November

It feels much better to finally be working with a work permit. It's looking very smart and snug in my passport. My ID card is on its way, they have my finger prints, my photo. No more crime sprees. One thing I CAN do, however, is finally book badminton courts. The crew of players has grown to 10, we are booking for a venerable horde!
A friend refers to the work environment in Hong Kong as a pressure cooker, and he is not wrong. Actually I've been finding work quite enjoyable lately. Since it was my birthday this week (7th), I was obliged by an unspoken office code of conduct to bring in boxes of cakes to share with anyone. It isn't actually that hard to find decent cakes in Hong Kong if you try. Owing to my laziness however, I decided to tell everyone my birthday is Monday the 14th instead and order some last minute boxes of yeasty treats. I think there's a dim sum lunch planned as well. They take birthdays seriously. We went out to celebrate on Friday, I booked a table at a little restaurant upon recommendation from Joelle. It was Thai fusion, I won't try to describe it. What I will say is that it was a good night.
Birthday celebrations have been somewhat tarnished by Clints departure. He left for Adelaide last night, after a 2-year stint here in Hong Kong. We will all miss him. I was sad. Someone even cried. He spent his last hours in HK in a bar being plied with beer and was always sporting at least two. He pretty much showed me the ropes of Hong Kong. Too bad you never found that quirky bad misspelt engrish language teeshirt you spent years searching for. I'll keep a lookout mate.
The weather here just got perfect, it isn't sticky anymore and everyone wanders around in an autumnal bliss.
I found myself in the botanic gardens the other day, and was impressed to find it was also a zoo. A leopard amongst the Bauhinias and the Ivy. The surrounding highrise competing for attention.
There is precious little public space in Hong Kong. Everything is crammed in. Something like a square in your average old european town would have been placed so as to give an urban centre a certain logic. Here, a park or square is squeezed in between the noodle shop and apartment entrance. A fence usually runs along any exposed edges, making public space more or less impermeable. You can't just go wandering about. You have to make the tacit decision that you will do something in that space and stick with that decision until you want to escape. Parks here have little or no lawns with only a few exceptions. what to do? Read a book? Sit and look at the paving? Rather than invite possibility, these places seem to entomb potential.
I mentioned exceptions. The park in Admiralty is where i am this weekend, at the Rockit Music festival, the first gasp of live music I've experienced in Hong Kong so far. There is lawn. There was meant to be The Brian Jonestown Massacre. You could say they were the only reason I bought a ticket to this otherwise Channel V-sponsored piece of excrement. Of course they pulled out owing to lead singer Anton's illness. He's a junkie for christ sakes! Why was I so naive? TBJTM were put on the bill so people would buy tickets to this turkey. The tickets are non refundable of course. I am pretty angry. There should be a class action. Then there's Feeder (...)and DJ Marky (which should be ok) to go and a host of local bands.
Unfortunately even music fans within Hong Kong think HKs homegrown is shite.
One HK artist (The Pancakes, who due to the lack of dedicated music venues plays in shopping malls instead-not such a bad notion actually haaha) has been on the ueberhip (yes this word is being used mockingly) Elefant label, which so far has not provided me with even the tiniest iota of pleasure.
Anyway, after this evening's final night of the festival I will finally succumb to the little voice that has been whispering in my ear for months now, the one that tells me "the live music is not here. Give it up, let it go..."
Shit corporatised music and personal finicky arrogance aside, my ears are squealing with pleasure. I bought a pair of little Audio Technica Headphones. So svelte, so so good. Since we're talking music here, I just want to make a recommendation and that is:

go and get Fugazi's latest album "The Argument." It is really that good. While some bands get worse, this one gets better. Maybe with this one it even became the best. Every other record they've made, there is usually one or two bad songs. This
one is flawless. I don't think it's just the new headphones...

I'm sorry to probably be missing my cousins wedding. I still might change my mind about that one in the last minute. But it looks unlikely I must confess. I feel very guilty actually. Martina is a good cousin. Coming back to Adelaide from HK for a few days doesn't seem so strange now as it did a few months ago. I don't know. I just don't know.

I have a new phone also. It has bells and whistles, like a 1.3 megapixel camera. I scoffed at first but it's actually proven really useful for filming and photographing stuff on the fly. The cat outside my window sitting on the neighbours roof for example.


My new number is 9578 5809

Should anyone wish to make an expensive international phonecall to a mobile.