Inspired by my trip to Paris, I decided I want to start making my own bread. I was thinking that one of those electronic bread makers would be the way to go. I looked at several sites, including Amazon, and came away with the opinion that a Japanese brand called Zojirushi is the Cadillac of bread bakers.

Zojirushi does have an HK web site – and all they have on that site is rice cookers and water bottles. Undeterred, I went to Sogo in CWB and went to the Zojirushi section, where sure enough, all they had were rice cookers and water bottles. In the general appliance section, they had two bread bakers – Kenwood and “Princess,” whatever tf that is.

Next, the National shop in Wanchai, since Panasonic’s bread makers seem well regarded. Nope, no bread makers. They suggest I try Fortress. Now that’s interesting. So they’re saying if I want to bake my own bread and not give my money to Li Ka-Shing’s Park ‘n Slop, I can buy a bread maker – from Li Ka-Shing.

I can mail order from Amazon (but will probably need to add on a voltage converter, and it’s a 700 watt unit that will run for hours, which means a big momma converter) or wait for my next trip to Tokyo (but no English instruction manual, I’m sure). Or roll my own, since my flat has an oven – electric, but then again, the bread makers are all electric. I can’t go to Olivers or City Super every time I need some dough, can I? There’s GREAT food hall in Pacific Place – oh, that’s Li Ka-Shing too. Great.

To me it just says that HKers are not interested in good bread.

Another food thing on my mind is this quote from that article on Gordon Ramsay that I linked to a few days ago. It so perfectly describes the eating habits of so many Brits I know.

The simple good ingredients were there: why weren’t people using them? Why did they seek out the substandard, the industrial, and the unhealthy: prawn cocktail crisps, say, or fish fingers with Birds Eye peas (a “traditional” Sunday supper), or a “spag bol,” that horrific canned imitation of a classic Bolognese pasta?

The implicit complaint—that the English don’t care what they put in their mouths—was evident in how it got there: by scooping up most of what was on your plate and eating it in one bite. Using your knife, you crushed what you could onto the back of your fork, one item after the other, your starches (like that perennial favorite chips and mash), your green-gray veg, a modest protein, calculatedly overcooked, unless it was fish, in which case it was just outright obliterated, and then—bang!—into the mouth, fork upside down.

“I really don’t know what English food is,” Ramsay told me. “Spotted dick? Toad-in-the-hole? Curry is the national dish, and people still fry Mars bars for dinner.”

Noted on both Download Squad and Gadling. Go to Google Maps, select Get Directions, enter start address in the U.S. and end address in Europe. You get driving directions to Boston, followed by the instruction “Swim across the Atlantic Ocean (3,462 mi)” and then driving directions from Le Havre to your destination. See step 27 in this set of directions from Paris, Texas to Paris, France.

Yesterday an extremely painful massage from an extremely strong woman got my back almost back into shape. This morning an extremely annoying email from T got me all bent out of shape again.

Got a very annoying email also from some travel web site operator, who told me that if I placed a link to his commercial web site, he would place a link to mine. I should drive traffic to his site in return for a link? When I didn’t respond to his email after a week, he sent another email warning me that my link was about to be removed from his site. GFYS.

Music I’ve been listening to the past coupla weeks: new albums from Bebel Gilberto, Beirut, Besnard Lakes, Dexys (well, an album of radio sessions and outtakes), Drive By Truckers, Duke Special, Fall Out Boy, The Good The Bad & The Queen, Hours, Kings of Leon, LCD Soundsystem, Modest Mouse, Neil Young (Live at Massey Hall 1971), Of Montreal, Metheny Mehldau (Quartet), Ry Cooder, Timbaland, Van Der Graaf Generator, Wilco.

How many of the above will reside on the iPod after another month is still open to question. Have already deleted Air’s Pocket Symphony, but Arcade Fire is gonna be on there for some time to come.

For me, the biggest surprise in the above batch would have to be Kings of Leon. I never really got their appeal in the past but the extended opening track (Knocked Up) on the new album (Because of the Times) is a definite keeper.

