Wombat birthday in Honkers

Colleagues got together and organised lunch in a nearby Italian Restaurant in the Wanchai Novotel hotel.

After dessert the waiter appeared with this cake and this message.

"our dearest wombat, happy birthday, your potatoes"

My recomended activities for short stays in Honkers

Restaurants

Dinner
1. Hutong, 1 Peking Rd Kowloon is high class Asian with great views of the harbour.
2. Aqua , 1 Peking Rd Kowloon is high class Japanese and Italian with stunning harbour view
3. Felix at the Peninsula is Philip Starck designed with excellent international food and views
4. Isola at the International Financial Centre, Hong Kong Island great Italian and great views over Kowloon from HK
5. Spices at the Repulse Bay is Asian food but in the old colonial original hotel
6. Jumbo floating restaurant at Aberdeen is all Cantonese food but is renovated and still a spectacle
7. SOHO area behind central on HK island and up the escalator in Staunton st has many restaurants from all countries in one street!

Lunch
1. Many Waterfront restaurants at Stanley Market is almost European style casual outdoor eating
2. Spoon at intercontinental Kowloon is a Paul Bocuse (Michelin hat) restaurant in muted decor with mink fur cushions for lunching in style with great harbour views
3. Cuisine Cuisine in the International s a Cantonese - International restaurant in very nice surroundings and the seafood is a speciality
4. Dynasty at Renaissance hotel Wanchai does a great dim sum for lunch in nice quality surroundings
5. Landmark Cafe in the Landmark building in Central is international food but a great place to sit and watch the all the hustle and bustle of HK, it is also a great refuge from shopping overload especially with a glass of wine

Bar s and other stuff
1. TOTT (top of the town) at the 34 F of Excelsior Hotel Causeway Bay HK Island is recently renovated and is a beautiful bar for watching the sunset over HK. Great decor and stunning views.It is also a great restaurant and you can sit by the window and see the whole of Victoria harbour, after 930pm the high class band plays covers.
2. Felix bar at the Peninsula Hotel 28th Floor is a must do for watching the symphony of lights show from 8-8.30pm each night, dress code applies
3. Lan Kwai Fong is a famous bar district behind Central HK and hosts a large number of bars and restaurants, the road is closed to cars on Friday and Saturday nights and is quite safe and friendly atmosphere to walk and popular for visitors.
4. Afternoon Tea at the Peninsula Hotel is also a must do. Listen to the quartet play relaxing music while experiencing the sublime surroundings and service from team at the Peninsula.
5. Go to Sai Kung and jump on a Junk (recommend Jaspers Junks book in advance) with crew, food and drinks supplied. You can pull up to an island and jump overboard for a dip then sit back and enjoy a bbq on board.
6. On the walkway from the Wanchai ferry terminal, through the Sun Hung Kai building to Tonnochy Rd, the last restaurant on the walkway before the Novotel is called Level Two (Er Yi in cantonese ). It does the best dim sum, cheap and fast service complete with photographs on the menu for easy selection.


Other tours and shopping
1. Hong Kong museum of History on Kowloon is like walking through a movie set of HK through the ages, good fun on rainy day
2. Lonely planet city guide books has some great walking tours, I recommend the Sheung Wan tour (next to central) which includes the Cat st antique market
3.Shopping centres are all over HK, Central, IFC mall, Harbour City, Telford Gardens,
4. Night market and Ladies Market in Kowloon for cheap clothes and knock off items
5. For electronics go to the Wanchai electronics market right by the exit to the Wanchai MRT, good for cameras, computers, accessories, cctv and sound equipment.
6. Wanchai market two blocks back from the MRT is a good place for cheap clothes.

Enjoy !

Running Europe

Sooty's Television debut

It was on Money Magazines special on Green Buildings aired by TVB on 25th sept 2007 at 800pm that I made my debut on HK TV.
On air as part of my mission to save the planet, improve HK's air quality and ensure Tasmania does not become a tropical island.
The pictures on here are courtesy of sunny who used a hand digital camera to capture the action.

View from Danny's Place

Sunday Lunch in Hobart at our old school mate Danny, with his beautiful wife Catherine, the kids and of course the dog.

will tidy this up later, of to Stanley market now!

Mates Reunion in Tassie

Arnie have you seen my watch ?

