Tip Tatto anyone?

I. COULD. NOT. BREATHE

Not because I climbed up 5 flights of stairs to A’s apartment… well… yes, that. But my shortage of oxygen was exacerbated by reading some insane business advertisements on the way up. I cannot remember the last time I laughed until I could not breathe. It was torture! It sounded like I was crying. 

Here are the appetizers. “Bussiness hours” or “eyelash extention”.. but here’s the classic:

“Tip Tatto”. Tip Tatto? What on earth is tip tatto? Did they mean tic-tac-toe? Huh? 

Go figure. 

Help! I can’t breathe!

The chicken, the duck and the egg

I’m in Hong Kong! The flight was turbulent as we approached the airport – quite scary… you could hear the passengers in the cabin gasp “ahh…” in unison when we hit one of the turbulent patches and there was that free falling feeling. Not one of my favourite moments. Nonetheless, thank God that I’ve arrived safely albeit at 2am on a rainy and windy Thursday morning.

I’m a banana (yellow on the outside, white on the inside)… Mr Yeo used to call me Katie aka KT aka Kan Tang. Mandarin is functional – I can get the food I want, direct the taxi driver to places I want to go… that’s about it. Naturally, my knowledge of dialects is non existent. I’m only beginning to learn some Cantonese phrases. “Ngor ceng lei yum KOPI!” “Lei gong met yeh?”

 I’m staying along Des Veoux Road. Which is De2 Fu2 Lu4 in mandarin. So I’m told it is dak4 fo2 low3 in Cantonese. I would never remember this! So here’s how I remember where I’m staying. (Think: Did the chicken come before the egg… or the egg before the chicken) Similarly, “Duck4 Fo2llow3 Egg4 or Egg4 Fo2llow3 Duck4?”. The evolutionary science of languages!

Storm Kammuri & me

I haven’t been blogging as frequently as I would have liked mainly because of the intensity at work. I just made my annual marketing plan presentations to the AVP and I’m relieved that the busiest period of the year has finally passed. I’m on my way to Hong Kong for a short break… of course, I’m looking forward to spending time with A… (oops, and lest ade is reading too)… and Ade!

Anyway, all was well this morning. A says I’m an airplane nerd because I was looking forward to flying the 777-300ER. I love travelling on this aircraft mainly because the seats are wide and they’ve got really nice compartments to place our things, and you can start watching movies even before takeoff! The typhoon in Hong Kong is preventing me from meeting A. I’ve been stuck at the airport for 3 hours already!!!

“The No. 8 Southeast Gale or Storm Signal is in force. This means that winds with mean speeds of 63 kilometres per hour or more are expected from the southeast quarter.At 11 a.m., Severe Tropical Storm Kammuri was centred about 130 kilometres south-southwest of Hong Kong (near 21.2 degrees north 113.7 degrees east) and is forecast to move west-northwest at about 14 kilometres per hour, edging closer to Hong Kong.East to southeasterly gale force winds are now affecting the territory with storm force winds over offshore waters and high grounds. According to the present track, the Gale or Storm Signal No.8 is expected to remain in force for most of the day today. In the past hour, the maximum sustained winds recorded at Cheung Chau were 89 kilometres per hour with maximum gusts reaching 115 kilometres per hour”.

Most of the da-ay?!?! I wanna go to Hong Kong now!

Updated to add: My flight has been delayed to midnight and I’m back at home.