Normally I wouldn’t comment on reviews written by other local reviewers. Everyone can make mistakes from time to time, and Buddha knows I make enough for an army of Pitchfork writers. But I was really stumped by the review of the latest Modest Mouse (We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank) in the current issue of HK Magazine. Their reviewer gives it a poor review, says that “their time has passed,” and somehow completely fails to mention that Johnny Marr is now a full time member of the group.

While sales is of course no relation to quality, the fact that this album debuted on the Billboard charts in the US at number 1 (and it’s their first number 1 album in a long career) likely says that their time has not quite passed yet. I think I prefer the review over at A.V. Club where they say, “another terrific set from a band that couldn’t make something dull even if drowning were the only other option.”

Seen on a wall in Mumbai. They love him the whole world over.

I’ve been in fairly constant pain since returning from Mumbai. Actually, that’s not true, some of it started while in Paris, joined by other aches since getting home. I’ve got a variety of pills which are doing an intermittent job on all this. I know it needs to run its course and within a few days things should be back to what is normal for me. As Mr. Petty sang, the waiting is the hardest part.

Last night, pain be damned, I decided to hit the bars for the first time since returning home. The first few hours were spent in Laguna, which started out empty, picked up around 8 or so, and started emptying out after 10. I really shouldn’t be drinking with what I’m taking, but I kept the number of drinks low. Nevertheless, the combination led to some probably erratic choices.

Around 10, went over to Neptune. With the 7s about to start, by 11 PM it was the most crowded I’d ever seen (at least since the last 7s). Even though I managed to find a place to stand by the bar, with a friend I hadn’t seen in many months, I had people leaning into me from all sides – some I didn’t mind, some not so much.

The place continued to fill up and both the alcohol and painkillers wore off at about the same time. After standing on my feet for an hour and a half, even walking was a chore. I had one nervous moment but eventually made it into a taxi and home before midnight.

I was up before 5 AM and actually got dressed and thought about going out again. My back had other ideas, so I’ve just been sitting in front of the PC doing a little bit of work and a big bit of nothing.

Anyway, here are some photos from Mumbai. This is all suburban stuff, far away from the city center. These shots were all taken from a speeding car (well, as fast as he could go in that traffic) and with the windows closed (protection from noise, heat and dust). I suppose one could say that they present a very negative, one-sided view of the place but this is what we were seeing every day.

Watching the DVD for “This Film Is Not Yet Rated,” there was a trailer for a documentary called Cowboy del Amour. 72% at Rotten Tomatoes.

Apparently it’s the story of a 60 year old guy in New Mexico who fixes up American men with Mexican wives. Qualifications for the wives include being younger than 38 and weighing less than 130 pounds. Qualifications for men? The ability to pay the $3,000 fee. He’s been doing this for 15 years and apparently quite successful.

Quote from one of the satisfied customers in the film – “I had me an American wife for 17 years. She spoke perfect English. I never did understand a single thing she said.”

Now, while some of you may choose not to believe this, I’m not one of those men who thinks “Caucasian women bad, Asian women good.” Having to deal with both a Caucasian ex-wife and an Asian ex-wife, well ….

But different people see things in different ways. And I think that’s really well illustrated by quotes from different reviews of the same film:

The Los Angeles Times said: It gently sheds light on the ways in which people seek new terrain in love when their familiar surroundings let them down.

Andrew Sarris says: one of the sweetest, funniest and most enjoyable nonfiction films you are likely to see this year.

And yet, The New York Post said: you don’t need to be a Harvard-educated psychiatrist to realize that the bunch of them are dirty old men who treat women as commodities.

Who’s right and who’s wrong? Probably all of them (I haven’t seen the movie yet).

As far as “This Film is Not Yet Rated,” if this is the sort of thing you care about, the movie will seriously piss you off. Everyone else will tune out long before it’s over.

As far as treating women like commodities, believe it or not, I haven’t had a night out in the three days I’ve been back. Not from lack of desire, mind you, just other things.

Have been feeling a bit ambivalent about blogging the past couple of days but I suspect that’s just a combination of malaise and jetlag. Have not offloaded the Mumbai pics from the camera yet; haven’t done much of anything.

