Football in HK: Barclays Asia Trophy 2007

Had a fun last night watching the finals of the Barclays Asia Football Trophy. Last night's games were for 3rd & 4th place (3rd = Fulham 4 Vs 4th = South China FC 1). And the final was Portsmouth Vs Liverpool. This game was 0-0 and Pompey won on penalties. Always good to see Liverpool lose after we was robbed by them @ the FA Cup Final last year.

Must say I enjoyed the games hugely ... great to see some live football again. I realise now I quite miss going to Upton Park.

But to celebrate West Ham winning the league last season (ahem) we have subscribed to see the English Premier League live (6 games per weekend) in High Def and we just took delivery of a home theatre system (coool ... makes it sound like you're in a ground ... I mean a noisy place, not like going to watch a game at white hart lane or anything).



Talking of grounds, the HK International Stadium is a fantastic venue. I went to see the Rugby 7's there back in Feb (who's coming in 2008?? - we have a sofa bed), but that does not count as I can't really remember anything about that weekend. But seeing the ground again last night (relatively sober) made me realise it's quite special - sitting as it does amongst the greenery of Happy Valley and the backdrop of the city skyscrapers. But, boy, was it ever hot? Must have been in the high 30's centrigrade last night with near to 100% humidity. Stupidly I went straight from the office (in my jeans) - think I lost 4 or 5 lBs.

M

China declares war on rain

The UK weather reports we're reading/seeing are very disturbing.

I recall the stresses everyone felt in East London each time there was an exceptionally high Thames tide - all before the Thames Barrier was built of course. But I can't really imagine what going through a true flood must be like. I think I read somewhere that the Thames Barrier might be obsolete if the current rainfall trends persist - maybe the UK Govt should take a leaf out of Beijing's book.

Starting or stopping the rain -- Beijing reckon they can control it!




From the ">Telegraph:

The weathermen in Beijing are moving ahead with plans to fire rockets to disperse rain clouds, an experiment aimed at securing more sunshine during the 2008 Olympics.
Chinese officials have said historical records show there's a 50 percent chance of rain for the opening ceremony -- and the same probability of rain during the closing ceremony.

Last month, a top-ranking weather official acknowledged that seeding clouds to produce rain -- and dispersing rainmaking clouds -- was immature technology.

"Dispersal is more difficult than rainfall enhancement," said Wang Yubin, assistant chief engineer with the Beijing Meteorological Bureau. "In rainfall dispersal, we are still in the experimental stage but we are continuing our efforts."

And this ... rockets to start the rain ...

Cannon and rocket-launchers protect Beijing from their vantage point in the Fragrant Hills, just as the Great Wall nearby has done for centuries. But they are aimed not at the Mongols, or more recent enemies such as the Americans or Russians. They are pointing up into the clouds and their foe is thirst. The Fragrant Hills gun emplacement is part of China's ever-more desperate quest to counter its chronic water shortage. Whenever the sky clouds over, the guns fire shells containing a chemical, silver iodide, that is supposed to precipitate rainfall.

China has the largest rain-seeding programme in the world, with two military aircraft, 30 cannon and 20 rocket-launchers dedicated to the task around Beijing alone.

If the procedure works, it can be criticised as stealing other people's water. The Govt. acknowledges that there have been "questions" from South Korea across the Yellow Sea.

It's crazy, in China 300+ million people are rumoured not to have access to clean drinking water -- meanwhile, there are luxurious golf clubs on the edge of deserts with the greenest of greens.

The contrast with the polluted water available to the poor is increasingly a major cause of unrest. Two villages in Zhejiang province are in the hands of rioting residents, who have driven out police and closed down factories they blame for poisoning the water supply.

And who really knows what environmental impact these attempts will have in the longer term?

M

Gerry Anderson Lyons Maid ads

The boys are addicted to YouTube and Gerry Anderson. Personally, I blame their Mother.

Anyhoooo, together we just stumbled across this gem. FAB for girls. Only 6d.

M

Malaysia: Stink beans & Durian

Just returned from dinner at a traditional Malaysian restaurant called Bijan.

Good food. Huge portions.

If you've read my earlier attempts at eating weird stuff over here will know I'll try most things.

So, true to form, I started with 'Stink beans'. They taste like crude oil smells (if you've seen the oil tank exhibit @ the Saatchi museum, you'll know what I mean). Not at all nice.



