small montmarte

converted shop montmartre not emailed

17th floor 15th a.

stuart highway

yet another not emailed yet

chris's studio montmartre

canal st martin - not emailed yet

listening to: Aaron Neville, Louisiana 1927
tasting: the warmth and musk of Mt Gay Rum
remembering: the streets of New Orleans, the faded timber buildings, the hanging gardens, the glimpses of something secret behind the streetscape, the every-night-party craziness of Bourbon St, the concrete-floored expanses of the largest convention centre I've ever seen (now filled with desperate people), the Aladdin's cave of the secondhand shops, the finery of the lace shops where I bought the shawl I married in, the dark end of town where the Goths came out at night, the graveyards, the huge mansions that shouldn't really have existed in this modern day and age, an art gallery with a glass collection fitting for the setting of The Glass Menagerie.

and wondering when the tears will come for a city I loved.

phileas fogg site

This spacious (700 sq ft/70 m2), sunny apt is located in the trendy Canal St Martin area, in the 10th district

EUR500 / 1br - *** PARIS: Charming Apartment to rent -- fully furnished *** Montmartre

A large bright furnished full 1-bedroom apartment available in Montmartre.
Per Month, per week, or weekend. Per month 1200 Euros,

social science data

video game movies (mention clive's blog collision detection)

christopher walken for President? if this wasn't surely a joke, I'd have to consider obtaining US citizenship so I could vote for him.

heard this a while back and didn't think of it again until I saw a reference to it in Quarterly Essay, of all places.

the underwear goes inside the pants

London, subway train: "what was that noise?"
"probably just the Tuesday morning bomb"
"oh, cool, back to the sports pages then..."

after a short break due to administrivia, I'm doing a little work again; filling up lots of spare 15-minute-blocks with quick net searches, that kind of thing.

completely unrelated, am I the only one who gets annoyed when queues for banks and (at the market) donuts line up ACROSS instead of ALONG the footpath? my new hobby is standing at the back of the donut line in a horizontal instead of vertical formation, if you know what I mean, and gradually moving it to the kerb where it's out of the way.

a blog by a US staff sergeant in Iraq, complete with photo of six-fingered Iraqi kid, if it's real

a british bobby's blog. well at least it's something different.

stafflist

real estate lust #2

yar boo sucks to Hotmail, who have locked me out of my email address on the first attempt to get in. this is an account I've had for seven years, using my full name, no numbers or letters etc. I have no idea why it locked me out; but it's not allowing me to go for the secret question option, which I'm sure I had set up. so that's that. end of email address. end of all the mail that's in there. end of several URLs I had registered to that address (I can retrieve those, at great pain to the management).

property lust #1

property lust #2

final proof that the Internet is really just here so we can fart about: stuffonmycat.com

.
realistically by 2050 we would expect to be able to download your mind into a machine, so when you die it's not a major career problem

unless, of course, you're Paris Hilton.

how quickly they forget dept:

went into work today to meet an editor. she wasn't there when I arrived. I checked with a passing reporter, whom I'll call K, that I had the right office, mentioning that the editor was expecting me. K and I don't really know each other, but we have spoken and introduced ourselves long ago while at a press conference. after that she pretty much ignored me.

so I'm sitting there, checking out the books on the editor's table, wondering if she's forgotten my appointment, when through the door comes the sound of K whispering on the phone. she's calling security!. of course I couldn't hear every word, but the gist was that she wanted to know if the editor had allowed anyone in to see her (no, because I used my pass because I'm still on staff), and that there was someone in said editor's office, just sitting there.

K, as far as I can tell, doesn't share my sense of humour. so I couldn't lean over the divider and say "are you dobbing me in to security?". I pulled out my pass, put it on the table and waited to be nabbed. sadly, the editor turned up before I could enjoy the wonders of my workplace's security system. but really! why didn't K just ask me who I was? (of course I used to have long hair and now look like a slightly scary lesbian with my chemo regrowth. but is that any reason to call the dogs in? glad I don't look, like, Muslim or something...)

the most amazing apartment: part of a competition for the coolest, smallest apartment.

now I really want an apartment in New York...