My flight out of Mumbai was scheduled for 5:20 AM Sunday morning. This means staying up all night, leaving the hotel at 3 AM, and then almost literally fighting one’s way through the airport.

Even at 3 AM, there are hordes of people outside the airport trying to help you with your luggage – not to rip you off (well, probably some) but for tips. This is their “job.” Some even have phony ID tags around their necks to make them look official.

The worst part was the security check right before the gate. There were two lines for three gates and at 4:30 AM both lines stretched all the way back through the terminal. As our flight time was approaching, a CX representative came and gathered all of the people for the flight still online and brought us to the head of the line. Once there, an armed soldier refused to let us jump the line. He started yelling at the CX guy. I figured this was happening because this is the only time in his life that the guy gets to show some semblance of authority and he was gonna use it! What is both sad and amusing is that I suspect this is a nightly occurrence. And sure enough, eventually someone else came and talked to that soldier and we were allowed to pass.

Since it was a short haul flight (4 hours to Bangkok), the plane was not equipped with the kind of business class seats that go relatively flat. With all the hubbub around the meal service, I was finally able to grab two hours of sleep before being woken for the Bangkok landing.

An hour and a half on the ground – and we’re not allowed to leave the plane. Two and a half hours to HK, couldn’t sleep at all.

So on Saturday night, such as it was, a total of two hours sleep. Sunday, I was asleep by 7 PM and up at 2 AM. Monday I was asleep by 6 PM and awake by 1 AM. This is not a good thing. At this rate it will take me a week to get back in the time zone, even though the last time zone I visited was just 2-1/2 hours off.

I contemplated going out to the bars. As a matter of fact, it’s 3:15 AM now and I’m thinking about hitting a bar. Not so much for female companionship as for a few drinks to knock me out and let me have a few unconscious hours while it’s still dark out. And a massage wouldn’t hurt (especially because right now my back does hurt).

Yeah, I know. Bitch bitch bitch. Moan moan moan. Whine whine whine.

Incidentally, my mother has never gone to Paris because she doesn’t like the way the French treat Israel. I have never gone to Israel because I don’t like the way the Jews treat Palestinians. But I’ve gone to China – I suppose the difference is that in China they treat everyone bad regardless of race or creed?

This is a brilliant article by Bill Buford about Gordon Ramsay. He coaxes a fairly shocking revelation out of Ramsay. Does one really need to be that evil to attain success?

Here is a piece by Frank Bruni explaining why you shouldn’t eat out on Mondays. It’s similar to something Bourdain wrote, though Bruni seems okay with dining out on Friday and Saturday nights. I’ve often wondered how true this is in Asia … at least for the so-called fine dining establishments. God knows I’d never go to a sushi place on a Sunday but is a Saturday okay?

Here’s an article in Travel+Leisure on their selection of the best new restaurants of 2007. It includes two in HK: Pierre at the Mandarin Oriental (dinner for 2 US$260) and Lung King Heen at the Four Seasons (lunch for 2 US$100). Interesting how even an article like this manages to be political:

Still, not even the astounding desserts (try the “passion du citron,” composed of multicolored lemon Jell-O sticks, meringue, and limoncello) can diminish the heartbreak of peering out at the harbor and seeing the ghost of the old Star Ferry terminal, a beloved city landmark now shut down (and relocated) by the callous city authorities. So much for progress.

Yes, I’m thinking about food because I haven’t eaten anything since lunch.

And, yes, the recent “election” has been much on my mind. I always tell myself that it doesn’t matter to =me= because even if this was a democracy, I wouldn’t be able to vote (though I would in theory have that, if it’s available, in another 17 months or so). I’ve said it before – the incompetencies and lunacies of the HK government, so inept that it seems almost a basic requirement for service, pale next to the utter disgust I feel for those people currently in charge of the US and As. In a low IQ contest, it’s not clear if Bush or Tsang would win. Watching Tsang on TV, dripping in sweat, pretending that he won something other than a boot-licking contest, I am filled with revulsion. But here in HK, they demolish a ferry terminal; they destroy cultural icons; our lives are debased but at least they go on. They lie but they don’t torture or kill.

