Outages

Just to let everyone know that due to the earthquake near Taiwan the other day, our Internet connection is a bit dodgy at present. I can get on at work (a bit slow though), but we have almost nothing at home. Our provider, PCCW, apparently shares some of the undersea cables that have been badly damaged. They are the major provider (of voice telecoms too) in HK so a lot of people are going to be affected. Might be a few days before it's properly working again.

Merry Christmas

We hope everyone has had, is having, or will have a wonderful Christmas day.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

Happy Birthday -

- to the Emperor of Japan! I'm not sure how old he is though.

I've put some Hong Kong Christmas pictures on Flickr for you, to give you an idea of how things are looking here. Have a look at the first few in the Hong Kong set.

I also put my first video on YouTube. I took it on the Star Ferry on the way back from the St Andrew's carols service the other night. It was a little choppy, so a bit of a shaky video I'm afraid, but it's quite atmospheric. There are a lot of similar videos from other people on there too, so have a look.

Warning: not very hot!

A couple of days ago the Hong Kong Observatory issued the 'Cold Weather Warning' - the temperature got down to around 12C at some points, and it's really dry. At times like this they advise such things as "put on warm clothes and beware of low body temperature...if you must go out, avoid prolonged exposure to wintry winds". What is this, Hokkaido?! Apparently over 300 people sought shelter in various centres around the territory. The warning was lifted around lunchtime today.

It did actually feel pretty nippy yesterday, especially during the St Andrew's outdoor Carols by Candlelight service last night. At it, everyone was issued with a small, battery-powered 'candle' to hold...most glowed with a soft orange light, but some (including both of ours) flashed through a cycle of garish colours. A little unorthodox, but good.

Ah yes, the dessert buffet... The desserts were really good: high quality, not overly sweet or sickly, so we were able to sample a lot of them. There were lots of cakes, pastries, waffles, fruit, ice-creams and sorbets and much more. A nice setting too, with good views over the harbour, dim lighting and a jazz trio playing. After all that sweetness we vowed we wouldn't want to even see anything remotely dessert-related for a long time to come, and had some really weird waking-dreams that night.

Cocktails and cold weather

A few reports of eating and drinking. That's not all we do, but it's probably the only thing of at least some interest to you:

Last week we finally went to Nha Trang, in Wellington Street. It's a well-known Vietnamese place that does what's supposed to be the best pho in town, for under $40 a bowl. And it was good too. They do a chicken one as well as the traditional beef, and each bowl comes with lime to squeeze into it and some hot chillies to sprinkle on if you want to (a good idea to let you choose!)

Thursday was a Christmas party for our St Andrew's homegroup. Held, somewhat surprisingly, at Delaney's (Irish pub) in Kowloon. A good night, and the first English-style Christmas dinner of the season. We even had Christmas crackers on the table. It was really strange, after an evening of very typical pub-iness, Tetley's bitter, roast and vegetables, gravy, Christmas crackers and party hats, to emerge into the bright tacky neon and muttered "handbag, copy-watch, tailor, make you nice suit" of Tsim Sha Tsui. It was pretty chilly on the way back on the ferry, for the first time since we've been here.

It kept getting chillier, and rainy too yesterday. Not such nice weather for a birthday, but I don't care too much. Had some decent fish and chips at lunch and then some drinks last night at the Vodka Bar and Philia, both of which were really quiet. They must have heard I was coming. But they were both friendly with some good free snacks and really good cocktails. I think the lack of customers was partly due to the weather, and partly due to all the work parties taking over most of the other places nearby — including FINDS which I wanted to try out, but found to be packed with rather corporate types from C B Richard Ellis.

Anyway, dessert buffet at the Grand Hyatt tonight...

Stats

Have a look at 'Brits Abroad' (I know it sounds like a saucy 70s film starring Sid James et al, but it's actually a BBC page about expatriate Britons). There's some nice statistics and things.

A small piece of Sweden

I keep getting behind on the blog, but still, I'll tell you about last Sunday. After church we walked back to the Star Ferry as usual and took a sight detour on the way to see a replica of a Swedish frigate, the Gotheborg, which was docked in Hong Kong for a few days. The original ship was an 18th century Swedish East-Indiaman, which traversed the seas between Scandinavia and the Orient until she ran aground in Gothenburg harbour after her third, 30 month, voyage to China.

The replica has been sailing around the world since October last year, and stopped off here on her way home. Hopefully she'll make it back this time without running aground. There's a good website with the full story of the original and replica ships.

We weren't able to go on board the shop, as the 2,000 free tickets had run out within an hour, but we took a few pictures. It's a strange thing to see such an old looking piece of machinery in the middle of the modern Victoria Harbour.

Differences

We've been here a while now it seems, and I haven't yet done the compare-where-you-are-now-to-where-you-were-before thing. But there a couple of less obvious differences that I've been wanting to mention:

Security guards: recently Japan has been becoming "more dangerous" and I noticed quite a few signs of this in Sapporo in the year before we left. There was the policeman with a large wooden stick guarding the front gates of the Russian consulate, who watched me carefully as I sauntered by on my way to the library; the baton wielding, slightly paunchy men carrying cases of money into the bank; the baseball bat standing up against the marble pillar next to the demure bank teller... the first time I saw a money delivery to an ATM here it came as a shock to see the guards being flanked by three men carrying large rifles.

Apartments: when you rent an apartment in Japan, it's usually empty. And I mean empty in the purest sense of the word. Not a stick of furniture, no kitchen appliances (that includes the stove except in the most modern places), not even any lights in flats more than 2 or 3 years old - yes, not so much as a bare bulb: you have to bring your own light fittings and clip them into the sockets in the ceiling.
This means, of course, that when you move out the place must be left in the same virgin state as you found it. The man from the agency (who you probably haven't seen since he pocketed a month's rent at the start of your lease) will prowl around checking the cupboards for stray fragments of noodle, unused cleaning products or criminally abandoned paper towels (I tried to persuade him that they would be useful for the next tenant, or even his own office - it's a waste to throw them out! ... but to no avail. They shamefully ended up in the bin at Sapporo station.) In Hong Kong, our agent, who only took 2 weeks rent as their fee, fell over themself to make sure we had everything we needed, and seemed to want to ply us with IKEA accessories and extra towels.