Cairns is warm and fun, and also funky, friendly and just nice to be in.
However, I have to tell you that Cairns Domestic Airport is quite possibly the silliest airport in the world. You may recall the dreadful problems we had there last year while it was being built, and I have to tell you that, a year later, now finished, it's only slightly better than it was.
The main problem is the exceptionally silly terminal. Everything about the layout and logistics of the structure is counter-intuitive, against all rhyme and reason, because nothing happens the way you expect it to happen ... no, it's worse than that because I'd even go so far as saying that everything seems to actively work against the process of what's meant to be happening in there.
Anyway, after negotiating our way through this endlessly abject stupidity, we decided that the airport builders were very definitely delivered the wrong plans by the architects ... and had great fun trying to work out what structure's plans the builders mistakenly given instead.
And the answer we came up with is that Cairns Domestic Terminal is actually built from the plans for a Government Health Department cattle dip because the building really would work if your intention is removing ticks from domestic cattle.
But once you're through this cattle dip, Cairns is just endlessly nice. Blue skies, blue seas, and green, green mountains of only slightly damaged rainforests. (We didn't see the horrendous damage from Cyclone Yasi until we got further south.) And after Sydney's freezing rain, the warmth was so very welcome.
Baby Jane picked us up, which was so sweet of her ... and the plan was that, because we arrived two days before Talei arrived back from Manila, to save Jane having to make two journeys, we'd just hang around Cairns being silly-as and having fun until Talei arrived, and then we'd all drive down to Innisfail together, and that is indeed what happened.
As I've already mentioned, I missed Rose's farewell party due to bloody Mainland China - yeah, it's all their fault!!! - being such a stupidly officious and mean-spirited country ... but the others all went and had a fabulous time dancing to a really great live Gypsy Jazz band. I have no idea what Gypsy Jazz is, but Rose always has interesting musician friends and they always have interesting music so I'm sorry I missed it.
Rose - Baby Jane's dearest friend in FNQ - is off to India to do volunteer work among the poor. It's something her soul is crying out to do so we support her in this although Baby Jane says she's going to miss her so very much, but that didn't stop the party being great fun.
So they had great fun at the party while I ... OK, I had fun too. After blogging, I had a massage and then sat out in a street cafe and watched the world go by, all the while reveling in the warmth!
Yes, finally, we were finally warm. Daily, despite it being the heart of winter, the temperature was 26c and it'd only fall to 20c at night. Nice. So nice, Woody and Buzz decided to sleep in the park next to the Esplanade to save money ... which they tried to do only they were spotted by a young woman who offered them a bed for the night in exchange for sex. No, seriously. I thought things like that only happened in teenage boy fantasies and Penthouse Forum, but it actually happened to the two young Frenchmen who are currently Baby Jane's WOOFERS! But that's Cairns, la!!
The city is so relaxed and laid-back, and has evolved such a distinct style you too long to dress all funky and Boho and get piercings and tattoos and wear jewelry made out of shells and coconuts. In fact, I was so impressed by Far-North-Queensland's now fully evolved Troppo-Boho-style I got myself bright baggy pants and I've been wearing them ever since with tight little singlet tops ... and ugg boots.
Yup, I know I said I never would, but I have to confess I'm now wearing ugg boots. It was either that or getting my tongue pierced.
Oh dear. I've barely scratched the surface of our Cairns jaunt, and now Keith wants to use the computer so I'll have to come back later and tell you more.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
SYDNEY
Sydney shocks! Truly, I'm surprised at how surprised I am by everything. First off, after so long in Asia, it's shocking how CLEAN everything is. And also shocking is how many Asians there are here wearing Ugg boots, hoodies and speaking English as a first language. I no longer expect ANYONE to speak EFL, and here everyone does and it's particularly odd that it just seems so ODD!
Also shocking is that the skies are so blue, and tonight I actually saw the moon. Can't recall the last time I saw a moon in the sky ... but it certainly wasn't anywhere in or around China.
Also shocking, especially considering how blue the skies are, is that I had 'a rainbow swirl' last night down on Pitt Street. Rainbow swirl is the name I've even to these weird 'pollution overloads' that hit suddenly in a wave of nausea and dizziness where everything around just swirls into a mass of colours; they last for about 20 seconds and then vanish. I'd never had one in my life until I arrived in HK, when, from the moment I arrived eight years ago, and for the first week, I kept being wiped out by them. I guess my pure-Fiji-air body wasn't used to the heavy pollution and it took a while to adjust. However I quickly got used to it and my body settled, and ... well, I've really only had the odd rainbow-swirls in Guangzhou and Saigon when the weather is particularly hot, the streets are covered in a petrol haze, and the pollution levels particularly high ...
... and then this one yesterday down in Pitt Street ... at night ... and in the middle of winter. Yup, shocking to me, and probably shocking to you too.
Breakdown of what's happening?
DAY ONE:
Arrived late at night after an uneventful journey ... except for the young man who died and all the cabin crew were trying to pretend he was just asleep but giving the whole show away by acting all kinds of weird and over-wrought. And, in Sydney, trying to shuffle us all quietly off the plane while making panicked calls to the authorities. Talk about sending mixed messages. I think Cathay Pacific needs to do major training in dealing with these sorts of major problems.
