Hong Kong Phooey

My last Xbox business trip so I made the most of it from the start – I managed to fit four movies into the plane ride over, (Nacho Libre, XMen 3, Solo & Kenny), and another one on the way back (11 Canoes).

I’ve been to Hong Kong half a dozen times, always with work, and I really have not had much time to look around - so although still not close to enough time I made sure I had a late flight out and had a day to explore this time around.

The MS office is a bit out of the way in Cyberport on HK Island so I jumped the Le Meridien shuttle to Central, walked to the Star Ferry terminal and caught the ferry over to Tsim Sha Tsui.

Walked up to Mong Kok mostly along Nathan Rd, I wasn’t in the market for a new fake watch or handbag or a new suit made in 24 hours and got sick of the Indian guys asking me so I took a detour through some of the back roads which was a great move – I had some awesome BBQ baby octopus skewers from a street vendor and got to check out some of the food markets the locals use.


Mong Kok was cool, of special interest was a street that had about fifty stores selling Adidas trainers, some models that I had never laid eyes on before – unfortunately they were not good value at all so I’ll save myself for the next trip to the US (I didn’t realize comparatively how great value trainers are there!). It was a day of much walking, good food, great people watching and I enjoyed being somewhere very different to Australia. By the time I got back to ferry I was beat, I rode the shuttle to the airport and enjoyed my last meal on Bill – Popeyes fried chicken.

Cheers - Mark

The name is ... William Wallace

September is going, going, gone and not a single blog entry – it’s not that we have been doing nothing it has actually been a crazy, crazy month.

Kelly returned from the U.S. where she was a bridesmaid in her friend Christy’s wedding at Lake Tahoe, she also brought lot’s of great presents back from the U.S. – so I was glad that she made it home :-)

We both graduated from ante-natal (pre-natal) classes at the Mater Hospital (I was about to say we graduated unscathed but the crowning video wasn’t so easy to forget). I received warnings from nearly all of my friends about how bad the classes could be, especially some of the other guys in the class asking stupid questions – we must have lucked out as the two days went pretty smoothly. Kel left her mark on the class by scaring every other mum-to-be out of any thought of taking the gas for assistance during birthing telling them all that there is no way any credible hospital would let you have gas in the US – never one to shy away from voicing her opinion this girl!

Everything with the baby is going well – a couple of really hot days have made life hard for Kel so hopefully we can get into the water for a swim soon.
The first Kelly pregnancy photo on the blog – taken in Balmain after a stop in at the William Wallace for a few cold ones.

The house is moving full steam ahead – Kelly gets much pleasure out of telling people we are off to water our kitchen and living room (it helps the durability of the concrete slab to keep it moist so that it can cure slowly). I’ve been trying to put in a day a week to help out, my hole digging skills have improved measurably, my belly has decreased in size and the palms of my hands now have the texture of dog paws. The office hag on the building site!

And while on the subject of the office I also have decided to change jobs – saying good bye to Xbox definitely means I lose any credibility I had with my friends kids and now I can listen to everybody whinge about how bad their mobile phone reception is and how slow their broadband connections are.

Movie line of the month :- “Chancho, when you are a man, sometimes you wear stretchy pants in your room... Just for fun.” (Nacho Libre)

Cheers - Mark

P.S. Cougs are off to a great start and I see the Huskies have also had a couple of lucky wins.