#2: To Hong Kong (HK Days 0 - 1)

Oh thank goodness - the first time this popped up in Google it was in Chinese and I couldn't find the button to change it back to English.  It may have been there, but who can say?

Departure from Sydney
For those of you who know me and travel, this will come as no surprise to you.  For the rest of you, I assure you that I have only missed a flight once.  The other time I happened to arrive 24 hours earlier than necessary, but that's another story.

Luckily I happened to check my itinerary again for departure to Hong Kong because I didn't trust my math when I calculated departure from Sydney at 11:55pm and arriving in Hong Kong at 5:55pm (local time) with a flight time of just over 8 hours.  Then I called my lovely travel agent because it occurred to me that I had the wrong 11:55.  Sure enough, I had forgotten that Qantas writes its time in 24hour time.  All of a sudden I had 12 hours less than envisioned in which to do everything necessary to get to the airport.

JelLo, I apologize profusely - I needed those 12 hours to wash the sheets and towels and fold and put them all away.  Guest sheet sets are in the same closet as the guest towels, just a shelf up.  Obviously I did not succeed in finishing the laundry, so please tell your dad he can put them somewhere in a corner and forget about them.  I certainly will - I hope.

The flight was on time until 11:10am when we were supposed to board.  There was an announcement a while later that we would be delayed for an hour due to routine something-or-other.  Which confuses me because if it was routine, surely they would have allowed for that when allocating departure times?  Oh, and my big bag was 3kgs over.  So I had to reshuffle my luggage - FYI, if you didn't already know, paper weighs a TON.  It was no use telling the lady at the counter that it's only a teensy weensy bit over.  I make it a policy not to piss off the person who controls where I am going to sit.  Or the security screeners (TSA, what did you think I could possibly hide in my rubber slippers with clear straps?)

Dodger and Jester, sorry about the rush for the airport.  Those truffled scrambled eggs at Zigolini's are really good.  It might be worth having breakfast/brunch there anyway.

Hong Kong
The flight to HK was uneventful once we left Sydney.  They made up almost all of the lost hour (although, Qantas, did you think I wouldn't notice that the lock was gone from my small bag?  Really?  A bit disconcerting really - I will have to wash all of my underwear before I am willing to put them on).  Once we landed, it was another story altogether.  The carts you can use for your hand carry only go so far before there are metal poles sticking up out of the floor to make you leave the carts behind.  I happened to be schlepping one more bag than originally intended because I had to carry my dispute resolution and pilates readings.

Immigration moved really quickly, but it took a few moments to sink in.  This is mainly because you have to find the right line (visitors with some kind of electronic thing, HK residents, etc. etc.) and then there's another set of lines for people who need stamps, I guess.  I didn't know which passport to give them, so I filled out both.  Hopefully the immigration official stamped both passports, which I haven't checked yet.  Otherwise it will take a lot longer to complete my mission to actually fill up an entire passport, especially since they added extra pages to my US one.

So the taxis in HK are color coded.  Luckily my travel packet had something about it and my taxi driver spoke English.  I was confident that I could get around fine and it shouldn't be an issue that I speak no Cantonese or Mandarin.  This lasted until about 8:15 when, after checking in, showering and needing to meet S&J for dinner, I got into another taxi outside my hotel and found out that he couldn't understand me.  Thankfully S had told me her address phonetically - after I repeated it a few times and tried to describe it, he got the idea and I realized that because I don't know the proper accent, I may have said something indescribably rude to him.  It was more interesting after dinner - we went around in circles a bit (we got to the general area).  I have since put the enclosing envelope to my room key in my pocket so that I can show it to the next taxi driver.

By the way, you still have to do the smell test of your room.  My non-smoking room had previously been a smoking room.  I'm not sure when they switched it over but my foot didn't even make it in the door.  I swiped, I opened, got a whiff, then went straight to the satellite hotel desk by my room and requested a switch.  Better a twin room which hasn't had smoke than a queen bed with smoke lingering.

Hong Kong may now be part of China but it doesn't feel like it is.  For one thing, I haven't been grabbed by anyone on the street trying to sell me things.  For another, it's a lot cleaner.  The number of designer shops that I have seen all over the place make it quite clear that if you want to spend all day shopping, this isn't a bad place to do it.  Personally I find the crowds overwhelming and the traffic where I am (Wanchai) sucks.  It seems to be walker friendly, but I haven't tried that yet - definitely on the list for later today.