Then we got here only to discover that ... well, again, after HK, where the public transport is so sublime, it was just so shonky and third-world how difficult it was to get from the airport to CBD. In the end, it was all so fraught we ended up getting a taxi to find our 4-star award-winning highly praised hotel was also very third-world and shonky.
No, let me tell you what happened in the hope that someone will see this who is in a position to give that wretched girlie a greatly deserved scolding. About six folk from HK, including us, went along to the hotel shuttle desk to get a ... well, obviously, a shuttle bus to our hotel. We were just approaching, about a foot away, when the phone rings and is answered by the teenage 'girlie' manning the desk. "No mate." she says into the phone. "No more passengers tonight. You may as well go home." and all the while the six of us are lined up right there waiting to pay.
Then she says to us "Sorry mate. Too late. The driver's just left."
"But you could see us standing right here." we all protested.
"Yeah, well, you can always catch a train."
"How? Where's the train from here?"
"Not my problem. Find someone who cares." she says, all Atttitude-plus-plus-plus.
Truly, this is one girlie who is so gleefully rude and inefficient, she really should be working for Philippines Airlines.
But Sydney is lovely and we were out wandering until late at night, visiting cafes and pubs and just having a pleasant time.
DAY TWO:
Did nothing all day. Truly, we were trapped; prisoners of painfully slow internet, freezing rain, Keith's locked-out bank account, and some nasty, stupid, new pre-paid tickets for public transport and such rude and down-right nasty bus drivers who'd order you off buses because you didn't have one and when you'd ask "Where can I get one?" they'd shout so rudely "This is not my problem. Get off my bus."
Public transport is sooo bad, I kept thinking it was like being in a version of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit!" and we what we were actually witnessing was a sinister plan aimed at the destruction of Sydney's entire public transport system.
And please note that Keith was locked out of his bank account. HSBC again! You will recall that when I was having all those problems getting money out in Manila, Keith was exercising his Grumpy-Old-Man-gene and kept yelling at me "This is your fault. HSBC is an international organisation that doesn't make mistakes. You're the one doing something wrong." And then - tee hee - here he is, only a week later, having all kinds of trouble getting money out in Sydney, and also getting told that he had to return to HK to sort out the problem, just like I was. And, yes, I definitely was as mean to him as I could be ...
... although it also does have to be noted that TWICE in a fortnight HSBC has screwed up badly with two different account. Something definitely is afoot there and clearly HSBC needs some massive shakeup BIGTIME or it's going to lose it's wonderful reputation! I know it has with us!
But the nice parts of the day were seeing Keith's sister Janice. We met up on the street and Keith says "Keep an eye out for a blondish woman in a black coat!" and then we both burst out laughing. You have to actually go to Sydney to realise why it was so funny. OK, I'll tell you: just about everyone you see is a blondish woman in a black coat!
And also lovely was The Athenian Greek Restaurant. We were told it has the best saganaki on earth ... and we were told right. A really lovely dinner and such reasonable prices. There was, however, a strange "Moaning Myrtle" in the restaurant's wayyy-out-of-the-way toilets; some crying girl who we couldn't see any place. Most strange.
DAY THREE
Another sad, cold and rainy day, made glorious only by a fabulous lunch in QVB with old friends from childhood, ex-Grammarians Merylne and Joweli. Best fun in ages, talking about Fiji's new opera company and Fiji's first original opera and I was getting so excited because I've always wanted to write a Greek Tragic Opera set in Fiji and in Fijian, and if Fiji's gearing up in that operatic direction I SO WANT TO BE PART OF IT!!!
Have to tell you, that was the best part of our holiday so far; this wonderful lunch, with wonderful wine, wonderful food, wonderful company, and wonderful conversation: I've been teasing everyone saying we were gossiping about them, but really we weren't ... apart from Robert Oliver, our old schoolfriend who has just won 2010's World's Best Cookbook and that win and his book "Me'a Kai" deserved a good 10 minutes discussion-time, didn't it! Apart from that, however, we didn't talk about anyone else, although we did get onto Fiji's couple of long-time unsolved murders and what we knew about them and who we reckoned done 'em!
After that most mellow and pleasant meal, I had an urge to see shops that weren't all cookie-cutter and multi-national, so decided to go out to Paddington for a wander ... only the bus driver screamed at me - literally screamed at me - "You smoke! Get off my bus!" and I wasn't even smoking at the time. After that, I was so taken aback I didn't want anything more to do with the city at all. Truly, those bus drivers are no ambassadors for this city. All this new carrying-on like psychotic evil demons!!! It's a sinister plot to kill Sydney's public transport, I'm telling you.
DAY THREE
Was soooo pleased to leave Sydney. And we're now in Cairns where it's warm and everyone else has gone off to a party but I'm still being bothered by that bout of sciatica I got from standing in that stupid HK queue for a week so I'm just about to waste good holiday time by going to bed early, on the hope that that will shake it.
Hey, do you realise that since that queueing actually caused me Physical Bodily Harm we now have every right to call HK's new quota system CRIMINAL!!!
