In a clothes shop during those sales:
Amanda - Do you like this top?
Me (thinking, I always sit on the fence in these situations, so I’ll be decisive here) - ooh no, it's horrible.
Amanda - Oh. I just bought it.
Traffic and pedestrians are often separated. There are walkways all over the place in the centre, and some routes even go through swish buildings’ lobbies.
I saw someone knitting on the MTR – a teenage boy. I don’t know what to say about this!
But I don’t use the MTR so much now (not because of the knitting teenager.) I found a bus which takes me all along the north coast of the island to my school in 25 minutes, great views over to the mainland.
I reckon I see more boats a month than I’d seen in my entire life before.
Stuff’s free here. Camp sites, toilets, and a walk-through aviary and big greenhouses in Hong Kong park – like London Zoo and Kew gardens rolled into one – and free!
Most people, apart from their Chinese name, also have an English name which their parents, or maybe they themselves choose when they’re young. Often it’ll be a name which sounds like their Chinese name, which leads to some interesting choices. Amanda works with a guy called Noddy and I was served in a shop by a girl called Tweety.
In an exam I interviewed an 11-year-old girl who told me her English name was Polly, which she chose at the age of 5 as she liked the nursery rhyme ‘Polly put the kettle on.’
Old-fashioned (at least to me) names seem quite popular. I have 8 and 9-year-olds in class called Jocelyn, Prudence, Agnes, Trevor, Arnold.
Not everybody has an English name, however - Wing Wing, Ching Ching, Oi Ching, Coco, Yo Yo and Yiu Yiu. It’s not easy to remember who is who in class!
Easier to remember are boys called Him and Ngo Man (the g is silent.) Then there are the girls called Chilly and Icy. There’s also one called Tsi Yiu (pronounced See You) but unfortunately no boy called Jimmy in that class, as I’d love to call them out together, in a Scottish accent.
Car number plates are quite simple here – 2 letters and 4 numbers, eg. LH2653.
But there seems to be complete freedom on personalised ones. The more ‘interesting’ seen recently: HERO, SUPERGUY, BINGO, MONA LISA and I BELIEVE.
I bet they have kids called Prudence and Arnold, or maybe even Tweety and Noddy.
A few PHOTOS HERE.