"I'm makin' a list, I'm checkin' it twice..."

as you would, if you were about to have a midlife crisis. my best friend turns 40 next month. I turn 39 this week. so I've decided that the best plan is to work out what will really, really bug me when I turn 40, and do something about it now. kind of to soften the blow.

enjoying: a baby who sleeps for at least two hours a day.

blog angst: I have a number of blogs now. one I'm using for work. it's probably incomprehensible to outsiders, but it does nicely for storing links and allowing me to work from anywhere. another is related to the pub, which is getting the odd weekend tenant and a new fridge and stove. one or two are quite dead, having outlived their usefulness for studies and inquiries into internet life that I don't have time for right now. and maybe a coupla others I don't like to talk about here, as they're special spaces for special purposes. it's a pity in a way, as some of the names are cool and deserve use - I particularly like flaneur.blogspot.com

and there's this one here, which has faded in the face of all this specialised blogging, and my addiction to other outlets for expression, ie discussion groups, emails to actual friends. but I really am quite fond of it, and willing to give it another go. there might be a little cross-posting involved, but we'll see.

so in the great tradition of public diaries, I'll start with explaining what the hell has been going on with me lately.

Kylie and I now have two things in common: a birthdate and breast cancer. and like her, I'd like to say:

"I was so looking forward to bringing the Showgirl Jenny tour to Australian audiences, and am sorry to have to disappoint my fans. Nevertheless hopefully all will work out fine and Ill be back with you all again soon."

back from two weeks in Hong Kong and Thailand, and a week of jet lag and upset tummy (as you do after travelling in Asia). what do you say about a week on the beach in a gorgeous resort? boring to the outsider yet deeply satisfying to the participants.

in HK we went to Felix, where the duck ruined me for any future duck dishes I might eat anywhere else, not excluding Flower Drum's Peking Duck and the Peking duck I once ate in Seattle at Microsoft's expense. Felix reminded me of the restaurant - what was it called? Hades? in The Matrix. the most dramatic, and beautiful-person (aka Eurotrash)-filled eatery I've ever been to, as well.

back home in lovely autumnal Melbourne, a movie was being shot in our street, at possibly the only grungy student house left in North Fitzroy. I kept meaning to take my cute baby down there to chat up the makeup/catering types and find out if it was the Nic Cage movie, but I got too busy being ill and missed out my one chance at celebrity stalking.

a sniff of work has arisen, but may yet be snatched away. it's not often that fully home-based, internet-researchable, well-paid freelance gigs fall into the lap of the convalescent mother of a toddler. wish me luck with that.

and a memo to the drivers and pedestrians of Melbourne, who resemble the moped riders of Koh Samui (Thailands highest road fatality province) in their apparent death-wish: you are not immortal. it will not hurt you to walk 25 metres to the crossing and back. and the indicators on your brand-new Audi probably work, I imagine. you won't wear them out, I promise.

sorta like this, only darker and the windows are the wrong shape. I like the tin roof, though.

sorta like this, only darker and the windows are the wrong shape. I like the tin roof, though.

sorta like this, only darker and the windows are the wrong shape. I like the tin roof, though.

latest thing to dream about, just because I can't have it: the priest's apartment in the Fifth Element.

I want it. or something like it. a New York apartment with three high old windows for a south wall, a jumble of bookshelves, couches and beds covered with brocade throws. It should be somewhere in Chelsea or Greenwich Village, at the back of the building. just one room, but large, with a bathroom and kitchenette will be fine.

