July 2004 Archives

I'm down in Melbourne again for a few weeks. It's Cold!

UPDATE: Well, for some odd reason, all of my Movable Type templates were de-linked, so nothing was getting updated. Luckily, I keep them all saved to disk as files, so I was able to re-link everything and (hopefully) get my website working sgain.

I'm still down in Melbourne, supping on very fine food and wine, most of the time.

And it's still bloody freezing!

Is there a way of having certain posts not show up on the Living In China Aggregator? I'm sure an announcement that I've faffed about with my stylesheets isn't particularly riveting to the blogging population of China.

I've also ditched Textads. I was, quite frankly, majorly annoyed with the advertising material I was asked to approve, most of which I would consider immoral. Spam related advertising is definitely not okay, and neither is libellous/slanderous stuff.

I've set up Google ads on this site, so you get ads which are actually relevant to the page you're looking at! i.e. the SARS graphs have SARS related advertising on them. Even individual entry pages on the blog will have relevant advertising! (Check out this entry, for an example.)

Today I was out for a walk. I started by taking the MTR to Central. I contemplated taking the MTR across the harbour, but decided that I wanted to take the Star Ferry instead. Luckily for me, the same ticket card — the Octopus — can be used on most Hong Kong Transport Modes.

So I strolled from Central MTR station, via a few branches of Dymocks, to the Star Ferry. I always prefer to travel on the Lower Deck on the Star Ferry. As well as being 50 cents cheaper, it means that you can move around a bit more and enjoy the view.

The new reclamation occuring on the Hong Kong side of the harbour looks incredibly intrusive. It really feels like the new shoreline will be half way across the current harbour.

Once in Kowloon, I started to walk towards Lock Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. along the way I had to run the usual gauntlet of earnest Indian gentlemen trying to sell me tailor shops or copy watches. These guys must have a severely negative impact on the entire Hong Kong economy. I find it hard to imagine any tourist being happy to be regaled with "Suit sir? Suit sir? We do jolly good suit for you sir!" every ten paces.

I've often contemplated writing a Quake level where you get to walk around Nathan Road with a shotgun...

I always start to retort that I'm not a tourist, but, when I'm wandering about Hong Kong like that, I'm usually wearing a floral shirt, shorts and sandals. Now, while these are nice floral shirts — usually Armani or Abercrombie and Fitch, obtained for peanuts from the Sample shops in Wanchai — but, I sure as heck still look like a tourist.

I do notice that the MTR stations on the Tsuen Wan Line now have a cardboard cutout over Tsim Sha Tsui station, presumably so they can cope with the pending opening of East Tsim Sha Tsui KCR station later on this year.

I made my way to Tung Choi street in Prince Edward to get a few more tropical fish for the fish tank in the living room. The kids love having colourful fish around and it's also considered lucky to have fish in the house. The Cantonese believe that fish bring good fortune to a household.

So, the Shrub really was a deserter after all!

Read the whole thing. Via Orcinus