The grid layout also helps - the hotel's directions to a suggested dim sum place was to walk two blocks up, then turn left and it was halfway down the next block.  It's like getting directions in the grid portion of Manhattan...

Food!
S&J took me to a steak place somewhere between their place (really nice place, but any place where S has had an influence always is) and my hotel.  What's to say except the food was excellent?  Must remember that my idea of medium (steak) and a restaurant's idea is different.  The waiter and I had a slight difference of opinion...their description said pink in the middle.  My steak was red and still bleeding.  J said it was on the more rare side of medium.  The waiter nevertheless took it away and brought it back more cooked.  I'm sure their chef probably thought it was well done.  In either event, the restaurant gets bonus points for waiting to clear appetiser plates until J and I had finished our salads (we got a set menu, S didn't) and for replating my steak when they brought it back instead of putting it back on my half-demolished vegetables.  Dinner was well paced until we got to dessert - mainly because they forgot two of us were having a set menu.  It may have appeared that we were settling in for a long night of catching up but there was no rushing us out the door - very civilized.

Note:  I may fail steak grilling at the Cordon Bleu.  Must practice cooking steaks.  A lot.  S's salad was delicious - main sized Caesar salad where the dressing coated all of the leaves without drowning them and no single ingredient overpowered it.  You know the kind - the garlic or anchovy knock you over and you wonder why they switched your Caesar salad with something that wasn't on the menu, while other dressings are so bland you wonder what happened to the lemon/garlic/anchovy/etc.  This one was more-ish.  For the Americans, this is Australian for "you want more".

We were all impressed to see what must have been the AUD$100 steak go past.  It sounds excessive until you read that this is meant for 2-3 people to share.  Apparently food in HK ranges from stratospherically expensive to cheap (and delicious, at least according to Time Out HK) street food.  I would try the street food if it weren't for the fact that I have to get back on a plane in a few days to continue on to London.  A plane is not a fun place to be sick, as some other friends can attest.

I am sitting in the hotel lobby and trying to drink coffee.  It tastes really burnt, which someone told me means that the water got pushed through the espresso too fast.  I never knew that I would ever be able to tell good coffee from bad.  The pain au chocolat is nondescript.  A bit floury...on the other hand, who goes to HK or China and eats French pastries?  My bad, the hopes are saved for dim sum/yum cha this morning when I meet S & J at 11am at my hotel.  I have to walk down the street and find the place (and see if I can make a booking) - it's unfortunate that I didn't write it down when the airport taxi driver told me its name.

S&J have not yet been able to find HK versions of essential pantry items, so I brought back a small section of Coles with me.  Thank goodness for the requests!  Left to my own devices, I may have packed unncessary items (and still been over the weight limit).  They will still have to leave on the extra "Heavy" tag on my big bag, but I don't expect I'll have to take things out and carry them on the next leg.  Am wondering about girly credentials - having trouble finding all cosmetics in my bags despite having packed most of my bathroom cupboards into the bags.  Think perhaps I should pack makeup bag with essentials for travel, like I do with my shampoo and conditioner.  Well, perhaps not.  No one seems to care here, in complete contrast to Seoul where all the women were dressed up, makeup and hair done, matching bags and shoes...everything that seems to take so much time in the morning when you are trying to get dressed.  I'd rather sleep...

Find the money really confusing.  Now I remember why I had that extra little pouchy thing out, which I left behind in Sydney.  It was for currency which wasn't USD/AUD/GBP.  HKD and GBP resemble each other quite a bit.  Have taken to carrying HKD folded up in my pocket.  Figure if I get pickpocketed from my jeans pocket, there are probably bigger problems than some missing cash.

Wish me luck - I am about to sally forth onto a street whose name I don't know to find a restaurant whose name I can't remember in a city where I don't speak the language.  More later!

Blog 1: How does this thing work?

Thanks to my friend the Hoople (aka Bill), I think I have this thing up and running.

