It's official
Devonport has officially seceded from New Zealand:
Haka flash mob
Lots in the news this week about a flash mob of guys doing a haka quite randomly on street intersections. On the way to meet Uncle Ooooogie on Friday morning I accidently stumbled onto one of their street hakas, and they happily posed for a photo afterwards.
Swëdish böttlë opënërs
Taken in Ikea on Sunday morning. Given that most of the stuff in this place is branded with kooky names like "Schmërgënjúrgënflúrgën" or "Múthåfökkë", clearly someone with a sense of humour named the bottle openers:
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I'll upload a few photos of his lordship's weekend tonight.
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I cannot think of a title for this entry
. A collection of iPhone photos from Sunday - we wandered down to the grassy area at Cyberport and let Bunky tear around and eat grass (the usual routine). Ok, so maybe not a lot of grass eaten this time - the focus was on teaching him to go down the little concrete steps backwards. He's still not crash hot at it, but he's getting there:
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And one for the "Only in Hong Kong" file. This "cordoned off" area was just outside the supermarket. I did look up at the ceiling to see if there was a leak or something, but nope - nothing out of the ordinary up there. The mind boggles at the thought process of whoever set up this cordon:
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Weekend randomness
Nothing much to report other than the weather being horrible and Bunky having a bit of a cold. Here's a compilation of random photos from the last few days (I'm still working out how to edit photos properly with Aperture, so forgive me if the colours look a bit wonky). .
Clockwise from left: The gorgeous flowers from Aunty Kristine and Uncle Josh, George inspecting the contents of his toy box, George about to give the sleeping cats a rude awakening...
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Rachel and George on our walk down the hill this morning
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L: George watching a bit of TV from the comfort of Rachel's lap / R: Ben hanging out on top of the kitchen cupboards
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Hong Kong parks: It's all about having fun
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What? The City of Las Vegetables?
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Oh how the mighty have fallen
Oh Shane Warne. Wha' happened? I hope you're getting paid a truckload for this (taken outside the lifts at my doctor's surgery): .
Put your hand up if you're a complete wally
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Typhoon morning
The HK Observatory called a Typhoon 8 last night, which meant that we got to come home early (to play with George), and since it's still in force, we go to work late. It'll be lifted in another 40 minutes, but then everyone gets about two hours to get to work (it takes a while for buses and taxis to get going again). Although I walk to work, I might take a sneaky extra half hour with George... Here are a few photos from this morning:
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A few other photos from around and about. Firstly, the cats find safety in numbers. And Ben's fat tummy provides ample warmth for Poppy:
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This one from the real estate agency next to the supermarket. I think they're trying to say that the market is hot at the moment, but they probably should have avoided using an online translator:
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And finally this one from our pool area. There was a gale force wind blowing when I took it, plus I was laughing at the time:
Food on face v2.0, solicitors, H1N1 prevention
Another photo from the weekend - Bunky seems to quite enjoy smearing food on his face and saving it for later. I know it's similar to the one a few days ago, but I loved his little brow furrow in this one:
And this photo was definitely worth sharing - Jane and John found it in Leeds over the weekend:
And finally, some peculiar advice from a Malaysian government-approved healthcare provider (I'm loathe to call him a "doctor") that has been doing the rounds:
Strange things you see on the streets of Hong Kong
Abandoned stools, for example.
Am I a bad person for sharing?
Because sometimes you come across a name so awesome, it would be a crime not to share it:
Bathtime - tantamount to child torture, it would seem
Bathtime appears to suck in the eyes of little George. Any peace and tranquility that may have been present pre-bath is abruptly ended and once dunked into the tub-o-death, the screaming begins. Stage 1 is the yelling - which is usually the first dunk, the tummy wash and the start of Daddy washing his hair.
Stage 2 is the bottom chin quivering while the yelling continues, and you really know that he wants to harm you by then. This is usually the end of the tummy clean and the flip over for the back clean.
Stage 3 (the final phase) is when the chin quivering magnifies and the little high pitched squeaks of resignation start. Unfortunately for poor George, this is also the Stage that Rachel and I find most hilarious, and his squeaks and grunts are highly amusing to us. Not so much to him.
