Hong Kong

We spent a couple of days in Hong Kong weekend before last, and although it was an enjoyable experience I came away from it with a particularly bad case of 'flu that left me bedridden for at least half a week upon our return to Taipei. Even now I don't feel entirely recovered. Hong Kong, meanwhile, was dirty, messy, overcrowded and faintly hostile in nature; and whoever said the food in Hong Kong was of particularly high quality should be shot. We tried the local food on several occasions, and came away disappointed almost every time. Certainly compared to what you can get in Taipei, the food was frequently badly prepared, low quality, stomach-churning gunk. And expensive, to boot (a friend of Emma's told me that after spending several days touring around Hong Kong, he wound up eating almost exclusively out of McDonald's because so much of the food otherwise was so intolerably bad).

At one point we visited a cafe apparently famous for its 'tea/coffee'. Tea ... and coffee, mixed together. I was dubious when we went in, and even more dubious when we came out; they don't mix. But perhaps I might have expected no less of a city where they design buildings according to the principles of feng shui.

So, no, I can't say I was entirely blown away by Hong Kong. Nice place to visit for a while, but that's about it, although in the few days we were there we didn't really get a chance to see nearly as much of it as we might have liked. For that reason, we may return there at some point next year, finances depending. We didn't even make it as far as the New Territories.

I finally finished revising the outline for the third Dakota Merrick book and got working on the actual manuscript, which is still very much at the early stages, but feels much improved thanks to the changes. I also got through some early designs and sketches for the cover of Nova War. Too early to show you yet, but hopefully in the next several weeks I might have a cover to post.