HAVE I SEEN YOU?

I don't know why, but I love watching people. When I go shopping with Peta, thats usually my best chance to just stand there watching people. She's in the shop, looking at every possible item........TWICE, and I just quietly meander back out the door and wait out the front of the shop against the railing, watching people. Its an amazing time, wondering what people are thinking about, do they realise someone is watching them closely in amongst all of this hectic activity, what has been happening in their life to get them to this point, what happened in the past that could possibly have led them to have that haircut, or wear those clothes..... At these times I often see some strange things, and then start little experiments to watch other 'like' people to see if they all do that same strange thing. For example in Europe recently, I discovered that 'generally' (of course the odd exception may occur) girls drink out of a bottle differently to guys. I saw one girl sucking whilst drinking the water, so the bottle was ridiculously squashing in as she drank. Then I thought, oh my, I wonder if other people drink like that, and do you know what, HEAPS of girls started just sucking bottles. Its like I'd never noticed it before, even people back here in Hong Kong. In fact I can't stop it, I notice it everywhere now, its CRAZY!! So anyway, I had to watch guys to see how they did it, and you would not believe it, but most guys DON'T SUCK. They tilt the bottle and let the water flow in, but leave an air hole so the bottle doesn't suck in. Its quite fascinating, and an amazing piece of research in my opinion...... so here are some strange anomolies I've seen or heard around the traps;

* more people than you think almost collide whilst walking along corridors, footpaths etc... doing that, 'dodge one way and then the other' thing, where neither knows which way you want to go, until eventually you just embarrassingly say sorry and pass on by
* when there's a spare seat next to an adult (usually male) a kid will almost never sit in it
* chivalry (especially in HK) is very close to dead - particularly holding a door for someone, loading onto buses, helping a lady with her pram up stairs
* nude sun-bakers always put their bikinis back on to go for a swim - why bother??
* women are almost always more attracted to, and more likely to goo-gar over babies than men (even ugly ones), they just can't seem to help themselves
* the better people know each other, the more they don't look at each other when they're talking
* old people don't seem to be bothered at all, by not doing A THING all day EVERYDAY
* many people use 'up' and 'down' totally wrong eg.. someone from Melbourne says 'I went down to Sydney' when actually Sydney is clearly, geographically, above Melbourne - or 'I went up to my brothers house' when actually the brothers house is closer to the bottom of the hill
* a guy with no legs, and no wheelchair, in Rome was begging on a side-walk......then an hour later we saw the same guy about a mile away, begging on a different side-walk - WHAT THE??
* more than 75% of the people you see taking photos, take FAR too long to actually press the button

EURO 2006

STOP IT with that place!! Peta and I just got back from a month in England, Italy and Croatia. We went with Toby and Sarah, and of course the cutest baby we saw in all three countries....... Daisy. There is no doubt that England is damn awesome, although we did get there during a heat wave, so didn't get to experience the miserable side of the Poms. They are amazing at looking after their historical stuff........being a history buff (which is not real good being an Australian - Oz discovered in 1700's as you obviously knew), I loved just being able to look around and see things that were so old. Tom and Sara Benyon live in a cool place on the Thames, at Tom's school actually, which is highly prestigious as you would expect. It was great seeing them, and they really showed us the finer points of British bartering by getting us free tickets to centre court at wimbledon. JEEPERS.....there's no doubt that Wimbledon is one of the most elegant, high class, toffy nose, strawberries and cream style events I've ever been to. Was great to see the Woodies in action though!!

Then there's Italy.....just happened that we were there right when they won the world cup. Sitting in a restaurant in Venice, every eye including the waiter's, on the screen, we got to experience the 'jubilation of a nation' winning the most highly sort after trophy in world sport. Italy was stinking hot, and every tourist and his family pet dog seemed to be there, making it the most crowded, touristy place since visiting Mong Kok for a cheap mongolian bbq 6 weeks ago. We thought we were lucky to escape with our limbs intact after having dinner at an obviously, Sopranos-style, mafia run restaurant in Bolognia, until I got my camera pick-pocketed on a bus in Rome, with all our photos still on the memory card, and had to chase them down the street, grab the bag and camera back, and sprint back to jump on the bus.........now that was lucky!

Croatia had its moments, but Dubrovnik SHUT UP!!!! Easily the best place in Peta and my view that we visited. Infact, we all (including Toby and Sarah, and Daisy if she could) commented that we could live there. What a beautiful place, and well preserved 'old stuff'......you'd have to be a spanker to want to bomb it (which we saw plenty of remnants of) and even more of a spanker not to look it up if you were ever in Croatia.

But we're back in HK now, and to be honest, it's nice to come back to our place and just relax for a bit. With work around the corner........all good things must come to an end.