SKYair

Festival of Speed

2007-07-03T12:24:00.000+01:00

I've always wanted to get a pair of gumboots, but there have only been two occasions in my life where I actually needed a pair. The first was at the mud fest which was the Fuji Rock Concert last year. The second was last week at the Festival of Speed.

The Festival of Speed was held at Goodwood, some guy's "country house" about an hour and a half drive out of London. We hired a Mini Cooper S for the occasion. According to Mike, the Festival of Speed is a motor show (from classics to the latest) and track day all thrown into one. Here's the link to our pics.

Ola Barcelona!

2007-06-25T23:25:00.000+01:00

Spent 5 days in sunny Barcelona last week with Sof and Jackie, where we ate, shopped and ate some more. Here's a link to our pics:

So we had made a lunch booking at El Cellar de Can Roca, a restaurant "to visit at all costs" according to the LV guide. Since El Cellar was in Girona, a town about 1 1/2 hours away from Barcelona, we thought it would be fun to hire a car and drive out. On discovering that apart from having to drive on the other side of the road, the car that we had hired was manual, had no petrol, and no map, it did not seem like such a good idea after all...

S: So the pedals, are they the same? Like clutch on the left, then the brake?
Very worried looking man: Errmmm... there are actually 3 pedals...

The poor man ended up driving us to get petrol, then back to his office to get a map, before sending us on our way, probably expecting never to see his car again...

Wall art at Hotel M&S

2007-06-14T13:19:00.001+01:00

Since my parents have been bugging me for photos of Hotel M&S, I thought I'd give an example of the priceless artworks we have here hanging on the wall. This one is entitled "T-Shirt" which has been skilfully matched by our leading curator with a deep blue plastic covered wire clothes hanger:

I love medication...

2007-06-12T18:46:00.000+01:00

One week after getting sick in this country, I finally have some antibiotics in my hot little hands. All it took was 50 phone calls and 3 separate visits to the neighbourhood clinic:

S: I've had this cold and cough for a whole week.
D: [Checks]. Well it's not a bacterial infection.
S: Are you sure? It doesn't seem to be going away, and I had the same thing when I first arrived in London.
D: I don't want to prescribe you with any antibiotics, it's just not necessary in this case.
S: Oh but I really need them, if I don't take any, I'll get the same thing again later. I just want to make sure the bug's gone for good.
D: Antibiotics won't help you get better. All you need to do is rest.
S: Oooh..... are you sure? How about something for my cough?
D: Look you just need to get some rest and lots of sleep. It takes about 4 weeks to really get over a cold.
S: 4 weeks! But I'm going away this weekend... [look completely helpless.]
D: Oh... now I feel really bad. Do you really have to go away this weekend? You need your rest.
S: It's already booked [throw in another helpless look].
D: Hmmm... okok. I'll write you a prescription, just in case you don't get better by Sunday. But you really shouldn't take them at all. Antibiotics are so overprescribed in this country.
S: Oh I promise I won't. Only if I don't get better by Sunday. [Woohoo!!!!]

Our first month in London...

2007-06-06T18:31:00.001+01:00

Yes I'm on a roll today since I'm sick and stuck at home.

Mr Zero made me post these photos:

and his new car:

Borough Market and the heavenly chirozo burgers - I am going to take every single guest of Hotel M&S here:

Hotwired...

2007-06-06T16:18:00.000+01:00

After the crazy night which was the subject of the previous post, we headed off to Sai Kung to bid farewell to Mike's baby...

Our final farewell + K

2007-06-06T15:36:00.001+01:00

Here is a selection of photos from our final farewell dinner at Hei 8 and K at Haven. You can see the whole album if you click on the photos.

Recipe for our sake tequila shot:

1 shot of sake
Pinch of "7 taste powder"
Pickled ginger

Lick the "7 taste powder", down the sake, finish off with the ginger. Refreshing!

Photos!

2007-05-30T23:43:00.000+01:00

Now that I have found a free ride on someone else's wireless broadband, I can finally post photos!

Since I have something like 500 outstanding photos to upload, I'll start by popular demand of our recent trip to Paris (Cris, we saw your friend on the street so Mike had to take a picture with him)...

Here's to London efficiency...

2007-05-24T14:28:00.000+01:00

I feel that I need to explain the lack of updates on this blog.

S: Can I make an appointment for the internet to be connected? My homeline has been registered now.
Woman on phone: Ok.
S: Can I have your earliest appointment? Anytime anydate is ok.
W: The next appointment I have is... 21st June, that's a Thurs...
S: 21ST JUNE?????
W: [Thinking I didn't hear her properly] That's THURS-DAY, 21ST JU-NE...
S: No no, I heard you. That's your earliest appointment??? That's a month away!
W: I'm afraid that's the earliest date we have on our system.
S: Well can you put me on a waiting list for cancelled appointments? I'm happy to take any date before that.
W: I'm afraid we don't have that capability on our system....