(off to check down the back of the couch for a spare $750,000 or so...)

and yes, I know I already own some charming old real estate.

everyone else is blogging about Terry Schiavo, so I will too.

the fact is, both sides are wrong. it's wrong to keep her alive in brain-dead condition with no hope of recovery. she has less consciousness than a mouse.

and it's really wrong to just stop feeding her and giving her water. no way would I want that to happen to me. if she was a mouse, or a horse, or a dog, there would be nice yummy floaty drugs to send her off. that's what should happen, if she didn't want to be kept in this state.

is it child abuse to supervise play and blog at the same time? is that DHS I can hear knocking?

ah well, so be it.

now, am I the only one who doesn't think Desperate Housewives is sheer genius? who is, in fact, a bit bored by it? I expect I AM the only one who is still watching it because her husband is. I dunno, it just all seems a bit easy. it sets out to subvert the dominant paradigm with all the originality of Bewitched, as far as I can tell. but I guess I'm alone?

otoh, this is funny.

there I was, innocently surfing Daypop for the first time in ages, when I clicked on a link labelled Hunter S. Thompson, expecting to see some new exploit of the wild man who invented gonzo.

he's dead. suicide. wow. I suppose it fits the profile, but he always seemed so full of life.

what is it with bike shops?

why, when you take your bike in with four days to do the work, do they ring you at 2pm the day before you were going to pick it up first thing in the morning, inform you of extra work needed, say that extra work is going to take longer and even suggest you'd be better off buying a new bike on some shonky payoff scheme they happen to have? like you'd be buying the bike from them. they don't even sell the type I like.

I know I'm spending too much on repairing an old bike. but I like it. it's set up for me, and comfortable. I've just spent (well, we've just spent) too much on a bike trailer to tow the baby in, and that extra couple of hundred for a new bike is a bit much.

in the end I had to say "this isn't working out, don't touch the bike, I'll come and get it in the morning" to get the workshop manager to suddenly come on the phone and say it'd be ready, with the extra work done.

the thing is, this happens at every bike shop I go to. I've lost count of the Saturday mornings I've stood staring at helmets while a repair is finished on a bike I left a week before. and I need my bike. I ride it whenever I can, and I'm hanging out to try out the new trailer.

was going to buy helmet for the baby, panniers, etc, etc at the new shop. now I'll just keep looking for one that understands customer service, I suppose.

more koh samui

a koh samui place

and nice but expensive

travel shopping ex hk: hyatt bali, assorted thai

monty python. because I'm not feeling very funny myself.

did I read right? did France really pledge $177,000 for the tsunami victims? surely there's a decimal point missing?

what is wrong with the world? and it was French India that was hit too. other nations have been similarly miserly, I'm just picking on the French. And yes, I have donated, since you ask. have you?

if you go to the end of the article, you'll see that the husband is 60, and had a vasectomy reversal so they could try for children.

as an infertility survivor, I have a view on this. for all her high-powered, Harvard-educated life, she wanted babies. and badly enough to squeeze two (fertile) lovers into her life. she'd deny it, of course. but motivation is a funny thing.

updates? you want updates?

how's this: we're not in Hong Kong any more. we're in Melbourne, where my life is currently filled with hospitals and doctors. although this is clearly a life-altering experience, I feel strangely disinclined to blog it.

instead, let me ask: How did she do it?

She was over 40. Publishing a major newspaper. Newly married to the publisher of a major, glamorous, fashion magazine (who, I have to note, probably has a range of young totty, as they call it in the UK, to choose from). And she not only managed to have an affair with the British Home Secretary, but also with a columnist on her paper. As if that wasn't enough, she had a child at, what? 42? and kept going. Kept going, in fact, to the extent that she is pregnant again at 44 with no clarity on exactly who the father is this time. Meanwhile, the husband sticks to her like glue instead of running off with Claire Daines or someone.

I am humbled. I'm only 38 and I can barely cope with one child and a bit of a medical issue. I am not working, and not planning to until this is over. I'm not even attempting to be anything other than dressed and occasionally upright (a condition I referred to as "horizontal" this morning). whatever she's on, I want some of it.

channel 7 are annoying me by going onandonandon about Makybe Diva and Vinnie Roe doing the old one-two at the Cup.

whereas, even though I queued for 15 minutes to bet on the winner ($2 each way, woo hoo), I want to know about #3, Zazzman, on whom I put $5 to win and $1 to place, based on a comment from a bloke at the storage place over the phone. it was long odds, and I've never heard of it. and they won't mention it. poor thing. anyway, I'm sure its connections don't care. I'm sure they're happy enough with third.