Anyway, more to come. I do have a lot of little stories I'm leaving out, but ... well, I'm in pain and off to bed so see you later.
Also shocking is that the skies are so blue, and tonight I actually saw the moon. Can't recall the last time I saw a moon in the sky ... but it certainly wasn't anywhere in or around China.
Also shocking, especially considering how blue the skies are, is that I had 'a rainbow swirl' last night down on Pitt Street. Rainbow swirl is the name I've even to these weird 'pollution overloads' that hit suddenly in a wave of nausea and dizziness where everything around just swirls into a mass of colours; they last for about 20 seconds and then vanish. I'd never had one in my life until I arrived in HK, when, from the moment I arrived eight years ago, and for the first week, I kept being wiped out by them. I guess my pure-Fiji-air body wasn't used to the heavy pollution and it took a while to adjust. However I quickly got used to it and my body settled, and ... well, I've really only had the odd rainbow-swirls in Guangzhou and Saigon when the weather is particularly hot, the streets are covered in a petrol haze, and the pollution levels particularly high ...
... and then this one yesterday down in Pitt Street ... at night ... and in the middle of winter. Yup, shocking to me, and probably shocking to you too.
Breakdown of what's happening?
DAY ONE:
Arrived late at night after an uneventful journey ... except for the young man who died and all the cabin crew were trying to pretend he was just asleep but giving the whole show away by acting all kinds of weird and over-wrought. And, in Sydney, trying to shuffle us all quietly off the plane while making panicked calls to the authorities. Talk about sending mixed messages. I think Cathay Pacific needs to do major training in dealing with these sorts of major problems.
Then we got here only to discover that ... well, again, after HK, where the public transport is so sublime, it was just so shonky and third-world how difficult it was to get from the airport to CBD. In the end, it was all so fraught we ended up getting a taxi to find our 4-star award-winning highly praised hotel was also very third-world and shonky.
No, let me tell you what happened in the hope that someone will see this who is in a position to give that wretched girlie a greatly deserved scolding. About six folk from HK, including us, went along to the hotel shuttle desk to get a ... well, obviously, a shuttle bus to our hotel. We were just approaching, about a foot away, when the phone rings and is answered by the teenage 'girlie' manning the desk. "No mate." she says into the phone. "No more passengers tonight. You may as well go home." and all the while the six of us are lined up right there waiting to pay.
Then she says to us "Sorry mate. Too late. The driver's just left."
"But you could see us standing right here." we all protested.
"Yeah, well, you can always catch a train."
"How? Where's the train from here?"
"Not my problem. Find someone who cares." she says, all Atttitude-plus-plus-plus.
Truly, this is one girlie who is so gleefully rude and inefficient, she really should be working for Philippines Airlines.
But Sydney is lovely and we were out wandering until late at night, visiting cafes and pubs and just having a pleasant time.
DAY TWO:
Did nothing all day. Truly, we were trapped; prisoners of painfully slow internet, freezing rain, Keith's locked-out bank account, and some nasty, stupid, new pre-paid tickets for public transport and such rude and down-right nasty bus drivers who'd order you off buses because you didn't have one and when you'd ask "Where can I get one?" they'd shout so rudely "This is not my problem. Get off my bus."
Public transport is sooo bad, I kept thinking it was like being in a version of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit!" and we what we were actually witnessing was a sinister plan aimed at the destruction of Sydney's entire public transport system.
And please note that Keith was locked out of his bank account. HSBC again! You will recall that when I was having all those problems getting money out in Manila, Keith was exercising his Grumpy-Old-Man-gene and kept yelling at me "This is your fault. HSBC is an international organisation that doesn't make mistakes. You're the one doing something wrong." And then - tee hee - here he is, only a week later, having all kinds of trouble getting money out in Sydney, and also getting told that he had to return to HK to sort out the problem, just like I was. And, yes, I definitely was as mean to him as I could be ...
... although it also does have to be noted that TWICE in a fortnight HSBC has screwed up badly with two different account. Something definitely is afoot there and clearly HSBC needs some massive shakeup BIGTIME or it's going to lose it's wonderful reputation! I know it has with us!
But the nice parts of the day were seeing Keith's sister Janice. We met up on the street and Keith says "Keep an eye out for a blondish woman in a black coat!" and then we both burst out laughing. You have to actually go to Sydney to realise why it was so funny. OK, I'll tell you: just about everyone you see is a blondish woman in a black coat!
And also lovely was The Athenian Greek Restaurant. We were told it has the best saganaki on earth ... and we were told right. A really lovely dinner and such reasonable prices. There was, however, a strange "Moaning Myrtle" in the restaurant's wayyy-out-of-the-way toilets; some crying girl who we couldn't see any place. Most strange.
DAY THREE
Another sad, cold and rainy day, made glorious only by a fabulous lunch in QVB with old friends from childhood, ex-Grammarians Merylne and Joweli. Best fun in ages, talking about Fiji's new opera company and Fiji's first original opera and I was getting so excited because I've always wanted to write a Greek Tragic Opera set in Fiji and in Fijian, and if Fiji's gearing up in that operatic direction I SO WANT TO BE PART OF IT!!!