After a massive curried lamb shank, (and several beers to get rid of the oil taste), I dared to try Durian for the first time.

For those who don't know, Durian is a very ugly fruit with, what can only be described as one of the most foul smells in the world.

It's for sale in HK supermarkets - but had not tried it hitherto ... you can smell the fruit for sale before you even enter the store. Had to focus really hard to eat it tonight. Not a completely nice experience. Smells like dead cat.



Here's what wikipedia has to say about it (and they're pretty close to describing the pong).

Writing in 1856, the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace provides a much-quoted description of the flavour of the durian:

“A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy.”

Wallace cautions that "the smell of the ripe fruit is certainly at first disagreeable"; more recent descriptions by westerners can be more graphic.

Anthony Bourdain in No Reservations Season 2 said of the odour: "The smell can only be described as – indescribable...sort of like French-kissing your dead grandmother."

Travel and food writer Richard Sterling says:
“ ... its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.”

The unusual odour has prompted many people to search for an accurate description.

Comparisons have been made with the civet, sewage, stale vomit, skunk spray, and used surgical swabs.

The wide range of descriptions for the odour of durian may have a great deal to do with the wide variability of durian odour itself. Durians from different species or clones can have significantly different aromas; for example, red durian (D. dulcis) has a deep caramel flavour with a turpentine odour, while red-fleshed durian (D. graveolens) emits a fragrance of roasted almonds. The degree of ripeness has a great effect on the flavour as well. Three scientific analyses of the composition of durian aroma — from 1972, 1980, and 1995 — each found a different mix of volatile compounds, including esters, ketones and many different organosulfur compounds, with no agreement on which may be primarily responsible for the distinctive odour.

This strong odour can be detected half a mile away by animals, thus luring them. In addition, the fruit is extremely appetising to a variety of animals, from squirrels to mouse deer, pigs, orangutan, elephants, and even carnivorous tigers. While some of these animals eat the fruit and dispose of the seed under the parent plant, others swallow the seed with the fruit and then transport it some distance before excreting, with the seed being dispersed as the result. The thorny armored covering of the fruit may have evolved because it discourages smaller animals, since larger animals are more likely to transport the seeds far from the parent tree.

No wonder it's banned from public transport here.

Don't think I'll be eating it again!

M

Malaysia: Petronas Towers, KL

I can see them from where I'm typing.

They're BIG.

BIG I tell you. BIG.

M

Fairly vile

So hot today - we decided to spend most of the day either in the air conditioned apartment or window-shopping in an air conditioned mall routed there via an air conditioned car.

Air conditioning aside, the boys got stir crazy and then aggressive. I have the bruises to prove it "let's bundle Dad" (for that read, "let's sit on dad's head; pinch him; pull the remaining hair out; poke him in the eye with my finger etc 12 times in 20 mins").

Joss said "can't wait for them to start rugby" .



This is a 3-month old photo, but you get the idea I'm sure!

m

China executes ex-food and drug chief

From the BBC site..

China executed the former head of its food and drug watchdog last Tuesday for approving untested medicine in exchange for cash, the strongest signal yet from Beijing that it is serious about tackling its product safety crisis.


During Zheng's tenure from 1998 to 2005, his agency approved six medicines that turned out to be fake, and the drug-makers used falsified documents to apply for approvals, according to previous state media reports. One antibiotic caused the deaths of at least 10 people.

Zheng, 63, was convicted of taking cash and gifts worth $832,000 when he was in charge of the State Food and Drug Administration.

His death sentence was unusually heavy even for China, believed to carry out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined, and indicates the leadership's determination to confront the country's dire product safety record.

Fears abroad over Chinese-made products were sparked last year by the deaths of dozens of people in Panama who took medicine contaminated with diethylene glycol imported from China. It was passed off as harmless glycerin.

China admitted last month that it was the source of the deadly chemical that ended up in cough syrup and other treatments but insists the chemical was originally labeled as for industrial use only. Beijing blames the Panama traders who eventually bought the shipment for fraudulently relabeling it as medical-grade glycerin.

In North America earlier this year, pet food containing Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine was blamed for the deaths of dogs and cats.

Since then, U.S. authorities have turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint.

