The Hong Kong Crop Top

Bruce Lee inspired future generations with his topless, ripped body. These days the average Honky wears a small spare tyre around his waist but is still proud to show it. On a hot day the local blokes keep their shirts on but roll them up from the waist to under the arms to provide ventilation around the midriff. I call it the Hong kong crop top, a clever, practical but completely unfashionable and yet common sight in Summer. Practised by young and old the crop top wearer is completely oblivious to the hideous outlook they present to the innocent bystanders.

Bull goes Bonkers on Beach

One Saturday morning a group of work colleagues went to the beach to try out canoeing. The typical Honky is a water spastic and is shy of adventure. Anyway that's by the by, while getting our kit on for the canoes a bull wanders down onto the beach and heads for the water. I just stood on the sand amazed and for a moment it looked like the bull was going to go in for a dip. When he got to the waterline he stopped, turned and wandered along the shoreline.

A couple of dogs had spied the bull and ran down from the beach huts to the waters edge, barking at the bull. At first the bull just wandered along trying to ignore the two dogs, the dogs did n't like the lack of attention and cranked up the barking to snapping at the bulls legs. The bull got sick of that pretty quickly and went bonkers chasing the dogs tilting his horns at them. It was then on for young and old as the dogs ran around the bull while the bull ran along trying to skewer the dogs on his horns.

Later on. while driving home from the beach I looked across to see a man driving his car with a parrot sitting on his shoulder!

Relocation to der schweiz

It's official, after two short years in Honkers am being called up by the HQ to join them in Zug switzerland. I resisted when asked a couple of years earlier and expected to stay in here for at least three years. But sh^t happens and I got called up for what is quite a responsible role. So Zug here we come!

We went to Zug for orientation in October, rented a car and spent two nights in Zug, Lowen hotel. It reminded me of Tasmania except in Tasmania you can find shops open after 6pm. Actually it is quite beautiful and we were shown two apartments only. We liked the second one so much we applied to rent it and have started renting before we have even got there. It is a top floor apartment on an 8 floor building in Cham with stunning views overlooking the lake. All comers will be welcome.

It was so quiet in Zug you can even hear the cow bells ringing when driving along. It will be quite a bit of a culture shock coming from HK and Seoul. We are going through panic buying of stuff before moving. Everything looks so expensive in CH, I even bought rice in bulk to ship over!

Hong Kong Bait and Switch Rip off

On Saturday after visiting a doctor to see 4d in vitro babies images, I was inspired to get Sunny a camera before leaving Hong Kong. So we went into a camera shop on Nathan Road, the young sales assistant quoted low price on Canon and Nikon SLR digital cameras. Then all of a sudden the salesman was replaced with another sales person who proceeded to talk us into a different camera which was more expensive and not as good.

In the end we paid the man, but feeling was not right so checked the website price and found that they had charged us double.

We were angry and went back to the shop to return the camera and get a refund. On the way back we noticed the fine print on the invoice saying no exchange or refund so we prepared a negotiation that went like this:

Before going into the store we checked a price nearby and we were spotted by the shops sales men standing on the street. We quickly marched into the shop where Sunny started to raise her voice and complain to the sales person. They moved us to the back of the shop, but sunny was too loud and quickly the shop was emptied of customers and the salesmen gathered around for the stoush.

The manager stepped in and started to ask what we wanted, Sunny wanted the head of the salesperson who ripped us off, while I asked for a refund. Sunny stormed around the store saying she wanted to call the police and would call her lawyer and take them to consumer council. They pleaded right to charge market price in HK and we pointed out that HK govt takes a dim view of these rip offs since they were recently reported in the daily news.

Sunny continued her tirade while walking around the store with her phone up to her ear talking about police, laywers and shutting down the shop. I sat at the counter asking the manager what he was going to do about it. He walked to the cash register took out the full amount of 4900 hkd and refunded us, we handed over the camera and walked out.

Beware the bait and switch trick, especially if you are not expert in the product or do not have reference pricing.