moody meanderings

So I still don't know what happened to that evening on the harbour. I didn't get a call after. Either he wasn't serious when he asked or didn't think I was serious when I RSVP'd in the affirmative twice. Totally flaky either way. Ended up having Peking Duck again at some out-of-the-way restaurant called the Spring Deer, in TST. Good food at very reasonable prices. Went to karaoke after and didn't get home until three. Somehow, I still managed to wake up in time for the boat trip to Snake Bay.

Several people cancelled at the last minute so we ended up with just six to our party. Susan made up the numbers with two colleagues. Hooked up with some friends on another junk (read "leisure boat"), one of whom, is leaving Hong Kong to pursue his studies. Aaahhhh...the endless paper-chase. Farewell, my fellow Singaporean.

One of the guys Sue invited was the number one guy in her company covering Asia Pacific. I was extra careful not to talk about work as the company they work for competes in the same space as my company. This guy was totally cool. He is in his early forties but he was diving off the upper deck of the boat, doing forward and backward flips into the water. All I managed this tiime was a wimpy plunge off the back of the boat. Nothing my bikini couldn't handle.

When we got to dry land, we decided to go home, get cleaned up and reconvene the party at Susan's boss'. He was eager to show off his gorgeous apartment with a commanding view of the city, as well as his talent on the electric guitar. Boatguy stopped by as well, to pick me up for a party I agreed I'd go to wtih him. Boss-man and Boatguy hit it off. It was great. We rejoined the group after a short forty-five minute stop at the party. I don't care for big parties. I didn't know anyone there and the only interesting being at the party was the pet cat. Went dancing at Mes Amis at Wanchai after and hung out until past two. Left the group with Boss-man.

That, in a nutshell, was my crazy weekend. And I have the best tan! I'm shattered now. Falling asleep as I type.........................................................................................................................

I was invited to an evening on the harbour and dinner at some island restaurant. The invitation came a week ago. I accepted then and again via email this week. I was given no instructions on where or what time to meet. It is past eight now. I'm hungry. I guess it is reasonable to conclude that I've been stood up. Grrrr....

The flat is quiet again. No more tripping over suitcases in the dining room. There is fresh air (read "warm, polluted and humid") in my flat again. No more waiting for a turn in the bathroom. No more tip-toeing around the flat in the morning to avoid waking somebody. And, I can walk around the flat buck-naked again. But darn! I'm sorry to see them leave. I know it was the best decision for all concerned but I can't help feeling sad about it still. I was so looking forward to doing all the things in my carefully laid-out program with them. Now, I have all this unspent energy just waiting to explode.

Tears threatened as I left the Airport Express station on my slow, reluctant trek home tonight. I think what I miss the most are the girlie whisperings I imagined we would have as we exchanged the goss in our lives. But the weight of the accident and its aftermath made conversations heavy or practical. Part of that, of course, was my own anxiety not to appear unsympathetic or empathetic about their situation.

Tired now and knee is hurting enough to cause a minor limp. Went for drinks last night after Peking dinner and danced until the morning at Dusk til Dawn with a French colleague on vacation with his friends. Worked off some, not all, the energy. Got home at five and was thankful I took the day off work today afterall. Felt good keeping up with young lads in their mid twenties. Except for the bloody knee.

I'm rarely in bed before midnight. But in the past week, I've been in bed by eleven because Deb and Nige are usually tired by quarter to ten. I don't think the un-ventilated, air-conditioned air in my shuttered up flat is doing them any favours. The extra rest is doing me wonders in the morning. Woke up bright-eyed and busy-tailed this morning and spent a half hour just chatting with Debbie. It was nice to be chatting about stuff other than insurance processes and hospital red-tape.

I feel a lot more positive now that tonight is pretty much a sure thing. Peking dinner! Gastronomic adventure is about the only kind of local experience I'm able to introduce to them under the circumstance. To date, we've had take-out dim sum, sing chou chow mai, pigeon and roti pratha. Never mind that all they've seen of Hong Kong is Lan Kwai Fong and Eastern Hospital. At least, they've tasted what Hong Kong has to offer.