The Chinese government has faced increasing pressure from its international trading partners to improve quality controls after a series of health scares attributed to substandard or tainted Chinese food and drug exports.

The list of food scares within China over the past year includes drug-tainted fish, banned Sudan dye used to color egg yolks red, and pork tainted with clenbuterol, a banned feed additive.

Singapore: Changi airport rooftop pool

Got a few hours to fill between flights? What to do? Why, spend them chilling out by the pool on the airport roof of course! A plane-spotter's paradise. Only <£5 entrance fee per person - includes unltd use of the pool; a soft drink and nice clean towel.

I love Changi airport in Singapore - my third favourite after Hong Kong and Siem Reap (Cambodia). MUST get round to writing that expose on Asia's airports.

M

Al Comrie in HK

Al popped over to HK for a long weekend. By weird coincidence, the night of his arrival EXACTLY aligned to the night I came back to the welcome arms of alcohol following a month's abstinence.

Ouch, next day was not clever.

M

kinda sums up hk

Pete Seales and me a bit worse for wear in the curry house (posh) underneath the apartment block.

m

Hong Kong - That's Japan right?

Just had an hilarious call with a Californian-based very senior Client (professional lawyer).

At the end of the call, he was stating how hot it was in California. I said it was pretty hot in Hong Kong too ... but thankfully, we'd not suffered the forest fires prevalent in California right now.

He then said that he was planning to visit "our neck of the woods" in November. Would we "like to take him out for Japanese food" as he "loves sushi". I said "sure", but "you know Hong Kong is China, not Japan right?".

He thought I was pulling his leg. It took a few back and forths to convince him. He was a might embarrassed I must say - then he 'fessed up he'd not been out of California "much".

And he's a lawyer for a large multinational. It does make you wonder about their education system. Has he never looked at a map of the world for Pete's sake?

I was on the call with a colleague - a Hong Konger who went to Uni in California. He told me that he was often asked by Americans which US State HK was in!

Unreal. But good blogfodder.

M

Indonesia: Bintan, Club Med

To supplement the photos of Billy the Acrobat below, here are a few others from our long weekend in Bintan the other week.

I've mentioned before on the blog, Billy has a passion for sushi/sashimi - but we had no idea his tastes would stretch to raw baby octopus (and for breakfast too).

I went with him to choose breakfast from the buffet - expecting to return with a bowl of rice krispies as usual, but no, he went for the marinated octopus. Not for the squeamish. It was really disconcerting and somewhat stomach churning seeing him play with the food (much as a cat would a mouse) - dangling the tentacles; touching the eyes; opening up the beak and peering in. Just as he bit into the top of the poor creature's head, he said something like "Dad, this is almost too interesting to eat". Quite deft he is with chopstix!

Club Med was/is like a glorified CentreParc - but very well set up for kids. The Bintan location was great too -- slightly jungliefied (see baby praying mantis which dropped onto my shoulder) and the beach was fab.

M

Hong Kong: One year but who's counting?

We arrived in Hong Kong a year ago today.

Personally I find that extremely scary on two levels.

1. I just can't believe how quickly the time's passed. Seems like only last month we arrived. Every time I blink another month has passed. The pace of life is so quick out here - I guess that has a lot to do with it. There has been barely a second spare to look back and review stuff. This blog has been therapeutic in that regard.

2. I just can't believe how much we've done; seen and achieved. We've been to so many new countries & cities in the past 12 months and have had some wonderful experiences. The boys settled in quickly out here and are v.comfortable with their school; social life & pastimes -- I do hope they remember our time here. On the work front, I think I've changed a great deal - a regional role has really broadened my perspectives and after a gruelling first 3 or 4 months on the job, I now have a strong sense of achievement.

So, in summary: 12 months and few regrets. And those regrets are all related to having to leave behind family; friends and our lovely house in Chiswick.




In celebration, it seems, we were treated tonight to a rare view of a junk in the bay outside the apartment -- see pic. (The junk has been converted into a floating restaurant - not been on it yet).

Stay in touch & come see us.

M

All in favour say aye

What to do? A public holiday, temperatures soaring up to 33 degrees centigrade, and all of hong kong will be out in force.

