To infinity! and beyond?

I've just spent the last 10 minutes on the phone with the Argentina air force trying to find space on one of their flights down to Ushuaia, the planets Southernmost city.
I emailed them on the weekend to enquire about a flight on Monday and got a somewhat confusing response:

'Hello from Buenos Aires! Sorry no possible Monday, we only fly on Monday and Friday. To pay your reservation please call number xxxxxx'

After 10 minutes on hold I finally got put through to a lovely lady who explained that the plane was broken (at least I think that was what she said). Apparently the plane wouldn't be fixed for another 5-10 days so I thanked her nicely and paid through the nose for a one way ticket on some tin-pot budget Argentinian airline. I'm hoping their areoplanes are as efficient as their online booking service, which worringly requires the name and phone number of your next of kin when you book a flight.

Its only now that I realise the 13hrs to Buenos Aires and further 2 flights to Ushuaia will take me the furtherest South i've ever been - almost to the end of the earth. Then i'll be able answer for myself that that has puzzled man for so long...



The Flat Earth Society:

'But why? Why do we say the Earth is flat, when the vast majority says otherwise? Because we know the truth.'

All sounds a bit Mulder & Skully to me

x

SShhhhhhhhhh...




After a quick side trip to the UK, i'm now back in Paris where everything is just as I left it. Well almost...

Work is still work. Same people, same building, same quartier. Honestly it feels like I never went away.

My friends, thankfully, are all here, exactly where I left them; and like me a little older and none the wiser.

And my apartment is still here, same view, same crazy neighbour, only now theres 2 of us living here (well 3 including Mixie).

Given that i'm only in town for 2 weeks and both Doug and I are trying to save to by places of our own we've decided to 'co-habit' for a while. All in all its working out quite well, given that we hardly ever see each other. Doug is on the 'evil' shift at France 24 so each morning at 3am an alarm rings and he pootles off to work. In the evening when I come home hes tucked up in bed (which is why we're having to be extra quiet right now...).

We've taken the 'ships in the night' one step further and created 'blogs in the bathroom' (or 'blogs in the bog' as I prefer to call it). This new form of communication entails mindless scribblings and reminders from him stuck on the bathroom sink at some horrible hour in the morning and non-witty responses from me, complete with coffee and porridge breakfast stains which he picks up when he comes home mid-afternoon. Bizarre, but it works.

It's great to be at home but still effectively 'camping'. I sleep on the sofa, i'm living out of an old shipping trunk and everything feels very temporary. It doesn't really bother me and its all good practise for my future hobo aspirations.

x

The end is in sight

With less than a week to go my stay in HK, and the project thats consumed my life for the last 4+ months, is almost over. And it seems that HK has been saving its best until last.

For the past week the weather has been stunning; 25c, clear blue skies, low humidity and even a slight breeze to move the pollution about a bit. I was hoping that I could start to wind things down a little this week and maybe take an hour or so each day to explore the island but work has been relentless, with everything ramping up to the final delivery date. So I was pretty frustrated to be still be in the office at 7pm on friday night, having still not had lunch and waiting for a couple of calls from Paris to come in. It was at this point that Randy, the MD for Asia, wandered in sporting a huge bottle of campagne and a big blue box.

'Have you read your email?' he asks.

There, in my inbox, squished between some spam, is a mail from the big cheese in Paris congratulating me on winning the IHT Publishers award.

Oooooo, i've won something. Cool!

My eyes catch the box in Randy's hand and for a split second I realise its blue, that special kind of duck egg blue that only means one thing - Tiffany's!

It was only a split second though, come on, this is the IHT. I count myself lucky if I get a free lunch so swanky Bling-Bling is definitly out of the question.

So I now have a large piece of perspex to prove that it is possible to survive extreme sleep deprevation and live to celebrate the fact.

I'll keep the blue box somewhere special though - maybe one day I get some Bling to put in it!

x

Don't cry for me...

Its official...I'm off to Argentina for 5 weeks in March and April!
Mmmmmmmmm, can almost taste those steaks from here
x

Shopping



Having promised not to buy anything I didn't really need it was obvious after the Shanghai trip that my camera was on its last legs and so knowing HK is the place to buy photographic equipment I managed to concinve myself I really did need a new camera. Et voila!



I've not played enough with it yet to be totally happy but here are a couple of shots from todays hike over the top of the island to Repulse bay.






I'll no doubt be boring you all with more snaps very soon. Consider yourselves warned.

x