Hello Kitty

Sunday, 11:00
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It's Sunday morning and I feel like I have been run over by a bus - staying awake for 36 hours is hard work. I've had 9 hours sleep but it's sleep that is normally during my daytime... It's 11am but it feels like 11pm.

Here's an account of the last two days:
Given my week of unprecidented unluckiness (heating breaking, bike tyre exploding, etc etc) I was slightly worried about the mechanical functioning of the plane's engines, but the journey went without a hitch. Film selection was crap, and the only thing I wanted to see was 'Barnyard', some animation about a cow in a, er, barnyard, but of course, that was the only channel that didn't work on my screen so I was forced to watch 'Scoop', which was pants and comes highly unrecommended.

Tried to sleep under the can-this-contain-any-more-static-blanket, with my scarf wrapped round my head to shut out the light (yeah, I looked like a nutter but so what? It's better than waking up with the shape of the eye mask imrpinted into your face innit?) but the bloke behind me was snoring like a pig and I was then forced to put on my super-noise reducing headphones to drown out the sound lest I reach over and stab him with my fork. I didn't sleep for a second but felt remarkably ok by the time I arrived.

On the plane, I managed to eat the a la carte food and had a very civilised meal of smoked salmon followed by prawn risotto followed by cheese and port. However, by breakfast time, the minions had cottoned onto the fact I was an imposter to the world of mainstream meals and that I should have been given the substandard vegetarian meal that I had ordered. Instead of the breakfast I had been expected, I was given the most repulsive thing I have eaten in a long time: lukewarm semolina with grapefruit segments. To top it off, instead of the strawberry yoghurt I was expecting, I got a SOYA DESSERT. Would someone PLEASE inform the head of catering at KLM that just because you do not eat meat, it does not mean that you are a VEGAN? aaargh.

Landing at Honk Kong was a bit precarious: you fly in over the ocean and between the mountains. But all went without a hitch. The airport is very clean and spacious. Luckily our hotel is actually in the airport so I didn't have a long commute. Although Nick has a 747 parked outside his window, and I have a view of the runway that would have a plane spotter chewing off my arm to see, you cannot hear a thing. The triple glazing is about 30 centimeters thick.

My room has the biggest bed I've EVER seen. It's wider than it is long and I can lie comfortably on it horizontally. There's easily room for 4 people comfortably, er, if you're into that sort of thing. I have a huge flat screen TV and a control panel by the bed that controls the lights and airco. There's a clock that shows you local time and the time all over the world too. Even the 'please make up room' sign is electronic. All very James Bondy. There's a nice view into HK city, apparently, but all I can see is the murky shadows of massive mountains and tower blocks shrouded in fog/smog/mist, which hasn't really cleared since I've been here. There's bad weather heading our way say those who know, but it's 22 degrees and breezy: quite lovely. You have to wrap up warm when you go inside though, because it's air conditioned to arctic temperatures.

After I'd resisted the urge to curl up the crisp white sheets (oh, oh, oh, that bed was beckoning me to crawl into it's warm and comfy folds) Nick and I decided to take a look at our booth in the EXPO before they shut it down for the security sweep. The EXPO is massive. HUGE - and that's just our hall: one of 12. Our cute understated little booth is sandwiched between huge glitzy, shiny, neon booths, most with two levels and some with three and elevators! Some seriously expensive structures here, mostly vendors and countries* offering their wares with huge screens and massive sound systems. We are opposite the Egypt booth (they have blenders - I hope they are giving away free cocktails!) and close to the 'Invest Holland' booth; (a huge orange strucure that looks like a bar aaah, you gotta love the Dutch!)

