Air May

So I was ordering an almond latte the other day.

Now typically, I'm a patient kind of guy; I'm kinda bothered when people mispronounce things, but I don't make a big deal about it. But on this day, the waiter decided to tactlessly correct me by repeating my order purposefully emphasizing "le TAY" (as is the typical HK pronunciation). To which I replied "that's right, I'd like an almond LA-tay" (it's entirely possible that my snarkiness was due to my morning coffee-deficiency). Looking back now, I guess it was kind of silly to risk getting a loogey laced latte but that guy was just so friggin' smug (without cause!!!)

Anyways, it got me thinking about all the famous designer names that are often mispronounced, despite the fact that said brands are held in such high esteem. It seems to me that designer-obsession basically breaks down to 2 reasons:

1) You admire the work of a particular fashion label
2) You want people to admire you for using the brand

If it's Case #1, then the least you can do is get the name right; it's just a matter of respect. And for Case #2, pronounciation is all the more important because if you're going to be a snob you need to sound like one (unless you want people to think of you as a neophyte).

I think the problem is that too few people (store employees included) bother to learn know the proper pronunciation and so everyone ends up sticking to what they hear. I understand that getting a grasp of a foreign language can be tricky, but it's not like you're actually learning entire phrases; it's just a name. For example, Versace, Gucci and Chanel could easily be pronounced "Ver-sayce", "Guki" and "Chan-nel" if it wasn't for their ubiquitous presence. Still, there are still several brands (Hermes, Agnes B and Moschino come to mind) that are so popular that it boggles the mind why people still can't get the pronunciation correct:

Ana Sui: ana swee
Agnes B: ahn-yes bay
Comme des Garcons: come day gar-sahn
Givenchy: ji-vohn-shee.
Hermes: air-may
Lancome: long-com
Laneige: la-nezsh
Lanvin: lawn-van
Loewe: lo-eh-vay
Moschino: moss-ki-no
Ralph Lauren: Ralph LOR-ren
Uniqlo: u-nee-koo-lo
Zegna: zen-ya

And while we're at it, here are some names/words I wish people would get right:

Angela: Anne-gel-la. Not Angel-la.
Janet: Jah-net. Not Ju-nette (which is spelled Janette).
Julio: Hoo-lee-o. In Spanish, "J" is pronounced like "H".
Katherine/Kathryn: Kath-rin. Not Ka-threen. If you want to use the "een" ending, then it should be spelled Cathrine.

Espresso: Es-presso. Not Ex-presso.
Mechanism: MECK-can-ism. Not meh-CAN-ism.

And my absolute favorite:

The letter "Z" is pronounced "Zed" or "Zee", not "E-Zed". Why HK schools have been teaching it this way, I have no idea.

Time to let go.

After all these years, I finally visited Tai O for the first time yesterday. Sadly, despite all the claims of it being a rustic, culturally historical place, I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel like a slum.


On the inside streets, it looked normal enough. Pretty much the same as Lamma Island or Cheung Chau. This huge crowd shows that the place is still a popular weekend/holiday spot

You know, I'm pretty sure that a lot of monster creation special effects guys are familiar with sea creatures (or they go to a lot of ethnic food markets):

Yum, tasty. A mummified shark corpse.

And as expected, there were lots of cats running around:

But where it gets depressing is the very thing that Tai O is famous for: the stilt houses. Claims of this being the "Venice of Hong Kong" are sorely misplaced.

Venice? More like Mumbai. Seeing those dilapidated structures, I couldn't help but feel that I was in the slums of some Third World Country. The draining in the houses emptied directly into the "canals" where local boatmen ferried tourists down. Hey, $20 for a ride down dirty stagnant water...what a bargain!

I tried my best to find a more attractive angle and this was the best I could do. I found this quiet little corner in the back, with a reflection of the mountains.

The colors are nice, but it's still hard to escape the squatter feel.


Over the past few years, there's been a debate over the need for reconstruction. Opponents of this argue that it would take away the quaint, traditional fishing town feel that gives Tai O it's characteristic. It may be true that some time in the past (prior to the big fire in 2000), Tai O was a beautiful place but it's become so fallen apart now that it's time to let go of the past and look at ways to improve living standards. I don't think that any reasonable person would claim that maintaining a slum is a good thing.

I'm all for maintaining tradition and historical sites, but there are times when you have to look at the bigger picture and do what's best for every one. Is it right to keep such squalid living conditions just so tourists have a "traditional" place to visit on the weekends?

The little things.

Sometimes, it's the little things that can make or break a deal. Case in point: my new Dell notebook workstation.

Here's a photo of the docking bay:

As you can see, it comes with a helpful little diagram on how to dock and undock the notebook:

Problem is, when I received my notebook, it was already docked in the docking bay:

Which means I had to undock the notebook in order to see the diagram that was supposed to teach me how to accomplish this...

Now I'm just thinking out loud, but wouldn't it have made much more sense to put the diagram on the bottom of the docking bay instead of the top? It sure would have saved me all the time it took fiddling with every lever and swtich hoping to find one that would go Open Seseme...

