Ablutions: Absinthe

ok frenchy food in a chinatown neighbourhood.... difficult to find, but not bad for s'pore....

Ablutions: oso ristaronte

so so (read good) chef who is willing to make an effort with good value food...... in chinatown singapore.

Ablutions.... Singapore

Why is singapore so full of Japs and racists.......

Daily Ablutions: Golf

Why do Koreans, men and women, but women especially, play better golf than the average person.........lol.....

Daily Ablutions

We are all gifted, with only so much time in life.... How we use it, determines our wisdom.... lol.... (I made this up..., really!)

Observations about HKG

These are of course generalizations, however, they are certainly topical!

1) The working class here (and there are very few... about 200k out of 8m people) add very little value, if any, to a process or piece of work. They are great at taking something from A to B and do it very efficiently. But they do not add value in the process resulting in not quite very effective end results..... Have always thought that people are very efficient here but not very effective in HK. This is the element that is very obvious and stands out.....

2) The 10% service charge in restaurants goes to the restaurant, not the service staff. This is almost a travesty and is very common when wait staff are asked..... Generally i add another 10% on the bill for 'tips', (to ensure prompt service...lol), but with so many restaurants in HK and abundance of labour, it is most unlikely that one will go to the same restaurant twice...

And with prices as high as they are in HKG to eat out, unless one has a discount card of some sort, HK is not the foodie's heaven as it would like to be characterized as such ..... A good steak by canadian standards is $700 plus the 10% and this is before anything on it... like Mortons, etc.... so that's C$100... (I can get the same thing in Toronto for c$40!).

I will add more of these brief observations... and expand if I have more time....

Work and Play in Hong Kong

HK is ok. It is expensive. Up to 3 - 6 times more than Ottawa/Toronto. Rents are the high end, but food is the low end (ie, 3x). U can get anything u want in HK, but it costs. Sure there are the lower classes and they live cheaply, but very poorly. And, then health care, insurance.... generally it is impossible to get by without a job (read middle class right away....). And that is difficult, if not impossible here because of the chinese language barrier (like french); and the type of work available. No bus driver, waiter, bartender type jobs as they have no real minimal wage and lots of cheap labour, including 'illegal', but tolerated by govt., immigrants.

Middle class really, other than 'professional' jobs, are mainly sales, bankers and expat imports...; govt requires fluent chinese.... universities n colleges teaching, (there are 6 now vs 2.5 in the 60's) requires PhDs; and HK has money, so only the best survive.....; then there are the wealthy, who support the economy, (with the middle class minimally), of the guest workers and lower classes.... (eg, a cab or bus driver is lower class here.... as are clerks, secretaries and restaurant workers.... and just about everyone else who cannot 'flaunt' their wealth and existence.... )

so if one has no 'income tax paying job', then one is not middle class and if one has no money, then one is not upper class. And the lower classes live in bunks beds, in dormitories, without toilets.. etc... Doctors are consider middle class, as are other professionals.... Lots of money is old wealth, there is very little noveau riche or the north american success stories.....

(the only hope was to 'become a mandarin' .... as they used to say in the olden days... about how to get out of the hole of the lower class.... brilliance.... and luck.)

The population is officially 7 mil, unofficially 15 mil; salaried professionals and bankers are only 100 to 200k (taxpayers), so... u go figure the numbers....; of the official 7m, approx half are lower class!... so u know how many rich guys in the upper class there are....

that's why things are expensive and food and living expenses are very high.....

and oh yes, transport costs are also high... nobody walks here because of the pollution... so cabs and minivans are popular... and then there is the subway, 'which, is efficient.. but not effective' ...

which just about describes HKG......

besides this... people use cell phones differently, live in high rises, which is so extreme, from a lake cottage with outdoor toilets...; their idea of vacation, is... around every holiday, to extend it by a day or two.. and fly away to some resort..... it's like a drive out to cottage, only the cottage is called 'Banyan Tree Resorts' and costs US$300 a night, where you sit by your own personal pool, have a personal chef and maid and do nothing but sulk about lost luggage... about half way to the Saudis during heir prime oil money days....lol....

Dubai has a 7 out of 5 star hotel... so u figure....lol...

hedonistic? to the extreme!!! and the psychological makeup of its inhabitants..... the same....