Tickets go on sale today for the Hong Kong International Film Festival.  There are many films listed that I’m not familiar with and need to research further.  From those I know or know of, some recommendations:

• A Better Tomorrow – essential film from John Woo starring Chow Yun-fat
• A Serious Man – The Coen Brothers’ brilliant musings about understanding the un-understandable
• Bright Star – from director Jane Campion
• Double Take – the premise is fascinating – using existing footage of Hitchcock to cast him as the lead in a new spy thriller
• Enter the Dragon, Fist of Fury, The Big Boss, The Game of Death, The Kid, The Way of the Dragon – Bruce Lee.  Even if you have these on DVD, you might want to see them on a big screen.  (Bruce was just 10 years old when he did The Kid.)
• Enter the Void – From the director of Irreversible, this looks to be equally shocking
• Metropolis – the seminal science fiction film, newly restored in 2008.
• Micmacs – latest film from the director of Amelie
• Tetro – recent film from Francis Ford Coppola said to mark a return to his early indie style of filmmaking
• The Dust of Time – Bruno Ganz, Willem Dafoe and Michel Piccoli in the same film?  How could it not be interesting?
• The Ghost Writer – Roman Polanski’s latest film, already a critically acclaimed festival winner
• The Killer Inside Me – director Michael Winterbottom and actor Casey Affleck should make an interesting team
• The Red Shoes – The greatest film about dance ever made.  One of the greatest films ever made.  Newly restored.
• Yatterman – the latest from Miike Takashi

There are so many films from so many countries.  Most I haven’t heard of but the descriptions make many of them tempting.  It’s a shame that most of these will only screen in Hong Kong just once, that DVDs will not be easily obtainable, and that we don’t have a repertory cinema dedicated to showing this sort of stuff year round.

Which ones do you recommend?  Which ones are you planning to see?

For our last full day in Manila, we were pretty tired from the previous day and stayed relatively close to the hotel, just a bit of shopping malls and shopping.

In Landmark, I almost fell for a tiny scam.  My gf is busy trying on shoes, I’m off in another section and this guy comes up to me.  He tells me he’s the security guard from my hotel and has held the door open for me which is why he recognized me.   At this point I probably should have said, “I don’t recognize you, what hotel are you referring to?”  Because it’s not a big stretch of the imagination to see a white guy standing there and guess that he’s a tourist.  The guy goes on to tell me that he’s there with his family to celebrate his daughter’s birthday.  I didn’t see any sign of him being with anyone else but Filipinos are open and friendly and always striking up conversations with each other and I figured this was more the same.  So I pretended to be interested and asked a question or two.  And then he said, “Oh, by the way sir, can I have some tips from you to buy my daughter ice cream for her birthday?”   At that point I started to reach for my pocket.  I thought I’d give the guy 10 or 20 pesos to get rid of him.  But before my hand made it to my pocket, he added, “Chocolate cake costs just 374 pesos, sir.”  I didn’t say “fuck off” at this point but I told him to get lost.

Dinner time, I suggested that we walk over to Greenbelt 5 “Phase 2″ and check out the new restaurants, especially the ones with outdoor seating.  We passed this amazing looking bread shop.

I thought about trying a restaurant called Lorenzo’s Way.  Their menu gathers favorite dishes from other LJC restaurants, but since we’d eaten at Abe the night before, I thought this would be overkill.

Eventually we settled on a place called Tapella – nice looking spot with comfortable seats.

I have no idea who “Gaudi” is.   I ordered four different dishes and two glasses of wine.  I was very pleased that our waitress was able to explain the menu to us and seemed to know her way around the wine list.  We were relatively happy with the wine we chose.  After that, things went slowly down hill.

The Spanish cold cuts plate was okay.

Everything tasted nice enough, but I kept thinking back to a similar plate at Uno Mas.  Uno Mas drizzles a bit of olive oil over the meat, puts some olives on the plate and gives you enough toasted bread for 3 platters.  Here the plate was relatively plain with just those four tiny pieces of bread (though it was nice bread).

We were told that their absolute best seller was melted Camembert cheese with caramelized onions so I figured we should try that.