...ps - and don't forget World Toilet Day on November 19!

I asked Google for "something new" and it gave me Improbable Research - your one-stop shop for research on cats in zero gravity (with video), nipple piercing and lactation, and the World Toilet Summit in Beijing.

good thing about being back in Melbourne: fresh air, a warm spring day, being able to chat to people in English.
bad thing: being able to understand inane radio chitchat and advertising (in the taxi). like garish neon signs, it all seems so much more aesthetically pleasing (and ignorable) in Chinese.

am I wrong, or is there something deeply twisted about even watching the videos of British hostages begging for their lives, knowing that the followup will probably be a snuff video of their deaths? and no, I'm not posting a link to the latest.

ps: hey Randall, what's with the photo at the top of your blog? You know the view from the Peak walking track only looks like that one day out of 20. the rest of the time, it's varying degrees of smog.

ps: hey Randall, what's with the photo at the top of your blog. You know the view from the Peak walking track only looks like that one day out of 20. the rest of the time, it's varying degrees of smog.

Blogging begets blogging, it seems.

If I could draw like Jorge Colombo, my HK experiences might come to life. Because one of the most striking things about this place is the way the people dress. There are plenty of jeans-and-T-shirt types, but just as many middleaged women in pink party frocks, Japanese tourists in head-to-toe Gucci, teenage girls in 1960s convent girl school uniforms (carrying mobile phones with up to 10 dingledangles hanging off them), Chinese punks in tartan and combat boots on 35 degree-plus days, young women combining 15 styles and accessories (think Madonna's early days, through a Vogue mixmaster), and, just sometimes, a big white guy (sorry, BWG) who towers above the subway crowds in his tailored suit, big nose leading him along.

the nice thing about the Internet is that you can find 18-month-old flame parties in someone else's comments when you're innocently surfing for an article you wrote once.

in this case, I'm accused of being lame and a few ethical misdemeanours. my employer is (wrongly) castigated for sending me to a blogging conference. I wish. paid for that one myself.

Bloggety Blog, however, has got increasingly lame as time has gone on. I have a couple of other, topic-specific blogs kicking about that do get updated when stuff happens - eg, the pub is benefiting from the best growing season for yonks.. but my life in general is very baby-focussed now and it doesn't always make the most scintillating reading (yesterday was a six-poopy day, does that push your buttons? thought not.) And I was always careful not to make this blog a work blog or anything other than a personal blathering place, so I could care less about criticisms of my style etc. It does nark me when people have a problem with me but don't let me know about it - and the person accusing me of that isn't the person I quoted, whom I interviewed and did fact checking with and appeared quite happy about things.

as for the Rebecca Blood stuff, I don't get it. she was in fact blogging before the term "blog" was commonly used. no one said she was the only one.

where is this going? nowhere, really. I don't feel ready to just close this blog down. nor am I in the mood to reinvigorate it with the effort it would take to say something interesting about Hong Kong, motherhood etc. I'm not actively studying blogs or writing about them right now (resounding cheer from the peanut gallery, I suppose). those few people who do drop by are either friends whom I'm too slack to email (Hi, M&M!) or poor dears who've followed a Google link. the flamethrowers in question won't read this, because I'm not feeling provocative enough to link to them in this post. and here my lame post peters out...

(edit: I'm well pleased to find that my blog, and various other lame sites I have, are now on at least the third page of Google results for a search on my name. sinking merrily into obscurity, me!)

probably more amusing than the actual books: vidlit (broadband only)

enjoy mashing words with Babelfish but can't be bothered with all the busson pushing. someone has saved you the trouble (via William Gibson)

The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.

