Sunday 13 September: An Orgy in Causeway Bay

First stop New Modern Vision Ltd on Jardine Crescent. Pat has been a customer since its early days 15 years ago. Iran wants a nuclear plant to get respect. North Korea fires missiles. But in Hong Kong no weapon is greater than the special discount card. And for New Modern Vision, Pat has that weapon. Pat and I each bought some glasses. Ker-ching….but not as ker-ching as tourists.

Now, let me introduce you to Xavier – otherwise affectionately known as Professor Yu – who holds a special place in my heart for being the first person to teach me foul Cantonese language…..di-u le lo mo-a: colloq, slang, abuse, lit. mother fucker…. in 1997 and getting me to unwittingly say it fluently to a horrified Pat. We met him along with several others from the gang for yum cha. Ducks feet and a couple of dishes made from pig’s trotters were notable dishes – mostly because they hardly had any meat. The buttons on the lift up to the restaurant were covered in cellophane. In fact, all buttons for lifts around Hong Kong are likewise. I feel there is a bit of a story there. Hong Kong is tropical, so people have to have reasonable hygiene to prevent infection. However, fuse this concern with Hong Kong historic insularity and culture shaped by rural notions of ‘everything is dangerous’ and you have quite a mix. I first noticed it when I visited HK after SARS struck. A culture developed of customers demanding to wash their utensils and crockery at restaurants – so low was trust in restaurant hygiene. Several years later it is now the norm. Now, with H1N1 Swine flu people have taken to covering any surface that multiple people might touch with cellophane and replacing it every day or so, rather than just wipe it down.

Next Berry Bros & Rudd where I bought a case of 2007 Dow’s vintage port en primeur (i.e. not even bottled until 2010), a bottle of premier cru Chablis, and some Napa Valley zinfandel. Two dresses, 3 work shirts, 5 footsies, one pair of stiletto shoes, a jacket, and a dress suit for Indigo later and the flow of money was now a river. In one dress in particular Pat looks ravishing. Hope she wears it on our wedding anniversary on the 24th.

We repaired to a café for two cups of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. I know it is meant to be the best coffee in the world, but to be honest I prefer my Lavazza. Besides, these people perculated the stuff. Living in Melbourne and its coffee culture has clearly won me over. Perculated coffee? Nah. No crema, no good.

Shopping ended with a torrential downpour and the news a typhoon was coming into Hong Kong.

Post Scriptum: It’s an easy, maybe even childish thing to make rude words and cheap laughs out of Chinese family shop names like “Fuk Yu”. I’m usually beyond all that. But yesterday on the bus home from Lin Heung we saw a cosmetics shop called ‘Dick Beauty’. Had to be worth a mention.