safe in bangkok

safe in bangkok and relaxing before dinner in the thai restaurant downstairs. flight was 45 minutes late but otherwise painless. i contacted the hotel to arrange for some birthday flowers for rachel, and the awesome peninsula staff also left a chocolate birthday cake in the room... and upgraded us to a high-floor apartment with a gorgeous view of the river - awesome!

morons having children

no, not us! if antenatal classes have taught me anything, it's that some hong kong expats are so mind numbingly self centred and clueless that it makes me want to throw furniture at them.

last night was the return of annoying bint (henceforth referred to as "bint"). some of the gems that she came out with last night:

midwife: "there are shared rooms, private rooms and there are vip rooms as well" bint: "is there a price list for each of them?" midwife: "yes. the private rooms and vip rooms are very expensive though" bint: [without a trace of self awareness or humour] "i'm worth it"

she then proceeded to head over to the wall mirror and pick her zits. seriously.

then during the maternity ward tour, we were shown a shared recuperation room (4 beds with separating curtains). As bint walked in, she uttered a very loud "not interested."

And as she walked out: "i'm not sharing with anyone."

question time with the doctor was equally fun: "i don't want any pain. on a pain scale of 1 to 10, i'm a minus 1". closely followed by: "if i can only get an epidural when i'm 5cm dilated, how am i going to get from 1cm to 5cm without pain?"

i was tempted to ask her if she had considered adoption - although lack of pain aside, i really don't think it's fair to introduce more of her moronic gene pool to the world.

***

on a cheerier note - it's rachel's birthday today! 30 years old!

for this auspicious occasion, she's getting an eternity ring (named as such because that's how long it takes to pay the thing off). I'll admit it's shiny and sparkly  but from what i can tell it can't check email or surf the net, so i'm not really sure what it actually does.  also, we are heading to bangkok tomorrow for a nice long weekend "final solo holiday" and 30th celebration.

she also got an album of photos from our time in hong kong (from me) and some lovely pyjamas (from patrick and barbara). there are other presents which are reportedly somewhere between here and various nz post offices.

i must get off the computer now, as rachel wants to conduct her morning "sky showbiz" check and see what the celebrities are wearing, who is shagging who, and which of them has adopted an african child this week.

the furry boys

with all of the baby and birthday talk, it's easy to forget about our two little (well, one little and one large) housemates, ben and poppy. for your viewing pleasure here are the rascals.  first is poppy looking out the window on sunday, and the second is the bigger version of yesterday's ben photo - where he's looking at us on the balcony from inside, wondering how on earth we managed to get on the other side of the window.  the look of confusion on his face is classic:

sunday night

aaah, almost the end of the weekend.  damn.  had a busy day today - i played golf with john in the morning:

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then we headed to kennedy town to sort out some cushions for a chair in cracker's room (cracker = all rachel ate in the first trimester = baby's nickname), shot over to kowloon to investigate rachel's 30th birthday present (i'm not telling - rachel picked it out, but you'll have to ask her if you want to know...), then i headed to fuel espresso for a coffee with sanjay, chantel and co while rach got her toenails painted (or whatever they do to toes and feet at a pedicure).  had a quiet night at home and watched the movie "run fat boy run" - which was quite hilarious.

took a few photos of el rats this weekend as well - rachel and poppy, ben looking at me on the balcony wondering how i got out there, and ben reclining on the floor:

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not much else - oh, there was this effort in the gym last week after my run on friday.  too sexy for my shirt:

busy week this week - we have an appointment with the unbornbabydoctor on tuesday, then i have work website profile photos on wednesday, then thursday is rachel's 30th birthday - and then on friday we take off to bangkok for a long weekend (partly for rachel's birthday and partly for the "last holiday" for a long, long, long time...

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...)

bloody airlines

just looking at the cost of getting home with mini-narly next march, and it annoys me greatly to see that air new zealand can get me to london for HK$2050 HK$4080 plus various taxes, but the best offer i can get to go to new zealand is HK$6500 plus (loads of) taxes.  it's amazing what a complete lack of competition can do for the price of flying. there are more than 15 airlines flying from hong kong to london direct.  and how many fly directly to new zealand? two - air new zealand and cathay pacific.

NB - Corrected the numbers. The Air NZ site had a one way deal of HK$2040, but still - $2000+ per person extra to get back to New Zealand is completely kumara-sucking.

***

us elections this week.  is it possible for them to screw things up for the third time in a row? probably.

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