Which brings me to now. I am sitting in an internet cafe on High Street Kensington, there's a fat smelly woman next to me, and all the other computers are taken.

On the bright side though, we moved house last weekend and after 3 days of non-stop unpacking the place is looking great. The weather has finally warmed up again and I am officially a local because at the first sign of the sun coming out after 2 weeks I was like "Let's go to that pub on the corner with a terrace and have a bottle of wine over lunch!"

I did manage to squeeze some birthday celebrations in amongst all the moving and unpacking. I had a nice dinner with almost all the people that I know in London last Friday night at Yakitoria in Paddington, which was a lovely restaurant recommended by Ronald located right on some canal. After dinner, I dared Ryan to jump into the canal which the idiot actually did for £150. This was helpfully captured by YP on her camera. I'll post up a link to the video when I get my internet set up. On the day of my birthday, the surprise dinner organised by Mr Zero was to Nobu, which he had thoughtfully booked back in HK! He also organised a chauffeured ride for me there and back - talk about major brownie points!

It's a long weekend this weekend so we are taking our first trip out of London to Paris! After that we will have our first visitor to Hotel M&S. With a life like this who has time to work?

On wining and dining...

2007-05-10T00:12:00.000+01:00

Thanks to the LV Guide and toptable.co.uk, we've been having some decent grub here in London.

Yum cha at Royal China and Laureate, small Italian places in Soho, afternoon tea at the Orangery, cakes and tea at Patisserie Valerie (the best mille feuille EVER), gastro pubs to watch football, tapas at local Spanish joints, etc etc. I'm dying for some Japanese food though...

Last Friday afternoon:

M: So where are we going for dinner tonight?
S: I've booked a Japanese restaurant. I’m dying for Jap food.
M: What's the restaurant called?
S: Pearl something. The chef's really famous.
M: It doesn't sound Japanese. What kind of food is it? Modern Jap? Fusion?
S: Sushi.

Later that night at Pearl:

S: [Looking at the decidedly French menu] Err dear... I guess we're not having Japanese food after all.
M: So why'd you think it was a Jap restaurant?
S: The chef's name is Jun Tanaka! It's just reasonable to assume...
M: But sushi?
S: Hmmm... did I say sushi? Geez I must have made it up...

Excellent food at Pearl by the way. I guess I'll just have to find another place for Jap food.

"Jau Sao Gei"

2007-05-01T14:57:00.000+01:00

LOL ... saw this article in the SCMP today:

"Cable TV was given a serious warning yesterday after it aired a commercial from Alcolout, a health product claiming to be able to alleviate drunkenness that was found to be effective only in mice. The Broadcasting Authority said last night Cable TV "had not exercised due diligence to ascertain the truthfulness of the claims" in Alcolout's advertisement.

The broadcast watchdog gave Cable TV "a strong advice" to observe the code of practice on television advertising standards on truthful presentation and factual claims. The warning came after a member of the public made a complaint to the watchdog about the product's advertisement, which aired on December 17 on the English Premier League channel.

In the Alcolout commercials, it is said: "It is scientifically proven to absorb alcohol safely and effectively. It helps to absorb alcohol fast in the stomach, reduce the amount of alcohol entering the bloodstream and eases off the unpleasantness of intoxication."

The authority said the claims in the commercial were based on a study in mice. There was no evidence from the study that the product could alleviate short-term and long-term ethanol poisoning as claimed. It said the study was conducted in mammals other than humans, so its efficacy in preventing ethanol poisoning in humans was unknown."

Hahaha ... we did in fact test this product on humans (ourselves) and can confirm that it is ineffective in preventing ethanol poisoning in humans.

I left my heart in...

2007-04-30T16:32:00.001+01:00

Mike was very excited to discover that Tony Bennett was in town so we went to our first show in London last night at the Royal Albert Hall.

We felt a bit left out as everyone in the audience had white hair but nevertheless, we managed to entertain ourselves in our box seats and were all set with our bottle of white and sandwiches.

Proving that old people are indeed extremely punctual, everyone was seated by 7:55pm and the show began promptly at 8pm. Tony Bennett was great, so smooth and charismatic. I am not too familiar with his music but his songs are all short and sweet. I can't believe the guy is 81! He actually performed "Fly me to the moon" without any amplification at all. Apparently he does this regularly in his concerts to demonstrate the lost art of voice projection. Photos to come!

Hotel M&S - Opening soon...

2007-04-25T18:52:00.000+01:00

We got our apartment!

Our First Week

2007-04-24T04:55:00.000+01:00

Well it's been exactly a week since we have arrived in London. The weather has been beautiful with the exception of yesterday morning when it rained for the first time. Otherwise it's been blue skies and sunny every day. The London marathon was held on Sunday and apparently it was the "hottest marathon ever" at 23 degrees.... you just have to laugh when the "hottest ever" anything is 23...