Have to tell you, that was the best part of our holiday so far; this wonderful lunch, with wonderful wine, wonderful food, wonderful company, and wonderful conversation: I've been teasing everyone saying we were gossiping about them, but really we weren't ... apart from Robert Oliver, our old schoolfriend who has just won 2010's World's Best Cookbook and that win and his book "Me'a Kai" deserved a good 10 minutes discussion-time, didn't it! Apart from that, however, we didn't talk about anyone else, although we did get onto Fiji's couple of long-time unsolved murders and what we knew about them and who we reckoned done 'em!
After that most mellow and pleasant meal, I had an urge to see shops that weren't all cookie-cutter and multi-national, so decided to go out to Paddington for a wander ... only the bus driver screamed at me - literally screamed at me - "You smoke! Get off my bus!" and I wasn't even smoking at the time. After that, I was so taken aback I didn't want anything more to do with the city at all. Truly, those bus drivers are no ambassadors for this city. All this new carrying-on like psychotic evil demons!!! It's a sinister plot to kill Sydney's public transport, I'm telling you.
DAY THREE
Was soooo pleased to leave Sydney. And we're now in Cairns where it's warm and everyone else has gone off to a party but I'm still being bothered by that bout of sciatica I got from standing in that stupid HK queue for a week so I'm just about to waste good holiday time by going to bed early, on the hope that that will shake it.
Hey, do you realise that since that queueing actually caused me Physical Bodily Harm we now have every right to call HK's new quota system CRIMINAL!!!
Anyway, more to come. I do have a lot of little stories I'm leaving out, but ... well, I'm in pain and off to bed so see you later.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Off Again!
Off to Sydney this evening. Will be gone six weeks. Not sure when I'll have time to blog - and I certainly won't be showing you photos - but I will try to let you know what's happening if I can find a nice cyber-cafe someplace that doesn't look like it intends to steal my data and post out zillions of "Buy Viagra" and "Nigerian bank accounts" spam in my name.
BTW, did you know I saw that Nigerian guy - the one behind those letters - getting arrested? Yeah, seriously! Happened right in front of me! OK, OK, I just saw him being walked out of the hotel in handcuffs accompanied by over a dozen cops and I had no idea what I'd actually seen until I read about it in SCMP. But how cool is it that I saw him in the flesh after getting all those letters from him for over a decade? Honestly, living in Wan Chai really does put you in the centre of everything!
Anyway, I know I promised to tell you a lot more about Manila, but you'll have to wait for those.
See you soon!
BTW, did you know I saw that Nigerian guy - the one behind those letters - getting arrested? Yeah, seriously! Happened right in front of me! OK, OK, I just saw him being walked out of the hotel in handcuffs accompanied by over a dozen cops and I had no idea what I'd actually seen until I read about it in SCMP. But how cool is it that I saw him in the flesh after getting all those letters from him for over a decade? Honestly, living in Wan Chai really does put you in the centre of everything!
Anyway, I know I promised to tell you a lot more about Manila, but you'll have to wait for those.
See you soon!
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Imelda's Shoes!
Shirl has good advice here: if you too want to see Imelda's shoes, when you get to Marikina City train station in the north of Metro Manila don't ask the taxi driver to take you to "The Shoe Museum on J.P. Rizal Avenue." Since there are THREE J.P. Rizal Avenues lying parallel to each other in Marikina, it is a mix-up begging to happen - and did happen to us so we got terribly lost - so ask instead to be taken to this cathedral ...
... because The Shoe Museum is diagonally across the road:
A sincerely cute 16th century Church.
(This plan falls apart because I've forgotten it's name. "Blessed Conception" is what I have in my head, but don't trust me on that. Ah, just tried to google for it and it could be "Our Lady of The Abandoned" Cathedral, but still don't trust me on that.)
... because The Shoe Museum is diagonally across the road:
The Shoe Museum.
Marikini City is the Shoe Capital of Manila, and here they make shoes for the entire world - their snake skin pairs are especially popular - and we really do have to thank Imelda Marcos for that because it was her support and encouragement that made it so ...
... so when she ran away after the Edsa Uprising, leaving behind 8,000 pairs of shoes, Marikina City kindly offered to give them a respectful home ...
... in a sweet little abandoned 16th century rice storage silo. Nice, huh!
However, 8000 pairs of shoes are just too many for any self-respecting 16th century rice storage silo to handle, so they only ever have 800 on display at any one time, and they rotate them.
From what we saw of the 800 currently on display, Imelda mainly wore Charles Jourdans and the now defunct company Bellami:
Since they were, back in the 80s, about US$300 to US$500 a pair, we were shocked. OK, more than shocked. All those "Imelda-wasn't-so-bad" points accumulated after seeing the restoration work she'd done at Intramuros were immediately wiped out and, on a spot, we began a little "Imelda was a Creep" club.
Have you any idea what 800 pairs of shoes looks like? No, NOT like your local shoe shop. If you actually start counting the pairs they have on display - and I have since seeing this museum - most have between 30 and 50 pairs out there on the racks, and even the largest shoe shops only have about 80. In fact, 800 pairs, when they're in your face, is a shocking number. In fact, so shocking I cannot even start to get my mind around the idea of seeing those 8000 pairs in any one place.
