Juicy

I was living in LA when the whole Juicy Couture thing hit its hayday. Leave it to America (and Los Angeles) to attempt to add style to what is the quintessentially amorphous sweatsuit. I suppose that during Flo Jo's days (may she and her bling nails rest in peace) it was the running suit that women everywhere would wear on their weekly grocery errands. But thanks to that no-name wife of John Taylor (God I love Duran Duran) - we had an update - a low rise, flared, psuedo velour sweatpants in a variety of fashion forward colors. Juicy was outrageously expensive to me (during my Nordstrom shopping days) and I found the gold lamme "Juicy Couture" in a baroque font to be, well, dangerous to my more Ann Taylor / Banana Republic days.

So it never struck me how entirely too casual these togs were until I arrived in Hong Kong in mid 2003. Juicy was no where to be found among the skinny jean Converse high top sea of humanity that greeted me in Asia. So over time I adopted - not too the style of my fellow HK people, but to be a little less LA casual (in my myriad of monkey faced T-shirts) when I was not working.

Earlier this week I was in Hong Kong riding an escalator at a train station when I was behind a thirtysomething Asian lady who was wearing a full-on purple Juicy outfit. And at that very moment, I understood. It is what my sister has succintly deemed as AOA - Absence of Ass. This trait plagues many of us Asians. Fortunately low rise jeans seem to help this issue for me, but there needs to be some form to the fabric for this cut to work. The Juicy style has no formed it and therefore does a a disservice to the ass challenged.

Practically speaking I am glad that this style never hit in Hong Kong. Thank goodness for prevalent mirrors!

Cocktail Bun

When I used to live in the States (I say this as if this was a fleeting time instead of 27 years of my life), I used to like going to Asian bakeries with my mom. I reveled in how not sweet the confections were. Mom would find these tasty coffee rolls with cream that tasted like fresh churned butter swirled throughout. She also got these great peanut flavored topped golden rolls which I am certain had no ingredients vaguely resembling an actual peanut.

Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that these bakeries were a dime a dozen here in Asia . The cocktail buns (as they are called, and they do resemble larger versions of the pigs in a blanket served at cocktail parties) are served in small produce bags. And they do serve a large version of the pig in a blanket – except the hot dog has criss crossed mayonnaise on top. The Asian version of hot crossed buns (and a testament to the absolute overuse of mayonnaise here, as it is also prominently featured in… fruit salad!). I often wondered the cases of salmonella poisoning not reported from these buns made in the morning and bought and consumed at tea time.

Wieners are not the only savory filling (savory seems to outnumber sweet here, although there is a tasty coconut cream one I have had that has the sweetness of something Hostess like). Imagine Chicken. Or Pork Floss.

I was often awestruck how my colleagues at my previous job could eat these at their desk for breakfast. How that GI raising, bleached white bread bomb could somehow be satisfying with its measly half-ounce of protein. There I would be, eating my Fiber One out of a Dixie cup, hoping for a filling fibrous meal that left me hungry at 10:30. I never saw these bun eating freaks ever snack before lunch.

Maybe there is something in them that keeps you full. The antithesis of MSG perhaps. I should give one a try some morning. Maybe not the hot dog one.

Reflections on Singapore

We have just returned from Singapore. It was idyllic in that frenetic way that a city break can be.

Singapore has a reputation for being regimented. I thought it was less so than in Japan. People talked on the cell phones on the train in Signapore. Speaking of trains, they do not run really efficiently. They run every 10 minutes or so in the shoulder periods. Things are...slower than in Hong Kong. People even walk slower. I even passed people!

It is really a beautiful city in a way that a master planned city should be beautiful. Trees line the streets and the horticulture is lush as you leave the airport (not unlike Orlando). There are trees and parks and lovely spaces that are the interstitials between the lovely colonial buildings (that they make an effort to uplight the windows in at night - quite stunning) and the nouveau architecture that punctuates the rather aberrant skyline.

The sky is clean and crisp and there is no evidence of factory dredge anywhere. It is a metropolitan utopia.

It is an interesting place because they (the mysterious and ubiquitous they) have sanitized their reputuation while still maintaining the history. The opposite of Hong Kong really - whereas HK has sanitized the architecture but allowed its citizens some autonomy, Singapore allows their people little autonomy but has a mind to juxtapose the old and new aesthetic (and keep them both clean).

The government seems to prescribe to a Scared Straight philosophy. There was a constant loop on the train of various train bombings around the world and how you! A private citizen! Could help stop these crimes. Blood and gore - the imagery spared no details of these previous rail tragedies.

And the cigarettes! I do not even smoke but I was struck by the packaging. The boxes have these irremovable images of gangrene. Dead fetuses. Men who have holes for where their cheeks should be. Every possible visually abhorrent ramification of smoking permanently affixed to the boxes.

The images around Singapore (at least on the trains and the fags) are not for the faint of heart.

I would live there in a heartbeat.

Calamityville

It is official. Matt's foot is broken. The fifth metatarsil to be exact on his right (driving) foot. I have learned that bones are brittle. Matt has played hockey forever and has not broken a bone during play. This is especially ironic because I thought I had broken my toe after I dropped an ice skate squarely on the center of my big right toe (bloody right feet). So I went to the doctor last Wednesday and got an X-ray on Thursday. Matt had his accident on Sunday, which resulted in a visit to the ER. He went to two doctors on Monday, the second doctor being at the clinic where they gave me my initial referral for the X-ray. So Matt went in to get a referral to a HK orthopaedic specialist (to the Cantopop stars of Hong Kong apparently) and I went in to review the X-ray from a week before. My toe was indeed not broken! My feet are really screwed up looking though and crooked.

In 7 days we had gone to 6 medical service centers between us!

Maybe it is bad luck now for Rabbits. Or we are just clumsy...

Needless to say he has been minimally on his feet. It is a good thing he only goes to the toilet once during the workday.