Hey, you're always asking me where I find stuff...
Friday, May 26, 2006
Little Link List 15
I always thought that whole 'Von Dutch' cap thing was bogus - now I know why;
"Cattle and Cane" - see the video;
2-part article about slums, disease, capital, urbanisation - it's actually very interesting and if you have a spare 20 minutes I strongly recommend you read both parts.
"Cattle and Cane" - see the video;
2-part article about slums, disease, capital, urbanisation - it's actually very interesting and if you have a spare 20 minutes I strongly recommend you read both parts.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Hong Kong loves the PSP
Something I've noticed when I've been riding the subway system here, or the buses, or the trains, is that the PSP is the gaming device of choice for Hong Kong commuters. This is only my anecdotal observation of course, but there have been a number of occasions when I've been on the subway and at least 4 other people in my carriage have all been engrossed in their PSP. Now I have some evidence to back me up - using Google Trends I did a comparison of search volumes for the PSP, the Xbox360 and the Nintendo DS. (I know the Xbox isn't a portable device but all three systems are relatively new and I figured that most people buy just one.)
Lo and behold - "PSP" (in the blue) gets the largest volume of searches, and Hong Kong is the city that searches Google for the PSP more than any other in the world (check the link to the search to see cities/regions/languages). So if you're going to tailor content for a portable data platform in Hong Kong (say for an advertising campaign) I think the safe bet would be the PSP.
tags: psp | google | hongkong
Lo and behold - "PSP" (in the blue) gets the largest volume of searches, and Hong Kong is the city that searches Google for the PSP more than any other in the world (check the link to the search to see cities/regions/languages). So if you're going to tailor content for a portable data platform in Hong Kong (say for an advertising campaign) I think the safe bet would be the PSP.
tags: psp | google | hongkong
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Typhoon Update
It missed. Typhoon Chanchu passed by Hong Kong and headed off to Guangdong and Fujian. It was fairly windy yesterday and rained all day, but no-one was really bothered by the weather. Oh well, there'll be more - typhoon season hasn't really started yet.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Battening Down
This morning we awoke to discover that Typhoon Chanchu might be about to hit Hong Kong. Wow! I'm quite excited by this as I've never been in one before. A friend of mine has, and tells a very funny story about rushing out to dance around in a typhoon in Taipei and then spending a couple of days soaked to the skin because the fresh towel service in his hotel had been suspended. So I won't make that mistake.
The sign above is posted in the foyer of our apartment building. Signal 1 isn't very exciting really - what we really want is Signal 8 so no-one has to go to work.
In preparation for a possible Signal 8, I went out today and got the following provisions:
beer (8 cans, San Miguel)
3 litres of water
orange juice
savoury biscuits
deodorant (not typhoon-specific - I'd just run out)
toothpaste (as above)
a torch (in case the power goes out)
6 D-cell batteries (2 for the torch, 4 for the record player)
more biscuits
some chips (apparently snacks are very important)
coffee
apples
milk
eggs
instant noodles (6 packets, various flavours)
Now apparently all I need to get is some masking tape for the windows. I am not convinced by this though - the whole point of masking tape is that it only bonds weakly to a surface so it can be easily removed. I can't see masking tape doing much to stop glass flying around should strong winds start smashing the windows.
Hmmm, I wonder if 8 cans of beer will be enough...
tags: hongkong | typhoon
The sign above is posted in the foyer of our apartment building. Signal 1 isn't very exciting really - what we really want is Signal 8 so no-one has to go to work.
In preparation for a possible Signal 8, I went out today and got the following provisions:
beer (8 cans, San Miguel)
3 litres of water
orange juice
savoury biscuits
deodorant (not typhoon-specific - I'd just run out)
toothpaste (as above)
a torch (in case the power goes out)
6 D-cell batteries (2 for the torch, 4 for the record player)
more biscuits
some chips (apparently snacks are very important)
coffee
apples
milk
eggs
instant noodles (6 packets, various flavours)
Now apparently all I need to get is some masking tape for the windows. I am not convinced by this though - the whole point of masking tape is that it only bonds weakly to a surface so it can be easily removed. I can't see masking tape doing much to stop glass flying around should strong winds start smashing the windows.
Hmmm, I wonder if 8 cans of beer will be enough...
tags: hongkong | typhoon
Monday, May 15, 2006
Bear Soup
After 10 years, I've finally been back to Japan for a visit. We just got back to Hong Kong after spending a week in Gunma and Tokyo. The main purpose of our visit was to spend some time at a hot-springs resort in the country and a couple of days checking out Tokyo and catching up with a friend who is still living in Japan.
I was pleasantly surprised by how much Japanese I was able to use - in fact I think I did better than when I was living there, although that's not too surprising since I studied Japanese for another 18 months after I returned to Australia. But it was nice to be able to follow the TV shows a lot more - and I don't mean just the crazy ones.
