Thai Sausage
On Saturday, I ventured to the Lan Kwai Fong July Fest, LKF's version of a beer festival. Although it hardly matches similar events in Dalian or Qingdao, its a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon.
Of course it was hot, damned hot, so after a couple of hours of walking around I stopped at a stall run by the Thai Lemongrass Restaurant; where a delightful Thai girl persuaded me to buy a bottle of Singha, not htat I needed much persuading. Then, she asked if I wanted some food. Thinking they might have some nice, Thai nibbles, I asked what they were offering. It seemed their main stay was sausages. I commented that this was not very traditional Thai food, and were they Thai sausages?
The girl quickly responded with a knowing look and a dirty laugh, "Thai sausages aren't that big!". Oh, how I like a Thai girl with a dirty laugh.
The calendar that's right once a year.
As a Mac user, I have a very useful calendar called iCAl, and it shows in my Dock. The thing that annoys me, though, is that if iCal is not running the icon shows a standard date of July 17th. If iCal is running the icon shows todays date. OK I know that its easy enough to start iCal automatically when I switch the machine on, but it can't be that hard for the icon to show today's date even if the program isn't running, can it?
And why did they choose today's date to go on the icon? What's so special about today?
Camera Workshop
On Sunday, I was invited by Canon to their store in Kowloon to try out the new Canon Powershot S5 IS. Although its not really my kind of camera, I thought I would go along for a bit.
First of all its not an easy place to find. Finding the building was no problem, especially as it has a massive neon sign on the roof, but trying to find the lifts, well that was quite a challenge.
Next stage was to try and avoid all the pushy salesmen. Actually it wasn't too bad, but everytime you looked at something for more than a few seconds, someone would come and try and sell you something. Finally got into the studio, where they had set up some displays to show off some of the new features of the camera: there was a model food display to show the macro 0cm feature, a model railway, to show how you can still get image stabilisation whilst panning and a model to show the facial regognition.
The model was getting most of the attention, as the other displays were naff, and she was a pretty girl! I have some of the photos below.
As for the camera itself - I personally didn't like it. It was neither fish nor fowl mixing some attributes of a SLR with the convenience of a point and shoot, and as such it fails in both camps, being too large for a P&S and lacking a lot of the benefits of a SLR. Even sitting where it does, I have some misgivings, for instance the lens cap comes off far too easily, and really there have been to few improvements on the S3 model. If I was in the market for this kind of camera I would opt for either the Sony H9 or the Canon H7.
But I would like to thank Canon for their hospitality and time, and the free photograph prints they gave me.
Evening photography
Last night after work, I went for a couple of drinks. Nothing unusual there, I suppose. Whilst I was standing outside, smoking, my ex-hair cutter came up to say hello, with her friend. This was a surprise as I thought Angie had gone to Australia.
It was a little bit embarrassing as her friend was supposed to take over cutting my hair, but I had to change after her first attempt, but I didn't let anything show. It was nice to see Angie wearing something that wasn't black - the uniform colour they had to wear when working. I asked them both to join me for a drink, but they had to go off and eat.
After a few more pints I decided to go around Central and take some photos; not a brilliant idea, as I didn't have a tri-pod with me. Despite that i did manage to get a few reasonable ones, shown below.
Bus on Queensway
Cotton Tree Drive
Bank of China Building
Explain the offside rule? Not a hope!
So there I was enjoying a quiet pint after work in the bar. Minding my own business, reflecting on the successes of the day.
They happened to be showing a soccer game on the television: Australia against Oman, but I wasn't really paying any attention to it.
One of the waitresses must think I am being too quiet, so she comes up to me to make idle conversation. She asks, "Who is playing on TV?"
I reply, "It's Australia versus Oman"
"Oh", she says, "Who is playing in the yellow shirts?"
"That's Australia." I inform her.
"The guys in black are Oman?" she asks.
There was only one guy wearing black on the TV screen. "No. That's the referee," I tell her.
I decide that trying to explain the intricacies of the offside rule would be wasterd on this charming young lady, and I go back to drinking my beer in peace, and solitude. Bliss!
It's a blow job!
Following on from my
earlier post about the London Olympics logo; someone mentioned to me that it looked like a blow job.
I can see the similarity, and I can imagine the designer letting everyone in on the big joke in 2012.
Lee Tung Street
Whilst walking around Wanchai, on Sunday morning, I found myself in Lee Tung Street. For those of you that don't know, this street, also known as Wedding Card Street, is due to be torn down in the near future as part of an urban development project. The street was once famous for its printing shops, and it was THE place to get your wedding cards, name cards and calendars printed.
In the fifties the government decided to encourage printing industries to move into this street, rumour has it to be able to better monitor illegal publications. The shops are all very similar and joined together. However in 2003 the government decided to acquire this street.
Today it is a very sad sight, all the shops boarded up, windows taped over and trhe street is deserted. About halfway down I had a very cold feeling on the back of my neck, as if the place was haunted.
Now, I am not in favour of preservation for preservations sake. But if you are going to redevelop somewhere, then please get on with it and put up the new hotel, shopping mall or office block. Don't just leave these empty buildings standing there as a monument to Hong Kong need to kick people out of their business premises.
Re-Unification Day
So with today being a holiday, I broke away from my lazzy Sunday routine, and went out early to take some photos.
Started off by heading to Wanchai to watch the flag raising ceremony, but it was far too crowded and I couldn't get near the place. As a result I headed up to Queen's Road East and took some pictures of the older part of Wanchai.
After that I headed home for some lunch and to download my photos. After that I headed out again, and went to the bridge over Hennessey Road to watch the rally. I got there early and got a good spot, before the media and other onlookers arrived. I took loads of photos. Here's a couple:-
After that I needed some refreshment, so I headed for the Devil's Advocate. After a couple of libations, I headed off to the waterfront to watch the fireworks. Not too early this time, so I couldn't get a prime spot but found a place where I could set up my tripod and managed to get some more photos:-
I joined the throng after the display, and deciding that getting a taxi for an hour or so would be impossible, I went to another of my favourite watering holes in Wanchai and had a couple of pints before heading home and going to bed.
