Goodbye 2019 - Looking Back

2019 has been a bit of a rollercoaster year with quite a few ups and downs and, if I’m honest, I’ll be quite pleased to see is fade into history. I’ve totally neglected the old blog this year too having debated long and hard about whether to carry on with it. After a lot of thought, I took a break and have gradually eased my way back into writing my usual nonsense again and I have rediscovered the spark that I thought I had lost.

To ease my way back I’ve spent the last couple of months simply answering questions once a week on Sunday Stealing and have had a lot of fun doing so. I plan to continue in 2020 and also return to my usual absurd gibberish as I talk about life, the universe and anything else that pops into my weird mind.

I usually sum up the year with a standard set of questions but this year I will answer a slightly different set, again from Sunday Stealing that will summarise the past twelve months.

It’s quite cathartic doing so because it reminds me of what happened, where I was etc. and I encourage others to have a go. I have done it every year since 2009, only missing out 2008 – the year I started this blog).

It’s quite long, so get your scuba diving gear on and jump in.

1. First things first, did you have a good year?

As I said above, it was a true rollercoaster. I don’t want to get into specifics but I really hope that 2020 is much better.

2. If you travelled, where did you go?

We travelled to Vietnam and Hong Kong. Also, we had a week in Kefalonia, Greece in September to say goodbye to summer with a little sun.

Finally, my annual university reunion left England’s shores for the first time this year as we all had a weekend break in Barcelona in Spain. My grumpy old university pals and I have officially gone international.

3. Which fashion trends did you love?

I am not a dedicated follower of fashion and the trends of the last few years generally have puzzled me. I am too old for fashion and the nonsense that it entails. I rely on Mrs PM to make sure that I don’t look like a bag of mad badgers.

4. Which fashion trends did you hate?

The weird rubbish I see on “celebrities” makes me wince. If they want to look like arses then that’s up to them.

5. What was your favourite article of clothing this year?

The normal stuff I wear.

6. What song sums up this year for you?

Spirits Will Collide by the multitalented Devin Townsend

7. What was your favourite movie of the year?

That is easy. Avengers: Endgame – an incredible movie. I also loved Joker.

8. Did an actor/actress catch your attention for the first time this year?

I’ve been watching Lucifer this year and there are two actors who I quite like. Mrs PM rolls her eyes and punches me playfully when I mention them during the show (at least I HOPE it is playfully). Step forward Lesley-Ann Brandt and Tricia Helfer.

9. Favourite new TV show?

I really enjoyed The Boys.

10. Did you make any big permanent changes this year?

First, I set myself the task of trying to learn a set of Spanish words every single day using two phone apps and I managed to do so. The bad news is that I have forgotten quite a lot of them, but quite a few have stuck.

Second, I decided to post a photograph on Instagram every single day and I also managed to achieve that.

Third, I forced myself to write every single day in an exercise called Freewriting where, basically, you just write anything that pops into your head with a view to making it a habit. I now have a word document with 150,000 words of pure nonsense, some in diary form, some exposing thoughts from my head and others expanding writing prompts, both fiction and non-fiction. The aim is to just write, even if it is gibberish (and believe me, most of it is). But in amongst that gibberish are several little nuggets, ideas and thoughts that might become blog posts or even more in the future.

Finally, I tasked myself to come up with an idea a day for every day in 2019. Some of the ideas are self-improvement, plans for improvement, new hobbies, etc. Again, some of them are silly but others might just work.

As for 2020, I have a rough plan – but we will see where it leads me.

11. What was one nice thing you did for yourself?

I bought myself a new laptop to replace my tired old desktop.

12. Did you develop a new obsession?

I guess that most of the things I mentioned in question 10 became an obsession.

13. Did you vote?

Of course I did. Sadly, results didn’t turn out the way I wanted and now I see my country turning to the dark side of stupidity.

14. Did you move?

No. I am still in the same house.

15. Did you get a job?

No. I'm just winding down for retirement.

16. Did you get a pet?

No. Sadly we lost a pet – my big fat 17 year old cat Jasper. We are now down to one cat, Jasper’s sister Poppy.

17. Do you regret not doing anything?

Not really. I wish I had more money and more annual leave from work so that I could travel more – but you can’t have everything.

18. Do you regret doing something?

Again, not really.

19. Have you done anything that scared you?

Yes. While visiting the Cu Chi tunnels near Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, we had the chance to fire an AK-47 on a shooting range. I had never held a gun before and it was a brave decision to have a go at trying to hit a target in the distance. Sadly, I cannot shoot and I missed the target with each of my three shots. It was fun but I have no desire to ever touch a firearm again.

20. Did anyone/thing make you so mad it stayed with you for days?

Days? It is still with me after MONTHS! The nasty, lying idiot we have as our Prime Minister has been lying to us ever since his fat face appeared on my television screen. Boris Johnson and his government make me angry every time they open their lying mouths. I still can’t believe that he has hoodwinked so many people into voting for him, his party and Brexit.

I plan to step back from politics in 2020 for the sake of my sanity more than anything.

21. Did you lose anyone close to you? 

Sadly yes. My aunt Margaret sadly passed this year. She was a lovely fiery lady in her 70’s who spoke her mind and was so funny she always made me laugh. She will be sorely missed by my entire family.

22. Who was important to you this year but wasn’t important last year?

Nobody leaps to mind.

23. Who wasn’t as important to you this year as they were last year?

Again, nobody leaps to mind.

