HK – I miss you – see you in a few months.

Check out this disturbing report on people living in cages in Hong Kong.

There’s a restaurant in Box Hill that we go to on a regular basis called Hong Kong Best Food. It’s located on Carrington Road which is home to many Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants. In particular there are several, very local Chinese, Sichuan restaurants which are simply superb for both Hot Pot or regular Sichuan food. In particular we like to eat the spicy Sichuan fried green beans, shredded potato and pork belly – all of which we first discovered in China and have since pined for – actually finding them locally was a win for the little people.

So getting back to Hong Kong Best Food, or HKBF as we affectionately refer to it. Here is a restaurant that is literally like stepping off a regular Australian street (well there is a distinct Chinese vibe to Carrington Road) and into a Hong Kong diner. Whilst I have not actually been to Hong Kong myself, I can imagine this would be an authentic experience. This is one restaurant that we distinctly do not go to for the food, we go here for the atmosphere.

Setup like a standard diner, there’s four flat screen LCD televisions (one in each corner of the ceiling) which play Chinese TV. On a good night, you’ll stumble into either Chinese period drama – China’s equivalent of Home & Away, or one of those kooky Asian gameshows. Decorated with photos of gaudy low quality photographs of Hong Kong and various other ornaments, it really captures a typical Asian eatery. The place is often filled to the brim with Chinese, where as a westerner, you’re back in minority again. In fact at one of the Sichuan restaurants, I even heard myself referred to as a laowai (foreigner), in my own country!

The meals in HKBF are cheap and diverse. Sweet and sour pork ribs sit beside spaghetti bolognaise, cheese friend rice and club sandwiches. The menu is in fact so ridiculously beyond any form of typical theme that it’s one of the best parts about going there. The food is cheap and well – of not a particularly good quality. Whilst I quite enjoy what I eat there, it’s definitely not something I would write home about. I enjoy ordering Chinese food with a side of French fries – they just don’t go together, but totally do at the same time.

Another highlight was the accidental discovery of Iced Green Apple Green tea. Here we basically have green cordial on ice yet made with either green or red tea. Think the potent sweetness of cordial on ice, with the distinctly tart undercurrent of tea – to me it’s just a completely winner combination. The Chinese love their milk and tea drinks and the drinks menu at HKBF is definitely full of options. There’s also free regular tea on offer to which the mostly inattentive waitresses will refill if you can catch their attention. There’s one thing about Chinese waitresses that’s always so consistent no matter where you go – they fluctuate from attentive to completely oblivious almost constantly.

If there’s one way to sum up HKBF it’s something that turned up in a local review. You’ll love HKBF..as long as you’re Asian and I couldn’t agree more. Unless you have some fond attachment to Asian culture such as myself, an Asian partner, or are in fact Asian, you’re not going to particularly enjoy HKBF. To me it’s like a brief time-out in another country. The fact that most local Australians would not go in there, or if they did, would completely turn their nose up at what’s on offer, is all the more reason for me to dine there.

Jag kan inte sova, så jag tar och skriver lite istället i väntan på Herr Blund.

Det var nu ett bra tag sedan jag kollade på flygbiljetter. Använde då främst Air New Zealands webbplats för att söka biljetter. De flyger från London till Auckland via Hong Kong, därifrån fick jag idén att stanna några dagar i Hong Kong. När jag ändå måste byta plan där.

I förra veckan bokade som sagt min kollega Victor sin biljett till Nya Zeeland. Han använda sig av den ypperliga prisjämförelsesajten för flygbiljetter: flygresor.se. Så jag provade den också, och märkte att jag kan nästan halvera mina biljettkostnader om jag flyger med andra flygbolag och flyger 1-2 veckor senare i januari.

Så just nu undersöker jag att lämna Sverige för England först runt 15-22 januari, för att sedan ta mig till Hong Kong och sedan Auckland, NZ. Grejen är dock att både flyget från London till Hong Kong och Hong Kong till Auckland mellanlandar. Det första i Peking, det andra i Kuala Lumpur. Båda är platser jag extremt gärna vill besöka. Så nu är frågan som snurrar i mitt huvud: ska jag spendera 3-5 dagar på dessa ställen också, menar jag är ju ändå i landet, eller ja … på deras flygplatser.

