Since when do we have to start wishing everybody Happy Halloween?! Happy Christmas and Happy New Year I can just about manage but I really don’t see the point of wishing somebody well for a day of dressing up in crappy costumes and performing pagan rituals.

Every year on October 31st one of us in Chez Bonkers celebrates their birthday, you may think it’s me due to sentiments spewed out in the first paragraph but alas it’s not. You will know when it’s my turn.

So we decided to wine and dine and treat ourselves at Habitu Ristorante in Lee Gardens Two just beside us here in Causeway Bay. Being the careful dude I rang up and booked a table for 6:30 just in case. At 4pm we nipped off to see Saw VI. Same old premise, entertaining enough for 90 minutes.

Habitu is located on the tippity top of Lee Gardens Two. It was fairly empty when we got there and stayed that way for the duration. Because said birthday person is a wine connoisseur I forked out for a 2006 Scansano red from Tuscany. It was nice. $448HKD worth of niceness? My brain says “probably”, my wallet says “Idiot”

Onwards to the main courses after some tasty bread. For me a char-grilled Wagyu Striploin

Now, don’t get me wrong it was a perfectly good Wagyu piece of goodness but bloody hell I need some potatoes with my cow! At least offer me some when I am ordering so I realise that all I’m getting is cow and some char-grilled peppers and asparagus. Disappointing.

The birthday girl had a handful of vegetarian options to choose from and went for the saffron risotto.

Do you think the risotto looks watery? Well it was! We’ve seen Gordon Ramsay fling enough risottos in to aspiring chefs’ faces in Hell’s Kitchen to know the consistency of a risotto! Other than the H20 abundance it was just plain bland. “Meh” is the word.

After feeling not too full from the cow I ordered a Warm Flan dessert. It would take 20 minutes I was warned. Fine.

The flan was bursting with oozing rich chocolate. If it wasn’t for the lemon gelatto it would have been too strong of a dessert for me.

So it was with a little disappointment that we asked for the bill. The food was of a lesser standard than we had expected but the wine was a fortifying comfort to us as we paid the wallet crushing bill.

Thank you Habitu! Don’t think we will see you again though. I’m sorry. Really. Please move on with your life. And keep an eye on your risottos.

Some nice buildings are to be observed when you’re out on the podium outside.

It’s my bet that some classy, cool and sophisticated people live here.

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We have a regular shoppers card at Park N Shop and all it’s good to use in all its relatives. We shop at PNS because it’s near our apartment. But they give us coupons for the TASTE supermarket in Wan Chai which is annoying to say the least.

Anyway last Saturday we tried to get to Taste from CBay. The number 56 mini bus goes from Leighton Road every 6 or so minutes. So after 20 or so minutes one had gone by and it was full. Plan W and we walk to Happy Valley and grab a trolley to Johnston road in Wan Chai to walk the rest of the way to Taste.

I forgot how much I like riding the old trams. Tranquil when not squashed and sloth like in its movement. Totally the opposite of all other transport in Honkers!

So after the wonders of the tram ride TASTE was so not worth it and definitely no return visit on the cards.

This entry was mainly for the tram pictures, but getting a dig at TASTE was so worth it. I feel better now.

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Bloody hell, I look at my blog and two weeks have passed by since the last post. I hate myself sometimes.

Anyway I sometimes feel sorry for stores and businesses hidden up in nondescript looking buildings so I’m happy to give a shout out to a relatively new wine emporium which won’t render you penniless in the process. Pity their website as advertised on their card doesn’t work though..

Premier Fine Wines, as you can see from the map, is a mere few steps away from the main artery of soul-destroying pedestrian-ism between Times Square and Sogo on Jardine’s Bazaar. It stocks mainly Australian and French plonk and prices range from a reasonable (150HkD) to “what-the-hell-is-in-that-bottle?” prices. The lady that was there was very pleasant and gave us a taster of a nice Australian Shiraz which was one of the reasonably prices ones (maybe she has a financial-status sensor in the store). We will go back. If it doesn’t shut down in the meantime like all the other stores around us. It seems like there is boarded up store fronts wherever you look but as soon as they go up a new store is in its place to repeat the cycle of consumerist Russian roulette.

Causeway Bay Sewerage Works Update:
The trenches around C-Bay that have been there since we arrived have signs up saying they will be done by December 2009. They once said they would be done by February 2009. So if said trenches are gone and the work completed by December I will pour a bottle of Australian Shiraz down in the toilet in celebration.

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The celebratory fireworks extravaganza were but a not too distant rumble from our lofty perch in Causeway Bay.
Dim flashes of light in the night sky were the only evidence for us of the 20 minute spectacle….apart from the shroud of smoke which enveloped us for a good 40 minutes afterwards. Supposedly the show cost 400,000 USD…

It’s a national holiday today all over the People’s Republic. So that includes us here in Hong Kong.
There’s a lot of plastic flag waving of the nice red flags of Hong Kong and China.