*The Russia booth is MASSIVE, easily the largest square meterage of them all in our hall. Note to self: do not eat the free sushi in this booth ;)

We wandered around for a bit and then got the train onto Kowloon island. By this time, sleep deprivation/lack of food was starting to take it's toll and I was finding everything hilariously funny and becoming a bit hysterical. We found a tiny local eating establishment, with only locals inside, and braved it. I ended up with chicken broth with tofu and pak choi, not really what I expected. But, this vegetarian was so dazed and hungry by this point that she'd convinced herself that squeezing all the excess liquid out of the tofu meant that she'd consumed no chicken whatsoever. Laughed my ass off at the cutest translation of the menu (I had been led to believe that, as a former British colony, almost everyone was pretty much fluent in English. Not so!). The two menus we had had been translated by two different people; on one menu, your choice of soup was discribed thus:
"Soup spice: little, medium, burning, very burning, non spicy.' On the other menu, it was "soup: hot, very hot, medium hot, super hot, without hot". I was so taken by the translation, I even wrote it down.

After that, Nick went off to find a tailor and I decided to hit [one of] the malls. Oh. My. God. You do not know malls, or shopping, until you have experienced this. It took me two hours to get round one floor of the 'Ocean Center' mall on Canton Road - and that was without going into *any* of the shops (except some little confectionary shop that lured me in with all the 'Hello Kitty' MIAOW sweeties and chocs and gum that I just had to buy. There I purchased the nicest crisps I've EVER eaten and proceeded to scoff them while making my rounds. I'm not sure, but perhaps stuffing your face in public 'isn't done' here: I was getting very odd looks and, now I think about it, I actually havent seen anybody eating on the street. Hmmmm!) There was an ecclectic mix at the mall and I found it hilarious that the Vivienne Westwood shop was located nextdoor to the FILA shop.

Anyway, it's sale time and the shops were PACKED. Everytime you walk into a store, someone shouts "HELLO WELCOME" at you as loud as they can. The first time I was like, 'Why, how kind, thank you very much, let me part with my hard earned cash in here because you have been so polite, dear girl.' Thirty-seventh time, I thought, 'hmmm, heard that before...'. I honestly didn't find anything I liked and I didn't buy anything. There's a few old familiar faces here (Zara, Mango, GAP etc.) but I can buy that in Amsterdam: I want unusual! Unfortunately, stacked heels and mock Elizabethan ruffles don't do it for me.

After a few hours of dazed perusing, I decide that I am just going to go to the restaurant where I was to meet Nick, Megan, Susan and Nate and his girlfriend for dinner. I am an hour early but I simply cannot move anymore and need to sit down. The streets are packed and if I get one more 'hand-made-fake-rolex-madam?' whispered in my ear, I think I might vomit. So I sit myself down in a lovely comfy chair, with a fab view over Nathan Road (sort of HK's Times Square) with my bookje and a Tequila Sunrise. Three time. Three times I woke myself up with my own snoring before the others arrived.

I really do not know how I got through dinner, especially when Megan and Susan proceeded to show me the fifty thousand, or there abouts, 'genuine' prada/gucci/chanel bags they'd just bought from some random illegal sweatshop. By 22:00, I was practically rocking back and forth like a mental patient and hoping that a freak meteorite would strike: anything to get some sleep. So I went back to the hotel and slept as if I was in a coma (well, I did wake up once, at about 2am, thinking what the F is that flashing green light on the ceiling, the aliens, the aliens, they must have come, and why, oh why, are there tiny green glowing lights by my bed. But, after a moment, I soon realised that it was only the smoke alarm and the 'control panel' by the bed and went back to the land of nod.)

Sunday, 22:30
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Off we went to the booth after breakfast to continue setting up: packing the meeting packs and getting things ready for tomorrow. We went to the supermarket to stock our fridge with supplies for the coming week. There I purchased the funniest, most HILARIOUS thing I have EVER seen in my life: a pack of 14 'disposable panties' for 2 EUROS. OH the hilarity. Unfortunatley, I forgot the camera and my phone is not playing nice and won't let me e-mail the pic I took, but anyway, maybe it's my sick sense of humour, but I absolutely HAD to have these things for the comedy value. There were huge aquariums full of massive 'pick yer own for dinner' fish at the supermarket too. Poor fish :(

Off to bed now as jet lag is catching up on me.