I thought I have a stupid number of shoes but I counted them and I have 28 pairs ... which I have since weeded back out of sheer shame ... although only to 24 pairs because I truly NEED those.
800 pairs!!! Let me show you only a small sample:
As Shirl said "Even six of those pairs could have bought a jeepney for a family, and that would have supported them for their entire life and even put a dozen kids through university."
Yeah, Imelda was a creep. She may have done a great deal of good at restoring Intramuros, but even all those pairs of almost identical black boots alone take her out of the "Great Lady" stratosphere and put her out there as A CREEP!!!
So how could we NOT, after leaving The Shoe Museum, go straight down to the very streets of Edsa where the people gathered in their millions to toss her out!
Oh, and if you, like us, want to select the stupidest pair she owned, here's a range for you to make your decision:
My vote is for that last pair. Ewwww!
... even before she was First Lady,
and was still just your average Beauty Queen.
... so when she ran away after the Edsa Uprising, leaving behind 8,000 pairs of shoes, Marikina City kindly offered to give them a respectful home ...
... a highly respectful home...
... a highly sickly sweet,
sentimentally respectful home...
... in a sweet little abandoned 16th century rice storage silo. Nice, huh!
However, 8000 pairs of shoes are just too many for any self-respecting 16th century rice storage silo to handle, so they only ever have 800 on display at any one time, and they rotate them.
From what we saw of the 800 currently on display, Imelda mainly wore Charles Jourdans and the now defunct company Bellami:
I wouldn't mind these ones!
Since they were, back in the 80s, about US$300 to US$500 a pair, we were shocked. OK, more than shocked. All those "Imelda-wasn't-so-bad" points accumulated after seeing the restoration work she'd done at Intramuros were immediately wiped out and, on a spot, we began a little "Imelda was a Creep" club.
Have you any idea what 800 pairs of shoes looks like? No, NOT like your local shoe shop. If you actually start counting the pairs they have on display - and I have since seeing this museum - most have between 30 and 50 pairs out there on the racks, and even the largest shoe shops only have about 80. In fact, 800 pairs, when they're in your face, is a shocking number. In fact, so shocking I cannot even start to get my mind around the idea of seeing those 8000 pairs in any one place.
I thought I have a stupid number of shoes but I counted them and I have 28 pairs ... which I have since weeded back out of sheer shame ... although only to 24 pairs because I truly NEED those.
800 pairs!!! Let me show you only a small sample:
As Shirl said "Even six of those pairs could have bought a jeepney for a family, and that would have supported them for their entire life and even put a dozen kids through university."
Yeah, Imelda was a creep. She may have done a great deal of good at restoring Intramuros, but even all those pairs of almost identical black boots alone take her out of the "Great Lady" stratosphere and put her out there as A CREEP!!!
So how could we NOT, after leaving The Shoe Museum, go straight down to the very streets of Edsa where the people gathered in their millions to toss her out!
Oh, and if you, like us, want to select the stupidest pair she owned, here's a range for you to make your decision:
My vote is for that last pair. Ewwww!
Days of Lines and Quotas!
I know we're always complaining about Chinese Bureaucracy - which, if you've ever encountered it, you'd also be calling one of Dante's Levels of Hell - but this latest Immigration debacle takes "The Horror, The Horror" up to an entirely new level.
Yes, I know I've promised to tell you lots more about the Manila Jaunt, however for the past week I've been ... well, I've been circling An Entirely New Hell, at HK's Immigration Tower in Wan Chai, trying to get us new visas.
In the past, I know we complained about the process, but it's looking pretty damn good in retrospect since they've now changed all the rules on us:
Ah yes, such nostalgia for all that sauntering in at 2.00 in the afternoon, lining up maybe behind 100 people in order to submit your passport and "request for extension of stay" application, along with 'original and complete' supporting documentation, and then sitting to wait for up to 3 hours for someone to interview you and, like some anal-obsessive school teacher, intensely scan through all the original documents, sifting through everything, looking for the smallest error, to ensure it's in order, before putting all your photocopies - which you have to get ready beforehand too - into the system ... and then waiting a month for an interview wherein you're finally able to find out if you're permitted to stay on in HK.
OK, that's how they did it before, which I'd already done so many times previously, so there I am, on Monday at around 2pm, rocking up to collect the forms. But totally to my surprise, I've walked into crazy-land:
Yup, I have to push my way through a veritable 10,000 to reach the appropriate floor to collect the documents.
Since it's NEVER been like this before, "What's happening?" I ask everyone. "It's the new quota system!" I'm told by Ryan who mentions he was actually there in a 10,000 crowd on Friday, when it took him seven full hours to submit his request for an extension.
Quotas? OK! Right! I take on board that obviously one can no longer arrive at 2pm, so on Tuesday I turn up at 11 am, lugging the required huge and heavy bag of documents, only to find:
After three hours in line, I finally reach the front only to be told I'm wayyyy too late for a quota number so to try again the next day.
