annual dinner

The colour red was the theme of our annual dinner.

Accordingly I put on a short red leather skirt and red fake eyelashes, attached some red wig hair to my ponytail and to complete the red look, red lipstick and red eye-makeup was applied.

(The close up shows Phobe (winner of the nights best-red-theme-dress-contest), me, Tiina and Marietta).

The annual dinner consisted of:
- 12 small courses (unfortunately, most of them did not tickle my taste buds too much…)
- games
- a lucky draw (I’m now an owner of a tiny little MP4 player)
- a million clicks on every ones cameras (the Chinese go absolutely crazy with their cameras…).

The hours passed pretty quickly and after the dinner a big group of us continued, to a hotel where you pay by the hour… or for a full night I guess, depending on how much you want…

But it’s not that kind of hotel… it’s a karaoke hotel. Karaoke is extremely popular around here, so naturally an entire hotel full with karaoke rooms are a very cool and popular idea. Did my best ,together with most of the other Scandinavians, singing ABBA’s Dancing Queen, but must admit that the original is better…

However, after a while we moved on to the bar area of HK, Lan Kwai Fong (where the presence of “gweilos” (white people), like myself, seem disproportionate given that we constitute less then 2 percent of the population…) and it was buzzing as always... With my short red leather skirt and red make up on, I felt slightly out of place and uncomfortable, and indeed did get some stares throughout the night.

And after a group of older men had stared a bit too long, and I had blamed it on my somewhat “slutty” look, Marietta (pretty drunk at the time and clearly upset that a colleague thought she was 30 when she actually is 23…) sighs and fully seriously says: I think I rather be 30 than a hooker…

Which I decided was the best comment all night.

h&m

A lot of people showed their interest today (10th March 2007) as H&M had a grand opening here in HK. With this store H&M is making its first foray into Asia, pretty exciting really, for a proud Swede like me. The red carpet was rolled out in 68 Queen’s Road Central and as I walked by (20 minutes past 9 this Saturday evening) people was still lining up to get in!

birthdays

Blueberry Pecan Streusel Happy Birthday Cake
To the birthday boys of this week:

Kalpa (8th), Rein (9th) and Olsson(11th)!

Happy Birthday guys! Hip hip hurray! (and the best thing about it, is that you all are older then me.... :-))

I know that my gorgeous friend in Orebro will complain that he didn't get a birthday cake on his birthday the other week when you guys are getting one... So, Magnus here's a special one for you!

chicken feet

I've done it! And I'm not doing it ever again!!

I've tried chicken feet... meaning I now have a piece of a chickens foot in my stomach... meaning I had it in my mouth, I felt it cracking in between my teeth and I swallowed the shit...

But I've done it! And this is worth repeating - I am not doing it again!

monday again…

The weeks go really fast…. Mum and Dad returned back to Sweden late last night. It really has been great having them here. Fun to introduce them to my “new life” over here and show them around.

So dearest parents - I say thanks for two very enjoyable weeks and please come soon again!!

During our last days together we didn’t do all that much, but still we had a very nice time. Splendid food has really been the main thing this weekend.

We started off on Friday night when I took my parents to a great Japanese Teppanyaki restaurant; an absolutely beautiful dinner was had. (We sat around the chef as he prepared the food for us and I think we all were very impressed. We weren’t as impressed with Mums stick eating skills though, but she has promised to practise, so next time there will be no fork at the table for her).

Saturday was a glorious day, so relaxing in the sun was all we wanted to do. A great brunch was had at lunch time (after my PUMP class) and a nice Italian dinner in the evening. We finished off our culinary tour of HK on Sunday night with Spanish/Asian tapas and yummy chocolate cake.

what’s the price?

• a taxi ride from work to home - 27 HK$ (cheap!)
  
• a very beautiful antique Chinese round box that I want - 18000 HK$ (speaks for it self…)
  
• a lunch at the Vietnamese place or Thai restaurant just around the corner from where I work – 40HK$ (good food to a very good price)
  
• my monthly gym fee – 799 HK$ (definitely more than I pay at home, but here they provide water, a selection of DVD’s for the treadmills, clothes to work out in, towels, shampoo, conditioner, soap, lotion etc and there’s a nice café within the facilities where you also can check your email…)
  
• a movie – 70 HK$ (like home)
  
• a freshly squeezed orange juice - 10 HK$ (perfect!)
  
• a litre of milk – 22 HK$ (bloody expensive… almost x4 more than I pay at home…)
  
• a 90 min foot and body massage (thai) -160 HK$ (so good and such a good price too -love it!! No wonder it has turned into our Friday-straight-after-work tradition…)

(A quick calculation for you all…. A HKD value is about the same as the Swedish krona (27HKD is like 24 SEK I think. so very cheap taxi ride...), to get the approximate value to a AUD you have to divide the HKD price by 6. If this was London my taxi ride would be like 1,5 GBP and if I lived in the US it would cost me 3,5 USD to get home).

Ciao and have a great weekend!
(Guess what I am doing after work since it's Friday...)

renewal

It was due time for a change. And this look is better, don't you think?! More simple design. Anyway, I like.

And talking about changes, I need to do something about my hair, but I don't know what to do... Look, it just hangs there, with a few curls here and there... Any suggestions?!


By the way, did a test on Internet earlier this morning, and got to see my "real" age... (all I needed to do was answer some questions about how much I weight, how much I sleep and exercise, what I eat etc etc. The test-program then calculated my age according to my answers). (Yes, I could easily have cheated, but as I am a very honest person - I didn't. I promise).
And my "real" age is..... 25,9! :-)

This is fantastic news and really great to know, as I usually tell people I'm 26 when asked... Cause now I don't have to feel like a liar anymore! I'm actually telling the truth!

And according to the test, if I start taking vitamins daily, eat more beans and fish and a few more things, I my real age will be 24 in just two months...!! Man, I'm starting my new diet today! Who knows where this will take me...

Talk about Renewal.

I am 26, I feel 26 and I look (?) 26!!