Obviously HK Disneyland again. Now I don't wish to sound churlish, but this is our 3rd visit in less than a year. I had already ruled it out, but as I couldn't come up with any other suggestions that any of them would even contemplate somehow I found myself on THAT mickey mouse train again - the one with ears as window. We had to go because there were pirates there.

Actually it wasn't so bad - it was the emptiest I have seen it, we got on all the rides,and met all the characters with very little queuing. It was stinking hot, so hot you couldn't even sit on the pavement to watch the procession and at 5pm having been there all day, I still had to drag them all away. Not sure who loves it most, actually I am, it's Mark without a doubt!

J

Racing cars and Birthdays

Billy and Archie see so many ferraris here in Hong Kong, they now think it is de rigeur to have one. When we went to pick up our new car, the only car in the garage was a red ferrari and they were convinced it was ours. They were so disappointed - and only mollified v slightly because our golf convertible (costing 23000 HKD, (about £1500) is the same brazen red.

So with cars the latest craze, there was no contest for the theme for Billy's 6th birthday party. Of course, that meant a new dressing up outfit. Spent several nights on ebay bidding for dress up kits, and checking sneakily throughout the day at work, and finally 'won' a red racing car driver outfit for about £10. The kind ebayer despatched it forthwith to Hong Kong and it arrived 3 days later. I whipped it out of the packaging and Billy put it on.
It was satin,it was VERY shiny and it was enormous. It must have been made for a 7 year old Harlem Globe Trotter. Sofia and I were hard pressed to contain our giggles - but the party was 4 days away so she took it down to a tailor she knows in Wanchai who 'trimmed' out 80% of the fabric. It fitted. But it was still satin. hmm.

Later that week, I went to Shenzhen with a friend. More about Shenzhen later but basically it is a huge mall just over the Chinese border and where everyone goes to get suits made cheaply, curtains, etc and loads of fake rip off stuff. And whilst I was there by amazing chance I spotted an wonderful replica Ferrari Racing Driver outfit. I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. First error - bargaining power reduced to shreds. The vendor had me. I think I got it down to about £15. Jain was disgusted.. she had come away with 2 suits, a handbag, 5 t shirts, some shoes and a pair of pyjames for £25, but she is a seasoned visitor, and tough lawyer to boot.

So Billy got his ferrari racing driver outfit, a racing driver cake, and a hot wheels party. Archie came too, and guess who got the satin suit (he looked rather cute in it though!)

J

Billy the acrobat

Just back from an island off the Singapore coast, called Bintan where we had 4 glorious days after a very rocky start indeed.

Mild histrionics by me when we arrived at ferry port at Singapore to find we had 3 hours to wait til next ferry. Mark saved the day by getting out his laptop, connecting it to the power supply in the cafe (illegally) and whipping out a dvd of Toy Story.

Boys happily occupied for 2 hours and after a swift visit to the toy shop in the terminus to get us through the last few hours, we headed for the ferry.

One hour later we descended into the chaos that is Indonesian immigration at Bintan. After nearly a day travelling we were faced with a sea of faces and one solitary man at the booth. No movement in the queue, except backwards - faced with Asian indifference to queuing.

Half an hour later and we can't take much more of Archie and Billy bickering and trying to keep them apart. Archie to the rescue... he lets out a bellow of rage when I refuse to carry him any longer, followed by howls and attempts to pummel my face with his fists. An angel escorts us right up the queue and out through customs and fasttracks our passports. phew..

After another hour sitting on a bus, wearing a club med dog tag and lots of muttering about never coming here again, amid enforced jolliness we arrive 45 minutes later at Club Med Ria Bintan.

But the next day dawned bright and there followed 3 glorious days. Staff there are just brilliant and infectiously cheerful. No cheesiness, just fun, great with children and very happy go lucky. Also incredibly talented.

Billy went to circus school. Harnessed up, he climbed up to a platform about 30 feet above us and then swung off on a trapeze. Archie had juggling and tennis lessons - the former rather ambitious since he can barely catch even one ball; we spent hours every afternoon alternating between the sea and the pool,and Archie (rather too happily for my liking) relinquished his mickey mouse armbands. Mark had some sailing lessons - and got becalmed - and I discovered some new muscles in my arms on the driving range.

Weather blissfully hot and considerably less humid than Hong Kong, a great break and would definitely think about going back if it weren't for the ferry and immigration. M says we were unlucky that day....

J