Wednesday, again lugging the very heavy bag, I rock up at 8.15 am to find:
After waiting two hours, I'm told I'm too late again. Quota is full. Try again the next day.
Thursday, I arrive at 7.15 am:
Again not a hope in hell, but this time, after only an hour of waiting in line, a kindly Son of Gurkha guard tells me that the quota is full BEFORE I wait the entire two hours to reach the front.
I'm literally in pain, BTW, with the most brutal spasms in my shoulder from lugging that heavy bag, and my jaw aches from clenching my teeth, trying to not lose it ... and then the sciatic pain sets in all down the right side of my body, and I think I've earned myself a zillion "Keith-owes-me" points since it's his visa I'm after too, but instead he's downright furious with me! "You're doing this! This is all your fault!" he says and so, yeah, yeah, we have a big fight.
"How early do I have to be there to get on the quota?" I say at dinner Thursday night.
"I leave for work at 6.15 am." says Fortuna, who lives right next to the Immigration Tower, "and already the line is thousands deep."
So, Friday morning at 5.50 am, unshowered and wearing yesterday's clothes, still lugging that damn stupid bag made even heavier with a thermos of tea - no time for breakfast - but brimmed with clench-jawed determination to beat this, I arrive at Immigration Tower only to discover:
Kill! Kill! Kill! 179 people ahead of me! I know because I count them! But then I notice that most of them are Filipinas and I'm overjoyed because they usually are processed on a different floor ...
... with their own Quota system which means they're not in competition with me for a spot on the 5th Floor Quota! Yayyyyy!!!!
And so, after only three hours in one queue after another, each queue on a different floor, and, on the second floor being drilled by cute-as-pie red-beret-ed Sons of Gurkhas into proper techniques of queuing - two abreast, keep those lines straight, face front, and a loud "psst!" coupled with an angry hand gesture when I ask the woman in front of me if she'd finished with her newspaper - and always in the most intense and excruciating sciatic pain, I'm finally allowed in to line up on the 5th Floor.
Finally, the Holy Grail!
But, stupidly, I line up behind the five folks already there not realising that there are different queues for different people AND I'M IN THE WRONG ONE!!
And I don't notice until about two entire minutes later by which time ...
... 18 people have lined up ahead of me in The Right Queue! Kill! Kill! Kill!
And despite there only being 18 people ahead, for the first half hour, the counters aren't manned, and when they finally are, the process was so painfully slow that when that poor fellow with the highly inappropriate handbag immediately ahead of me nipped off for what was obviously an emergency toilet break, tried to get back into his spot in the line, there was a massive outcry from everyone behind me. He was told by everyone to go back to the end of the by-now thousands-deep queue behind us.
Thank heavens for that handbag because if it weren't for that I never would have recognised him again, so when the poor honey looked like he was about to burst out crying - which I totally understood because I would have cried too - I say "No, no. I know him. He's in front of me." and I pull him back into the line. Oooh, many disgruntled grunts from behind but that's OK by me! Whatever!
Finally, I'm at the front of the queue and a very nice Son of Gurkha guard gives me TWO red quota tickets - two since I'm processing two applications - and I am finally permitted to hand over everything. Yayyyyy!!! In the system AND with a light bag! Amazing how such little things can make you feel BLESSED! Plus I finally get to sit down in the interview waiting room. NICE!
But it isn't over. First off, after only 10 minutes sitting, and expecting it will be at least an hour before my interview number comes up, I decide to nip out for breakfast and a smoke, and I stand up to go ... but just happen to glance at the number board and I notice my quota number is up there: Ahhhhhh! If I hadn't spotted it, or if it had come up even a minute later, I'd have missed my spot and would have to do the whole thing over again!!!
But I do notice and feel so deeply and doubly blessed ...
... until, at the interview, the anal-obsessive interviewer notices that the supporting letter accompanying Keith's contract isn't dated. Seriously, Mrs Yau - she of the obsessive-compulsive 'get it right' 'do it again and again and again until it's flawless' bent - has forgotten to date the letter. "I can't let this go through!" says the lady-officer! "You'll have to come back on Monday."
Jesus wept!
I did too!
"I can't do this again." I cry. "Every day for one whole week, I've been in here - every single day - trying to get a quota number. I am in the most intense sciatic pain from one whole week of these ridiculous queues."
The nice lady-officer looks very sympathetic. "Sciatic pain?" she says.
Perhaps she's also a fellow sufferer because she softened on me "OK, just this once I'll let it through, provided you bring the letter done again and properly when you come for your interview next month!"
And that was it! Finally ... FREEDOM!!! FREEDOM!!! FREEDOM!!! And, after an entire week of sheer and unadulterated horror, I'm out of there so fast.
"Why is it now like this?" I ask at Yum Cha today!
"China is getting more hands-on in how HK is run." "China now owns America so China now finds it funny to screw over foreigners in every way possible." "China is taking over from the so-British way of doing things by hitting everything with a very large CRAZY stick!!" "Everything we're now having is go through - all these lines and quotas - is simply China's way of demanding retribution for The Opium Wars!"
