As many of you may have noticed, we have been noticeably absent from the pages of this here blog for longer than is polite. For that, we sincerely apologise. We do however have a number of excuses and, it seems, some challenges we’re fixin’ to conquer.
As alluded to in previous blogs, work life in Hong Kong can be pretty full on. That’s not to say that fun time isn’t a huge priority – this city really epitomises the old adage of ‘work hard, play hard’ but all that working and playing can take a chunk out of sleeping and blogging time, so naturally, you know what can happen.
Have we mentioned how damn awesome Hong Kong is? Yes, that can be a problem in itself. Firstly, everyone wants to come here and we have found ourselves (extremely) willingly distracted by myriad visitors, friends, family and Air BnB strangers alike and before we knew it months have flown by in a blur of people staying with us and enticing us to be the hosts with the most. Well, we hope we have been anyway. Though if anyone else wants to go to the Big Buddha, we’re a bit Big Buddha-d out by now, so you’re on your own.
Hong Kong being awesome can be a problem in other ways too. When a city is so infinitely amazing and full of stuff – not to mention people – there are already a whole lot of of people blogging their little butts off about it. Another blog of The Peak? Yawn. Waxing lyrical about the array of shopping? Sigh. Okay, how about food, the number one pastime in Hong Kong? Well, maybe, (and probably) but how to distinguish oneself from the ravenous hordes of food writers, both professional and horribly amateur, already filling up the internet airwaves (or whatever the heck the internet equivalent is)?!
Image taken from http://picsofaznstakingpicsoffood.tumblr.com/ Thanks so much guys!
Seriously, if you’ve ever eaten here in Hong Kong then it won’t have escaped you the amount of people poised camera ready as their plates arrive. In this day and age of Instagram and friends, Hong Kong holds the record for Most Amount of People Per Square Foot Letting Their Food Go Cold While Getting the Angle Just Right*. A little less known statistic is is that HK is also home to the most amount of pissed off waiters/servers who are told to “STOP”, “SLOW DOWN”, “MOVE YOUR ARM TO THE LEFT” mid-drizzle as they dress your salad/pour chocolate sauce over your sphere of dessert as the customer mucks around with the aperture of their camera.
Anyway, you get the picture – food writing in HK is a seriously saturated market so finding a narrative away from the bog-standard “we went there, we ate this” and including terms like “rustic” or “exposed beams” can be a little trickier than you might expect.
Indeed, the idea of finding a narrative leads to the next pitfall of Hong Kong’s extreme awesomeness and its effect on blogging – nearly everything here is ridiculously well organised and, well, easy. Don’t get us wrong, of course there are the occasional challenges and frustration peculiar to living in a new culture but these tend to be the things you don’t necessary blog about but more the things you bitch and moan about to your peers who are also experiencing it.
“For a city of 7 million people, how come no one is EVER in a hurry on the footpath? How important is their game of Candy Crush??!!!!”
Hong Kong is multilingual, well sign-posted, it has the most clean, easy to use, reasonably priced and efficient public transport of anywhere we’ve ever been and, if all else fails, people are unflappably helpful. Stare vacantly at one spot for long enough here and inevitably someone will ask you if you need help. So, again, what’s the problem? Well, often easy = boring. How do you randomly discover stuff you wouldn’t have otherwise when you don’t get hideously lost ever now and then? How do you stumble into areas you shouldn’t go, for the odd hilarious hair-raising experience when there aren’t any such areas? And how on earth to stand out from the pack of zillion tourist/bloggers/critics all posting about the Big Buddha, dim sum and the latest opening by the Dining Concepts Group?**
There’s been one other reason why we’re been seriously lagging on the blog front for a while now too – in spite of all the offence we’ve potentially caused the Instagrammers, we do really enjoy eating, traveling to eat, discovering new things to eat and writing about eating. But a recent spanner in the works has somewhat limited the palate and, in fact, curtailed the ability of one half our intrepid team to eat as much or as widely as desired – yes folks, we’re currently expecting our very own mini-us, due June next year.
All the above aside, we are still here and we are back on the ball with some waterfallsandcaribou style of commentary coming your way again soon. Funnily enough, according to our blog statistics our most popular topic is…food. We hear ya. And we’re off this weekend to try and get ourselves into trouble somewhere random with no research, no planning and no money. That’s how the best adventures start, right?
* Potentially a completely made-up statistic.
** Don’t get us wrong, there are some local blogs we’re fond of. For an expert take on food, check out Janice Leung’s e-ting; for a side-splitting look at life here in HK you can’t go past ‘serial expat’ Expat Lingo; for some cool photos of HK (and beyond) daybydaybphoto photo is a good’n.
