Like the man said tho', better get used to it son, 'cos it looks like it's here to stay. Sigh. Even one of the trees on the hillside wood opposite the mill gave up earlier and came crashing down before our eyes. RIP.
Still, before more whinging about life back in UKLand, there's the last couple of days in Hong Kong to catch up on.
Stanley market on Monday was OK; not nearly as much fun as doing deals in Mong Kok, but the town was a nice enough place to spend a few hours. Ali & I met Hoopy down there about mid-day and stayed for about 3 hours before heading back over to Kowloon to go see tailor George for my fittings. Everything pretty much spot on first time there, so 'twas only 15 minutes or so before we once again met at the Peninsula for another couple of G&T's.
We stayed Kowloon side for the evening, grabbing a quick burger at MickeyD's for less than HK$45 (£3) for the three of us before heading off to show Hoopy the Mong Kok market (sadly no invitations to dubious residences to view counterfeit goods this time, tho' we still managed to acquire a couple of nice Bvlgari and Gucci watches by way of young female 'runners' from a couple of the stalls) before heading to Temple Street and the night market. Pretty much Mong Kok under floodlight and a little bit of an anti-climax to be honest.
Monday evening saw us taking up residence at the local Irish pub in Nathan Road, where we got chatting to a guy called Mark from Los Angeles who's spent the last quarter of his life living and working around Asia. Fairly eclectic conversation ensued for the rest of the evening, covering topics such as sport, President Goofy & Prime Minister Arselicker and the very heterogeneous culture of the Japanese. Perhaps understandably after that lot, alcohol finally got the better of us (well, me, anyway) around midnight.
Tuesday we once again made for Kowloon before lunch (at TGI Friday's, walking along the "avenue of stars" on the way) so I could pick up my new rags from George and grab a couple of bits from the nearby electronics store. Weighed under with English Wool, Italian silk and Sony's latest, we made our way back over to Hong Kong Island and to our respective hotels to pack. That done, we got glammed up (sadly [luckily?], no photographic evedince of our beauty that evening exists as the camera battery died) and headed down to Aberdeen for a most excellent evening aboard the Jumbo floating restaurant, who can count amongst their 30 million previous customers no less than John Wayne and Queen Lizzy herself. Most excellent fodder and blow-your-head-off cocktails consisting of Vodka, Cointreau, Southern Comfort, Cassis and Orange Juice of which Ali had two. Greedy cow.
Come 23:00, it was once again time to jump in a taxi (my Cantonese got no better the whole holiday - they all understood my less than acceptable English) and head home. Only this time it really was heading home, as it was back to the hotels, a quick 3 hour snooze then to the airport for the long flight back to London.
We took off half an hour late (Chinese air traffic control problem, apparantly), but pretty much made up the time and touched down 13 uncomfortable hours later at 14:00 British time in the cold at Heathrow. Black cab dash to sister-in-law Carol's to get the car, then a 4 hour journey back to Devon arriving at Chateau Lemmings at 22:00 after depositing Hoopy at his gaff on the way.
So there you have it. 33 blog entries down and that's Australia and Hong Kong done. Something a little less challenging looms next (we already knew we'd need a holiday to get over this one) - as things stand at the moment, 8 of us are heading over to the Balearics sometime in April/May for a few days of sun kissed lazing.
Meantime, there's work to be done and bills to pay. I've got three more "days off" (though I've already spent about 7 hours catching up on work admin & emails) before placing the snot container back against the spinning granite slab on Monday. Sleep will doubtless factor somewhere along the way, as will a few pints over at the Presse. Rude not to show one's face fairly soon given the length of absence, don't you think?
It's been, er, fun (I think) keeping this diary. It'll certainly prove useful to me in times to come, when I've forgotton everything we did over the past couple of months!
And I really need to say a big thank-you to Hoopy, who's made this holiday much more fun and entertaining that it might otherwise have been - that is of course when he's not been totally frustrating and a pain in the arse ;-). Cheers mate - people are going to be really unhappy that we've come back friends! Nothing for the village gossips - I promise not to tell them your big secret if you don't tell them mine...
Right now, that's it. Unlikely to be anything new here now for the next few days/months/years depending on what happens. So I'll leave you with a picture of Hoops & I that Ali took at Warner Brothers in Queensland back in November (God that seems *soooo* long ago...) which brings things nicely to a close:
Until the next time, farewell!
1 comment:
Bit of a nice vicarious vacation for me, thanks for sharing it. Hopefully one of the Daynoters will clue me in again whenever the next chapter occurs. Best.
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