And, I regret to say, that new Quota System is so downright awful, I'm more than willing to accept this theory! Mainland China is now in control and the old system, which seemed so dire back then, has now been injected with a very large dose of CRAZY! If you're after a visa yourself, expect it!
Yes, I know I've promised to tell you lots more about the Manila Jaunt, however for the past week I've been ... well, I've been circling An Entirely New Hell, at HK's Immigration Tower in Wan Chai, trying to get us new visas.
In the past, I know we complained about the process, but it's looking pretty damn good in retrospect since they've now changed all the rules on us:
Ah yes, such nostalgia for all that sauntering in at 2.00 in the afternoon, lining up maybe behind 100 people in order to submit your passport and "request for extension of stay" application, along with 'original and complete' supporting documentation, and then sitting to wait for up to 3 hours for someone to interview you and, like some anal-obsessive school teacher, intensely scan through all the original documents, sifting through everything, looking for the smallest error, to ensure it's in order, before putting all your photocopies - which you have to get ready beforehand too - into the system ... and then waiting a month for an interview wherein you're finally able to find out if you're permitted to stay on in HK.
OK, that's how they did it before, which I'd already done so many times previously, so there I am, on Monday at around 2pm, rocking up to collect the forms. But totally to my surprise, I've walked into crazy-land:
Yup, I have to push my way through a veritable 10,000 to reach the appropriate floor to collect the documents.
Since it's NEVER been like this before, "What's happening?" I ask everyone. "It's the new quota system!" I'm told by Ryan who mentions he was actually there in a 10,000 crowd on Friday, when it took him seven full hours to submit his request for an extension.
Quotas? OK! Right! I take on board that obviously one can no longer arrive at 2pm, so on Tuesday I turn up at 11 am, lugging the required huge and heavy bag of documents, only to find:
After three hours in line, I finally reach the front only to be told I'm wayyyy too late for a quota number so to try again the next day.
Wednesday, again lugging the very heavy bag, I rock up at 8.15 am to find:
After waiting two hours, I'm told I'm too late again. Quota is full. Try again the next day.
Thursday, I arrive at 7.15 am:
Again not a hope in hell, but this time, after only an hour of waiting in line, a kindly Son of Gurkha guard tells me that the quota is full BEFORE I wait the entire two hours to reach the front.
I'm literally in pain, BTW, with the most brutal spasms in my shoulder from lugging that heavy bag, and my jaw aches from clenching my teeth, trying to not lose it ... and then the sciatic pain sets in all down the right side of my body, and I think I've earned myself a zillion "Keith-owes-me" points since it's his visa I'm after too, but instead he's downright furious with me! "You're doing this! This is all your fault!" he says and so, yeah, yeah, we have a big fight.
"How early do I have to be there to get on the quota?" I say at dinner Thursday night.
"I leave for work at 6.15 am." says Fortuna, who lives right next to the Immigration Tower, "and already the line is thousands deep."
So, Friday morning at 5.50 am, unshowered and wearing yesterday's clothes, still lugging that damn stupid bag made even heavier with a thermos of tea - no time for breakfast - but brimmed with clench-jawed determination to beat this, I arrive at Immigration Tower only to discover:
Kill! Kill! Kill! 179 people ahead of me! I know because I count them! But then I notice that most of them are Filipinas and I'm overjoyed because they usually are processed on a different floor ...
The Filipina Floor!
... with their own Quota system which means they're not in competition with me for a spot on the 5th Floor Quota! Yayyyyy!!!!
And so, after only three hours in one queue after another, each queue on a different floor, and, on the second floor being drilled by cute-as-pie red-beret-ed Sons of Gurkhas into proper techniques of queuing - two abreast, keep those lines straight, face front, and a loud "psst!" coupled with an angry hand gesture when I ask the woman in front of me if she'd finished with her newspaper - and always in the most intense and excruciating sciatic pain, I'm finally allowed in to line up on the 5th Floor.
Finally, the Holy Grail!
But, stupidly, I line up behind the five folks already there not realising that there are different queues for different people AND I'M IN THE WRONG ONE!!
And I don't notice until about two entire minutes later by which time ...
... 18 people have lined up ahead of me in The Right Queue! Kill! Kill! Kill!
And despite there only being 18 people ahead, for the first half hour, the counters aren't manned, and when they finally are, the process was so painfully slow that when that poor fellow with the highly inappropriate handbag immediately ahead of me nipped off for what was obviously an emergency toilet break, tried to get back into his spot in the line, there was a massive outcry from everyone behind me. He was told by everyone to go back to the end of the by-now thousands-deep queue behind us.
Thank heavens for that handbag because if it weren't for that I never would have recognised him again, so when the poor honey looked like he was about to burst out crying - which I totally understood because I would have cried too - I say "No, no. I know him. He's in front of me." and I pull him back into the line. Oooh, many disgruntled grunts from behind but that's OK by me! Whatever!
Finally, I'm at the front of the queue and a very nice Son of Gurkha guard gives me TWO red quota tickets - two since I'm processing two applications - and I am finally permitted to hand over everything. Yayyyyy!!! In the system AND with a light bag! Amazing how such little things can make you feel BLESSED! Plus I finally get to sit down in the interview waiting room. NICE!