It has been surprisingly pain free settling in. We spent the first 2 days on admin - setting up mobile phones, bank accounts, etc. Apparently it is difficult to open a bank account here in London because you need official address proof, but you can't set up anything which gives you official address proof without a bank account. Luckily Ryan had done his research and referred us to a company called First Contact which somehow can get around this requirement by paying them 35 pounds. Best 35 pounds I've spent so far.

The rest of the time we've spent househunting which is the perfect way to get to know London. We've now been around Angel, Islington, Chelsea, Sloane Square, Kensington, Bayswater, Notting Hill, West Kensington, and Holland Park. We've made one offer for a place in the next street to JLo and Po so fingers crossed.

We went to Ronald's big b'day at a restaurant inside St James Park on Friday night and managed to catch up with everyone in town which was lovely. On Saturday we had more househunting and also went to Portobello market in Notting Hill. Mike has been watching plenty of football so we are really getting to know the local pubs in Miranda's area. I've been introduced to Magners and Bulmers by Yuey (girls I think you'll like it...) and we've actually started drinking at lunchtime now. On Sunday we went to this retro bowling place with Miranda and her colleagues for her b'day where there was live music by a series of indi bands. Very cool.

Unfortunately my computer hasn't arrived yet so I can't post any photos until then. Please continue to leave us your comments!

We've arrived!

2007-04-17T16:17:00.001+01:00

Finally... we're in London!

What a crazy day yesterday, running around non-stop trying to get
everything settled before departing - tax clearance, exchanging money
etc etc. We then discovered that we had way too much luggage, which I
still can't believe we managed to get through (with some help from Mr
First Class Ryan).

Thank you Mike's family, Karen, Cris, Sof, Em, Denis, Kelvin, Camilla,
Peter, Raymond, Alfred and Alan for making it all the way to the
airport to see us off. So happy to see you all before embarking on our
great adventure....

Please pray for Mr Computer

2007-04-12T05:10:00.000+01:00

Mike and I came back from our respective Easter holidays in Sawadeeka and Pho-land to a very sick Mr Computer. We've taken him to Dr Denis who has referred Mr Computer to the Wanchai 398 Hospital. Hopefully Mr Computer will recover soon so that we can continue posting.

Thanks Thanks Thanks Thanks

2007-04-03T11:16:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Cris for picking a great location (Bex) for the farewell drinks and doing the Evite, especially in the midst of her latest busy assignment. (PS from Mike - Please get the damn system fixed one way or another ... not that I am a big fan of the system, as I think the principle of legal tender should prevail over the cashless system, the cashless system should only be an alternative and not the only payment method).

Huge thanks to everyone who made it and for those who didn't make it, keep in touch!

Mike: We had a great time and for me personally, the night went by so quickly that when it was 2am in the morning, it still felt like I was on my first couple of drinks....

Steph: Special mention goes to those who managed to hide their true identities with their innovative outfits, in particular Denis and the Spice Girls. PS I love my LV Guide.

Zero's First Post

2007-04-03T11:01:00.000+01:00

As Steph had pointed out, it has been farewells and farewells... my equivalent 'club crawl' was on Friday night as well, the usual suspects and I hit Macau, not exactly Bangkok style but given that organising another BKK tour was not easy, we resorted to something closer! Without divulging details of the activities, let's just say it was a great night out!

Farewelled out...

2007-04-02T19:23:00.000+01:00

What a weekend. It all started on Friday night with my farewell "Club Crawl". Only managed 4 stops (Baby Buddha, Mint, [Jackie's bar next to Tivo], Hei Hei), but got amazingly drunk thanks to Jackie's lethal concoctions.

Things I love about HK...

2007-03-24T10:04:00.000Z

Powdered out...

2007-03-20T06:58:00.000Z

Pat and Dingding accompanied Mr Zero and I to Niseko for what may be our last Asian boarding trip for awhile.

Our first stop was to Sapporo for a bit of shopping and mingling with the locals, where our "beooo-tiful girl" Dingding received a "plesent-o" from the old dude with the hankie on his head (don't ask):

We then went to Niseko, powder capital of the world, which certainly lived up to its name by snowing almost constantly for the whole time we were there. Boy has Niseko changed since Pat, Mr Zero and I were last there in 2003. More shops, more hotels, more Honkies. We got an all-mountain pass and (in the case of Pat and Dingding) managed to board all over the mountain - Hirafu, Hanazono, Higashiyama and Annupuri. Mr Zero and I had an NDE (near death experience) in the blizzard and got lost somewhere on the way to Annupuri.

Our favourite part was the terrain park over at Hanazono, where Pat, Dingding and Mr Zero (and even me!) attempted some jumps and I risked my life to take videos of them for the sake of "art". Here's the 3 of them about to go on the BIG jump which was taller than me and a view of the night ski lights from the bottom of the baby slope.

Countdown to London...

2007-03-19T04:04:00.000Z

There's less than 1 month to go before our big move, so I thought I'd start this new blog to keep our family and friends posted on the latest news and whereabouts of myself and Mr "Feed Me" Zero.

Please feel free to visit and leave your comments whenever you miss us!