Today is one of those days when, during my conscious moments, I’ve had this internal debate on why I remain in HK, why I don’t go somewhere else. And the answer is, for all my issues with HK, I still can’t think of any place else I’d rather be.

But then again, there’s a whole lotta places I ain’t been to yet.

create your own visited countries map

4:15 AM now. Should I get to the Bridge bar early or should I watch the last episode of Rome?

I am so fucking tired today.

As mentioned, our Friday started off with our hosts driving us off to Film City, the 300 acre location where many Bollywood films are shot. It’s the Indian equivalent of Cinecitta. We thought we’d be seeing some soundstages or production facilities.

Instead we were taken to a new enclave on the lot, a film school that was established about a year ago, and were taken on a tour of that facility and shown a short film about its short history. And we suspect our hosts weren’t given the full story as to our background, as I think they were simply told the name of our company and not our positions within said company. The end of the two hour “tour” was a bit embarassing for both sides.

Our meetings finished up around 6 PM and we crawled through the insane traffic, reaching the hotel around 8. I just went up to my room and instantly fell asleep. Woke up around 10 when my friends called to see if I wanted dinner. After dinner, the plan was to kill time in the hotel’s disco until my co-workers had to leave for the airport. But I went back to my room, again instantly asleep.

So now it’s Saturday. My flight is at 5:20 AM on Sunday morning, for fuck’s sake. I don’t feel like walking around the city; I’ve done that before. I don’t feel like going shopping; my bags are completely full and probably overweight already. I’m not a sit-by-the-pool person; especially on my own. So that means I’m basically going to sit in my room for the next 12 hours, some reading, watching TV, being brain dead, till it’s time to head to the airport. Yes, travel is so glamorous.

In the meantime, some other Paris photos. Some Mumbai photos in the next post, probably.

The window of the Paul patisserie on Champs D’Elysees. Yes, everything tasted as good as it looked.

The Arc De Triomphe. Several jokes come to mind, about how they only have one, haven’t built another in a long time, etc, etc …

These are some of the only naked women I’ve seen in the past three weeks. (Others included works of art in the Louvre and pictures in girlie magazines that I flipped through in the CDG airport.)

Apparently Stephen Colbert is really big in France. They have statues of him everywhere. This is from his younger hippy days.

This is a very bad boy. He didn’t finish all his wine with his breakfast. So now he has to stand in this glass box all day while school children throw pastries at him.

If my mastery of the French language is correct, this is the Parliamentary Assembly of the Phony French. (Sorry, I did say I was tired.)

How fitting that on the corner of a street called “Rue Du Dragon” there’s a shop selling Asian fashions. (Get the pun? Fashions, fitting? Ahahahahaha.)(I’m so tired.)

The famous cafe Les Deux Magots, which in English translates as The Two Maggots, I think. (I did say I was tired, right?) Apparently it used to be called The Frog and Peach. In the 1930s, Jean Paul Sartre and Moe Howard of the 3 Stooges used to sit there all day. Moe would smack Jean Paul in the face with pies and Jean Paul would cry and ask, “what does this mean?” Every morning the staff would see them coming down the street, Jean Paul poking Moe in the eyes, and they’d say, “oh my god, here come those two maggots again.” When Moe moved from Paris to Hollywood to make surrealistic documentaries about class struggle, Jean Paul pined away from loneliness. The bar was renamed for these two titans of modern thought.

(Please, no one needs to comment that magots in French really means dime store Indians or tse tse flies. I’m very happy with my interpretation.)

P.S. #1 – On looking at this post, one of the “targeted ads” appearing alongside is a job site saying that 4,000 Indians are needed for jobs in Paris. Spooky.

P.S. #2 – I know I have at least one or two French readers from time to time. No offense meant! Just jokes! Je t’aime! Moi non plus!

Paris photos, part 1.

The real tourist attraction, outside Notre Dame:

Oi! It’s da Mona Lisas! Honey, where’s my telescope?

