Miserable
Today is 31st Jan and i'm truely miserable. Just a few hours from now I should be climbing on board that Air France jet and bidding HK farewell, but the bags are not packed and i'm spending another night sat on my bed working.
When I accepted to come here I was clearly focused on the return date of 31st Jan. I knew that if I put in all my effort and pulled off the Call Centre launch successfully this date, or possibly an earlier one, would be obtainable. Now with the Call Centre launched and my job done i'm stuck here waiting for others to pull through on their part of the bargain. Its like having your jail sentence extended because of someone elses bad behaviour. Whats more, the longer i'm here the longer I have to wait before I can take vacation, and the less time i'm likely to be able to take which increase the chance of me losing vacation. I feel like i'm being penalised 3 or 4 times over for something I have no control over.
For more than 3 months now i'm effectively been camping here in this apartment. Wearing the same clothes, reading the same books and without the creature comforts that make a house a home (books, cds, clothes, photos, bath...). My new return date is only 16 days away and its going to be a very long 16 days. Roll on mid-feb and then roll on les vacances
x
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Paris of the East
It was only on my way back from Paris that I realised my visa for China was going to expire before the end of the month and so within a couple of days of landing back from Paris I was on a flight to the 'Paris of the East, otherwise known as Shanghai.
I came into town late at night and was overawed by the skyline. Shanghai was certainly a city of light with the whole Bund and Putong area alive with neon.
Beijing had been a bit of a backpacker weekend for me but i'd decided to lux it up a little for this trip and booked into the Peace Hotel on the Bund, a beautiful old Art Deco haunt of Hemmingway and Noel Coward. I had an enormous room (suite), with an even bigger tub and promised each night to treat myself to some of the best restaurants in town but during the day I planned to hit the city streets, walking and exploring as much as possible to see what the city really had to offer.
The difference between Shanghai and Beijing is stunning. Whilst Beijing has the Forbidden City, Ti'anaman and the Temple of Heaven everything else is being buldozed to make room for the Olympics. Shanghai in the meantime has gracefully morphed into a pulsating metropolis embracing both its past and future so whereas Beijing lacks soul, Shanghai has plenty of soul and character to go with it. Its possibly to be wandering through dark hutong alleys one minute and then pop out on to a teaming street lined with glass and steel skyscrapers the next. Its a city of contrast be it architecture, food, art, or fashion, Shanghai has some stunning examples of the best of the west and the east. At times I felt like I was in Berlin wandering through areas of old factories and storage sheds that had been converted into galleries and cafes. By night its was difficult not to imagine being somewhere in the US, Las Vegas perhaps thanks to all that neon, but then there are times that are most definitly Shanghai. Its difficult to describe but the city definitly has a vibe and you dont need to scrape too far beneath the surface to find it.
I'm going going to ramble on more but instead let the pictures speak for themselves. I'm not overly impressed with them (the grey weather didn't help) but I hope they'll give you a taste of this fantastic city. Slide down to the bottom of the screen for the link and take a look.
x
It was only on my way back from Paris that I realised my visa for China was going to expire before the end of the month and so within a couple of days of landing back from Paris I was on a flight to the 'Paris of the East, otherwise known as Shanghai.
I came into town late at night and was overawed by the skyline. Shanghai was certainly a city of light with the whole Bund and Putong area alive with neon.
Beijing had been a bit of a backpacker weekend for me but i'd decided to lux it up a little for this trip and booked into the Peace Hotel on the Bund, a beautiful old Art Deco haunt of Hemmingway and Noel Coward. I had an enormous room (suite), with an even bigger tub and promised each night to treat myself to some of the best restaurants in town but during the day I planned to hit the city streets, walking and exploring as much as possible to see what the city really had to offer.