Again, the bread was really nice.  The onions almost completely over-powered the cheese, not that there was much cheese there to begin with.  And honestly, isn’t that the saddest looking plate you’ve ever seen?  That one teeny bit of parsley?

The salad with tuna and “assorted vegetables.”

A thimble-full of bland dressing.  And a smidge of diced beet and cucumber – I’m guessing less than a slice of each.

Finally, Moroccan chicken skewers.

Almost completely lacking in any sort of spice.  Once again, a sad bit of parsley and nothing resembling any sort of sauce or dip.

I certainly wasn’t expecting an authentic tapas experience here but was expecting tastier food, especially at that price and in this kind of setting.  (The meal came out to around 1200 pesos.)   Maybe their paellas are better but I don’t expect I’ll be going back there to find out.

We paid the bill and walked over to Greenbelt 2.  The weather was quite pleasant and we were in the mood to sit outside for awhile longer and have another drink or two.  We chose Spicy Fingers, the busiest place on the stretch, since we know a couple of the owners and one of them was there to greet us.  Inside the bar, this band was playing an energetic set.

I quickly found the limitations of a SanDisk III CF card.  Shooting on continuous, the camera kept pausing noticeably each time the buffer filled, writing the images to the card.  I could have saved some time by switching from RAW+JPEG to just JPEG but, well, I prefer RAW.  Obviously this week I’ll be investing in a faster CF card (or two).

After midnight, we went over to Greenbelt 3 and Cafe Havana, packed as always.

Here’s a couple of bonus “spy cam” shots.  My gf liked this girl’s shoes:

And a different angle on one of the singers from the band at Spicy.

For our last day, time for a bit more walking around and lunch before heading to the airport.  I spotted this limited edition Victorinox Manny Pacquiao watch.

Limited edition, just 1000 pieces (or so we were told) selling for around US$500.  It also came with a boxing glove with his “autograph.”  This is the second edition and I just didn’t like the watch enough to blow that kind of money on it.  Home now, I can see what the first edition looks like – I would have been a lot more tempted on this one (which I see is going for US$550-750 on eBay).

Alain Ducasse, recipient of nine Michelin stars, is in Manila for two days.  The newspapers are filled with interviews and details of his visit.  The best quote can be found here.

Learn the craft perfectly. Remain curious. Work more, faster, better. Or be a hairdresser.

Just some quick & dirty snaps from yesterday.

The view of Makati from our hotel room.

Greenbelt 3:

Greenbelt 3

View at night from our room:

Cafe Havana at Greenbelt 3 is still a very popular night spot in Makati.

The chapel in the park at Greenbelt:

I’m intrigued by this Japanese restaurant in Greenbelt 5.  Love the name (get it?) and the look of the place.

Gelato goodness at Greenbelt 5:

The free jazz concert on Wednesday night.  Every seat was taken.

Greenbelt 3 with the sign for our hotel looming behind:

Nikon D700 as a spy cam – ISO 6400, 50mm lens at f/1.4, 1/60th of a second, cropped roughly 50%.  No flash, auto focus assist light turned off … this could be dangerous!

For me, no trip to Manila is complete without a dinner at Abé, the Capampangan style restaurant from the LJC group at Serendra at Fort Bonifacio.  I get to eat some of my favorite food in the Philippines and then follow with a visit to Manila’s largest bookstore (Fully Booked) and a walk along Bonifacio High Street.

Exterior of the restaurant – clearly this is the most popular restaurant in Serendra, with the most outdoor seating and the only restaurant tonight where one had to wait for a table.

The theme of the restaurant is a tribute to local Filipino writers and artists.  They are shown throughout the restaurant and many of the dishes on the menu are presented as favorites of specific writers, complete with quotes from them about the food.

And now, our food, starting with green mango and bagoong salad.

Bagoong is a variety of shrimp paste and the salty, slightly sweet taste contrasted amazingly well with the very sour mango.

This is the dish I always return for, crispy tadyang.

Deep fried beef ribs, crispy exterior and tender interior, seasoned I think with just salt and pepper, good quality beef, I could live on this.