Ralph Waldo Emerson


via scrapatorium

hehehe. John Howard in india rubber. via invisible shoebox

an idea for a blog: Improving Me - to get a slew of self-help books and actually do what they say - plaster my walls with affirmations, get up 1/2 an hour earlier to exercise, do visualisations, etc etc. of course I won't, but it's a blog I'd like to read.

hong kong weirdness: when they take apart the bamboo scaffolding on buildings, they just cut and drop the plastic ties on whomever is passing below.

and a newspaper report on a boy who'd been seriously injured by a bus also noted that his bicycle had been damaged. like, who cares? the child had head injuries and they're wasting space on the bike??

pollution is the issue du jour here - it's not just me, the place really is filthy, air-wise. I hide inside with the baby a lot of days, not going out for more than an hour unless it's to an airconditioned mall or apartment. it really is that bad. melbourne's smog is ambrosia compared to this lot.

baby=teething. poor little creature.

blogger has a new way to waste your time: at the top of their blog*spot blogs, instead of an ad, there is now a search and "next blog" function, for one-click, mindless, random blogsurfing.

naughty blogger! we're trying to get some sleep here!

what is expatness teaching me? perspective.

that Melbourne is a subtle place, that though I missed it, return is simple being here, not any brilliant moment or surge of joy.

that all the bits of the paper I hadn't missed are not worth reading, though some I greeted with recognition and pleasure. that I need to throw a lot of useless junk out. that I will probably always respond with warmth to Chinese faces from here on in. that my baby is still cute here, but not as cute as he is in Hong Kong.

and, when going to a cold climate from a warm shopping paradise, to BUY MORE WARM BABY CLOTHES AND TAKE THEM.

that said, it is a sunny spring day with a warm north wind and I am well pleased to be here, if only for 12 days. do not expect more blogging, I'll be too busy living.

although one of them did have an amusing link to supermodel personals

like a good broadsheet journalist, I've been reading the South China Morning Post. but to be honest, while it churns out the details of politics and city news, I get more excited when I get a new copy of HK magazine.

this week they had an article about HK blogging. no earthshattering revelations, and after working my way through the blogs referenced, I've concluded that bwg continues to be the most fun, batgung has his moments (which I already knew), and in general if the list in the paper is all HK has to offer in the way of blogs, it's a sad state of affairs.

not that I can talk, being so preoccupied with my darling baby that I can't really be bothered noting the small weirdnesses of HK, like the spiral-shelled snails and the funny outposts like Lamma, a 20 minute ferry ride from Central but with the soul of a Qld country town (and a great-looking beach, complete with trees.

maybe I'll go looking for some better HK blogs. they must exist.

napping is good. these places should be everywhere.

yesterday I thought I saw smoke coming from the high mountains across in China. but it could have been low cloud. today the city is covered in what I hope is smoke - if it's smog it's the worst I've ever seen, even flying into LA. and across the street, two people are flying a kite from the roof of a 20-storey building, using the north wind to send a red paper hawk bucking and kicking through the air.

why does google keep not noticing the wonderful silas carson coates?

HK is officially bilingual, but Cantonese rules. still, it's often not necessary to hear the English version. When the Tannoy makes an announcement 15 minutes before the pool closes, it's saying "the pool is closing". When the sign in the shower is in black with highlighted sections in red and blue, it's saying "turn on the cold water before the hot". When a bloke in the market knocks a vendor with his goods trolley, she says "look where you're going" and he says "your bum is sticking out too far" and everyone laughs. when the girl at the fish stall talks to the baby, she's saying "you're cute" and when he then cries, the blokes on the stall are saying "ha! even the baby's scared of you"

I haven't picked up any spoken words, but I can now read "warning", "fire", "person" (a generic two-stroke figure that is paired with other symbols to make man, woman, many people etc), "lift", "exit", and "just" as in only.

so we're settling in - at the same time I'm plotting a trip home, whether or not Qantas will give me a seat on points. I miss Melbourne, friends, the dog, the space, the baby's friends, the Vic market, the cold...