It only took almost an hour (some of you may know just how well technology and I get along).  Luckily this time was well spent learning how to set up a blog, as I wait for the Salvation Army to come and pick up my refrigerator.  Yes, it is still in working condition and I would keep it except that my grandmother no longer needs hers, so I get to have it.  It is bigger, newer and possibly, shinier.  For those of you who have always wondered, size does matter...in any event, the lady from the Salvation Army told me that they can pick it up "between 8am and 3:30pm.  We may not take it though."  Ok, that was the politest way I have ever been told to go and do something improper with myself and the rest of the world.

So I leave tomorrow night for London (via Hong Kong to visit a dear girlfriend and her wonderful husband) to go to cooking school.  The Cordon Bleu, to be precise.  It is my year off from practicing and studying law...the better to refresh the brain upon my return.

To answer some prelminary questions:
No - this is not meant to be a career change (which is why I asked work for the time off before I applied for the course).  They agreed to let me come back when I am finished.

No - this is not a result of being inspired by the plethora of reality cooking shows on TV (which I haven't bothered to watch since I could predict the lines of the show - masterclasses excepted).

Yes - I have always loved food.  Some of you may know about my rule for dating and food - not negotiable, boys must be able to eat as much, or more, than I do.  It's no fun when he's full and I'm saying, "Great appetizer, where's dinner?"

Yes - I can cook.  Sort of.  It involves throwing everything into the pot and seeing how it turns out.  Requests for repeats indicate that the attempts have been, for the most part, successful.

No - they didn't require industry experience to get into the Cordon Bleu, which is good because I don't have any.  They did want a CV and a letter saying why you like food.  Lucky for me I dreamed about vegetables (sans butter - I left that part out) the night before I sent my application.

Yes - I know the coffee is bad.  See below.  It is cause for panic and confusion.

Yes - there is a uniform.

No - I will not take pictures.  If I do take pictures, I will not show them to you.  No matter how nicely you ask, so forget it.

Yes - there will be food that I either don't like or think is gross.  Not looking forward to having to eat it first thing in the morning, but must be done - talk about taking one for the team!

London Bound
Everyone kept asking why London instead of say, Paris, to which I say the following:

1.  More friends = more potential guinea pigs.

2.  I speak the language - sort of.  I realized how important this was while arguing with two evil telecommunications companies, who shall remain nameless (cough, Telstra and Optus, cough, cough) last March when I moved house.  I figured that if I couldn't make them understand that they had not provided their services and/or their services were no longer needed when we all theoretically spoke the same language, I wouldn't have a snowflake's chance in hell of doing so in my extremely limited French in Paris.  I know enough French to be snobby about my ability to speak the language and it's Not Good.  If I can't get directions to the Orangerie, I probably can't get them to fix my broadband internet.

3.  French bureaucracy can't be fun.  The UK Consulate sent me my passports in the envelope that they said they never received.  I didn't want to find out what the French one might do...

Sort of
I am now in the midst of packing (sort of) and sorting things out (sort of) and organising the apartment (sort of).  Everything has to be done at once because they are all sort of interrelated.

In the meantime my apartment looks like a disaster area - there are piles for mail (sorted/to be sorted - sort of!), piles for filing, piles of requested groceries, piles of toiletries that I'm afraid I can't get in London (or at least can't get without spending way more than I know they cost at home) and clothes to get through the freezing weather in HK and London.  By the by, thanks Abs for the warning re current temperatures in London.  Will be packing coats and hoping they don't take up too much room.  Am thinking clothes are of secondary importance - most, if not all, will probably not fit by the end of the year.  Have packed things that stretch.

Now it's back to more sorting/triaging everything for my bags.  Have realized that for a person who isn't into cosmetics, shoes and bags, the piles which have to be whittled down resemble Sephora and the bag/shoe section of a department store.  May have a problem with bath products...hope food fixes all.

Coffee has gotten cold but is still immeasurably better than the cup of coffee I tried in London back in April 2010.  Am panicking at the thought of bad coffee for the rest of the year.  May have to schedule a side trip (Italy?  France?) for coffee fix.  Or else spend the rest of the year in a coffee-deprived haze.  Do people judge if you drink cokes in the morning if drinkable coffee is unavailable?

Mesa suggested the title of the blog, so thanks JH!  See email re same.