Gambas al ajillo, prawns with garlic and virgin olive oil.

I get this one almost every time I visit here.  Like most of the dishes, simple presentation but excellent ingredients well prepared equals satisfying food.

And finally, the piece de resistance for the night, lechon cubano.

Actually, after we ordered this, we were told they were already sold out for the night.  My gf called over the manager to check and he told the waitress to “find one more” – perhaps they reserve some portions of this each night for “special guests?”

Regardless, my gf pronounced this the best lechon she’s ever had in her life.  I’m no expert on this dish but I found it fabulous, just simple food perfectly prepared.  The manager gave me his card and mobile number and said next time we come, be sure to call him and he’d reserve both a table and the dish for us.

All of the above, plus two fresh mango shakes, came out to P1750, roughly HK$300.  And the simple fact is that to the best of my knowledge, there is no restaurant in Hong Kong serving this kind of food that even begins to approach the quality that you get here.

We were up this morning at 6 AM so that we could get to the Asian Hospital and Medical Center by 7:30.  At 7 in the morning, traffic in Manila was light enough for us to be able to get from Makati to Alabang in about 20 minutes.

The hospital is 8 years old and actually looked newer.  There are signs all over that they are about to commence their second expansion phase, building a new 12 story building.  Our taxi driver told us that, much like Bumrungrad, locals consider this to be one of the most expensive hospitals in town.

The hospital is not as luxurious as Bumrungrad, which many have said resembles a five star hotel.  No McDonald or Starbucks here, but there was a Mr. Donut, a Delifrance, a different coffee shop chain, flower shop, magazine stand and cafeteria, plus a Mercury Drugs and Quik-Stop across the street.  When we were finished and it was time to go, there were no taxis to be seen anywhere but the hospital reception desk was happy to call a taxi service for us.  As mentioned, we arrived before 7:30 AM and both of us were finished with all tests by 2:30.

(I compare my experience here with Bumrungrad in Bangkok because that’s where I’ve gone for my annual physical for the past several years and because Bumrungrad is a part-owner of this facility and has some sort of management or consultative role in how things are run here.  The overall cost is such that compared to doing this in Hong Kong, it’s cheaper to fly here and stay in a nice hotel and get it done rather than stay home and do this there – at least using private hospitals and doctors.)

During our time there, the executive health center seemed almost deserted, the reason being that they only accept a maximum of 12 appointments per day and we represented two of the only four appointments they had today.  The result is that we got a lot of attention and never had to wait too long for any of the procedures on the list. It does not seem as if they are receiving many medical tourists yet.  Each of the hospital staff that I met asked me how long I’d been living in the Philippines and “where in the Philippines” I lived.  Everyone of course spoke fluent English though several of the nurses asked if I could speak Tagalog.  The staff were all friendly and helpful.  Like Bumrungrad, the experience is 180 degrees different from that of going to a hospital in the US – far less stressful.

There were at least two tests here that I hadn’t had before – a bone density scan and a virtual colonoscopy.  However, I couldn’t do the latter because they want patients to certain preparations starting three days before and I couldn’t find some of them in Hong Kong.  I still had to pay the whole package price but was told that I could come back at any time in the next six months and take the test for free.  I bought those things I’d need now so I’ll be ready for the next time.

I would estimate that the doctor spent roughly twice as much time reviewing the results of my tests with me as the doctor at Bumrungrad.   I also spent about 20 minutes with a nutritionist reviewing recommendations – though a part of that time was spent discussing a computer crash she’d had the night before!

My girlfriend also underwent a full check-up, something she’d never done before so many of the tests were new to her.  She hadn’t really wanted to do this; her attitude is that you only see a doctor when you know something is wrong and she didn’t want to know if anything was wrong.  But I joked with her that if she was going to go with me anyway, if she didn’t get the tests done for herself then the staff was going to look cross-eyed at me (“What a selfish guy!  Takes care of himself but doesn’t take care of his wife!”) and maybe purposely screw up my results.  Joking of course, but she had alluded to certain potential health issues so I thought it was important to get more details and hear things directly from professionals.  The news in her case was mostly good and in those few cases where it was less than good, she took the consultations and information seriously.