Was feeling rather low yesterday with all that's happened. Decided to stop for a drink before going home for dinner. MM offered to meet me for a sympathy hug. Met at Beirut for a beer and something that sounded like "bubbaganush" (eggplant paste) with Naan bread. We were done with our drinks by half past seven and he was due for Oklahoma! rehearsals but I wasn't ready to go home. So we moved on to Agave for nachos and a T-52. Feeling particularly mean-spirited and aided by the other spirit, I offered him a jalapeno slice for a kiss. He declined. I put it in my mouth and taunted him again. After a moment's hesitation, he took me up on it. Poor chap paid dearly for the jalepeno kiss. Suffered chilli-pepper burns to his tongue and lips. I had my own karma when his teeth caught my tongue right where I have a huge sore. *ouch*

That's where my carefully planned program is going.

Deb and Nige are planning to leave ahead of schedule. So far, apart from dinner and drinks at LKF when they arrived Friday, we've done nothing else but sit at home, watching tele. I was hoping the x-ray today would bring positive news on how her arm is mending but the analysis has been lukewarm and she's been advised to rest and take things easy for the rest of the week. Deb's fear of being jostled (very real in Hong Kong) renders her a nervous wreck when she steps outdoors. They will check for the earliest available flight out to Sydney, which is probably Thursday.

I've fought off tears with positive thoughts that we'll still be able to do some stuff together later in the week when I'm off work for two days and the weekend. Now, even that's come to naught. All those months of anticipation and planning, then disappointment when SARS hit, then jubilee when that passed, and now....this must be the mother of anti-climax. Waaahhhh....

1) "Where do you want to go?" is a routine question Hong Kong paramedics ask traffic accident victims.
2) If you don't know which hospital to go to because you're a tourist on your first day of your trip, they will press you for a decision before they remove you from the accident site.
3) If you're lucky enough to have someone with you who suggests a hospital, they will then tell you that they cannot take you there as they are authorised only to take you to a hospital within the district where the accident occured.
4) If you don't have the local address where you're staying during your trip in order to complete their registration form, the paramedics will not start the ambulance ride to the hospital until it's done.
5) It is their practice to persuade the incapacitated accident victim to remove himself/herself from the accident vehicle without the aid of painkillers or a splint for a fracture.
6) The practice applies also to the removal from the stretcher to the hospital bed and only when you cry in agony from the effort will they lift you across by the sheet underneath.
7) Hong Kong motorists are more concerned about the inconvenience a road accident causes them personally than for the injured victims. A motorist attending to his vehicle in a nearby petrol station is more likely to offer help than those on the road.
8) Impatient honks and shouts to "remove that piece of shit" and "get your crap off the road" are not unexpected gwei loh responses to a serious road accident.
9) A taxi driver with injured passengers is more interested in arguing with the driver of the other vehicle about whose fault it was than on the condition of his screaming passenger.
10) Police officers from various divisions do not share information on the same case they are pursuing so you'll have to repeat what you said to the officer at the scene of the accident to the officers at the hospital, to the officer of the traffic accident investigation unit. And probably to the officer that takes your statement two weeks after the accident.

Deb's out of the hospital now, with the same cast which was supposed to be temporary until a more permanent cast was set. Maybe that's just what the staff at the hospital wanted us to believe so that we would just leave them to do their work. The next couple of days will have to be quiet for Deb and Nige. Hopefully she mends well enough so they can at least enjoy the second half of their stay in Hong Kong.

Thankfully, my knee wasn't inflamed this morning at all. I jumped out of bed without a thought for the leg and realised later that I was no longer limping nor in pain. Thank God.

Since we never got to having dim sum yesterday, Susan, Tara, boatguy and I stopped by a dim sum place in Wanchai after church to pick some takeout for lunch. Brought it home to have a little visit with Deb. I have such wonderful friends. Boatguy decided to join us so he could chauffer us out of the rain. Typhoon signal three is up today and it's been pouring on and off.

