Revamp

This blog will undergo some form of

Reconstruction.

Stay tuned!

Where I'm flying from

It has been quite difficult getting direct flights to Hong Kong on a shoestring, student budget. There's a reduced rate for students for Cathay Pacific flights at a Chinese travel agency on Euston Road as you would walk towards King's Cross from Euston Rail Station. British Airways shares the same premium price range as CX, but I'm glad that BA doesn't reduce its baggage inclusions.

For alternative routes and competitive ticket prices back to Hong Kong from London, visit Zuji.

In the end, I chose a direct flight back to Hong Kong via the amazing Branson tech-and-music machine!

High Tea Elsewhere...

...Hong Kong next summer?

Have a Happy Christmas, everyone!

Higher Consciousness

A few nights ago, a children's choir from Uganda sang their hearts out at the new theatre at Discovery College in DBay, Lantau Island. The choir is composed of orphaned children who live in a kibbutz-type foster-parenting, leadership-training and learning community called WATOTO. Should you wish to support a child and help an African community of learners, click this link.

In June, the Wan Chai district will be hosting two major wellness-practice conferences. Click on the appropriate links below:

a. The Asia Yoga Conference

b. The Asia Consciousness Festival

For arts aficionados, the following nation-orientated festivals are up and coming as well:

a. Le French May

b. The Italian Month in Hong Kong

c. The Philippine Arts Festival

Hong Kong has its surprising share of life-changing events. Soak it up late in spring and for the rest of the summer!

Ladies, lift that face!

This season's global recession can bring the doom and gloom to our faces. Yet, Hong Kong is a resilient city, and many a new job-seeker has remained optimistic about the future by putting on one's biz suit and heading out to one's favourite cafe to hang out and....erm, look for a [IMPORTANT: LEAD TO] a job.

But the ladies will have to spend a little more time flushing their cheeks and pouting their lips. 

NEWSFLASH! It looks like NARS will be having another make-up tutorial at Lane Crawford, so sign up when you can. If you want to join a group that's got its finger on the fashionista recessionista events in Hong Kong, joing Sassy Hong Kong. For more ladies' gatherings, there's The Helena May, and for those who like to strut their stuff, sing and dance, join the Kassia Women's Choir.

But here are my favourite make-up brands. Some membership packages cost nothing at all when you sign up AND include a free make-up session for formal gatherings and noteworthy events.

1. Shiseido - Membership here comes with one free make-up session, unless the terms have changed.

2. Shu Uemura - No one in this city does your brows as well as Shu.

3. Bobbi Brown - I love the earthy shades on my skin. I look like I'm wearing nothing on my lips, but I get that properly enhanced pout we women put on before dinner. Visit Elements or Lane Crawford.

4. Lancome - Go to the Harvey Nicks branch; I found the perfect RED that suits me there.

5. Clarins - Not for the face, but for the form....if you know what I mean. 

And whenever you feel like mixing and matching shades and brands, there's always the one-stop cosmetics shop all over Hong Kong! SASA!

Buffet for Nomads

Imagine a hole in the wall diner reminiscent of SM Megamall's MR SHOOLI but with sheepskin seats and friendly staff refilling your drinks.

The place is NOMADS, a Mongolian Barbecue diner in Kowloon. 55 Kimberley Road (kim ba lay toh). Highly recommended for the diner's light, thin-crust pizzas and their delicious Asian grub bowls...all suited to the customer's taste because the customer is in charge of preparing it!

Click this link and then click on 'Kowloon' and 'NOMADS'.

Measure for Measure: 'We are all frail.'

I must keep this line in mind. Funny while Angelo and Isabella were quibbling away at the blocking of Act II, Sc 4, I couldn't stop thinking of how the line really meant.

WOMEN ARE FRAIL. FULL STOP.

It echoes Hamlet: 'Frailty, thy name is Woman.' Shakespeare had just written and staged _Hamlet_ a few years before moving to Silver Street where, in 1604, he wrote _Measure for Measure_.