As for me, my results were mostly okay, though there were one or two surprises – not happy ones and not in those areas that one might have expected (given the fact that I’m a smoker).  Overall, given my age, I’m probably doing about par for the course, worse than some but better than most and hopeful that next year’s tests will show some improvement over this year’s.

And I’ll be happy to come back here a second time.  Of course I’m not a doctor and have no medical training, so can only base this on my previous experiences as a patient.  Aside from the choice of Manila over Bangkok (let’s face it, there’s a lot more to see and do in Bangkok than Manila), I was happy with the way the tests were conducted, the professionalism of the staff, that there were less patients there (which meant a more relaxed feeling during the day, less waiting time more attention) and that the doctors spent more time with us.

If you’ve got any questions about things that I didn’t cover (or didn’t cover enough for you), feel free to check the hospital’s web site or ask me.

Which means blogging may be light over the next couple of days.  Flight with Cebu Pacific – a crying baby in the row in front of me and another one in the row behind.  A 15 minute non-stop remix of Lady Gaga “Bad Romance” when boarding the plane and then they keep the music playing for the entire flight.  Once they finish selling snacks and duty free, time for a game – win a badge. “Who can hold up or show me a passport and a pen?  We have a winner!”  But at the price, cannot really complain.  Got a promo fare going – HK$300 plus tax, regular fare for return HK$580 plus tax.  Tax at HK Airport HK$150, tax at Manila Airport HK$6.

Staying at the New World, which until last year was the Renaissance.  (Yes, I know, I’m giving more money to New World.)  The hotel is looking rather drab and worn out and the only renovation New World has done to the space so far is to change the signage.  But the staff here are all terrific, friendly and helpful.  We upgraded to the club floor and the club buffet in the afternoon is far nicer than I expected.  And we’re right across the street from Greenbelt 3, a perfect location.

Tonight there was a free live jazz show in the park between Greenbelt 3 and 5, a very nice band and lovely to sit outside – even though the temperature is above 30 there are always some breezes there and an interesting view at night.  I discovered, sitting in the plaza, that the D700 with my 50mm f/1.4 lens set to 6400 ISO is an amazing spy cam.  (Photos to come later.)

Tomorrow we have to be up at 6:30 AM, sigh, gotta be at Alabang at 7:30 for the physical.  I’m not bringing the camera to the hospital but I will post a review on their facility and how it compares to Bumrungrad by the weekend.

First published in a book by Laurence J. Peter in 1969, the Peter Principle states, “In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence.”  And it’s just as true today.

But it doesn’t only occur in corporations.  I just finished watching Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story, and many of my thoughts following that form the basis of my next column in BC.   Here’s one bit that’s not related to the column.  Current U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is presented as someone who was a failure at every job he ever held.  So the question is asked, how did he get this job then?  The answer?

People who will give you the wrong answer but the answer you want are invaluable and they often get promoted precisely because they’re willing to say and do absurd things.

One of many things I learned from watching the film is that major U.S. corporations take out life insurance policies on their employees – not just executives but also lower level staff.  The staff are not informed and the corporations themselves are the beneficiaries of these policies.  And these policies are called, seriously, Dead Peasant Insurance.   And many of these companies then include the expected rate of employee death and expected benefits from these policies in their financial forecasts – which can prove to be wrong if employees don’t die as soon as expected or commit suicide. (The film depicts a family bankrupted by the medical bills following the death of a family member while the employer received more than a million in insurance benefits from that death.)

You can see a list of many companies known to engage in this practice here.  My previous employer’s not on the list. Companies that are on the list include AT&T, Bank of America, Citibank, Coca Cola, Hershey, Marriott, Procter & Gamble, Walt Disney.  If you work for an American company, you might want to see if they’re on the list.

Had a callback job interview scheduled for this afternoon out in Cyberport.  So I put on my suit and leave the house early, giving myself 30 more minutes than I figure I’ll need to reach the place.  But just 10 minutes down the road and the car’s not feeling right; my guess is that the tires are low on air.  I know that the next petrol station is just a couple of klicks down the road so I figure I’ll drive slow and pull over there.