Deb's resting now and Nige has just come out of his first typhoon experience.

It should have been a perfect day. We had blue skies and only a few puffs of white clouds. Deb and Nige slept through most of the night and were quite well rested by half past ten this morning. We readied ourselves for the first real activity on the itinerary I planned out for them -- Stanley. We were runnning a little behind schedule so decided to take a taxi to China House of Stanley for their first taste of local fare this trip. While waiting for the lights to change at the Landmark where we would take our taxi, Nige asked about the quality of drivers in Hong Kong, were there many accidents? I couldn't really comment aside from being sure they had their share of accidents though these tended to occur more often outside the city where the traffic flowed faster than it generally does along Queen's Road Central. I briefly mentioned the recent tragic accident in Tuen Mun involving a KMB bus as we clambered into the backseat of our taxi. Despite the subject of our conversation, we didn't think to pull on our seat belts.

We were in Stanley in no time. Our taxi had just taken the turn towards Stanley Village and coming round the bend just at the Shell station at Stanley Mound Road when the taxi driver tapped on his brakes momentarily at the sight of a little white van paused along the dividing double white lines on the opposite side of the road as if to turn onto the side street. But he resumed his course when it appeared like the van would wait until we passed. Almost immediately, the driver in the little white van stepped on his accelerator and pulled up right in front of our taxi. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as our taxi swerved left to avoid the van but to no avail. The van slammed into the corner of the taxi hurtling three of us in the back seat forward. I'd braced myself just before impact, digging my heel onto the floorboard but I still slid forward slamming my knees and face into the back seat. My body went cold and my heart was racing as my mind came to grips with the the fact that we were in a car accident. I was slipping into shock for a split second when Debbie's screaming snapped me out of it. Debbie, sitting in the middle, hadn't seen it coming and instinctly braced herself with her arm which took the full impact of the collision. The impact fractured the bone in her upper arm. She was in agony. Nigel appeared unscathed.

When the ambulance arrived, they had a lot of difficulty getting her out of the taxi as she was in excruciating pain. Hong Kong paramedics do not carry painkillers which they could administer to an accident victim whom they can't move immediately onto the ambulance. The only way she could have any pain relief was to be put through sheer agony first to get her to the gas anaesthetic in the ambulance. Crazy!

In the meantime, the driver of the van was busy arguing with our taxi driver, insisting he'd done nothing wrong as he'd signalled his intention. He must have gotten his license from disneyland if he thought a flashing signal was all it took to get through a turn safely. Forget that he was crossing a double white line. Forget that there was barely enough time for oncoming traffic to slow down enough for him to clear the turn.

In the meantime, impatient motorists behind us were honking and yelling for the drivers to remove their "piece of crap" off the road. Ugly, unsympathetic expatriates in Hong Kong.

In the meantime, boatguy rang my mobile to return a message I left him just before we left for Stanley. He offered to come meet us at the accident site as he lived only minutes away at Repulse Bay. Bless him. I could not have made it without his being there for us. Yet, I got short with him later for shushing me up a couple of times with the police and doctors. Nige went with Deb in the ambulance while I followed in boatguy's car. My left shin was starting to swell.

The X-rays showed that Deb's arm had snapped in two places. It was not pretty. But there was no operating theatre available for the orthopedic surgeons to perform surgery until Monday. After much to-ing and fro-ing, we decided to keep her at the Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital in Chai Wan as there was no guarantees that any private hospital could perform the surgery any sooner even at the cost of an arm and a leg.

They've set her arm in a temporary cast now. Tomorrow, we'll know from the X-rays if the bone has set properly. If so, she will be discharged. If not, it will be re-set and if it still doesn't set well, she will have that surgery on Monday. Poor girl.

I had my legs looked at. No broken bones but my left knee was swelling in two places. Walking was the only way to keep the swelling down. I am not looking forward to waking up tomorrow morning. This must be the worst first twenty-four hours they've had in a foreign land.

