Jackpot!

Being introduced to international candy has been fabulous - TimeOut bars, Wagon Wheels and CC Lemon fizzy drinks are new friends of mine!  But sometimes a girl wants a Butterfinger or Cheetos and there's only one way to scratch that itch!

I don't want to mislead anyone; you can get American candy in HK, but it's all a big yawn.  There's a Twix and a Snickers in every 7-11, but get a hankering for something "exotic," like a Reeses Cup (!), and you're S.O.L.

You can buy candy in bulk at Gateway -- our ghetto version of Cosco, but the last thing I need is 50 mini-Butterfingers sitting in my pantry. (And you know I've sat in Gateway staring at that bag of Reeses Cups, trying to come up with 1001 reasons why walking out the door with them would be a good idea.)

This afternoon, I head over to the "Handmade in Hong Kong" arts & crafts fair and, nestled among the booths selling hand-crafted jewelry, soaps and baby clothes, is the following "display":

Holy American caloric jackpot! Lucky Charms, Reeses, Junior Mints, Fruit Roll-Ups, Pop Tarts, Bubble Gum Tape- and that's only the stuff that fit in the camera shot!  There were 6 racks total and all were full of the nostalgic, sugary yumminess that you can't normally find in HK.  Unfortunately, this fair only comes around twice a year, which might not be a bad thing for my ass and arteries.

Now if someone - anyone! - could tell me where to get a Diet Mountain Dew in this town (even in bulk!) I would be eternally grateful.

Say What??

This is not necessarily exclusive to Hong Kong, or Asia for that matter, but it is something comical and therefore "blog appropriate": nonsensical, bizarrely worded t-shirts.

You see them all over the world, but there seems to be a disproportionately large number here in HK.  I'm not sure why exactly, but think it goes back to my "Americans with Chinese symbol tattoos" analogy.  People think what they're wearing says one thing, when in fact it says something else entirely or nothing at all.

Case in point, here's one I saw on the bus today:

If you can't read the bottom line, it says "Grow up Mind"... Now it's all clear, right?!

So, you have an adjective followed by a noun, followed by a command, followed by who the hell knows?!  I even tried piecing the red letters together, thinking therein lies the logic.  Nope.  Also tried to the black letters.  Strike two.

I guess it's better than one I saw in NYC before we moved here, though.  It read, "I wouldn't f*ck you for practice."  Classy, huh?

Update:
Yesterday, I passed the following 2 tshirts in the same walk!  Didn't have a camera, but the wording should suffice:

"Cheer You Up" (accompanied by large smiley face with two X's for eyes.

"It's the Exotic Summertime" (I think the "the" really makes it.)

Paging Stacy and Clinton - What NOT to Wear

I've abandoned all sense of decency in an effort to provide photo evidence of how shockingly bad women here dress.  I do this because I have a sneaking suspicion that some of you think I'm exaggerating.  Be prepared to have your world rocked!

Saturday night, V and I are walking into the movie theatre when the most deliciously perfect example of HK women's fashion strolled right in front of us.  Trusty iPhone in hand, I began unabashedly snapping shots of this "fashionista":

I know what you're thinking - "it's not that bad. So she's wearing black hose with white shorts - not great, but doesn't require a 911 for the Fashion Police."  Take a closer look:

If you're having trouble understanding what's going on here, let me spell it out for you:  a grey embellished tank top, covered up by a black cropped sweater (so far, so good)... Next we hit a black belt, also embellished with some crazy buckle whose design is escaping me and white Daisy Duke shorts (because what's more appropriate for November than white Daisy Dukes??) As we move further south, we get into the good stuff - black patterned tights which flow into wedge booties with fur anklets (I don't even know if a proper term exists for the animals growing around her ankles.)  This ensemble is accentuated by a purple clutch --with a strap!!-- that was also embellished in some ridiculous way.

If there are some of you out there still baffled as to why I dedicate a blog posting about this, here you go:

The patterned tights are THIGH HIGHS!!!!!  Note how they stop just shy of the Daisy Dukes, exposing slices of not-all-that-flattering back thigh skin.

For the record, she isn't the worst case I've seen.  In fact, she's pretty damn normal for these here parts.  Somebody call Joan Rivers stat!

Mani-Madness

HK thing #472 that drives me crazy:  Nail salons here have 2 types of nail polish--  those you can use for your manicure and those you can purchase...and never shall the two meet.

Why does it matter, you ask?  Because the colors that are for sale are infinitely nicer than the ones they offer up for manis.  Since it's been summer (and let's be honest it's almost always hot and sunny here), I didn't really notice this because I'm always choosing bright, fun colors.  However, it's cooling off a bit (east-coasters would laugh at what "cooling off" means here) so I decided a few days ago that I wanted to go for more Fall colors.  I've become slightly obsessed with plums, wines, berries - that color palate, but anyway...

The only Fall colors I see are in the OPI "Espana" display, so I grab one.  (Manicurist of Seville, if you're curious.)  The lady then indicates that I'm not allowed to use that color for my mani because it's only available for purchase.  I'll spare you the tit-for-tat conversation that ensued but needless to say it ended with me saying, "But all those colors [available for manis only] are ugly."  And trust me, they were.  We're talking metallic maroon, pearly greys, glittery greens, bubblegum pinks. And that was the stuff that didn't look like something Katy Perry threw up.  Apparently OPI's "Shrek" Collection wasn't selling well so that was thrown in the bunch, too.  (Whoever came up with that concept should be shot.)

In the end, I got my way and refused to fall for the old bait-and-switch trick.  It's not like I was aiming for some exotic color.  I'm sure 3/4 of you reading this have a similar color on now.

PS-- Mani/pedis in Hong Kong are EXPENSIVE.  I know what you're thinking, "But aren't all the nail ladies in NYC Chinese?"  No, they're Korean.  Same goes for dry-cleaning.

Boones in DB

Something is very wrong with the world when you CANNOT find a Triscuit or semi-sweet chocolate chip in your grocery store, but they do have Boones.

To add insult to injury, they even have a selection of Boones to choose from.  It took a Hong Kong grocery store to inform me that Boones comes in more than strawberry.

Btw, these are aptly wedged between sake and wine coolers.

Baba the Buckeye

So remember back when I shook my head in disbelief that I worked with someone named Baba?  When I got all high and mighty, looked down my nose and did all the other cliche things that a girl from NYC who thinks she's hot shit does?

Yeah, well it turns out Baba went to high school in England, college in Massachusetts and then went on to business school at THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY!  Yep, Baba is a bonafide Buckeye.

Here's us doing O-H-I-O at our recent event:

How does that famous saying go - Don't judge a book by it's first name cover??