Att stanna och besöka ställena skulle dock innebära att datumet då jag kommer ner till Nya Zeeland fortsatt försenas, deras sommar börjar i december, så jag vill ju gärna hinna med lite av den då jag äventyrar där nere. Dessutom skulle resekassan tunnas ut extra då varje extra stopp dels medför dyrare biljettpris, men även ökade omkostnader i form av boende och resor på orten, visum (iaf för Kina), samt kostnader för sevärdheter.

Dilemma! Gah …

Mamma sa: nej spar de där platserna till senare då du kommit hem och åk med Anna då istället.

Låter inte helt dumt, men fan, så sjukt sugen! Är ju ändå precis där ju! Pöööh >_<

this is where i lived, in the midlevels, with my room facing the peak. on the other side of the apartment, i had a big window front towards the harbour and watched all those planes (mostly 747-400s) land at Kai Tak and make that checkerboard approach. awesome. to bad they closed it. since then, hong kong was able to grow further into the sky and change its skyline completely.

i took the tram from North Point to Central in order to catch the next Star Ferry to Kowloon. I wanted to go through Queensplace, the Hutchinson House to the Central Pier. I was aware, that they built a new Central Pier, but i didn’t it would be that far off… “No, you have to get off in Central, near the Government House, to be closest to the pier…”, somebody told me. I told him, that i lived here 15 years ago and so much the city’s appearance had changed. A brit ex-pat listened and replied, that really a lot had changed since the hand-over since 1997, when China reclaimed Hong Kong to be the SAR. We all wondered, how Hong Kong would change in the next 15 years. Maybe the harbour would be completely gone by claimed land, to build more skyscrapers. But the people haven’t changed, the life hasn’t changed, the sights, sounds and smells are the same: the spirit of hong kong.

Cheungvogl is a young international architectural practice founded in 2008. The design studio is based in Hong Kong, led by Chinese-Canadian architect Judy Cheung and German architect Christoph Vogl. Their latest project is called Umarmung and it is inspired by the long tradition of floor-sitting culture in Japan where the connection between the body and conversations is not restricted to universal seat height and conventional definition of sofa.

Via & more: Yatzer

看到網友pemasky引用報上的立法會主席”曾鈺成小登科 甜酒喻愛妻“，令我想到要寫一些《苦酒、甜酒入門》的個人心得。

首先讓我祝福曾鈺成先生和伍嘉敏女士白頭到老，開心生活，永結同心。

據報曾鈺成先生致辭時分享稱，

“小學三四年級有兩次演講都由他媽媽撰寫演辭，內容是人生有兩杯酒，分別是甜酒和苦酒，若先喝了苦酒，他便可在餘下的人生慢慢品嘗甜酒。

曾鈺成認為媽媽為他寫的講辭漏了一點，他認為若不為意甜酒的味道，不懂得珍惜，甜酒便會變質，故甜酒需好好保存，味道才不會變，又說他會好好珍惜現時的甜酒，慢慢品嘗。”

曾先生小學三四年級的演辭很可愛，想將人生的苦酒先喝，”餘下的人生慢慢品嘗甜酒”。可惜人生的苦酒不太合作，它有自己來去的時間表。有時跟學校的時鐘一樣準確，有時跟雷電風雲一樣的無常。

人生的苦酒，生人勿近？

再者，人生的苦酒真是一無事處嗎？我看既然人生有兩杯滿滿的苦酒、甜酒，為何不試試接受它們，享用它們呢？人生的冬天，人生的黑夜，人生的失利，人生的失意，其實是我們人生成長的必經之路，什至有時可以讓我們取得成長所須的養份。

何不珍惜人生每一點一滴的苦酒、甜酒，因為這些點點滴滴就是我們所謂的人生。

AÑO: 2009

DIRECTOR: Christina Yao

INT.: Aaron Kwok, Zhang Tielin, Hao Lei, Jennifer Tilly, Ding Zhicheng, Guo Tao, Li Yixiao, Tien Niu.

GÉNERO: Drama.

Más de uno seguro esperaba ver un nuevo Barefoot Kid basándose en el dato de que la película estaba protagonizada por Aaron Kwok y con Stephen Tung como director de acción. Nada más lejos de la realidad. Empire of Silver no es una película de artes marciales. Ni siquiera tiene escenas de acción (como no sea la del enfrentamiento del protagonista con una jauría de lobos infográficos) de ningún tipo.