As always some things never change in Japan - the trains are good and run on time, odd snacks abound, and all the TV stars are almost exactly the same ones that were on TV ten years ago, doing bascially the same shows. But I found I have a new appreciation for some things. I had always felt that Tokyo was noisy and polluted - but since living in Hong Kong I thought this time around that Tokyo was actually pretty quiet (in terms of traffic and construction noise) and certainly the skies over Tokyo are way less murky than Hong Kong.
Gunma was quite beautiful and as long as you don't mind inappropriate lumps of concrete or power lines spoiling your view, you could almost imagine that you were in a pristine setting. The hot-springs resort is on the bank of the Takaragawa river - there are four rotenburo (outdoor hot-springs) along the riverbank, so while we sat in the gentle hot water just 50cm away a freezing cold river raced along, carrying the last of the winter snow down to the sea.
It was my first time in a rotenburo as well (I think). And I was a bit alarmed at first - for the life of me I couldn't work out where we were supposed to clean up before we entered the hot-spring. After a while I noticed though that no-one was having a bath before getting in the hot-spring. So that was ok.
And the food was great. Here are some highlights - gamonabe (duck stew), the meals we ate at the resort, yakiniku with Phil (Japanese beef just melts in your mouth), a sushi-train, the various snacks we ate at an izakaya, and of course a good yakitori session. Phil took us to a restaurant called Gompachi, which was apparently the place that inspired the setting for the big fight scene in Kill Bill 1. Very much a tourist kind of place, but the food was good and actually it looks quite cool.
The lowlight of the trip though was bear soup. It actually tastes ok - quite gamey, and the soup base is very good. But to be honest I felt a bit sad about eating it - there are some bears in cages at the hot-springs resort, and they don't look like they're having a very good time, and if they're ending up in soup I can understand why.
So that's it then - Japan is still good, Tokyo is still big and bright, Japanese food is still very very good, and hot-springs are still extremely relaxing. Just stay away from the bear soup.
tags: japan | tokyo | gunma
I was pleasantly surprised by how much Japanese I was able to use - in fact I think I did better than when I was living there, although that's not too surprising since I studied Japanese for another 18 months after I returned to Australia. But it was nice to be able to follow the TV shows a lot more - and I don't mean just the crazy ones.
As always some things never change in Japan - the trains are good and run on time, odd snacks abound, and all the TV stars are almost exactly the same ones that were on TV ten years ago, doing bascially the same shows. But I found I have a new appreciation for some things. I had always felt that Tokyo was noisy and polluted - but since living in Hong Kong I thought this time around that Tokyo was actually pretty quiet (in terms of traffic and construction noise) and certainly the skies over Tokyo are way less murky than Hong Kong.
Gunma was quite beautiful and as long as you don't mind inappropriate lumps of concrete or power lines spoiling your view, you could almost imagine that you were in a pristine setting. The hot-springs resort is on the bank of the Takaragawa river - there are four rotenburo (outdoor hot-springs) along the riverbank, so while we sat in the gentle hot water just 50cm away a freezing cold river raced along, carrying the last of the winter snow down to the sea.
It was my first time in a rotenburo as well (I think). And I was a bit alarmed at first - for the life of me I couldn't work out where we were supposed to clean up before we entered the hot-spring. After a while I noticed though that no-one was having a bath before getting in the hot-spring. So that was ok.
And the food was great. Here are some highlights - gamonabe (duck stew), the meals we ate at the resort, yakiniku with Phil (Japanese beef just melts in your mouth), a sushi-train, the various snacks we ate at an izakaya, and of course a good yakitori session. Phil took us to a restaurant called Gompachi, which was apparently the place that inspired the setting for the big fight scene in Kill Bill 1. Very much a tourist kind of place, but the food was good and actually it looks quite cool.
The lowlight of the trip though was bear soup. It actually tastes ok - quite gamey, and the soup base is very good. But to be honest I felt a bit sad about eating it - there are some bears in cages at the hot-springs resort, and they don't look like they're having a very good time, and if they're ending up in soup I can understand why.
So that's it then - Japan is still good, Tokyo is still big and bright, Japanese food is still very very good, and hot-springs are still extremely relaxing. Just stay away from the bear soup.
tags: japan | tokyo | gunma
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Cattle & Cane
So today I heard the news that Grant McLennan died yesterday. McLennan was one of the founding members of the Go-Betweens, a wonderful band from Queensland. I've always felt that their song "Cattle & Cane" might be the best Australian song ever written.
CATTLE AND CANE
I recall a schoolboy coming home
Through fields of cane
To a house of tin and timber
And in the sky a rain of falling cinders
- RSS