But another couple of minutes later, I hear a noise and I know that one of my tires has gone flat.  This being Hiram’s Highway, single lane in each direction, I had to continue on a little bit further to a place where I could pull over without blocking traffic.  I get out, take a look and sure enough, the rear left tire is pushing up daisies.  I pop the trunk, pull out all the tools and the spare and then think to myself, “Hell, I’m wearing my favorite suit.  What do I pay the HKAA for?  I’ll call them.”  So I call them and the guy says I’m going to have to wait about two hours for the tow truck.

Obviously at this point I call the person I’m supposed to meet, explain the situation and she agrees to reschedule.  Had things been different, I might have been tempted to simply leave the car where it was (a metered space in a village parking area) and deal with it tomorrow.  But tomorrow I’ve got an early flight out so if I didn’t deal with it there and then, I would have had to leave the car sitting there until Sunday and I figured that’s probably not the best idea.

So now I figure I’ll settle in for a couple of hours of Twitter, Facebook and iPhone games.  And at that moment, one of those big Toyota Alphard people movers pulls up in front of me.  The driver gets out, young guy probably in his 20s.  There’s a China license plate as well as an HK one so I’m guessing he earns his living by running a cross-border shuttle service.  Anyway, he asks if I need some help and I say, “Please.”

The next problem is that the cheap jack that I bought in Mong Kok isn’t strong enough to raise my car.  The car goes up a certain amount and then the jack looks as if it’s going sideways instead of up.  So the guy gets his own jack, a proper one (need to buy one like that ASAP).   He changes the tire for me.

Since I’m still a cynical New Yorker at heart, I always suspect the worst in everyone.  I’m thinking that I didn’t discuss money with the guy, he’s seeing a white guy with a flash car and maybe those $$$ signs are going off in his head.   Is he going to try to hit me up for $500?  $1,000?  And here’s how the conversation went:

Me:  How much do I owe you for your help?

Him:  Me?  Oh, I, uh, um, $28?  (That’s roughly US$4.)

Me:  Here’s $100, please take it.

Him:  No, I couldn’t, I don’t need that much!

Me:  No, I want you to have it, you really helped me out.

Actually, the above is pretty much representative of most of my experiences with people here.  The corporations are all greedy fucktwats but the people of Hong Kong themselves generally bend over backwards to be  helpful.

The car’s at a tire repair shop in Sai Kung now, will get it later, but just gonna stay home, have a quiet dinner, get some work done and then off to Manila tomorrow.

As soon as @hypercasey discovered that Main Street Deli was doing a 20 inch hot dog, he proposed a tweet-up there to try this out.  While a lot of other people said they would make it, in the end it was him, me, @adalinelau and @littlefatchick.  Three hours of shoving tube steak into our faces and talking about various geek-related things and a side helping of gossip.

Hyper and I got there first and split this ten inch, all beef dog:

They have a huge list of toppings, sauces and sides to choose from.  I found the caramelized onions a bit too sweet for my taste and I think the cheese could have been melted a bit more.  The dog itself was quite nice.  Those are sweet potato fries on the side.

Now, here is what Main Street Deli calls a potato knish:

This doesn’t look like any other knish I’ve encountered anywhere else in the world.  And the taste was bland.

@adalinelau is a vegetarian and so she went for the 10 inch veggie dog:

“Idaho potatoes” on the side, they looked a little like overgrown tater tots to me.  Adaline described the dog as tasting a lot like vegetables – if I remember correctly, she said her preference is normally for HK-style vegetarian cuisine, which is often tofu shaped and colored to look like something else.  I decided I could survive without sampling this.

And then we got @littlefatchick (who, by the way, should consider changing her Twitter handle to @tallthinlady) to go for the full-on 20 inch beef dog.  She got hers with jalapeno peppers and chili on the side.

By the way, this stuff isn’t cheap.  Two ten inch dogs, one twenty inch dog, the knish and about half a dozen soft drinks and the bill came out to around HK$1,000.  But all four of us had a great time!