Tomorrow, I receive my first overseas guests to my new pad. Debbie and Nige are coming through Hong Kong enroute to Sydney where they will be based for the next couple of years. They'll be staying with me for ten days and I'm utterly thrilled. The last time I saw Debbie, who used to work for our Australian office, was May 2001 just before she left Australia for the UK. I've planned out their itinerary for the week! Fingers crossed with the weather.

Tonight, Salsa god's handyman came by to help me put up the towel rack. Yes, as shocking as it sounds, he actually engaged a guy to do some odd jobs around his own place. A greater honour it is that he came to put stuff up for me himself when I first moved in. I was actually all set to do it myself when the odd-job chap didn't make it this afternoon. Steeled myself for the task and potential risks involved and even enlisted the help of J who, I doubt, has ever wielded a power tool in his life. His job was to trip the power should I accidentally drill an electrical wiring or pipe. Fortunately, that won't be necessary now so we'll just have dinner instead.

Argh! I forgot fruit and flowers!

That's J.

Been really pissy today and was looking forward to drilling some holes in the bathroom wall to work it off but realised that I am not as big a toughie as I'd like to believe. I have to put up a towel rack in the bathroom and realised that it isn't just about drilling holes and hoping that they're in the right place for the rack. There's also the danger of cracking the bathroom tile or making holes too big for the screws. Still, I made my way to salsa god's to borrow his power drill thinking I could somehow manage. Eventually decided that engaging an odd-job labourer would be the best way to go. So I left empty-handed with a lot of unspent energy. (He wanted an early night.)

Met J, who had just returned from a weekend in Singapore. Had a bit of tapas and some wine which does wonders to his sense of humour. We laughed and flirted and laughed and flirted some more. I am in good spirits again.

As for the guy who got me all pissy, that's another closed chapter.

I've been dragged down by a general malaise this whole week, waking up to a sore throat, heavy head and aching muscles each morning. These "symptoms" diminish as the day progresses but I'm left with an overall sense of weariness which does stuff to my moods.

Yesterday, I decided to make some herbal chicken soup for a friend who has been unwell for two weeks. Figured it would be good for me as well. Picked up a fresh dark spring chicken from the Park n Shop at my old place, raced home, cleaned it and dropped it into the slow cooker to simmer for supper. Unfortunately, my friend, being "guai loh", wasn't prepared for such an adventure on his palate despite his claims to be game for it. I was disappointed, to say the least. But the truth is, other stuff transpired before the soup adventure which made me quite cross and caused me to toss him out the door with a malicious parting shot.

Went to Salsa after to clear my head and dance off the tension. Sarong boy from Coyote was there. He never dances. Unusual for a latino. What's more, one who is a musician! He flirted with me. I artfully reciprocated. He accused me of being a tease. What the heck. We only live once.

My mom's computer has been infected by a rampant worm which shuts down the computer everytime the internet is accessed. As I was the one who bought the computer with Al's help, I got wind from Al of the problem. Al's been busy this week being on course and having project deadlines on top of it and asked if a family member could help administer the anti-virus tool during the week if it couldn't wait until the weekend. Called my brother to see if he could do it but he got very short with me for making an international call just to tell him to help my mom with her computer woes. And if Al didn't have time to do it, why should I think he could. Errr...because he's family while Al isn't?

Times like these make me grateful I'm far away from it all even if I can't seem to get away from it altogether.

The hungry ghosts are let loose during the seventh month of the lunar calendar, not eighth. My ignorance is unforgiveable. However, the error was a result of forgetfulness, not ignorance, which I'm sure my my good readers will pardon. (Thanks, Nat.)

I received an invitation from a Salsa buddy to join him for a weekend of salsa in Bangkok. He's a really nice chap and I do enjoy his company but I'm not after a relationship. Something tells me he is. Thankfully, I got out of that one easily enough as I have friends visiting from the UK the weekend in question.

