Kleng Meedercher, Risen Iddien

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su68w4QZinM

My co-clerk and I watched this together. I think his reaction is just the sort of thing that deserves to be in print: "it's our fault you know, dropping a nuclear bomb on them like that. Addled their brains, but then again they brought it, we just ended it."

Not really sure if I should even offer a response, but here goes --

I'll raise your creepy exercise girls with this personified liver:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=natcuMuw7Uk

or if you prefer the classics, Victor Borge is always nice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgQ9qosWtmY

or perhaps this, for a more accurate view of what can be expected from large & frightening gaijin men:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AE847UXu3Q

I left Hong Kong at 11:40 on Saturday morning - I arrived in Chicago at 11:49. Somehow in those nine minutes I experienced the most painful fifteen hours of my life.

Donna and I celebrated our last day in Hong Kong by indulging in two activities which I usually end up regretting for one reason or another: shopping and drinking (not at the same time - that is the worst combination and once resulted in the purchase of a gucci bag in lieu of non-convent food for a month). Hong Kong has amazing shopping, and not just the cheapo-markety-designer rip off kind one always hears about. The malls...oh the malls...they go on forever. There was a mall attached to our hotel. It contained two eight story express elevators. It was that tall. Sister ... have you visited "Sogo" the wonderful Japanese paradise that I encountered? This place was ten stories of Saks, Macy, Best Buy and Whole Foods all rolled into one. Awesome and regretful as only the best things can be.

Hong Kong also has some fabulous nightlife - if for no other reason than the amazing people watching. It occurs (primarily, I think) on a strip called "Lan Kwai Fong." Oh the people watching...oh the 80/20 male female ratio...oh the terrifyingly incomprehensible versions of english which abound...oh the alarming number of prostitutes... oh the decision that my future husband will never go to hong kong without me...

Oh the (six) lychee martinis (gin of course) ... oh how the word lychee is still making me feel slightly ill. Sometimes I forget that drinks are never free, even if one does not actually pay for them. The flight home was not fun.

The end.

I love Hong Kong. This feeling has slowly evolved from Friday, when I truly did not love anything about it. My antipathy towards Hong Kong began on Friday when the hotel shuttle left the airport without us, and no one let us know that it was here, had left, or that it was probably silly for us to continue to stand by the door with all our bags. The hotel staff thought it was much more helpful to stand and laugh at us. I was very angry, and stared angrily at anyone who I suspected was employed by either Langham Place or Chep Lok airport.

Hong Kong almost redeemed itself in my eyes when we arrived at a restaurant overlooking the harbour. The bartender made me a delicious and potent rose pepper gimlet (gin). I was happy.

This happiness lasted only a short time, as I soon realized that I was not going to be a huge fan of cantonese cuisine. There is no reason to eat an egg which has been aged for 100 years, or which is old enough that the proprietor can pretend it has been. Similarly, I see no benefit in eating a birds nest, a shark fin or any sort of dish that bills itself as containing a fetus. Anyone who has spent any amount of time with me knows that I get cranky when I am presented with a menu devoid of anything I will enjoy. My happiness further decreased when three cabs refused to take us to our hotel for no discernable reason.

Luckily, Hong Kong redeemed itself the next day and is no longer the subject of my ire. More on that later.