Alice in Wonderland | My daily adventures in Hong Kong... and more.

Posted by admin on 17 Oct, 2012

The Difference One Street Can Make …

In the 3 years since we moved to Sheung Wan, we have watched the backstreets around Hollywood Rd give birth to one new en vogue store after another in a gradual uprising of try-hard, eclectic style. First came the galeries, then the restaurants and cafes, a few eccentric furniture stores, and then uber-trendy clothing stores (picture 5 t-shirts hanging on a wall in a clothing-is-art kind of expression)....

Posted by admin on 24 Jul, 2012

We’re not in Kansas Anymore Toby…

I talk the talk about typhoons — I know what to do when each warning is hoisted — but it wasn’t until last night that I actually walked the walk and learned what a typhoon in Hong Kong is really like. Overnight Hong Kong saw its first T10 signal in 13 years. After almost 3 years in Hong Kong, I had yet to see a T8, and any T3s raised were merely signs in the lobby, with no physical evidence...

Posted by admin on 4 May, 2012

Green Thumb

Today I spent the day in the garden, or what stands for a garden in Hong Kong: our 2 square-metre balcony. Although what I did can hardly be called gardening — it was more like purging — and would more closely equate to ploughing the field than sowing the seeds. The few plants I do own were long dead, except for one nondescript piece of greenery I bought from Ikea that could survive a nuclear war....

Posted by admin on 21 Mar, 2012

The Help

I recently read Kathryn Stocket’s The Help and it struck me that the ‘vanished’ world of Jackson Mississippi portrayed in the book actually exists in Hong Kong today. Almost every ‘white’ household in Hong Kong, and most Chinese families, have a maid (more often than not, a Filipina). We call them ‘helpers’ because it seems less derogatory, but let’s call a...

Posted by admin on 2 Nov, 2011

An Affair to Remember…

Ours was a passionate love affair that crept up on me, until one day it dawned on me that I was in love, even if I didn’t want to be. At first I thought him strange, beautiful in a way that I knew I didn’t quite understand yet, and completely alien, so that we would meet, introduce ourselves, make small talk and then resume our separate lives. But he pursued me — relentlessly, subtly — slowly...

Posted by admin on 11 Sep, 2011

Howling at the Moon…

For the last month or so the supermarkets, department stores and convenience shops have been filling up with colourful mooncake boxes and the hell money shops on Queens Road West have gradually traded their massive, cardboard dogs, ipads and designer handbags for brightly coloured lanterns. A neat row of mooncake posters has popped up in every MTR escalator and tunnel, and the sides of buses and tram...

Posted by admin on 10 Jun, 2011

Changing Lives and Taking Photos…

It was a beautiful day in Hong Kong: at 8am it was already 32 degrees and about 70 percent humidity. I’d left the house a little late at around 8:07, although I know from past experience that the rest of my team were probably still trying to find each other in amongst the tents selling food, water, coffee and personal filter bottles and the mass of people around the starting line in Hyde Park. As I set...

Posted by admin on 29 Apr, 2011

My Achy Breaky Heart…

Today is the day of the Royal Wedding and, despite the slight premature balding, hearts are snapping like twigs all over the world (including my own). It’s not often you get a front row seat to your childhood crush’s wedding (and I’d venture that didn’t happen for many with Charles). Today Kate Middleton becomes the future Queen of England, so I put my jealously aside and decided to celebrate the...