1) no flushing water! Maintenance works can happen anytime, including weekends. There was no water even this morning and I'm told probably no water tomorrow, too.
2) ghost offerings along the corridor. One of my neighbours has an altar outside his door which burns an offensive smelling incense stick all day. I'm hoping this is only for the duration of the "Hungry Ghost" month. It is believed that on the eighth month of the lunar calendar, all hell breaks loose. Hades opens its gates and lets the souls of the dead out to roam the earth for a month. To appease these spirits, the living offer up burnt hell money offerings, food and other material goods fit for living in hell.

I still love my new pad.

Salsa god came back from two long business trips this weekend. It's been nearly two months since I last saw him so it was great to see him yesterday and a double bonus that he came by looking scrummy with tools to help me around the apartment. (Isn't there something terribly sexy about men who are just handy with tools?) He looked great on the dance floor too. Better than I last remembered. Being away for so long must have rejuvenated him or something. I didn't get a dance, which was sad. I didn't really expect it either. Left earlier than I've ever done since the first time I walked into Salsa at Regal. Was singing a solo today so had to leave ahead of midnight before my second wind kicked in.

J was at Salsa too. He's determined to learn to dance but salsa doesn't seem to be his rhythm. Troupe leader said something you'd expect to hear only from a teenager. She said he was really good-looking, where did I find a catch like that and that she was going to steal him from me. Hah! good luck trying!

I'm tired now. I'll end with a list of things I love about my new place:
1) I wake up to bird songs. Probably escaped birds from the Zoological Gardens nearby.
2) it is close enough to SOHO without being too close that it's noisy.
3) There's a puddle of water collecting on the roof of the block across from my place which exotic birds use as a bath during the day.
4) I have a dryer and today I did my first lot of laundry and used the towel straight out of it! Aaaahhhh....
5) it is less than five minutes' walk to the office but uphill enough to count as a workout everytime I walk home.
6) My neighbour teaches voice training!

Moved to my new place in Central on Saturday. Was a very smooth move though I grossly underestimated how much time it takes to pack what seemed like just four boxes worth of belongings left on Friday. I ended up working til three with thrice as many boxes and still I wasn't altogether done. Managed to have nearly everything packed or chucked out by the time the movers showed up at ten.

I couldn't have picked a hotter day to move. Temperature was soaring at 33.7 deg C. The movers were reeking and dripping. The cardboard boxes absorbed their odour while my furniture was wet with their sweat. Quite quite gross. But they were very quick and efficient. Unpacking was much faster and less painful. Of course, I also had a hand from a faithful friend, which helps loads. Bless her heart.

After the day's hard work, I decided we needed a good meal, drinks and music. Met up with some friends at Coyote's after some thai dinner. I meant to leave early as I was knackered but stayed until half past midnight. That's when I discovered my purse had become considerably lighter. My wallet was pinched the few minutes I was dancing a few feet away from our table. The culprit must have been watching us to know when and how much time he had to unburden me of my wallet without arousing suspicion. What a way to end a perfectly good day. Well, I had a great time at Coyote's all the same and here's a pic on asiaxpat.com to show for it!

Determined not to be defeated, I went ahead with my shopping plans on Sunday despite being penniless. Met my friend from Coyote's who accompanied me to make the police report followed by furniture shopping at IKEA. He was good enough to spot me a loan to tide me through the week until my cards got replaced. How sweet.

So I treated him to Haagen Dazs ice-cream on money borrowed from him. At Haagen Dazs, I ran into a primary school classmate I haven't seen since we were twelve. We instantly recognised each other and even remembered the other's names! All the way out in Hong Kong, no less! Apparently, I still look like I did at twelve! So did she with that distinctive mole.

The next and second genie performance is tomorrow night at the pub once known as Green Spot. Still no costumes so not quite a genie yet. Ah well...I will be a genie someday. Just wait and see.

This has been such an eventful week but I have had no means of blogging. I now have broadband access at home but the blog will have to wait until later tonight. Bear with me...