Hongkong 2

Almost 3 years later, I was back in Hongkong. This time for a whole week, but it still felt like a whirlwind tour.

Notables:

- the wedding: a full day of traipsing around in high heels that very quickly hurt, on about 2 hours sleep. The morning was fun, I kept myself entertained taking photos while V participated in the games, but the endless standing around, waiting (I never realised how much time is spent just taking photos during a wedding – photos getting ready, photos with the groomsmen, photos of the groom ‘fetching’ the bride, photos of the tea ceremony, photos of the bride & groom, photos walking back to the groom’s house, another tea ceremony and more photos, on and on… I think that’s driven the last nail into the coffin of weddings for me.)

- Sam & Maggie, the happy couple and V’s very close friends, two of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.

- Macau: strange how excited V and I were to go back to ‘Europe’ after only two days in Hongkong (and I had said I was sick of Europe!); loved the Portuguese on the street signs – as tragic as this sounds – both foreign and yet also comfortingly familiar. The street that’s lined on both sides with bakeries that sell that Chinese dried jerky-like (but so much better than jerky) pork that comes in sheets, the shop assistants standing outside, ready with a pair of scissors to cut you a sample whether you want it or not. Walking down a quiet side street, eating fresh, fall-apart-as-you-bite-into-their-crispness egg rolls, hot off the ‘iron’. Eating taro flavoured ice cream, bought from an old man with a proper old-style ice cream cart.

- street food: you never ever have to go looking for food, it’s only ever a few paces away, even if it’s just a little doorway of a shop/stall wedged between two shops, selling all manner of fishballs on sticks, deep-fried on order.

- congee: boy did I eat my fill of preserved egg congee – I don’t think I want to see congee for a long while yet.

- dim sum: likewise. Although we did discover something I’ve never had before when my family ordered these steamed bun rolls with a sticky rice centre – really really good!

- Tai O: a little fishing village with houses on stilts, a street you walk down and all you can smell is dried fish and seafood from the shops on either side. The ‘egg’ waffly-type things we got from a street-vendor, who cooked it in a bin filled with coal (the old way, Sam said, you never see that anymore in the city.)

- the other village on yet another small island where we wandered around, looking at shops selling sarongs and colourful thongs and little bags, before having an alfresco dinner of cheap seafood which you pick out live from rows of tanks set out on the ground, and which is then cooked by the restaurants after some negotiation on price.

- the really good Indonesian we had for dinner one night: I over-ordered but the rendang was delicious, as was the barbecue chicken, the gado-gado was very good, and the satay was perfect, and I got to have yellow rice with all of it!

- street markets in Kowloon where I bought a couple of pairs of shoes, really cheap, and shiny silky gifts to take back home with me.

- the massage we cancelled our Michelin star restaurant booking for, that was so worth it because it sorted out all the kinks and knots in my back. I walked like my body was weightless after that, and I think I’m going to make massages more of a regular thing.

- the beef brisket noodles I had afterwards, at the cheap unassuming place we had dinner at instead.

Naples – we didn’t have much time in Naples – just one short day, just enough to get an impression of chaos. Naples reminded us of Asian cities (although I don’t think any European city would ever really rival them). The small shopfronts, wares spilling out onto the street, the touts selling all manner of stuff on the sidewalks, the little places selling fritti - I finally got to try zucchini flowers! -  the slightly larger places selling pizza by the slice, kids zipping around on scooters, groups of men standing on the street discussing current affairs.

The best bit was the older chap who started talking to us (in Italian), as we sat on a bench on the street, eating baba al rhum. We were eating these for breakfast - the sign in the bakery just said ‘baba’ and I hadn’t realised that they always came doused in rum, even at 10 in the morning. He told us they were called baba, and that they were a Napolitan speciality. And that if you saw someone you thought you were cute, instead of saying ‘hey, you’re bella/bello‘, you say ‘you are a baba‘.

Agropoli – …. sounded so promising, an old town perched on a cliff overlooking the sea, a popular sea-side holiday town with locals. Proved to be quite dead, and looked and felt tired and worn; this impression probably not helped by the fact that we arrived in siesta hour, and struggled to find accommodation (the first place we went to which was recommended by the guidebook was closed, as in completely shut down). We were so tired that day I think we actually had dinner by 6 and were in bed by 8. But not before I got a very sweet compliment from an old lady walking down the street – she stopped us to ask where I was from, and pinched my cheek (can you believe), exclaiming ‘bellisima! bellisima!’ (I think her eyesight was going).