Okay, I take it all back. About the shopping, I mean.

this afternoon I walked into a store and walked out with, among many other things, a perfect pair of black linen casual trousers. the right length. in Australia, this just doesn't happen. everything is made for five foot ten women and the rest of us are supposed to "just take it up", which of course is annoying and usually would ruin the cut.

but here in the land of smaller people, the length is right. I just fit into their "large" sizes but hey, no complaining.

also, courtesy the summer sales, I have a bag full of bizarre and interesting designer (Mossino, Armani Junior) clothes for all my friends' kids. cheap, yes. the credit card took quite a hit, all up. my tendency when stuff is good and cheap is to buy heaps. if it's expensive, I just buy one. either way, I spend about the same, just that today I got more bang for my buck.

I'm seeing HK through a fog of sleep-deprived exhaustion. so forgive me for the lack of scintillating posts. as a resident rather than a tourist you tend to notice minutae instead of the impressive features of a place.

like: the way there is a United Nations of Coke in the supermarket. for a premium, you can get Japanese Coke, Korean Coke and so on. it all tastes the same - kind of like Australian Coke really.

like the bizarre swimming pool protocols. the rules are the same - stay left, swim in the correct lane for your speed etc - but in practice, everyone cruises along doing breaststroke in whatever land and whatever side of the lane they feel like. in Melbourne, I'm a slow swimmer. here, I'm Ian Thorpe. no wonder they had to give their female swimmers hormones to get them medals.

predictably, the Olympics are everywhere. with the next games after this years' in Beijing, Olympic themes are appearing on murals, in advertising and on (Chinese) Coke cans.

last night we saw Spiderman 2 across the road. we learned that you need to book early to get 2 seats together. and I learned the Cantonese symbols for "person(s)", "thank you" and "just" (as on only, merely). also that as far as English movies go, Melbourne is about ten times better than "international" HK. the only movies are big blockbusters, and even the sole arthouse shows Robert Altman - interesting, but not exactly out there. and baby sessions? nonexistent. sigh.

hong kong is a shopping paradise and hell. lots of cheap no-name and name brand stuff. almost none of it fits. and I'm not huge, just a size larger than last time I was here. gorgeous silk Max Mara top for $120au? wow. doesn't fit. and so on. and why, in a city that is like a sauna, is half the stuff nylon and polyester?

the Post (sorry, no links until I learn to zip around cyberspace on the Mac better) has a daily horoscope for western stars, Chinese years and an entry from the Tong Shing, an advice almanac. today's colour is pink, and I happen to be wearing a pink top. maybe I'll subscribe to the paper and check the advice before getting dressed each day. as long as there's no yellow. I don't look good in yellow...

the Times Square plaza plays Abba. All the time. I am so over "Dancing Queen" already!

we have our new apartment, where the first shop across the road is Gucci. seriously. fortunately, Times Square also has a regular supermarket and there's a "wet market" nearby. I'm learning the uses of the "do not disturb" sign in a serviced apartment full of housekeepers and management staff.

as I was told he'd be, the baby is a star attraction here. I counted five shopgirls at once yesterday, all crowded around the pusher cooing at him. this isn't "oh, nice baby" casualness like at home. this is full on "cuuuute!!!" touchy-feely adoration. he's so fair and blue-eyed - it must be what it's like for people with identical triplets, you can't walk a step without a fan club forming. not sure if it will be good for his baby ego or spoil him. but I have to agree with them all of course.

weather: stinking hot. this is like setting up house all over again, and my immediate future is not the Gucci store, but sourcing organic baby food and cooking oil.

By upgrading, we've downgraded. ie, the new g5 (actually the second one, the first one was faulty, Mac reliability notwithstanding) does not have Word and all that guff, just a basic text program. of course we could buy one. it has sans serif as a default and I am starting to think the anti-sans serif people are right. but who has time to worry about such things? not when one is enjoying the sights of Hong Kong holed up in a small hotel room creeping around the baby so he can sleep, occasionally making short dashes for more bottled water, fruit etc.