The difference between Shanghai and Beijing is stunning. Whilst Beijing has the Forbidden City, Ti'anaman and the Temple of Heaven everything else is being buldozed to make room for the Olympics. Shanghai in the meantime has gracefully morphed into a pulsating metropolis embracing both its past and future so whereas Beijing lacks soul, Shanghai has plenty of soul and character to go with it. Its possibly to be wandering through dark hutong alleys one minute and then pop out on to a teaming street lined with glass and steel skyscrapers the next. Its a city of contrast be it architecture, food, art, or fashion, Shanghai has some stunning examples of the best of the west and the east. At times I felt like I was in Berlin wandering through areas of old factories and storage sheds that had been converted into galleries and cafes. By night its was difficult not to imagine being somewhere in the US, Las Vegas perhaps thanks to all that neon, but then there are times that are most definitly Shanghai. Its difficult to describe but the city definitly has a vibe and you dont need to scrape too far beneath the surface to find it.
I'm going going to ramble on more but instead let the pictures speak for themselves. I'm not overly impressed with them (the grey weather didn't help) but I hope they'll give you a taste of this fantastic city. Slide down to the bottom of the screen for the link and take a look.
x
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Its getting hot in here... 
Whilst ice storms knock off handfuls of people in the Southern US, and bits of the rest are crippled by massive snow storms the Alps remain green, folks flock to the Cote d'Azur for a quick dip and new islands emerge from beneath the retreating ice-caps. Global warming has officially arrived! Bring on that seasonal creep...
2007 is set to be the hottest year on record (something to do with El Niño and cow farts) and given that it was 15c in Paris last week i'd like to lobby for adding the long-armed wooly jumper and five-fingered mitten to the endangered species list.
As I sit here on the 15th floor looking out across the harbour its difficult to make out Kowloon a couple of hundred metres away for the fug in between as I we flew in from Paris I saw first hand one of those brown clouds high up in the atmosphere, chocked full of fossil feuls and various other crap someone somewhere had burnt. Hence my 'better late than never' new years resolution - be as green as possible.
Things got off to a great start. I cut down my shower time to reduce water, unplugged or turned off everything electrical that I didn't need then picked up my bag and ran to the supermarket. In Paris I was buying as many organic and green products as possible, but here its practially impossible. Asia might be a newly awoken tiger when it comes to business but its a beast that doesn't give a shit about the environment it lives in. Recycling is practically unheard of - I got a strange look when I asked where the recycle bins were in the building and the girl at the check out till look positively disgusted when I said I didn't need a plastic bag as i'd brought my daypack. I find it mind boggling that so many people here are infatuated with cleanliness; face masks in the metro, hand sanitisers in every building lobby (sometimes also in the lift); and yet there seems to be so little care for the environment. So, it looks like i'm just going to have to step up my efforts to make up for them. And if a single one of you makes a smart comment about the amount of air travel I do i'll recycle you ;-)
x
Whilst ice storms knock off handfuls of people in the Southern US, and bits of the rest are crippled by massive snow storms the Alps remain green, folks flock to the Cote d'Azur for a quick dip and new islands emerge from beneath the retreating ice-caps. Global warming has officially arrived! Bring on that seasonal creep...
2007 is set to be the hottest year on record (something to do with El Niño and cow farts) and given that it was 15c in Paris last week i'd like to lobby for adding the long-armed wooly jumper and five-fingered mitten to the endangered species list.
As I sit here on the 15th floor looking out across the harbour its difficult to make out Kowloon a couple of hundred metres away for the fug in between as I we flew in from Paris I saw first hand one of those brown clouds high up in the atmosphere, chocked full of fossil feuls and various other crap someone somewhere had burnt. Hence my 'better late than never' new years resolution - be as green as possible.