Paestum – was a bit of a letdown. The guidebook had said it was hard to beat the vision of 3 greek temples standing in a field of poppies, and I think the picture I made in my head was just too idyllic for anything real to ever live up to. And I think we missed the poppies – although we’d seen a smattering of bright poppies in various fields in Tuscany, the few we saw further south looked weary and sun-faded.

Matera – Matera was the delightful surprise at the end of our trip. It was shiny and new and happening, kind of the way I’d pictured Agropoli would be, and Matera also had the kind of beauty I expected when I read that people say Lucca was ‘built of beauty’ …. yes, Lucca was beautiful, but in a completely different way to what I had imagined: shaded boulevards and spacious piazzas lined with trattoria and gelati shops, rather than the rosy hued glow of stone that I conjured up (maybe it had something to do with Split occupying top place on my list of beautiful towns). Well Matera had that luminous beauty of a town carved from stone – not at all what you might imagine from a town that guidebook explained had suffered almost fathomless poverty and disease only as recently as the 50s (the government apparently had to do a mass relocation after a malaria epidemic). The sassi, homes carved out of the rockfaces of the valley, which people used to live in out of necessity, were now trendy residences. Not all of the sassi had been repopulated – many were still empty, with their entrances barred and government signs up banning people from attempting entry.

Oh, this might make it mean something to more people – Matera was one of the locations for the filming of Passion of Christ (I should probably watch that film now that I’ve been to two of the locations – Matera, as well as a small town in the desert in Morocco).

Anyway, aside from the slightly strange tour guide we hired, Matera was also memorable for one of the best meals we had in Italy, at a trattoria that was clearly a favourite with the locals (there was a big family group in there celebrating a birthday) as well as tourists (they had their menu translated into Japanese). On a tangent here, this just shows what savvy, intrepid travellers the Japanese are, compared to say the Americans (while every second voice we heard in Tuscany was American, we heard no American accents at all in Matera). Anyway, back to the food – we had one of the most generous, varied antipasti plates ever to start with, and mouthwateringly delicious pastas (I could not not have the pasta!) – mmm….

And at the end, lugging our five bottles of red, we were just tired enough to be glad to be going home, although at the same time sad to be leaving Italy.

Notes on Italy

Italy the second time around, 2 weeks from the last week in May to the first week in June.

Milan – surprisingly beautiful. We were rapt we managed to get tickets to see some opera – a double bill of The Prisoner and Bluebeard’s Castle - in La Scala, at 12€ a ticket, in a very civilised fashion. And disappointed we were the only tourists who bothered to dress up for the opera.

Como – a bit dull. Highlight for me was not the beautiful villas and their amazing manicured gardens, that we could just see from the ferry (one we did visit), or the towns of Como, and Bellagio, yes, both very lovely, no, not these, but rather, our bus trip up part of the coast, our bus squeezing past cars in the narrow little streets of sleepy little towns (it was 8 am after all – we were pushed for time to do our sight-seeing, because the ferries had a very scatty service).

Rapello – the pensione we thought would make a good last minute stop-over (we thought we wouldn’t be able to get to Cinque Terre by dark) turned out to be well outside of Rapello, perched high above the town next to a Sanctuario (that’s a church in the middle of nowhere for us non-Italophones). Once inside the pensione (it took a while to establish whether anyone was home), we were greeted by a life-size Madonna in a faux-cave setting at the bottom of the stairs – and the dark empty corridor we were led down to our room, did nothing to shake off the feeling we were in an old disused monastery.

Cinque Terre – breathtaking Cinque Terre, beset with rain and storms when we were there, but the rain actually worked out well for us (cooling the air down so that we could do the walks in greater comfort).

We loved the charming village feel of Vernazza, where we decided we would look for accommodation: we stopped at a place with a sign offering accommodation (every second place has a sign), were told by the lady of the house who was just returning home that she had let her room but that she had a friend with a very nice room, who, as she was about to phone, appeared walking up the street. Said friend then led us down the street and up an alley to the most delightful room (with ensuite, its own entrance to the street, and a back balcony for hanging our towels, and clothes), on the way stopping to call up to his wife who was at home to come down. Maria (who we later found out originally hailed from Vienna) then showed us the room (and her ‘rules’ – things like, don’t go to bed with wet hair; I didn’t mind, I never do), and asked us to just call up to her if we needed anything.

The walks we did were of course amazing - hot and sticky on the first day (but so worth it for the views), the 20 minute easy Love Walk on the second day (the day of the storms), and my favourite, a much less crowded walk through the just-washed green of the overgrown vineyards on our last day.