yes, we made it. just. various near-disasters on the flight included: Qantas checkin clerk failing to realise we had a seat for the baby and trying to sent his seat off to the hold; further failure to allocate a seat, which we only noticed an hour before boareding; "gate check" of the stroller meaning "carousel collect" at the other end (eventually they sent a person to help us with: the 8kg baby. my handbag. the nappy bag. the car seat. the trolley full of electronics. the toy bag. Andrew's backpack. which was lucky or else we'd still be at the exit gate.

the upside of - and I break off here to note that "ctrl+s" does not mean on an Apple what it does on a Mac, and don't give me any of that guff about not needing to save because Apples don't crash because the first G5 had a t,g,b and 5 key that didn't work - anyway the upside of the company's inexplicable decision that we'd spend the first week in a hotel was that the hotel had a "limo" (car) for us.

the downside is that we're in one room, with no kitchen, nowhere for the baby to nap unless I turn all the lights off and pretend not to be here (and I further note that small differences between this and the old keyboard make typing in the dark harder, shoulda got the illuminated keyboard after all), a tiny fridge so we have to go to the restaurant for breakfast (dependent on baby nap times), that all our stuff has arrived at the airport but we don't really have room for it here, and that all my arrangements for this week are for the apartments we're not in.

ah well. at least the hotel sits atop a mall that runs down half of Kowloon, so we can get quick food/papers - but not baby cots - without venturing into the 30 degree, 90 per cent humidity, real Hong Kong. the park is close by, but it's just green and hot instead of grey and hot like the rest of Hong Kong.

(ps - may never post this. have no idea how to cut and paste on a mac. why no right mouse button?)

pps: like a pencil, the g4 touchpad works better if you wet your finger...

yes, baby still cute. yes, still moving to Hong Kong. which would be why I haven't posted much. Saturday. that's the day after tomorrow.

my new cousin's blog. warning: cute baby pix

what to wear

Need a babysitter? Rent-a-Mum specialises in finding babysitters, nannies and short-term childcare. You can reach them in HK at Tel/Fax: 2523 4868

hong kong webgrrls

hong kong women's site

although having done all that, I notice there's a Marks and Sparks store. I think I may have underestimated the availability of the stuff I'll need in Hong Kong. it'll be OK. it's just this going headlong into the unknown that has me searching for information while I'm still here. though we will need to gear up pretty quickly once we get there. once we have an apartment. once we even have flights booked.

this post is all business. so much to organise: packing, housesitting, flights. etc.


organic food in HK

vegan restaurants

post from a bulletin board: There is also a new organic cafe opening up, along the escalators at Stanton Road close to SOHO area. I am not sure if it has opened yet, but I have seen a very BIG sign of the organic cafe opening soon.

shops:

Organic Gardens - Organic vegetables and wines
1/F, 38 Cochrane Street, Central, Hong Kong, , Tel +852 2850 7919, Fax +852 2850 4633

All Things Healthy
Unit 1503, The Centrium
No.60 Wyndham Street
Central
Tel: 852-2525-1778
Fax: 852-2525-1783
Opening Hours: Mon - Sat, 10:00am - 6:00pm
or Email us below:

Green Concepts - Total approach to healthy living
2/F, 54 Jardine's Bazaar, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, , Tel +852 2882 4848, Fax +852 2890 8469

Health Gate - Full range of healthfood
8/F, 106-108 Des Voeux Road, Central, Hong Kong, , Tel +852 2545 2286, Fax +852 2854 0770



Organic Gardens sells mainly organic foodstuff. As to protect the environment, Organic Gardens pays great efforts in advocating organic agriculture and natural organic food consumption.


WE DO NOT USE any pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers to grow our vegetables. Developing the habit of natural organic food consumption can be beneficial to ones health. It is especially good for people who live in a busy world.

Organic Gardens is located in Sheung Shui, Hong Kong. The total area of the farm is approximately 500,000 sq. ft. Organic Gardens is the largest organic farm in Hong Kong.