Venus de Buttcrack

So the reason I’m in Mumbai is that my company is outsourcing a fair amount of its IT support to an Indian company. Five of us have arrived to get an on-site status update and show support for the more-than-50 working on our behalf.

Yesterday, after a 10 hour workday, we had some of the most amazing tandoori I’d ever had. The lamb just fell off the bone it was so tender and the king prawns were to die for. The place had a huge, glassed-in kitchen. I pressed against the glass to watch the cooks working away. They all gave thumbs up on my “I do all my own stunts” t-shirt. The evening went rapidly downhill after that as my fellow travelers and I set out in search of some entertainment.

We went to Juhu Beach, checked out the JW Marriott, where the disco is only open to couples and hotel guests. The two other bars there were dead. Someone recommended a nearby spot called Rockbottom and, yes, it was hitting Rockbottom. Perhaps a dozen people in the place. We were promised it would get busy later. It took about 10 minutes for a pimp to hit on me but I didn’t like what he had on offer. My friends left after another 30 minutes but I stayed behind. I spotted one girl standing by herself and went over to talk with her. She said she was a sculptress. I asked if she was famous and she said several of her pieces had been purchased by Bollywood stars. When her drink ran out and I offered to buy her another one, she refused. At this point, we were almost the only people left there, so I took the cue and left myself.

Jumped into one of those tuk-tuk rickshaws, speeding through the streets, me standing up on the side of it, yelling and barking at people on the street. My friends meanwhile had been taken to the kind of dance club that’s supposed to be illegal here now. They described it as “weird.”

Back to our hotel, to the hotel disco, which was busy. And strange. I wasn’t allowed to go onto the dancefloor, “no stag allowed.” One friend hit on every woman in the bar and got shot down each time. Finally around 2 AM, savagely drunk, I asked the bartender if all the women there were normal or if any were working. “Well, yes, most of them will go to work in the morning.” “But are any working NOW?” “Some – but you’ll have to work that out for yourself.”

At three, the lights came on and the music stopped. A security guard came up and asked me to leave. I insisted I was going to be the last person out of there. Two other guards joined him, one with biceps bigger than my head. “There’s too many stairs, carry me out!” They looked around nervously and whatever rational part of my head was left told me there was no reason to give these guys such a hard time and I left.

So I got back to my room at 3:15 AM but I was wide awake at 7. I don’t get hangovers but I was pretty wretched during today’s 10 hour streak of meetings.

Tonight was dinner at the compound where the CEO’s office is located. The DJ was cranking out Bollywood hits and it took just seconds for the entire group to be dancing on the lawn. Mostly men with men, women with women. I told them if they wanted me to dance they had to ask the DJ to play Chaiya Chaiya, and it felt like he came up with a 20 minute remix version. But I got out there, balls to the wall. Most of the questions that I got from the group were of the how do you like India, how do you like Indian food, have you seen Indian movies variety, and a few people curious about the course of my career.

Following dinner, straight back to the hotel, right to sleep, but up again after an hour and having a hard time getting back to sleep, hence this extended post.

Tomorrow morning we’ll be getting a tour of Mumbai’s Film City, the studio where most of the Bollywood films are shot, followed by another six hours of meetings.

Saturday I’m on my own, though one of the guys has tentatively offered to take me around for the day. I might have scared him off by telling that what I most want to find is a tattoo shop – some India ink might be nice.

For now, gonna try to get back to sleep.

Sunday night, did not go to Pigalle or anything like that. Walked around a bit along Concorde, no idea why, it was dead there. Finally about 10 PM found the Metro and went back to Odeon. Came out of the train and it started pouring. Ducked into a cafe and had onion soup, beef bourgignon, half bottle of boreaux, amazing bread, and by the time I finished the rain had stopped and I walked back to the hotel. The waiter spoke good English and told me that he’d lived in Korea for a few months – “no good bread, no good croissants!”

Monday morning, metro to Arc De Triomphe. Then walked down Champs D’Elysees. Passed this wonderful looking bakery called “Paul” and stopped in for a croissant. By the time I hit FDR boulevard I was hungry and discovered a cafe in the same Paul chain, so had a sandwich on the most amazing baguette and a chocolate tart.