We stumbled upon a parade of said flag waving in Causeway Bay on Tuesday.

Our own glorious chairman of Honkers, Donald Tsang, has organised a calendar of celebratory events so we can raise a glass to China and the “remarkable success in its development”
The closest one to us is the carnival in Victoria Park. We won’t be going. We went to a similar one last year and it turned out to be a couple of dozen stalls selling bags of household cleaning products in frenetic auction style affairs.

So what’s the reasons for celebrating?

It’s a lot of sweeping under the carpet of Mao’s policies and political purges from 1949-1975 and a lot more lauding of the current economic and technological state of China today. China has the third largest GDP in the world  and is also the world’s third largest trading power. So to be fair it’s a good reason to celebrate. Although if you look at the per capita income you may pause for a moment to ponder what the hell is going on..

Anyway, I’m thinking China has a lot more growing up to do over the next 60 years and will face a lot of tough questions, not at least about the environmental calamities that are a result of its massive industry growth. Although recently plans are afoot to reduce emissions by 10% by 2010. Yipee!

Happy Anniversary China.

from http://bonkersinhonkers.wordpress.com

I love pigs, I try not to eat too much pork due to my fondness of them. Smarter than dogs you know? But I’ve known some dumb dogs in my time.

So Swine Flu still exists and it is literally snorting its way through Honkers schools.  I think there are one or two schools closed at the minute around HK and speaking from my own school I think there are probably half a dozen primary school kids confirmed with H1N1. I had the pleasure of teaching 2 classes during the week which had been hit by the most casualties. All kids are doing o.k. at home which is good.

Anyway before summer even the mere mention of H1N1 in a school would get it shut down. There was one reported case in a school and all schools were shut. Now the approach is very lenient and there needs to be 10% of the student population struck down with it for the school to close.

Ok, the severity of the flu has gone done in the world’s health peoples’ eyes but it strikes me as odd that the approach is so soft; especially when you are dealing with Primary School kids and less developed immune systems (yeah I studied biology in secondary school).

Well, I hope for the sake of the kids it won’t get any worse and I hope for the sake of everyone that it doesn’t take a serious Swine Flu “incident” to occur for the government to take more stringent actions.

from http://bonkersinhonkers.wordpress.com

Not the most illustrative of videos on the strength of Koppu but you get the point.
Koppu kept up it’s fight and The Observatory kept the Signal 8 so that we didn’t get to go to work today.
It was the first typhoon that actually looked like one in our year here.

The after effects today were bouts of very heavy and swirling rain. Bye bye Koppu, thanks for dropping by.

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So Typhoon Signal 8 got hoisted (I don’t know where they do the actual hoisting) around 6pm. All the shops are shutting…up shop…and the bus lines are like bread lines in communist Russia of old.

So the likelihood that it is still around come 6am tomorrow is about as likely as me winning a Pulitzer for my inane ramblings on here.

So that’s that.

It sure is a purdy Typhoon. All fluffy and thwirly.

Koppu loada that!

I’ll stop now.

from http://bonkersinhonkers.wordpress.com

Good morning children and welcome to a very special T1 morning!
To celebrate your first week back at school we will probably issue a T8 on Tuesday just so you can feel all messed up with your sleeping patterns and your teachers can reminisce on summer mornings long gone.

Don’t want to tempt fate or anything but this is exactly what happened last year too.

Maybe it will just go nuts and head for Hainan again…

from http://bonkersinhonkers.wordpress.com

A very boring video of a short part of my bus journey every morning to show the video quality of the iphone 3Gs as requested by a reader who shall remain nameless. Actually it’s probably the worst sample I could give due to dirty windows and a dodgy suspension.

On Friday we went over to Hung Hom on the Star Ferry from Wan Chai. There is a weird little place called V King Bar on the pier. It shouldn’t really be there; that was my overall impression. And the smoking ban obviously hadn’t made it’s way there yet. Man its been a while since our clothes have smelt like crap. Anyway, it was nice to meet up with a few friends there and to experience a little different side of the pub scene in Honkers.

Iphone photos of getting there. Night time shots are not the iphone’s forte. That’s for sure. Feel the noise.

One of us loves the Star Ferry and one of us does not. ..I love it!

Setting off  from Wan Chai. Would have turned out better with My Casio P&S

The view from V King over to where the Star Ferry docks in Hung Hom.

This barely made it as it’s pretty lame. But there you have it. Looking over towards Honkers island; probably Quarry Bay area.

from http://bonkersinhonkers.wordpress.com