Sin embargo, los amantes de los dramas históricos al estilo chino quedarán bastante satisfechos con la historia de los Kang, una familia de banqueros de escasos escrúpulos y de cómo uno de los hijos decide enfrentarse al sistema en pos de un reparto más justo de la riqueza.

Basada en una novela reciente que mezcla romance e historia, la cinta de la taiwanesa Christina Yao navega por aguas conocidas, haciendo uso de la épica necesaria en estos casos (bien remarcada por la excelente banda sonora y el espectacular diseño de producción) si bien hacia la segunda mitad la falta de intensidad dramática y la inopia histórica del espectador pueden hacer que el interés se diluya.

Lo mejor: La espectacular recreación de una era lejana en el tiempo.

Lo peor: La sobreacuación de Jennifer Tilly, más perdida que un abstemio en el Oktoberfest.

Shew, hard race! Very technical, great runs, but veeeerrrrry technical.

Had a good day out, felt comfortable on the runs, just got very cold at the start (didn’t pack any thermals), and it came back to bite me later on, as I started cramping with 5km’s to go. The last 5km were really hard, as I got to the Kissing Whale’s first, but with not too much of a lead, and I was convinced that Ruth and Katie were going to catch me. Managed to hang on to 1st, very stoked to win here in Hong Kong again.

Aussies took 1st – 3rd in the men’s race, with Lightee in 4th and Dawid in 5th.

This is definately a race not too miss. Great organisation, fanastic course, hospitality of note, and … shopping for Africa

Will try get hold of some photo’s soon.

Went to Kowloon today, hectic! 5 hours of serious bargaining, shopping, and trying to walk at the same time as more 50 000 other people. Good times!

Photo of the women’s clinic here in Stanley.

By Dian Hasan | November 22, 2009

Hotels have long been known for their social roles, and for their ability to continually reinvent themselves to relevant for today’s lifestyle taste. After all, consumer taste seems to change faster than changing bed linens.

In line with the idea of making every inch of the hotel a profit center. First it was the Spa, a permanent fixture in fine hotels today. And now, all eyes are on the best underutilized space: the Rooftop Area!

Here’s a look at how rooftops are rejuvenating hotels across the world. Wether for lounging with cocktail in hand, or pools and spas, launch parties, cool events, film parties… all making their way to the top of the hotel… where it’s Hot, Hip & Happening! And the bright city lights and skyline make for a spectacular backdrop.

What it smells/tastes like:

What it sounds like:

What it feels like:

I read Psalm 150. course its always easy to praise, when it’s all going good. but like Brett said at Island ECC 2 weeks ago, true praise is when nothing seems to be going for u-true joy when it seems like theres nothing to be joyful bout, but He gives u it.

well anyways, for me,

it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah. sigh

credit: blueberry

If you are considering exotic international travel to Hong Kong, be sure also to take in the environs of Hong Kong, such as Zhongshan, Macao and Tai Mo Shan. Although Hong Kong itself is a wonderful place to visit, these other attractions offer you an alternative view of China that is less frenetic, and more akin to the China most people have in their minds.

The best way to see this part of China, and it is part of China because the British handed Hong Kong over to Chinese control in 1997, is by means of a personalized tour that only the best international vacation packages can offer. This enables you travel at your own pace, with your own driver, without the encumbrance of a group of others who might have different views than you as to how long to spend at each attraction.

Good planners arrange tours to suit their individual customers and their partners, and although the cost of these might be higher than you would pay for general vacation group packages, it is worth it if you are looking for luxury international trips as opposed to just an ordinary vacation. At least one travel company states that if you can’t live better away from home than at home, then why bother going? A good sentiment.

Back to Hong Kong as a destination for exotic international vacation tours. Its capital is the island of Victoria, which to many is synonymous with Hong Kong. Victoria sits in Hong Kong harbor, and Kowloon is the mainland part of the district. At night you can enjoy the magnificent laser light show from around 8 – 9 pm, when you can see a magnificent display of thousands of lights from the various tall buildings, including the laser beams that shoot across the sky. This show is accompanied by music. The Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade is great place from which to watch this display.

Make sure you also visit some of the fishing villages in the district, such as Aberdeen and the Sok Kwu Wan fishing village on Lamma island that is famed for its excellent Chinese seafood restaurants. You should also visit the Chinese border, out past Kowloon into the countryside. However, there is more to exotic international travel to Hong Kong than just that.