Angelo later says, 'Nay, women are frail, too.' We'll see about that.

Visit Measure for Measure's LCSD webpage. 

Hotlines: 2111 5999 and 2734 9009. 

Tickets at URBTIX w.e.f. WED, 25 Feb 2009.

Only ugly women hate Madonna

My friend Tanya is going to keep that line for posterity.

After my summer stint at LAMDA, I travelled all the way north to the end of the Nordland Railway, to a town called Bodo. There I met a widow who busied her weekends singing at a choir and reading the liturgy every Sunday at St. Eystein's Katolisk Skole. I heard her sing Schubert's "Ave Maria," and her voice soared. After which, the organist proceeded to play Bach's Prelude in C Major.

The point is this: I hadn't been to church in a few months, mainly because I had grown tired of the way people handled (no pun on HANDEL intended) the music. I wanted something solemn, more ethereal than the usual guitar-strumming...and that woman made my visit to Bodo meaningful.

She even offered to take me around the town while her best friend, my aunt, attended to her patients at the local Sykehause laboratory. At the end of our walk, she made me the best Apfelkuchen mit Slagroom (combined German and Dutch there) I have ever had in my life.

And then I saw a picture of her late husband on the mantle. She talked about him fondly, telling me that it had been more than two years now since his passing. And then I, with some guilt, thought of my marriage--and what little time we seem to have left--and wondered what the widowed years would be like...and dreaded the time.

She seemed to handle her new singlehood with such grace, poise and character - as though nothing ever fazed her, but clearly, she loved her husband dearly: and hers was the countenance I would like to have, should I be (touch wood) in the same situation...heaven forbid not at all too soon.

I wanted to do her a favour, because her life in Bodo has given me an insight into the next phase of my dance with my B together--in spirit and through the after-life. Hers was a quiet, simple life made of the simple joys of entertaining friends at home, solemn private prayer on most days and communal prayer on Sundays, and the hope of having dinner with a nice man in the future, though she wasn't actively seeking company.

So I taught her how to put on make-up, the kind that didn't clash with one's skin tone or made a woman look desperate for a nocturnal companion. We drove over to the local mall, the GlasHaus, and bought something from Rimmel and L'Oreal. We steered clear of Maybelline because the colours were too bright. Subtlety was the order of the afternoon.

This lady stepped out of my hotel room with a pair of big shades on her hair, a shawl that acted as a summer accent, wide-leg trousers, a thick belt to accent her waist, and her red blouse one button down. Her face glowed in peach coral, her eyes were wide and blended with cerulean eye-liner over dusty rose on her lid and mother of pearl near her brow. She had on some raspberry lipstick covered with shiny lip gloss in pearly pink. All in all, the result was one to her liking. And my aunt's, too.

And my favourite widow in Europe remarked, with her cheeky sense of humour: 'O, ayan Ge--. Puwede na tayong kumanta ng "Like a Virgin" sa simbahan'.

Awesome Tennis Next Door

In the other SAR, there's going to be an awesome exhibition match in November. Roger Federer and Pete Sampras will go head to head at the Venetian Macao on November 24, 2007 at 2 pm.

To those who haven't booked tickets yet, well, tough! They're ALL SOLD OUT--and yes, this soon!

I just got off the phone with a sales lady at the Venetian Macao, and she said that all tickets were gone by Friday, August 18th.

I smell scalpers, just like the Tennis Masters Series in Shanghai, 2004. The stadium was half-full, but there were lots of people hawking hundreds of tickets outdoors. Luckily, I managed to score a couple of full season tickets.

Big School

In South Lantau, one can find Lantau International School, a charity of the HK Jockey Club that uses the British National Curriculum.

My daughter starts school there on September 3rd. She'll be dressed in St. Patrick green.

High Tea, Seriously

Look no further! The Peninsula High Tea at the Lobby is the place to wander around for that old colonial charm. However, if you want a more affordable spread try the Lobby Lounge at the Conrad.