Yes, blogging was uncharacteristically light for me during the past week.  It was an extremely frustrating week both at work and at home – not going into details, just take my word on it.

Although there was one good lunch this week at that middle eastern spot, most lunch hours were spent at Cyberport and my hatred of the food choices there and the shopping choices in that mall seems to increase on a daily basis.  Thinking back …

One day hit this place, Hang Heung or something along those lines.  I ordered a combo of prawn wontons with brisket and noodles – there were no prawns to be found in those wontons and the brisket was 98% fat and tendons.  But I did better than my friend, who I suppose hasn’t been in Hong Kong long enough to figure out that when you go into a place where everyone is eating congee or noodles or roast meats, don’t order the fucking fruit salad.

Another day, Tutto, the ersatz Italian joint which has proved to be relatively decent although a tad expensive, which is probably why the place is almost always empty at lunch time.  There were three of us and we got burgers.  We already know that the bun is about 6 times bigger than the tiny burger they give you, but this time they outdid themselves with dried out lumps of what I think was once hamburger combined with bacon that had yet to see anything resembling a flame.

And Friday, trying one of the few remaining spots I hadn’t tried up till now, Beautiful Shanghai.  Like most third rate so-called Shanghai restaurants in Hong Kong, they thing if they put xiao long bao and pork belly on the menu that they can call it Shanghai food, and most of the other choices came from all over the map.  A $48 set lunch that included the absolute worst dan dan mian I’ve ever had in my life.

And this shopping mall, filled with its useless, empty shops stuffed with merchandise that no one in their right mind could possibly want.  Just to break up the monotony one day, went into this “art” place that specializes in recreating classic paintings using crushed up bits of left-over gem stones.  Van Gogh in oil not enough for you, you want smushed up bits of colored rock instead?  Tens of thousands of dollars.  Or if you’ve got more money than brains and an ego to match, you can bring in your own photo and they’ll “gem-ify” it – and it takes six months.  From the way the woman reacted when we came in the shop, giving us a 15 minute tour, we were probably the first people there in weeks.  Then again, given the prices they charge, they probably only need 1 or 2 sales per month to stay afloat.  I’ve heard a rumor that these shops pay either $0 or close to $0 rent so that the place doesn’t look like even more of a disaster than it actually is.

And while I’m at it, what about the pitiful magazine rack at the Park & Rob, aimed at the idle rich women living next door in Smell-Aire.  I mean, it’s one of only two places to buy some magazines in the midst of what is supposed to be Hong Kong’s high tech center and they don’t stock Wired or Fast Company but you can find People and OK and every global variation on those.

When I worked in Quarry Bay for 8 years, I used to tell myself how much I missed working in Central.  Now I’d give anything to be back in Quarry Bay again, where there are dozens of reasonable lunch spots across all cuisines and budgets and some places that have some actually useful shopping.

Thanks goodness the photo shoot at PASM on Friday night was fun.

That’s just a quick sample I’ve pulled out from the batch I’ve shot, more maybe later.  The model was a very sweet and very thin young lady down from the mainland who also spoke surprisingly good English.  She also posed topless in each session (but with pieces of tape covering the relevant bits).  I posted the above picture on Facebook and someone thought it was Chrissie Chau and looking at it now, I see a slight resemblance.  I was happy to hang out with a group of friends for the evening and actually managed to relax for a few hours, even if I was driving and had to restrict my drinking to 7-Up.  Anyway, we had a good turn out and as always I’m looking forward to the next one.

Saturday became the day to catch up on shopping.  Since I was in Quarry Bay to get my iPhone, we went over to Cityplaza to grab a few things we needed.  Lunch was at Ruby Tuesday and I have no idea why I bitch and moan about food choices in Cyberport and then choose this place for lunch.   Yes, another burger, and quite expensive at over $120 for a bacon cheeseburger and fries.  They also have a “wagyu” burger at $148.   This place is seriously expensive for a franchised American joint.  A half rack of ribs here costs the same as a full rack almost anywhere else.  Their deal is that they offer a 50% discount card but you gotta buy that and the thing costs $600 for 6 months or an uncool thousand for 360 days (why not a year?).  I actually shelled out for a $52 lemonade with bits of mango in it that was so ludicrously sour that it made sinigang taste like apple pie.

This evening, Inception, as previously mentioned, at Mega Box.  Only 1 movie trailer in between the 10 minutes of ads and it was a local film, City On something or other, with bits of action but lots of really bad CGI and even worse make-up effects.  It looked like the cinematic equivalent of most of the meals I’d had during the week, in other words shit on toast – but be grateful for the toast I suppose.

After the movie, we decided to walk around Megabox before heading home.  The joint was packed.  I mean seriously packed, with long lines of cars waiting to get into the car park, long lines of people getting on and off buses, every shop busy, every restaurant busy.  It occurred to me that as much as I (and some other English-language bloggers) love to make fun of this place, local people actually like it.  And why shouldn’t they?  Movie theater, tons of cheap restaurants, ice skating rink on the 10th floor overlooking the harbor.  Even Ikea was packed tight with people and at 9 PM on a Saturday night the 7 check-out lines were each six people deep.

So Sunday’s just gonna be a day to chill out, watch a movie or two around the house, get caught up with chores, relax in preparation for a week that I am hoping will be an improvement on the previous one.

(Oh, how nice, just as I was writing the final paragraph above, WordPoop gave me a message, “you have logged out, cannot save draft!”)