And then the little incidents, like observing, outside a restaurant in the calm of the afternoon between lunch and dinner, a lovely little old lady walk down, and hand to a guy from the kitchen a small bundle of herbs. The guy then of course did the very Italian thing of taking a big sniff of the herbs, and exclaiming ‘bellisima’ (or something to that effect), before thanking her and returning to the kitchen.

The food – I ate so much seafood spaghetti I was almost sick of the stuff by the end. Little worm-shaped trofie, served with pesto. V’s mozzarella and tomato filled gnocchi we never found anywhere else.

And last, but not least, Maureen and Dino, the interesting American couple we met – I thought people like them were the stuff of fiction, but nope, they were the real thing.

Tuscany – lovely Lucca, mandatory Pisa, atmospheric Siena. The vintage cars paraded out in the piazzas of Lucca, and the locals carrying out their daily activities – walking, jogging, cycling, playing, making out, having wedding photos taken, on the city walls of the town. The train strike (sciopero – why was I surprised to find that our little Lonely Planet phrasebook had it?) on the day we needed to get to Siena from Lucca, via Florence.

The narrow winding streets of medieval Siena, uncoiling from its heart Piazza Del Campo. The delicious pizza that came with a personal recommendation from the young chef, in a little hole in the wall foccaccia place, and the three sweet, cheerful young men (including said chef) that manned the joint. The sweet Colombian girl who worked at the car rental place in Siena, and openly shared stories about her mum and her boyfriend and her life in Siena.

The lovely little renovated 15th century farmhouse, just outside tiny but completely charming Castiglione D’Orcia, where we kept ourselves out of the rain (yes, the rain followed us everywhere!). The cake at breakfast (thick fat slices which still weren’t enough!) that our lovely hostess made every day. The glimpses of the old farmer who kept to himself as he did his daily tasks around the farmhouse.

Montalcino (and the wine ‘tastings’ we did), Montepulciano (still more red wine to taste), and the other little towns we stopped in, like Montichiello, a tiny town with nothing but one very good restaurant, and Chianciano Terme, which looked like it might have been more interesting than the guidebook let on, and tempting to stop in, had we not been completely stressed out about trying to do U-turns in narrow one-way streets so that we could get our car out of the car-free inner-city zone.

The free hot spring soak we had in the great outdoors of Bagno di San Filippi (another great little tip from Lonely Planet).

The meals we had in various little towns, from a minimalist spaghetti served with the best olive oil money can buy and hard cheese shaved at the table (with a flourish!), to fat pici served with a simple tomato sauce (really good when well-made, a bit like strange udon when not), to linguine with fresh porcini (V had this in the most unlikeliest of places – a small hotel restaurant stuck in the 70’s, the decor looking as though it had once upon a time had aspirations to be grand) – hmmm, is it obvious I was obsessed with having as much al dente pasta, as only the Italians can make, as I could while I was there?

….. to be continued

And just like that, it’s summer!

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My sister told me the other night the alarming news that my parents have had rats in their garage. In the garage where I left boxes of my stuff. Boxes of cute little tops (like my pretty pink Circus Girl corset top, which I cried in one New Year’s Eve, or my slinky grey satin cowl neck halter top, which I wore whenever I was aiming for classy sexy, or the cute little cotton boho-ish top I got at the Camberwell market, a little too big, but nevertheless did well with the boys the hot summer just before I left), pairs of shoes and sandals, some never worn (the strappy heels that had skinny straps in white, beige, and brown, bought for their versatility, and white mary jane flats, no 4 or 5 in my collection of white mary janes, both I had meant to bring over), shorts, skirts, pants, and jeans (granted, these I may never be able to squeeze myself into again anyway unless I get seriously ill for long enough to lose a significant amount of weight – the sexy satin look Sass & Bide pants which I’ve never actually worn would be one of those), books that represent probably the closest thing I’ll ever have to any sort of collection (a couple of books on philosophy from when I thought I ought to know more about it, a copy of Advice to a Young Wife from an Old Mistress), boxes and boxes of resources I made/collected/pilfered for work (including childrens’ books as well worth collecting as the other books I ‘collected’); all these things… just things, but I still would hate for them to be chewed through by rats.

But (hard to believe as it may be), my concern over these things was overshadowed by my concern over the fact that my poor little sister is stressing out over her lease. She has two weeks left on it, she’d like to stay, but her flatmate is adamant she won’t, and they can’t even agree on where they’d move if they did. She’s worrying about how much rent she can afford, about where she’ll go if they don’t sort this out in the next two weeks, about what will happen when the lease does expire in two weeks’ time, about where she’s going to leave her stuff if she has to vacate and hasn’t got anywhere to vacate to (yup, that’s how the rats came up). I can’t even remember if I’ve ever signed a lease (maybe once? I think I’ve signed a proper lease once). She’s only 19 – my baby sister is only 19 and she has to worry about all this crap like leases!

