Candy Mandible Stroke 2

I am using a computer where the default language for most website hotspots is Cantonese. It is therefore proving difficult to navigate my blogger profile. I am in the Hong Kong Central Library building, a towering shrine to neo-classical kitsch. Photos will follow...
I arrived last wednesday morning at Hong Kong's airport Chep Lap Lok, initially rather nervous. My ongoing ticket to London was nowhere to be found. Would immigration send me home for failing to produce an ongoing ticket? Where HAD I put that thing, I had been careful with my tix after all...

Well after some quick emails to my travel agent, I confirmed a suspicion I had: my ongoing ticket is an E-ticket. So of course there is no paper copy for me to produce. Which was good. No more worries!

Felicity picked me up from Central after my short train journey from the airport, and our taxi took us to an apartment building in Po Yan Street, Sheng Wan. Felicity's boy Clint lives here, and so had Felicity a while ago when both had worked in HK. Felicity is visiting him at the moment.

The week has been very funny so far, and F and C have been awesome tour guides. On Thursday we headed out on a ferry to Cheung Cha, a cute little fishing island possessing beaches and bountiful seafood. After an innings of swimming, beer and meandering, we made our way back to Cheung Cha Village. There are a number of seafood vendors here, who sell live crustaceans, eels and fish from holding tanks. There are some ridiculous specimens, which should soon appear amongst some published photos.

And eat them we did, at a restaurant amongst several along the thriving wharfside pier. The coolest were salt n pepper squill, little prawn like crustaceans with nasty little barbed tails. We all nursed pricked fingertips from this outing.

Our ferry back to Hong Kong Island gave me my first experience of Hong Kong Harbour by night, a delirious spectacle of lights and lasers. Luckily, Clint thought to provide "Ferry Beers," and we boozed and schmoozed our way back.

Friday, the hangovers were slight. We all went shopping around for little things like power adapters and other useless essentials in and around SoHo. F and C took me to a little dumpling shop for lunch, perfect for our sweaty, boozy states.

On Friday evening, we met up with some friends of F and C's, Hermia and Billy. Both proved fantastic dinner partners. Hermia is a food lover (the term "foodie" is reprehensible, so I am choosing food fanatic until there are any better suggestions) and so of course it fell upon her to choose the venue. After a few beers at the Fringe Club, we found ourselves in a really cool japanese restaurant with an awesome fitout. Again, photos will do it more justice, but we had our own circular booth and a really kooky menu. We did not stop eating and drinking for at least two hours. I can't remember what happened next...

Saturday evening F and C had invited dinner guests to the apartment, and we all went on a shopping expedition. Clint had just gotten a new BBQ, and was keen to test it. My particular obsession was to make tropical fruit skewers to bbq. I got mangoes, peaches, nectarines and strawberries.

We rearranged the loungeroom and went to work. In the end there were about 5 guests: 3 expats from the Netherlands, one from the Philippines, and one from Switzerland.
Clint is an adroit barbecuer, Felicity a deft skewerer. The food ended up being a hit. The fruit skewers had been a gamble, but they paid off in the end. Barbecued strawberry is sexy, sexy food. Amidst the boozy haze, we ended up at a Club called Gecko. I can't remember much.

Sunday afternoon, there was a lunch on Lantau Island planned, at a little beach at a restaurant called Cococobana. Here we met up with many of F and C's other expat friends, from Scotland, England and South Africa. I lucked out on the main course-the mackeral, though tasty and something of a "dark horse," gave me food poisoning, from which I have not yet recovered. I managed to head out to the Peak Club on Victoria Peak for some amazing views and a hike down through the steamy hillside. But my heart wasn't in it. I was sick.

And so here I sit, in the Central Library, nursing a groaning stomach. My writing has been unremarkable, and unembellished. Tommorrow I go kayaking with F and C around the harbour, provided I am well.
I have a postal address. They are as follows:

Erik Brasse
Flat Q915
Po Hing Mansions1 Wa Ning Lane,
Sheung Wan, Hong Kong

I also have a mobile number here: 95306619
Hopefully my next entry will find me in better health and better able to write.

Erik.