Stage 4 is the good bit - he loves getting placed in his little towel and wrapped up. The Earth returns to normal at this stage and life on Planet George is once again bearable. He also looks ridiculously cute wrapped up in his towel. The photos I got today were a bit crappy, but I'll post them anyway. Two of bathtime with Mummy (featuring guest hair washer, Grandma) and one of him just chilling out on Rachel's lap after "dinner". I may have cropped the bathtime ones to hide the fact that he gets bathed directly over the toilet (so we can pull the plug in the bath out and the water drains away down the loo - handy!)
Pooh face
Apparently he has one. A face he reserves for the times he's producing a mushy little number 2. Euuurgh. He makes a little 'O' with his lips, gets a look of extreme concentration on his face... and BAM. Onto cuter things, some photos of the little monster:
The "Oh no, it's Aunty Momo" face
spacespacespace I took a few photos of the little guy this morning, but they're sitting on my camera at home. Will upload those tonight, but thought you'd like this photo we snapped of George last night - it's the face he used when we were chatting to his Aunty Momo in Auckland, NZ. It's a face a lot of us use when chatting to Aunty Momo...
the belcher
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i currently live in a culture where blowing one's nose is considered to be gross - but chewing loudly, chewing with your mouth open, sniffing 40 times in 2 minutes and burping are absolutely fine.
i of course struggle with this weirdness, but am particularly struggling someone burping outside my door at work.
every three minutes for the last week or so, this colleague of mine (let's called her belchy wang) lets out a loud and proud burp. no apparent reason, she just does it. ALL DAY LONG. she doesn't even look vaguely embarrassed. just sits at her desk and burps. and burps. and burps.
i am at a loss as to what to do. my current strategy is to close my door, gently rock myself to sleep in fetal position, whilst praying that belchy wang's little spasms will soon come to a halt. i am not a violent person, but i'd consider throwing furniture at her if it stopped the burping.
EDIT: in the time it took to type this, she burped three more times. i kid you not.
i promise not to build a nuclear weapon using my iphone
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i had never spotted this before - the EULA (end user license agreement) that flashes up before you update your iphone software. it makes me promise that i won't use it to make nuclear missiles or chemical or biological weapons. that's right, nuclear missiles or chemical or biological weapons. seriously, it's a great phone - but what the hell is inside it? and to think i was once concerned with radiation from cellphones. click on the pic to see it bigger:
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just a quiet saturday. i just had the afro trimmed, we walked down to the post office to pick up another birthday present for rachel, and we're heading to mark and boo's tonight for dinner (that's 5 floors down in the same building we live in, so it's a nice easy commute in the elevator)
saturday morning laziness
ola! what a week - barack obama voted president-elect of the united states of whatever george bush left behind, and i managed four lunchtime gym visits (i skipped the day of the us elections - i might have been watching coverage at my desk). we are cruising along in the runup to xmas. xmas day we have the challis clan here for dinner - and that means ALL of them: robin, kirstie, paddy, arabella, kate and aurora. it'll be a busy day, but it will be fantastic - funnily enough the challis clan came for xmas lunch in 2005, and at that time it was just robin, kirstie and 'bump'!
today we've got cam, carolin and little sam coming down for some coffee and pastries - we haven't seen them for ages, and then we're heading out to discovery bay to sort out some employment papers for charise. a quiet night tonight - sweet.
tomorrow john s and i are heading out early morning to nine eagles golf course by the airport for a cheeky 9 holes. after that, not sure what the day holds. i have my eye on a new camera lens... of course it's absolutely necessary to buy this lens in order to photograph brand new baby. not buying it effectively means that i don't love the child. so i have to buy it, see?
next week is rachel's 30th birthday (thursday, in case you've forgotten), and we're heading to bangkok for 4 days on friday (it's not very far away).
time to go and clean myself up and get the coffee ready. a few photos which i may or may not have uploaded before (click on them to enlarge...)
an expat onboard smoothes the ride
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a real conversation with a coworker about an hour ago:
her: "are you catching the bus again tonight?" me: "no, i only caught it last week as i had to pick some tickets up from kowloon" her: "oh. it is good when an expat gets on the work bus. the driver drives more slowly and carefully if there is an expat on the bus."
crikey.
mr bum
spotted in a toy shop this afternoon. sometimes price tag placement is critical (click on the picture to view it bigger, and you'll see what I mean).