So if anyone out there in Brisbane has room for one small, sweet, (usually) cheerful, 19 year old and/or all her crap, either on an ongoing basis, or for the short term, let me know. The closer you are to Southbank (where she has to go for uni) the better. Or if you have any advice about leases (I told her she could ask if they could let her continue to rent month by month post the lease expiry until she sorts out what her and her flattie are going to do – is that right?)

I think there should some sort of rule in ballet, about the standard of beauty that should be expected with the lead roles. They don’t necessarily have to be total stunners (although it helps), but by god, at least half decent. Sadly, last night’s Prince Siegfried didn’t quite meet my bare requirements, much less so Odette. So much less so that it was really really difficult to believe that the Prince wouldn’t rather have one of the other swan-maidens. Any of the other swan-maidens. And that I think is a real fundamental flaw. So, even though our second row seats were still not as near to the dancers as where Jane and I sat in St Petersburg, I think in the end I think we probably would’ve preferred to sit further away…

It wasn’t just her face (or the pained expression she wore on it for a good part of the ballet), it was also her build; she was short compared to the other girls (it always surprises me how short dancers are), and didn’t have the aristocratic grace in the way she carried herself that I imagine Odette should – and that the girl we saw in St Petersburg did. And the girl in St Petersburg, when she danced, you believed her arms were wings, every single muscle in those arms was active with expression. The girl last night, her arms were just arms. Less even – she didn’t seem to do much with them at all. (Hmm, I should probably say that I don’t actually know anything about ballet here, so it’s quite possible than that perceptible muscle engagement might not be desireable?)

The sets were impressive (I remember thinking last night ‘I don’t remember there being a set in St Petersburg’), but this actually took away from the ballet. Definitely the set they opened with, together with the evil baddie’s costume (they should have stuck with a plain black cape, instead of the shredded bin-liners which evoked a swamp monster), called panto to mind. I think it may be a case of less is more with set design if you’re doing Swan Lake.

But I digress, back to the dancing – yes, there were more swans in this version, and it did create effects you didn’t get with fewer bodies in that small theatre in St Petersburg (it’s hard to imagine flocking swans with only a handful of ballerinas). But in the end, that’s just setting isn’t it, for the dancing by the main characters, and that kind of didn’t really wow. I mean, the Prince did dance his bits beautifully, and the prima ballerina did manage to pull off 24 consecutive spins in the middle – that was impressive (it’s saying something though isn’t it that I was surprised she managed to pull it off). But I spent a good deal of last night sitting there thinking, where are those breathstopping moves? I’m sure they should have already done those achingly beautiful spins in their pas de deux, and those jumps that made my jaw drop in St Petersburg! And then we were in the final scene, and I waited for the parts that caught my breath in St Petersburg… and it didn’t happen. The music still stirred the blood, but what my eyes were getting didn’t add to it, and it just didn’t happen. Not once did I catch myself gasping the way I did in St Petersburg.

And then they drove the last nail in the coffin with the final part where the two ride up to heaven (post double suicide) on a cloud/chariot/whatever – but what kind of tacky American (and apparently it is) ending is that?! The damn thing jolted and veered slightly off course mid-flight – what a way to end what’s supposed to be the pinnacle of all displays of grace!

The opera was magic! Opera isn’t boring – no way! It was essentially like a whole season of a soap compressed into one evening, with killer music that takes you on an emotional rollercoaster. And oh my god the way that woman used her voice – mind-blowing! (SF reckoned she made his head ring – I wouldn’t go quite so far, but then, he does have a bigger head so more surface area to be rung :P).

And you know how I was worried about being under-dressed? Well, as it turned out, I think I was over-dressed. We couldn’t believe it but no one dressed up – there was one woman, who was preggers, who wore an evening gown, and looked bloody amazing, and then we spotted 1-2 others in semi-formal dresses. But I think I’m still glad I bothered, it added to the overall adrenaline rush of the night, so that even though on my way home to get changed I felt exhausted, there wasn’t a chance in hell of my falling asleep once I was in my outfit and on my way to the opera. Although I’m sure that, dressed up or not, the buzz from the performance once it started would have stirred my blood plenty enough to keep my wide awake til well after the show (which we were).

This was the view of the Flower Hall (at least that’s what I think it’s called) – the bar area in what used to be a flower market – that we were treated to in the second interval. It was taken on SF’s phone, hence the crap quality.