Particularly nice since
I get the last available chair and, within minutes,
the interview room is standing room only.
But it isn't over. First off, after only 10 minutes sitting, and expecting it will be at least an hour before my interview number comes up, I decide to nip out for breakfast and a smoke, and I stand up to go ... but just happen to glance at the number board and I notice my quota number is up there: Ahhhhhh! If I hadn't spotted it, or if it had come up even a minute later, I'd have missed my spot and would have to do the whole thing over again!!!
But I do notice and feel so deeply and doubly blessed ...
... until, at the interview, the anal-obsessive interviewer notices that the supporting letter accompanying Keith's contract isn't dated. Seriously, Mrs Yau - she of the obsessive-compulsive 'get it right' 'do it again and again and again until it's flawless' bent - has forgotten to date the letter. "I can't let this go through!" says the lady-officer! "You'll have to come back on Monday."
Jesus wept!
I did too!
"I can't do this again." I cry. "Every day for one whole week, I've been in here - every single day - trying to get a quota number. I am in the most intense sciatic pain from one whole week of these ridiculous queues."
The nice lady-officer looks very sympathetic. "Sciatic pain?" she says.
Perhaps she's also a fellow sufferer because she softened on me "OK, just this once I'll let it through, provided you bring the letter done again and properly when you come for your interview next month!"
And that was it! Finally ... FREEDOM!!! FREEDOM!!! FREEDOM!!! And, after an entire week of sheer and unadulterated horror, I'm out of there so fast.
"Why is it now like this?" I ask at Yum Cha today!
"China!" everyone decides.
"China is getting more hands-on in how HK is run." "China now owns America so China now finds it funny to screw over foreigners in every way possible." "China is taking over from the so-British way of doing things by hitting everything with a very large CRAZY stick!!" "Everything we're now having is go through - all these lines and quotas - is simply China's way of demanding retribution for The Opium Wars!"
And, I regret to say, that new Quota System is so downright awful, I'm more than willing to accept this theory! Mainland China is now in control and the old system, which seemed so dire back then, has now been injected with a very large dose of CRAZY! If you're after a visa yourself, expect it!
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Thought you'd love this, Lady R.
Do intend to blog the rest of our Manila adventures and will come back to it only currently very busy, and only got five minutes to drop by to pass on an exciting titbit to Lady R.
Sweetness, you recall Sandii and the Sunsetz? If you don't ...
You know how annoying you find it that it always turns out that every single thing on earth has a Fiji-connection? Well, Chris from Fiji used to be flatmates with Kenni, the long-haired guitarist in Sandii and the Sunsetz ... so once again ... GO FIJI!!!
And Chris says that Sandii these days is running a hula dancing studio in Tokyo, and Kenni owns a bar in Shimoda, which he says is "a cool resort town to visit if you ever have some spare time in Japan"!
Sweetness, you recall Sandii and the Sunsetz? If you don't ...
You know how annoying you find it that it always turns out that every single thing on earth has a Fiji-connection? Well, Chris from Fiji used to be flatmates with Kenni, the long-haired guitarist in Sandii and the Sunsetz ... so once again ... GO FIJI!!!
And Chris says that Sandii these days is running a hula dancing studio in Tokyo, and Kenni owns a bar in Shimoda, which he says is "a cool resort town to visit if you ever have some spare time in Japan"!
Friday, July 1, 2011
The Day of the Angry Men!
It's after 8.30 at night and it's getting bigger and louder by the moment. I wish I spoke Cantonese because I have no idea what's happening, but it sounds big and angry and it's into the 7th hour.
It's been going on all afternoon, this harangued anger, right outside our window.
Enormous thunderous drums and loud shouts of "Wa Wa! Come down sex ay! See ya! Ho ho! Putsch off joy, you know us now! Joy day! Guessing dow ah!" - which I'm paraphrasing and so am absolutely sure doesn't mean at all what it sounds like, crowding out the final stragglers of the Democracy Marchers.
Hours and hours of angry shouts of "Ding dong, boss ay eh!" "Pig and choice!" "Ah eh day-do!" "Jump mus a hossiar." "Sum down, sexy!" "Gum, gum, gum. Sexy!" "Onion! Onion! Onion!"
Mmmm, yes, it's been a long long day indeed!
And it looks like it's going to also be a long, long night!
Out our window.
Right this moment!
It's been going on all afternoon, this harangued anger, right outside our window.
Early this afternoon!
It's the 8th Anniversary of the day nearly half a million of us took to the streets to protest the introduction of Article 23 becoming law, and has evolved into an annual Democracy Demand March Day ...
Democracy Marchers!
... which has also evolved a "We Love Beijing" counter-protest ...
The Opposition!
... and it's this latter one I'm sure that's going on below us right now; the "Don't you DARE Dis Beijing!" soap-boxing!
Hours and hours of angry shouts of "Ding dong, boss ay eh!" "Pig and choice!" "Ah eh day-do!" "Jump mus a hossiar." "Sum down, sexy!" "Gum, gum, gum. Sexy!" "Onion! Onion! Onion!"
Mmmm, yes, it's been a long long day indeed!
And it looks like it's going to also be a long, long night!
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