The first Europeans to settle in the Far East were the Portuguese, and the oldest settlement was at Macao, also known as Macau. This was also handed back to the Chinese, but you can still visit Macao, especially the Grand Prix circuit and the casinos: Macao is not nicknamed the ‘Monte Carlo of the Far East’ for nothing. It also has a unique combination of Portuguese and Chinese culture that is found nowhere else in the world.

Make sure that you also take a tour to Zhongshan, on the Pearl River delta. This is an 800 year old village covering some 20 square miles, inhabited by traditional fishermen and farmers. Also in the area is Tai Mo Shan (Big Hat Mountain), the highest mountain in the district, and providing magnificent views of the Lam Chuen valley and the Shek Kong Airport.

Hong Kong is not all high rise buildings and people dashing frenetically about talking to cell phones. There is also the peaceful part that comprises nine tenths of the district. Places such as the Chuk Lam Shim Yuen Buddhist Monastery and the Tang Chung Ling Ancestral Hall, with its delicate wood carvings and built in honor of Tang Chung Ling who founded the Tang clan. Close by is one of five famous walled villages, Lo Wai, built in the 13th century.

Make sure, if you can, that the Hong Kong packages you look at include trips to these places of interest that show the real China, as opposed to the westernized influences of Hong Kong as most people know it. Good vacation planners should include tours outside the environs of Victoria island and Kowloon and into the Chinese mainland and surrounding district.

It’s a long way to travel just to visit the skyscraper city that is just like any other modern day city, and miss the real flavor of the Orient that can be found just a few miles away. Real exotic international travel to Hong Kong must involve some element of the mystery of the Orient, and that is what you will find once you get away from the modern parts of the city. Take in a tea plantation, and perhaps a local traditional Chinese market, and try some of the more traditional fare as opposed to the very westernized food of Victoria.

That way you will see and taste the real China of this area, and have a truly exotic vacation to Hong Kong that you will be able to talk about for a lifetime.

The latest road map to suffrage isn’t much of a step forward.

Hong Kong is rightly viewed as Beijing’s laboratory for democracy, so the territory’s latest proposal to advance suffrage bears watching. Unfortunately, it’s hard to look at Government House’s latest plan as anything other than a bit of fizz in the test tube.

The Hong Kong government’s “consultation paper,” released Wednesday, was billed as paving the way for universal suffrage in 2017. Chief Executive Donald Tsang’s administration proposes expanding the territory’s 60-member legislature by 10 seats in 2012, five of those directly elected and five chosen by elected members of local district councils. Mr. Tsang also would increase the committee that elects the chief executive to 1,200 from 800, including creating 100 more seats for elected district councilors.

This is at best a so-so deal. Mr. Tsang, who is effectively appointed by Beijing, was constrained by a 2007 Beijing diktat from changing the even balance within the legislature between directly elected seats and those selected by “functional constituencies,” which represent interest groups largely loyal to Beijing. By handing the proposed five new functional constituencies to elected district councilors, Mr. Tsang is at least making those seats indirectly democratic.

In other ways, though, Mr. Tsang, himself a Hong Konger, did little to advance his fellow citizens’ interests—especially given that poll after poll shows that Hong Kongers overwhelmingly support universal suffrage. The government declined to make existing functional constituencies more democratic by broadening their voting bases. The legislator for financial services, for instance, is elected by 578 companies, and the banking representative by only 132. Expanding that and other functional electorates to the thousands of people licensed to work in those industries—as is already done for seats representing education, accounting and health services—would have been a sign Mr. Tsang was truly interested in expanding democracy.

Mr. Tsang also stepped backward on the process for “electing” the chief executive. A 1,200-member committee would be smaller than the 1,600-member body Mr. Tsang proposed the last time Hong Kongers had this debate, in 2005. In a city of seven million residents, 1,600 was too small; a backpedal to 1,200 is inexplicable. And it still would be stacked with electors with ties to Beijing.

Despite all these caveats, Hong Kong’s democrats may decide to support the package for political reasons. They voted down an equally bad proposal in 2005; the danger is that they could look merely obstructionist doing so again. But whatever strategic calculations they make, the details of the final plan matter because Beijing and Hong Kong’s government are sure to spin any eventual agreement as democratic progress. On present course it won’t be that.