It looks like I will need replacement boots. We’ve had plenty of rain lately, and on Friday, the worst day, I arrived at work with soaked socks. Now, how to find the slim square toe I’ve decided I like.

It’s April showers, isn’t it, not January showers!

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Today went to check out the Petticoat Lane Market in the hopes of getting a coat, boots, and a bag (handbag), which also needs replacing. Got none of these, although there many possibilities in terms of coats. I did get 2 tops for work, at £5 each, and having tried them on at home am really happy with them both, and a pair of Miss Selfridges pants for £10, which luckily, also fits (just needs taking up). I think I should go more often!

I then met up with SF for the Russian New Year festival in Trafalgar Square, which turned out to be rather crap, so we then decided to go to the National Gallery, except as we walked in I thought it was a shame to be indoors when the weather was actually alright today, so we headed to the National History Museum to go ice-skating. When we got there, we went in to have a look around (SF got rather excited about the dinosaur skeletons), saw their amazing gems/minerals collection in the Vault (smaller than it sounds), and tried to get in to see the Wildlife Photography Award but were told it was sold out for the day. Back outside at the ice rink we found out the next available tickets were for a session 2 hours later, so we canned that and went and had crepes instead (well, one between the two of us).

And that’s it for another weekend. Every weekend I always think they should be 3 days, not 2. Tomorrow we have La Traviata to look forward to. In a mad panic, I googled dress code and opening night (apparently it is, tomorrow night), and luckily I read somwhere my planned LBD will be just fine. Phew.

Playing the thrifty housewife, I made chicken soup tonight from the carcass left over from last Sunday’s roast dinner. We are slowly nearing the end of our over-bountiful stocks of food. I can’t believe despite all the time off I’ve had, I haven’t done any of the two things (only TWO!) that I promised myself I would dedicate my time off to – culling photos (not even made a dint in them), or completing my Leave to Remain application.

What have I been doing? Some shopping for pressies (which was surprisingly enjoyable), some light entertaining (which was surprisingly time-consuming, despite the fact that it really was light), a major clean-up of our bedroom (unplanned), and not a heck of a lot more than that. The major events:

- Patrick Wolf concert with Jim: I had to wikipedia him, but the ticket was free courtey of Jimbo, so I thought what the hell, and it proved hugely entertaining, due not in small part to his crazy outfits (forest hermit outfit, complete with a magpie attached to his head, for his first set, and the last outfit was crazy beyond anyone’s imagination).

- Othello at the Donmar with Pao and friends: a tiny, intimate theatre, amazing stage design (is that what it’s called), and the actors doing such a great job of sucking us into the story that when it spirals into tragedy, you can see hands in the audience reaching up to horror-stricken faces… the way Shakespeare should be performed!

- Sunday markets: lugging our spoils from the Columbia Rd flower market – I managed to bag a bunch of sticks of those little red berries (what are they called?), and 3 twigs of cotton for £5 (and they are still looking stunning in my living room), and two orchids for £5 (they haven’t fared as well), and Pao got the cutest little basket of Christmas red, and a massive basket of a similar thing but with yellow leaves – Pao Ju and I walked our way down Brick Lane, stopping at one of the markets there, and then checking out the Spitalfield markets before calling it a day.

- Sunday roast dinner with friends, Taboo and Wii.

- Christmas day with Pao Ju: we made this Japanese/Korean pancake from mix I got at the small Japanese grocery store, I cut Pao Ju’s hair, we made pad thai, and then we played Balderdash.

- Boxing Day sales: almost not worth the effort and I really should have escaped way earlier, but I did get a very cute dress from Bershka which I had seen and wanted only a couple of days before when it was £29, for £9, and a cute skirt from H&M half price. And then home to down the red wine which Jim brought over.

- panto last night at the Hackney Empire: more kids in one place than I’ve ever seen before in my life, and we must have been the only people there who didn’t have kids in tow, but it was good fun, and now I can say I know what this English Christmas tradition is all about. And it was really quite funny – my favourite line was ‘I could go skinny-dipping in your eyes’ (from the big black Jamaican woman played by a man, to her heart’s desire), my favourite gag, the Primark one. Might go next year, if I can borrow some kids to take along to it.

What we have to look forward to:

- wine, wine and more wine at a wine bar (which from what I’ve heard is quite impressive) for New Year’s Eve.

- in the same week, Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker, a fantastic Christmas gift (I had wanted to go see it but was too tired to book it, luckily as it turns out!), and a stage production of Tintin (also a Christmas gift, for SF).

- and the week after, some respite, before in the following week, La Traviata at the Royal Opera House, and Swan Lake at the Coliseum.

And I must do those photos and that Leave to Remain form……. and tax! Shite!