No mate mine's better!

Leon , Arnie and Sooty on the docks in Hobart.

Leon, Arnie and sooty with the fruit of Arnie Loins, Dominic (small arnie is second left) in Salamanca Market Saturday am

What about the food in Tassie, just sensational!

First course was free soup at the food not bombs stall, actually quite a tasty veggie soup. Probably made more tasty by the lack of washing up implements, oh well friends of the earth and all that.

Second course, was a sausage at the award winning bratwurst tent, far superior than the sausage had in Berlin a few months before!

Third course was a palate cleansing apple super fresh.

Fourth course was fish and salad from fish frenzy, lightly battered flathead fillets and greek salad. Absolutely sensational.

Tassie is definately a world class foodies heaven!

Return to Tasmania for Kevin's retirement

First Boss Retirement Celebration in Tasmania - sept 07

Keeping in touch with mates is important and when I heard from my old boss that he was about to retire after 40 years in business, I couldn't resist coming back to join the celebration with two other mates. We had all worked for the same boss in our early post university careers. Kevin Burrows was and is a legend in Tasmania and in Honeywell worldwide. He started in a two man operation in Hobart and was soon on his own after the guy who hired him left. Kevin did not falter in steadily building a substantial business in Tasmania. At his farewell we heard that he had the highest per capita sales in any Honeywell location worldwide, totalling 16.5m aud in Tasmania last year. That was over 35 dollars per person. In Honeywells headquarter location in Georgia they can only muster 6 dollars per person.

Kevin believes that people buy from mates and it was always important to have business friends. He does not like the word customer and prefers to call them friends. He said he also always delivered on his promises and was a man of his word. He was a great boss and gave us all great work ethics and values for us to take into our own careers.

HK Fly By

Today at 8am the Airbus A380 flew slow and low over Hong Kong harbour. Low enough to get these snaps from a hand held digital camera. It was pretty Cool too!

Secret to Success

Why is it that these small wiry locals guys can seemingly work all day, play all night and never tire of it. I think I've found their secret....

Thunder nuts

Put a bit of Thunder into your life !

Macao - the Vegas of the East

It was the first weekend of August and I had been invited to join a group of Aussie guys for a weekend of golf and go karting in Macao. I was looking forward to a break after working like a madman for the last few weeks straight. The lifestyle barometer was looking up with the prospect of a third game of golf for the year too.


When I got to the ferry terminal to meet all of the team for the first time, I learn that the buck is not only already married( the monday before) but has been together with his wife for years and they have kids too!

We had beers on the ferry, went to the hotel then dinner at o manuel a tiny portuguese restaurant in Taipa. You don't pay for the decor but the food was good traditional Portuguese , olives, bread, baked fish, duck rice, garlic prawns etc.



Saturday up early for golf in China, requiring a border crossing and a fair bit of transport logistics. It happens to be the hottest day of the year at about 36 degrees on the Orient Zhuhai course. Fortunately there is a breeze and unfortunately plenty of water hazards around the course. I lost 5 balls on the first nine holes and found 3 on the back nine. It was a good game despite the score.

For dinner we dress in the team hawaiian shirts a another Portuguese place (even better than the night before). We're seated at a table next to an Asian couple wearing matching caps. The proprietor quickly moves them to a safe distance from us on the other side of the restaurant. Another bucks table is nearby and doing vodka shots with the waitress, a bit strange given it is really a family style restaurant. A volley of Jokes are flying around our table for the entire two hour dinner. Stage 2 involves a long walk to a bar where our buck downs a flaming lamborghini.


At the next stop the 8 piece house band is playing and the place is jumping. The Buck downs another three tequila slammers and earns the 'best on ground' award. A vodka red bull keeps me going until 4am and then I conk out. Fortunately there's a taxi outside the front door and Im at the hotel and asleep 15 minutes later.


Sunday breakfast is quick, only minutes before closing time at 10.30am then we pack up and are off to the go kart track. On arrival it buckets down with rain, the track becomes a river and the karts are sliding all over the place. We pull the pin and head for the Ferry back to Honkers after a real boys weekend....even without seeing a gaming table!

Bonkers Third Law of Compromise - Typhoons

Yesterday a Typhoon level 8 warning was hoisted for at 3pm. This means we were in for some pretty rough weather and most importantly we were allowed to leave the office and go home. I was pretty excited about the prospect to get home early and maybe chill out watching a dvd.

