Saddam Hussein called me a snake, I happened to have a snake pin. And I was doing an interview, actually with CNN, and your cameras picked up that I had on a snake pin, and I was asked why and I said, 'because Saddam Hussein has just called me a snake.'"
Soon, the whole world watched the brooches that Albright affixed to her lapel as some kind of signal, a sort of international reading of the tea leaves.
"When people asked me what kind of a mood I was in or what I was working on I'd say, 'read my pins.' So, then it kind of got to be a thing in itself, and I now have a lot of them and they mostly have wonderful stories attached to them ..."

Keep it up Madeleine - didn't know that your stony face masked a sense of humor

Spirit of Bombay (in monsoon hell)

If it works, it works

It works every time

Try it yourself: www.flashpsychic.com and click on Martin Sanderson. I tried thrice!

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

Belongs to the class of books where you feel sad on the last page because there is no more of the book to read.
Seeing the world through the eyes of a keen autistic child. Seeing how parents struggle to balance their humanity with their parental roles, in a lighthearted way. Seeing how children get this in their own innocent way. A gripping read, an endearing read and a short read.

And there is also, the curious incident of the dog in the night time.

Let me know if you like it. Here's the link on amazon:


Check it Out