Ordinary Gweilo

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

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Category: Life in Hong Kong

  • Cold front

    When I was first in Hong Kong, I remember looking out of my hotel window one evening and thinking to myself that I needed to wear a jacket when I went out.  Well, I felt a bit cold, and it seemed logical that it would be cool in the evening.  Somehow my brain hadn’t registered that…

  • Idiot on board

    I see that the government is auctioning off more ‘vanity plates’.  Is there any better way of saying "I am a plonker" than paying good money to have your own personalized number plate?  Not that I’m complaining – as a taxpayer, I have to approve, and as a bonus it always gives me a laugh…

  • Anti-theft devices

    I went into to a stationery shop to buy a toner cartridge for my printer.  A thimble-full of ink for only HK$100 – thanks very much, people who design printers. What amused me was that the shop had used plastic ties in an attempt to prevent customers from stealing these hugely over-priced items. Which was…

  • Worse than London and New York?

    Another one of those surveys that seem to work wonders in getting free publicity. It was in Friday’s Independent London’s public transport is world’s best (no, really) and Sunday’s SCMP London ranked above HK in transport poll as well. A survey that voted London as having the best public transport system in the world has been greeted with…

  • Pork Pies

    It’s that time of year again. Every Chinese restaurant has piles of Moon Cakes everywhere you look.  Worse still, fridges across Hong Kong seem to be full of the wretched things, with hardly any space available for actual food or drink. I’ve never quite seen the attraction of these lard and sugar-filled delights.  And who’d…

  • Quick, slow…

    I notice that the KCR is advertising their "direct" service from Tsim Sha Tsui East to Lok Ma Chau.  The irony here is that when the "Southern Link" is completed in a couple of years, it will be necessary to change at Hung Hom so it won’t be direct at all. Mind you, maybe by…

  • Puzzling

    I used to think that Hong Kong supermarkets were easy enough to categorise. CitySuper and Great have lots of stuff I want, but can’t afford Park’n’Shop certainly isn’t Tesco or Sainsburys, but it is (just about) OK Wellcome generally isn’t. CRC?  Who goes there? And, of course, the basics are available everywhere. Or so I…

  • Head for the hills

    Did I miss this story in the SCMP?  I found it in New Scientist: Tsunami risk for Hong Kong and Macao Hong Kong and Macao are enormous, sprawling economic centres perched on the coast. And both stand a 10 per cent chance of being hit by a serious tsunami in the next century, warn geophysicists.…

  • Closing down

    Last week I mentioned that the drive-in cinema in Kowloon appeared to have closed down.  Today comes confirmation of this in the SCMP (Drive-in cinema shuts after just 8 months – subscription required): The curtain has fallen on Hong Kong’s first and only drive-in cinema just eight months after it opened. Movie fans might have voted…

  • Beware of your belongings

    The BBC reports (China dishes up menu translations) that the Beijing Tourism Bureau is trying to improve the English translations of restaurant menus in preparation for next year’s Olympics. Translations such as “virgin chicken” for a young chicken dish and “burnt lion’s head” for pork meatballs are confusing for foreigners, it says. [..] The names of many Chinese dishes have…