Outlets of Organic Products / Vegetables

list of wellcome supermarkets

1) Greendotdot Shop

Shop No. MEF1, Mei Foo MTR Station, Kowloon

Shop No. KOB10, Kowloon Bay MTR Station, Kowloon

Shop No. OLY3, Olympic MTR Station, Kowloon

Shop No. FOH8, Fortress Hill MTR Station, Hong Kong

2) Euro Cafe

HOK 12C, M/F, Hong Kong Station, Airport Express, Central, H.K. (between Check-in Concourse & Train Platform)

Shop 1B, 1/F., Entertainment Building, 30 Queen's Road Central, Central

3) Coffee Chateau

KOW12A, Arrival Hall, Kowloon Station, Airport Express, Kowloon



general shopping guide site

baby equipment rental

sogo: like Myer, only in HK. have baby clothes etc

general listing of babygear at geoexpat - lookes really useful

big baby supplies shop

another long list of links to baby product shops.

this morning driving home from the market, I saw a man in the park with a dog. the dog was lying down. he was stroking its head. sensing something wrong, I hung a U-ey and called out "are you OK?" he said yes. I said "do you need help?". he said no. but when I had turned back again to continue on my way he was crossing the road with the large white dog tangled up in his arms, tongue lolling out. it looked like a dying dog to me.

was he accepting its death? was other help on the way? he appeared to care for it. extra pats for my dog this afternoon.

there's a particular ancestor my family talks about for some reason, maybe his grand name: Andrew Topping Thompson.

not so much is known of him except that he was a figure in early Ballarat. I went to see my grandmother's brother, ATT's grandson, in hospital last week and he told me two things: ATT is buried in the Ballarat cemetery under a headstone showing a fireman (he helped set up the fire brigade there. and when the man was in a family argument, he'd blow off steam by playing the bagpipes. in the house. as in "I think I'll just have a wee play on me bagpipes".

snort. I can almost feel a genealogy blog coming on.

I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this: why isn't there a Dyke Eye for the Straight Wife? in which you can learn to leave your armpits hairy, not iron the sheets and go drinking beer with your buds every afternoon instead of stuffing olives and similar wastes of perfectly good life?

want sleep. must organise move to Hong Kong (or more to the point, leaving Melbourne). have actual work to do (interviews, writing).

all else is a blur...

Funny, I thought Google would care that spammers are trying to get gmail addresses by trawling Blogger blogs and emailing requests for invitations to the owners of those blogs, whether or not they actually have gmail. but they don't. they simply advised me to hide all my addresses from view, like one piece of spam either way matters to me.

otoh, gmail is performing quite well so far. still not sure how useful "conversations" are but I'm enjoying not having to clean it out. which I could have achieved by simply changing my overstuffed six-year-old Hotmail address too...

used, um, wedding paraphernalia for sale

activity report: still working on the pub, , and on my collection of friends' and neighbours' babies born in the same year as Alexander. I'm up to 10, current and pending. it's going to be a good first birthday.

being at home is surprisingly time-consuming. people keep inviting themselves here for coffee, and it only takes a few to make a peaceful week a bit too much. I've taken on a tiny freelance job, and will have to say no to a few visits to get it done. that, and organising a move to Hong Kong...

but seeing he was last married to a British writer and the new wife's a rather gorgeous model, the plot of Fury starts to look tres autobiographical.

I'd like to have him over for dinner. dunno about marrying him.

besides, at only 19 years younger, I'm too old for him...

too many quizzes

aargh. Blogger just won't come up.so I'll write this offline.
more serindipitous music discoveries: it's been bugging us that our Sopranos DVDs don't have music credits. the tunes are often surprisingly cruisy and lyrical. tonight we watched an ep. from the third series with a lovely Nils Lofgren song and thanks to the magic of Google, not only tracked it down, but found that HBO have put the song credits up online.

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right now I am:

counting down the 45 minutes until Alexander wakes up from his nap.
sterilising his dummies etc
preparing dinner
agonising over how to manage any return to work, from home or at the office
about to do some stretches for my sore neck.
blogging.
looking up a CD my Dad wants for his birthday (Google found it: I typed in "Gosh Growban" and it took me here)
writing an Easter to-do list
blogging
emptying the dishwasher.