Things got off to a great start. I cut down my shower time to reduce water, unplugged or turned off everything electrical that I didn't need then picked up my bag and ran to the supermarket. In Paris I was buying as many organic and green products as possible, but here its practially impossible. Asia might be a newly awoken tiger when it comes to business but its a beast that doesn't give a shit about the environment it lives in. Recycling is practically unheard of - I got a strange look when I asked where the recycle bins were in the building and the girl at the check out till look positively disgusted when I said I didn't need a plastic bag as i'd brought my daypack. I find it mind boggling that so many people here are infatuated with cleanliness; face masks in the metro, hand sanitisers in every building lobby (sometimes also in the lift); and yet there seems to be so little care for the environment. So, it looks like i'm just going to have to step up my efforts to make up for them. And if a single one of you makes a smart comment about the amount of air travel I do i'll recycle you ;-)
x
Sejour bref...
Being in HK is a good experience, and one that might be great if I had time to get out an enjoy it, but being based here temporarily is awkward. I have a funky little apartment but it doesn't feel like home (no matter how many books I buy) and knowing my time is limited means i'm less motivated to go out and build up a social life.
Originally I was only supposed to be here until the end of Jan so when it became obvious that my stay would be extended I have to admit I was pissed. I miss my friends, I miss my bath, I miss my books and I miss the sky. Sometime I feel like I go whole days without seeing more than a couple of square inchs of the stuff here and although i'm not claustrophobic I certainly feel cramped in this concrete metropolis. Therefore having the opportunity to get back to Paris for a week was fantastic.
Paris hadn't changed a bit, although I have to say that after HK it looked somewhat poor & shabby. January remains grey, streaked with rain and that special flat light that only comes out in winter, the metro was dirty and crowded and both the number of homeless (sdf) and the amount of dog shit on the streets seemed to have doubled. I wouldn't have exchanged it for the world though.
In Paris I can walk from one side of the city to the other, without having to take a single skyway, tunnel or pass through a mall, the number of independant bars and cafes heavily outways the number of Starbucks, not all the shops are chain brands and there is sky everywhere.
On top of this theres the dining out. Cheese, cheese and more cheese. Oysters by the dozen (make that 2 dozen), great wines, huge hunks of meet and delicate deserts.
What really makes Paris home though is none of this, its my friends. Whether it was coffee on the terrace, quick lunch or full blown dinner every mealtime was an opportunity to catch up with my friends and I loved it. Thanks to all of you who made yourselves available at such short notice and Cama and Doug for putting me up, and sorry to those of you that I didn't spend enough time with. Dont worry though, HK has no hold on me and i'll be home again before you know it!
x
Being in HK is a good experience, and one that might be great if I had time to get out an enjoy it, but being based here temporarily is awkward. I have a funky little apartment but it doesn't feel like home (no matter how many books I buy) and knowing my time is limited means i'm less motivated to go out and build up a social life.
Originally I was only supposed to be here until the end of Jan so when it became obvious that my stay would be extended I have to admit I was pissed. I miss my friends, I miss my bath, I miss my books and I miss the sky. Sometime I feel like I go whole days without seeing more than a couple of square inchs of the stuff here and although i'm not claustrophobic I certainly feel cramped in this concrete metropolis. Therefore having the opportunity to get back to Paris for a week was fantastic.
Paris hadn't changed a bit, although I have to say that after HK it looked somewhat poor & shabby. January remains grey, streaked with rain and that special flat light that only comes out in winter, the metro was dirty and crowded and both the number of homeless (sdf) and the amount of dog shit on the streets seemed to have doubled. I wouldn't have exchanged it for the world though.
In Paris I can walk from one side of the city to the other, without having to take a single skyway, tunnel or pass through a mall, the number of independant bars and cafes heavily outways the number of Starbucks, not all the shops are chain brands and there is sky everywhere.
On top of this theres the dining out. Cheese, cheese and more cheese. Oysters by the dozen (make that 2 dozen), great wines, huge hunks of meet and delicate deserts.
What really makes Paris home though is none of this, its my friends. Whether it was coffee on the terrace, quick lunch or full blown dinner every mealtime was an opportunity to catch up with my friends and I loved it. Thanks to all of you who made yourselves available at such short notice and Cama and Doug for putting me up, and sorry to those of you that I didn't spend enough time with. Dont worry though, HK has no hold on me and i'll be home again before you know it!
x
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