There's a couple of problems with this whole concept, firstly approximately 6 million people are all leaving school, offices, shops and industry to go home at the same time. You can imagine that getting a taxi is nearly impossible, the public transport system is overflowing with people and the roads are choked. Secondly because shops shut it can really test your forward planning skills for the necessities like food and drink in your own home. Since most HK kitchens are smaller than the bathrooms or non existent.

I sat out the early part of the typhoon in my car for an hour while crawling along the freeway down the east end of the island. Traffic basically stopped to slower than a crawl. Road rage simmering as cars try to push in on other lanes of traffic. I let loose a few expletives to drivers who try to cut in on myself and others.

The typhoon seemed a bit of a non event in the end, producing a bit of wind and rain but no signs of damage anywhere. Most of the boats go into shelters like this one next to my apartment building.

Impact is more personal, our building sealed off the lifts exits to the podium forcing people to go out via the car park. There is nowhere to go either since everything closes, it becomes a ghost town like Launceston on Good Friday.

The kitchen was pretty bare so I had cheese on toast for dinner, watched Las vegas TV series dvd and went to bed. This morning I realised that I had not spent more than 12 consecutive hours in my appartment before and that I have been living like a uni student for the last while. The sad part is the rent costs about fifteen times more then when I was at uni.

Today I went to the supermarket and topped up with supplies ...just in case.

Bonkers second law of compromise - apartment living

If you think that transplanting your quarter acre block home and garden lifestyle to Hong Kong is easy, think again. In Hong Kong apartments are called houses and they exist only in high rise complexes with back yards known as balconies and club houses. Apartments are hideously expensive, small and bedroom sizes are a joke. Some places have maids rooms too. I could not actually lie down in the space allowed for the maid, consequently it is a good idea to check the height of your domestic helper before moving in to save on any embarrassment.

Some people able to live outside the city area or on the peak in free standing houses, but there are so few and these make up a tiny fraction of total housing in HK.

Time and time again you will be staggered by the high price and low quality housing options available.

The flip side of course is shown above, a fully open sea view, from a high floor apartment with no neighbours peering in. If you can do it, afford the premium price, it's definately worth the extra bucks. The harbour is so busy that the view is never completely the same, with all kinds of ships cruisers, barges, marine police, sampans, junks and funny little deep hulled bucket like ships that refuel the container vessels in the middle of the harbour.

For those living on the lower floors with the street noise, a clear view of the chinese neighbours grand father roaming around in his white singlet and shorts all day, the bonkers factor can get a little extreme.

Bonkers first law of compromise - air quality

Air quality is the hottest topic after money, property, cars, shoes and handbags and whatever else you can do with money.

There's a couple of ways you can look at this image of Hong Kong. One as a photo of the Star ferry crossing from Central to TsimTsa Tsui in the hazy dusk, full of punters reflecting as the sun sets on another brilliant day of commerce in the big little city. The other way to look at this is as a ferry floats on the water pushing its way through the thick poluted haze of noxious 'god-knows-what' blowing over from mainland China. Better keep the kids indoors and put on the gas mask on cause it can't be doing you any good.

In hong Kong the Bonkers first law of compromise is, you can whinge about the air quality but that polution aint going away in a hurry, so get used to it. You can get lucky and it will rain, or a good stiff southerly breeze blow the muck back into China.

Loads of people are lobbying the Government to put pressure on China to clean up and the Pearl River Delta officals are saying they will clean up. Let's hope this happens sooner rather than later.

Some expats have actually gone bonkers over the air polution and packed up their kit and move to somewhere else, maybe to Singapore, where they find out later that Indonesia blocks their sky view while they burn forest for 2-3 months of the year.

I like this photo which was taken from another ferry crossing in the opposite direction to this ferry.

Bonkers

Hong Kong's gives it's first impression as the tip of Asian economic wave, a relentless economic momentem being driven from it's mother country mainland China. Because of its British colonial history, system of law and english based business culture, the finance and trading industries of the globe take comfort in the ability to come, live and prosper in what is is little island and peninsula hanging off the end of China.

This blog is not about doing business in Hong Kong it's about living in Hong Kong with it's freedoms, fun and frustrations.