Ordinary Gweilo

It's not big and it's not clever, it's just a Brit in Hong Kong writing (mainly) about Hong Kong

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Category: Life in Hong Kong

  • Room for two more on top

    This week there was an accident involving a double-decker bus that toppled over, resulting in two deaths. On Wednesday there was a letter in the SCMP complaining that double-decker buses are an unwelcome colonial legacy. Double-decker buses are yet another of the mindless colonial imitations of London (the others include wearing black business clothes suitable…

  • Deceptively spacious

    Hong Kong's a strange place, and never more so than in the weird world of apartments. Developers are allowed to advertise the gross floorspace of an apartment, which includes balconies, bay windows, and (most outrageously) your share of the the common areas, such as the clubhouse, gardens, lift lobbies, etc. As far as I know,…

  • Not so smart

    Top notch customer service once again. I bought a new phone with a new data plan.  You might think that the new plan should take effect immediately, but for some doubtless very good reason they decided it should only happen at the start of the next billing period.  OK then, whatever, I'm just the customer,…

  • Should I stay or should I go

    The SCMP sometimes manages to find interesting stories for the Sunday edition.  Not often, but it does happen. Today they report the strange tale of a man trapped in Hong Kong because he hasn’t paid his tax: Bill Heywood, a plumbing and piping contractor, was stopped at Hong Kong International Airport last September when he…

  • The H1N1 panic continues

    Earlier in the year we had the spectacle of people being placed in quarantine for 7 days if they had been on the same plane as someone who had H1N1.  Then all primary schools were closed for the summer break several weeks early. Where I live we had a solemn announcement that there was a…

  • Progress

    I see that HSBC are going to stop sending paper statements (unless you are either old or willing to pay).  I subscribed to this service a year or so ago, and I have probably only downloaded a handful of statements since then.  Why?  Because it’s a complete nightmare to use, that’s why.  I have no…

  • More sandwiches

    Gerald Ratner famously compared one of his company's gold earrings to a Marks & Spencer prawn sandwich, saying that it was cheaper "but the sandwich will probably last longer".  When the newspapers reported his attempt at humour, it became a big story and he ended up losing his job and it virtually bankrupted the company.…

  • East meets West (Rail)

    Today West Rail is extended, through the new Austin station and the existing East Tsim Sha Tsui station, to terminate at Hung Hom, where it finally links up with East Rail (the original KCR line from Kowloon to the border with mainland China).  This means that East Rail trains have stopped running to East Tsim…

  • Damp squib

    Another weekend, another typhoon signal.  Looking at the predicted direction of Tropical Storm Soudelor it never looked likely that it was going to come anywhere close to Hong Kong.  Yet the Observatory raised the no.3 (strong wind) signal – and on the basis that you can never be too careful the management here closed our…

  • Panic?

    A 76-year-old man gets the flu, and is now in a "serious condition".  It's swine flu, so this is news. People get flu.  Unfortunately some of them do die, especially if they are elderly or sick.  This is nothing new – flu is much more serious than a cold (even if most people get them…