Sometimes I hate myself..

…for leaving you all for such long intervals. All 50 or so readers who read my tripe. I’m sure you’re all gasping for more.

Here’s the down-low on what’s happenin’ in Chez Bonkers.
Nothing.

Well here are some food photos of a pretty traditional Chinese wedding we went to on Christmas Day! Yes I have to go back that far to get you some new photos. I didn’t eat the shark fin soup because I didn’t want to lose the last shred of my animal loving dignity. I ate every other “was once alive” thing on the menu though.

The difference between traditional Chinese weddings and the weddings we are used to in the non-Asian world was that there was no dancing. Not that I would have danced but that was the excuse when we guzzled our way through copious amounts of red wine. Copious.
I didn’t like the next day and it didn’t like me.

We are officially on two weeks holidays as of last Friday. We head off to Bangkok on Thursday as I’m doing a talk at a conference there on Saturday. If you’re intrigued I’m sure you can find it you internet savvy nerds. This will be my fourth time in Thailand; I like it a lot.
Then on Sunday afternoon we will fly down to Penang, Malaysia until Friday for some much-needed R’n'R.

Now I’m off to shave my head then later a trip on the Hong Kong train system up near “Real China” to play some football. Wouldn’t be surprised if the team is made up of Chinese border guards and immigration officers with attack dogs as cheerleaders. It’s raining too.

From http://bonkersinhonkers.wordpress.com

Notes on Tokyo and Japan

So very busy, why am I writing this?
I don’t know, I suppose I don’t want to lose the 44 subscribers in Google Reader..who are you mysterious people? I don’t know anyone clever enough to use Google Reader!  Jokes of course.

Ok this is so gonna be fragmented and all over the place.

Tokyo is great!

Ok, that’s it.

Well o.k. some more info then.
Tokyo in December is really cold. So cold you have to steal clothes from the people putting you up. People are very friendly but will speak Japanese to you with a lovely smile on their faces even though they know. They know.
The train network is very nice especially the Yamanote line which rings through the city and it doesn’t involve descending in to the very bowels of hell to get to the train platform. Just a short escalator most times. Perfect. And the seats have heaters underneath to warm your frozen butt.
It’s very quiet on the trains there. Mostly because everyone is unconscious and dead to the world. The miracles you see at every stop when corpses you thought had no chances of resurrection suddenly spring to life and saunter out the doors.

We took to Yamanote the Shibuya; saw the lovely statue of Hachiko and proceeded to walk around Shibuya to take in the atmosphere of crazed shopping. We ate in some café above the crazy crossings that you all have seen.

We walked toward Yoyogi park looking for the Meiji Shrine and somehow didn’t find it even though it had 40 foot high gates. Luckily our friend showed us the way there a few days later. Yoyogi Park is full of harmless homeless people and crows the size of eagles.

“Nevermore”

One morning we got up early to go to the Tsukiji Fish Market. We went. And ended up at the wrong market but blissfully unaware we took it all in like morons. We were let known a few days later the brutal truth. Well there’s a video of us below of us walking around Jogai Market instead.
Make do.

Moving along we went to the Asakusa Temple which was in a delightful little area of Tokyo, the street leading down to the shrine is just rows of souvenir shops but take a few side streets and you get the real ambiance of the area. The temple is pretty cool too and we got to waft some incense and pour some water over ourselves.

We popped down to Yokohama for the day to meet a Twitter friend of mine who showed us around the shopping area and the school he worked in. The guidance was needed as we were on a mean streak of getting lost at every street corner. Yokohama seemed nice and quiet and a perfect break away from the Shibuya craziness.

Back to Tokyo we walked made our way to Sapporo Beer Museum but it was closed. We also went to the Musem of Modern Art. But it was closed. Don’t go to Tokyo over Christmas or New Year’s people. We took it in our stride though, we were enjoying ourselves. We went to the top of ummm, what was it something Hill,  Roppongi Hill,that’s it! It’s not a hill though. It’s a tall shopping plaza with a view of the city up on the top. Bit of a rip off I must say; you must pay for the art exhibit as well as the scenery. The art exhibit was to do with Medicine in Art. It was very bad. You had to pay even more if you wanted to die of hypothermia up on the helipad. No dice Chicago.

We saw in the New Year at the Jojoji Temple; it was a unique and lovely experience immortalized below on YouTube just for you. That’s Tokyo Tower going light crazy to the back and right. Back and to the right. Back and to the right.

The next day was our last day there and we splashed out by going to Gordon Ramsay’s food joint in  The Conrad called Cerise. We had the wine set menu which saw some lovely wines accompanying our courses. It was superb and with great views of silvery shiny building from the 26th or so floor.

Japan is great. Go there. If you’re already there then enjoy it.

This wasn’t as good as it looks. Bit too tangy. But still fine fodder. Not Gordon Ramsay’s

from http://bonkersinhonkers.wordpress.com/

Happy Easter!

The decorations at Times Square  lead me to believe we have all slept through Christmas only to wake up to the other other yearly celebration.

Dropping acid

Didn’t get the chance to post anything up about this last week.
Causeway Bay has entered the world of unearthly delights with the dropping of a bottle of acid from a rooftop near Sogo. A number of people were injured and probably a bit miffed. Acid dropping is not a new occurrence in Hong Kong but it’s more likely to happen on the Kowloon/New Territories side were all the maniacs live. Perhaps they over here Christmas shopping and decided to sprinkle their idea of Christmas spirit around.
Anyway, it hasn’t put off anybody shopping; Causeway Bay is absolutely jammed with people every day laden down with shopping bags and winter woollies as it is a little bit cold for the locals these days.

The police have been more visible on the streets patrolling around and a few days after the incident I happened to spy with my little eye (and my Nikon D70) something beginning with Roof Top Surveillance. That lasted about a day but I saw three other police dudes up there today so at least they are still just…checking. I think I read today that a reward of 300,000HKD has been offered up for the head of the acid dropper (or probably just their name). The worry now is if we are dealing with copy cat incidents rather than one sick and twisted mama.

Spot the spotter…

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There he is! Although it looks like he is just peeking in to the apartments opposite him. Whatever floats your boat buddy.

Nothing says Christmas like…Part 3

….a gift of chocolate from a soviet satellite country which may or may not exist anymore.

I would like to think it’s called Zombie Baby Chocolate. Or something.