All's well that ends well.

Went to Cafe on the First in Excelsior, CWB for my b-day dinner. It was OK; nothing out of the ordinary or spectacular. I think that the buffet in Park Lane is better, if for nothing else than because of the Alaskan crab.

To be fair, CotF had a big appetizer selection. But I'm not big on cold dishes at buffets. Just went for some salmon and tuna sashimi, smoked salmon, a small salad and 2 sushi rolls.




Nothing special with the entrees. They were tasty, but there was no Wow factor.

BUT...

Just like a mediocre movie that suddenly becomes good because of a great ending, this dinner was worth the visit because of the dessert selection. Good variety and more importantly, very delectable.

Round 1: tiramisu, fruit tart, orange chocolate mousse, sacher and black forest cake, horn custard pastry, cherry crumble (great mix of crunchy and juicy) and waffles (crispy on the outside, soft on the inside).

Round 2: fruits dipped in dark chocolate, mango crepe, bread pudding, some M&M and sour tots and cookies 'n cream Haagen Dazs

And finally, some fresh fruit.

All in all, 6.5/10 for the food but 8/10 for the dessert.

Fun times

Quite a fun-filled weekend. A BBQ party, night time shooting and then the HK Flower Show.

First the BBQ. Thx to Gingie for making all the arrangements (even though she's going to charge me $109,700 for it…). It was my first time eating in a Correctional Services Department (aka Prison). Great fun (of course, I was allowed to leave unlike the other inmates). It'd been years since my last BBQ.

Actually, things weren't looking to good at the beginning. Gingie was overly confident in my ability to start a fire without the quick-start ignitable tablets. This is how far I got:

Luckily, GG showed up and showed us the proper way to arrange the charcoals. Not that it was any help, because the fire still couldn't get started (but at least it looked more professional). Finally, a colleague of GG from the pit next to ours was gracious enough to toss us a quick-starter and the flame really got going:


My favourite kind of food: MEAT


And best of all, a homemade blueberry cheesecake. With yogurt filling and a cookie crumb crust!!! The yogurt was a perfect complement to the cheese and took away the usual heavy feel.


Afterwards, we drove into Shek O for some Star Trail photography. One problem though: no stars. And the moon was a bit too bright. I should have brought a GD filter with me because as you can see in this shot below, the trees and skies are nicely exposed, but the moon is totally blown out.


Anyways, since we couldn't shoot stars, we tried our hand at long exposure shots of the sea. Pretty cool effect:



Having done the serious stuff, we decided to try some more creative ways to play with long exposure shots. Let's start with Odie:


Then Gingie:


Then Me (naturally, the most disturbing):


Next came some painting with light. My rendition of Mr. Happy & Mr. Stinky:




And Gingie's version of ;} and her favorite letter



Of course, Odie topped us all with her ability to write her Chinese surname!!!


My failed attempt at "Teru"


But as you can see, the following 2 words came out much better. Just my natural talent, I guess. Yes…I realize how old I am. I was having some pre-birthday fun, so sue me!



I wanted to post a photo of Odie as the legless ghost, but my versions all came out bad. I'll post a pic if I can get a better sample from Ginge's camera.

EDIT: Here it is as promised

Anyways, thanks to Gingie, Odie and GG for a great night. Next time, we take on Man Yi Reservoir!!!

Finally, the weather warmed up this past weekend. It was so sunny on Saturday that I finally visited the HK Wetland Park. Even though it opened around 2 years ago, I never got around to visiting because

A) It seemed so far away
B) It didn't seem that interesting.

Well, turns out that it only takes a 45 minute bus ride from Admiralty (route 967) but the un-interesting part proved to be true. It's a big park and it's meant to educate about nature and conservation, but the fact is there's very little to see or do there. The biggest problem is that it's smack in the middle of Tin Shui Wai housing estates, so every time you look up you see tall apartment buildings in the background. It really kills the Natural Reserve mood.
I guess fans of birdwatching will be happy to have somewhere to go that's more accessible than the Mai Po Reserve; there are lots of mud huts for enthusiasts to sit in and wait for interesting birds to show up, but the urban location of the park probably prevents a lot of birds from migrating there.

Another attraction is Pui Pui the crocodile. Can you see him in this photo?

How about now?
A bouncy, wobbly floating bridge, with no educational or conservational value, but probably fun for the kids to run up and down.



The visit wasn't a complete loss though. I manged to get an S-Curve photo of this nice looking walkway:






BTW, I originally framed the photo so that the walkway extended all the way to the bottom left corner. But I decided to crop a little higher to create a panoramic frame, and to move the walkway a little off-center to create the illusion of being a path that the viewer can step into. Which version looks better?


Version B:


Oh, and in case this looks familiar, it's because I did a similar (and better) shot a long time ago at Mai Po Reserve:



Anyways, HK Wetland Park isn't a bad place to visit, it's just not a "Wow, I'm so glad I came!" place. It's basically the kind of place you go to just for the sake of saying that you've been there. Kind of like HK Disney Land (actually, haven't visited that either...)