Refreshed, kept on walking, down to the Grand Palais, across the Seine to the Assemblee National, then down Boulevard St Germain and finally back to my hotel. I think it’s the most walking I’ve done in 2 years.

The nice thing about the trip is that I leave wanting more, which I think is always the best way to leave. I’ll come back, hopefully with better weather, more time to spend in the museums and checking out shops.

I want to write more about Paris, the look and feel of the city. Perhaps once I get home I’ll upload some photos and put some thoughts down. One thing that struck me was how they have not filled up the central city with high rises or new developments or massive amounts of neon advertising. I know this is probably the result of zoning laws yet it also seems to say, “we built it right already, no need to redo it,” and just makes Hong Kong seem the poorer. Yes, I know, HK does not have 1,000 years of history and centuries-old buildings to preserve. But they’re not preserving anything for future generations either.

Another thing is how the entire stretch of the Seine in the central city is all given over to public access – parks, piers, places to walk, sit, enjoy. Monuments, statues, gardens, art everywhere. It’s beyond nice.

I found the Paris Metro initially a bit more daunting than mass transit in other cities – it took me almost a day to understand how the lines were labelled and numbered, how to get from place to place. My two day Metro pass was a great investment. But then again, my morning marathon walk was great, seeing the city at surface level instead of underground, seeing how different areas connected, watching people, tourists and locals.

Lastly, the famous snobbery of Parisians was not evident to me at all. Perhaps because I tried speaking what little French I know and remained unfailingly polite, people were polite and helpful to me. I think a big part of it is something that’s second nature to me by now – when I travel somewhere, I don’t expect it to be like where I came from. I keep my eyes and ears open, observe the local style, and try to do things the same way. I showed respect to everyone and was treated with respect.

The flight from London to Paris was delayed and then we circled over London for 15 minutes before landing. The flight to India was delayed by an hour, something about a problem de-icing the wings. And on arrival in Mumbai, we had to circle for half an hour because the airport was “busy” and they were doing “work” on one of the runways. So all in all, an hour and a half late. Turns out there were two other people from my company on the flight but didn’t discover this until after landing.

I have a free afternoon and going to spend it by the pool. Tonight if we go out I’ve got the names of several bars in Bandar to check out. Tomorrow back to work – 3 days of 12 hour sessions coming up. I have a column due for BC and no idea what to write about yet. I have a free day here on Saturday, then my return flight leaves at 5:20 AM Sunday morning. The flight stops in Bangkok and I would love to get off the plane and spend several days there, but I’m already anxious to be home.

I fully expect that Sunday night I’ll be in Wanchai.

Until then, the internet connection at this hotel is seriously slow, 128 kbps, really only suitable for email. I’m a week behind in reading blogs and not really expecting much to happen the rest of the week worth blogging about.

But after being bored and feeling crappy in both New York and Los Angeles, and expecting more of the same in Mumbai, being in Paris for the first time was even better than I expected, and it’s yet another trip that will remain with me for a long time.

Started this morning at the Eiffel Tower. Cold and raining, the winds were howling on the top floor. Between the ticket and elevator queues, it probably took me an hour to get up there. Fog meant that visibility was limited and so I didn’t stay long, but it took me another half hour to get downstairs.

A hot dog (on a crusty baguette) and a hot chocolate for warmth, then a slow boatride down the Seine till I reached Notre Dame. Walked around there then gradually walked to the Louvre, stopping along the way in an inviting looking bistro for a croque monsieur and a brief chance to rest my legs.

By the time I made it to the Louvre, my legs were already about to give out. An hour of walking around was all I could manage. I watched the throngs gathering around the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, but I was too tired to view much more.

Resting now. Perhaps tonight I will try to experience the sleaze of Pigalle. Or maybe just stay nearby for dinner and an early night? Tomorrow I believe I will go to the Arc D’Triomphe and the Champs d’Elysees before I have to head to India.

Perhaps I’ll upload some snaps later in the week.