OMG congrats on mini youuuuuuu. Excellent news to start the day on this fine Cayman friday morning! Be well you guys and keep up the bloody awesome posts. Xx
Thanks Nat, we’re pretty stoked even if it does hinder the dining somewhat, hahaha. Hope your wee family is doing well 🙂 xxx
It’s your commentary/observations that makes you so amazing to read, no matter what you are writing about!
Thanks so much! When you break it down, we just blogged about absolutely nothing and people still like it, haha. We’re like the Kardashians of the blog world.
Well better than the Kardashians (or more entertaining) but you’re right! I was thoroughly entertained!
Better than the Kardashians?! *SHUCKS* What would Kanye say? Actually, he’d probably call us hobbits, especially seeing as we’re from NZ…Thanks again for the blog love.
Congrats to the two of you!!! 🙂
Thanks John!
A big congratulations on the forthcoming member of your family! (Pro tip: enjoy all the AirBnB guests you can before June.)
As for my blog: you’re too kind! Thanks!
Yip, we’ll be cramming them in HK styles up to the roof till June, hehehe.
Ha! Perhaps you could also rent out your flat every Sunday to groups of helpers looking for a private place to socialize out of the rain?
Oh wow, you may have just come up with THE best business plan!!!
Congrats on the mini you 2. Love it. Good to see you’re still having fun and the food in HK looks to die for.
The food here is amazing and HK continues to blow our minds. Highly recommended for a visit! And cheers for the wishes 🙂
Congratulations:)
Thanks Sara! One more to bring to Ethiopia in the future…
That would be awesome 🙂 best wishes!
Wonderful, wonderful news – congratulations to you both! We’ve missed you and enjoy reading your posts even if they’re once a week or once every 9 months 😉
Thanks, Chica! We promise we’ll try not to leave it 9 months, haha.
WELCOME BACK!!!! And congratulations on the wee one!!!! No brie + sushi – major bummer, but so worth it! Hope your energy isn’t flagging too much! And although there really are an insane amount of blogs out there, keep writing because you guys are hilarious + I always smile when I read a post! Take care!
No brie, no sushi, no heaps of things, some expected, some random (bean sprouts?!). Energy levels are definitely returning to normal now, thank goodness.
I have missed reading your posts but I understand. Congrats, very happy for the two of you.!!!!
Thanks Sophia!
First, congratulations! And second, even when you blog about why you haven’t blogged, its still a great post — especially the fact that often when things come too easy they are less easy to write about. But your travels, adventures, street art pics and (of course!) food posts are always fun for me to read. =)
Lol, thanks Jessamine! We’re determined to look for some adventure and, at the very least, some tasty morsels. Luckily, we appear to be in the right place.
Congratulations and welcome back
Thank you!
Yay congrats! I love it when two awesome humans make a mini-awesome-human 🙂 xoxo
We shall name him/her ‘Bacon’. Hahahahaha. And thanks!!! NIce to hear from you, as always 🙂 x
Whoa!!! Big congrats on your mini you x 2!!! That’s amazing, you’re going to have an international baby! It’s very exciting and I hope you’re back on track with the noms and food fest soon… Or is that baby fest!
#1 food fest.
#2 baby.
Is that wrong?!! Hahahahaha.
Hi HJ – we (Margaret, myself, Victoria & Jonathan & kids) – will be in HK on 19th March, from 7am to 12 midnight – enroute to Europe. I will touch base closer to the time, & hope to say hello!
Looking forward to it!!!
Congrats!!!! Having a mini-you in HK will be an adventure?? Or are you going home?
I’m finally making time to catch up on your posts!! Life is boring but busy in Canada! 😀
We thought you’d dropped off the face of the planet for a bit there! Glad to hear that things are busy though the boring bit might need rectifying?!
Yip, baby will be born in HK (having job security through this time is a huge bonus!) and we plan to head back to NZ at the end of the year to bring baby up around grass, space, AIR…Though we’ll be sure to make sure baby is portable and easy-going enough to be packed up at a minutes notice for more adventures 🙂
I’m sure having a baby abroad will be VERY exciting! 😀 Hopefully exciting in a good, blog-worthy kind of way!
I’ve been working at the Japanese Embassy which has been awesome but blogging about it would violate confidentiality clauses sadly. 🙂 And the rest of Canada… it just snows here. A lot. Still, I’m sure I’ll find something exciting soon!
Oooh sounds exciting in a you-could-tell-us-but-you’d-have-to-kill-us kinda way! The snow bit, we’re not particularly jealous of! It will be enough of an adjustment heading back to the relatively warmer (than Canada, that is) climes of NZ after tropical HK!