Beijing in December 2007 told Hong Kongers they “may” gain universal suffrage in the 2017 vote for chief executive, already a decade behind earlier promises. The current consultation process raises doubts about how seriously to take that pledge. Hong Kongers risk losing yet another opportunity to pick their leaders. Beijing risks missing a chance to show the world it can keep its word.

Editorial, Wall Street Journal

__________

Full article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704204304574544502634999412.html

By Dian Hasan | November 22, 2009

Hotels have long been known for their social roles, and for their ability to continually reinvent themselves to relevant for today’s lifestyle taste. After all, consumer taste seems to change faster than changing bed linens.

In line with the idea of making every inch of the hotel a profit center. First it was the Spa, a permanent fixture in fine hotels today. And now, all eyes are on the best underutilized space: the Rooftop Area!

Here’s a look at how rooftops are rejuvenating hotels across the world. Wether for lounging with cocktail in hand, or pools and spas, launch parties, cool events, film parties… all making their way to the top of the hotel… where it’s Hot, Hip & Happening! And the bright city lights and skyline make for a spectacular backdrop.

Duplication 1, 2003 C-Print

27 November 2009 – 27 February 2010 at Ooi Botos Gallery, 5 Gresson Street (at 88 Queen’s Road East), Wanchai, HONG KONG.

“In a perfect world . . .” comprises two of Xing Danwen’s seminal series “Duplication” and “Urban Fiction”. Both bodies of work comment on and raise questions about modernization, the concept of the ideal in contemporary culture and the clash between idealized modernity and reality. Xing Danwen’s “Duplication”, a series of six photographic works, raises issues of identity and aesthetic choices in the era of genetic cloning. The works, composed and photographed in toy factories, comprise assorted groupings of toy dolls’ body parts. These dolls represent theoretical prototypes of modern society’s ideal. “Urban Fiction” continues the thread of social commentary, which runs through “Duplication”, utilizing the architectural maquettes used to pre-sell real estate developments in China as both visual motif and mode of exploring the anomie and atomization of human life in rapidly modernizing China.

More info…

I meant to be posting, everyday, things I was grateful for until Thanksgiving. And now, on Saturday night, I am a few days behind. Not that I am any less grateful, just less productive, or perhaps a little less inclined to share these past few days. Sometimes this seems like a really inappropriately intimate medium. But then sometimes it seems perfectly germane.

I was sitting outside in the cold on the 9:30 ferry coming home on Thursday (on purpose – as sitting inside is garish, loud and above all MALodorous) watching Victoria Harbor’s lights go by. [See above, obv.] And I was struck by how unusual my life is in some ways. This skyline, or coastline, or reclaimed gelatinous marina, (take your pick) never fails to impress. And to have a city like Hong Kong at my disposal everyday is pretty amazing. Though I know I will not stay here and I feel it is a place that makes putting roots down very difficult, it is really cool to be right here, right now.

Being in a city, particularly one that is cold, around the holidays is thrilling… everything is electric, literally and figuratively – abuzz, as it were. And, save for sticking you finger in a light socket, I think palpable energy is a very cool thing. I am glad I am here. And I am grateful that Beijing perpetrated that ridiculous cloud seeding endeavor that people now credit with giving us all this wonky cold weather. I love that the PRC believes the weather is just one more thing to manipulate. Go China!

And it has been cold here, with humidity consistently below 50%, which is crackling dry in these parts. Add to that the wind and it seems positively (or negatively?) electric, even without the lights.  I think the wind does energize me, and whether this is a scientifically sound concept or just my feeling is moot, standing in the wind has always given me a charge. Add to that the possibility for static electricity and – wowsa – We’re all electric.

Today the skies are clear and blue and it is cold and windy and holiday-like and work-infused, simultaneously. I am happy to be in Hong Kong and glad to be going away next week and relieved to know nothing is permanent. I am busy and feel lazy, have lots to do and nothing to say.

Polarity is defined as the presence or manifestation of two opposite or contrasting principles or tendencies. Bipolarity suggests they are simultaneously present – perhaps erratically so.

Contrary to what many might say, I think that’s cool.

For now.

My time coming, any day, don’t worry bout me, no
Been so long I felt this way, ain’t in no hurry, no
Rainbows end down that highway where ocean breezes blow
My time coming, voices saying, they tell me where to go

Don’t worry bout me, no no, don’t worry bout me, no
And I’m in no hurry, no no no, I know where to go.