24. If you could have a do over on one thing you did, would you take it?

I would repeat the holiday we had to Vietnam.

25. What was the best moment of the year for you?

Going back to Hong Kong. I absolutely love the city and the events of the last year sadden me immensely.

26. What was the worst?

Mrs PM was quite ill this year and she had to spend a week in hospital. She is back to full health now, thank goodness.

27. What are you most proud of accomplishing?

I am quite pleased with defeating procrastination and forcing myself to fulfil every one of my New Year’s Resolutions from 2018.

28. What have you learned about yourself this year that you didn’t know in the years prior?

I am a lot stronger than I thought I was. I managed to cope with all of the dips in the year, particularly Mrs PM being ill.

29. What do you wish for others for the coming year?

I hope that common sense prevails in 2020 but I cannot see that happening. For all of the ordinary people like me, I hope you all have a fantastic and joyful 2020.

30. What do you wish for yourself? 

I have made a list of things I want to achieve or chip away at in 2020 that is similar but probably more far reaching than 2019.

And I am promising myself that I will be more positive rather than getting angry over politics.

Contagion

My name is Dave and I am a hypochondriac.

For that reason, and that reason alone, the end of the world scenario that terrifies me most is the threat that we as a race could all be wiped out by a supervirus.

Imagine, if you will, a TV news announcement that describes a potential nasty bug that is spreading from person to person in numerous countries with no hope of recovery. From that point on, I would be totally and utterly convinced that the virus was in my system even if it hadn’t reached the shores of the United Kingdom yet.

In the past, I have been slightly perturbed when newscasters have mentioned benign bugs that are nasty but not lethal, even when they are confined to the deepest parts of Africa, say.

A few years ago there had been an outbreak of the deadly respiratory disease called Sars and it had surfaced in Hong Kong. Thankfully, the authorities had it under control eventually and it was then that my project manager asked me to go on a business trip to the city.  I read that the authorities at the airport were screening people as they came and left using thermal cameras in an attempt to detect elevated temperatures in travellers. I wrestled with my inner hypochondriac who told me in no uncertain terms that I was going to catch the disease even though it was under control. Normally I would have been over the moon to visit my favourite city outside the United Kingdom – but not this time.

Deep down I knew that I would be safe but that didn’t stop the hypochondriac inside whispering to me constantly through the flight: “You will catch Sars – that’s if you don’t have it already.”

The temperature in Hong Kong in the summer is quite a lot higher than the UK and you feel it the moment that you leave the aircraft. Such was my paranoia that I thought the thermal cameras would identify an elevated temperature in me as I walked towards immigration.

Of course, I was being utterly stupid and I passed through without a problem. My trip lasted three weeks, during which time I became an expert in the symptoms of Sars. Every time I felt slightly below par I was convinced that I had succumbed to the disease – even a few weeks after my return to Manchester.

I know that I am an idiot for allowing myself to accede to such moronic paranoia but I can’t help it. I wish I could.

Thus, if I were to ever catch a news report telling me that a deadly disease was spreading across the world, wiping out everybody who came into contact with it, I would probably worry myself to death months before the infection claimed me.

I would be an expert and would probably use all of my money to travel to the remotest part of the world, avoiding all contact with civilisation on my way, so that I could sit there in splendid isolation away from any human beings who might pass on the deadly virus to me.

That’s how irrational my inner hypochondriac is.

The perfectionist in me wanted to do some research into the possibility of humanity being wiped out by such a virus so I have had to silence the hypochondriac.

And thank goodness for that because I have discovered that it is highly unlikely that a pandemic could cause the extinction of the human race. Over the centuries, there have been several nasty little blighters that have tried their level best to take us all out – things like The Black Death, Ebola, various flavours of flu, Sars and HIV.

The good news is that there are steps in place to contain such outbreaks and the organisations and institutions that are responsible for this are damned good at what they do.

Yet, as I watch programs like “The Walking Dead” where a virus has wiped out all but the hardiest of humanity and turned them into flesh eating Zombies, I can’t help but think that maybe such a thing could happen. In fact, in the show, every human being actually has the disease anyway so that when you eventually die, you come back to life as a cannibalistic corpse whose sole  raison d'être is to munch on the living.

How nice is that?

My deepest fear is that there is a malignant virus living dormant in every human being ust waiting to be activated and murder us in the most horrible way possible. If I shove this thought aside for a moment (very difficult now it is in my head) the truth is that humanity would find a way were such a supervirus to suddenly appear – even if it were man made. Some form of humanity would survive and find a way perhaps living in a remote part of the world, like the top of a mountain range, the deepest part of the Australian Outback or an African desert. It wouldn’t be pleasant but we might survive.

And if you do live in such an inhospitable yet safe part of the world, get ready to meet me. I’ll be there the moment the first cases of the outbreak are reported.

700 Posts and More Travel Snippets

Well, folks, it’s another milestone for The Plastic Mancunian – this is my 700^th post. This means that I have written 700 posts of utter drivel, averaging about 900 words per post making a rough total of 630,000 words of nonsense to bore anybody who happens to stumble on this web site whilst presumably looking for something more important and interesting.

In fact, the 10th anniversary of The Plastic Mancunian is 21^st March 2018 – and I think that might be a fitting point to call it a day. I haven’t fully decided this yet but it seems a good place to stop and put my energies into writing something more worthwhile – watch this space.

However, that is about 8 months away and until then I shall continue to bore you with drivel. 

I rarely use Facebook these days, but one of the main applications I use is something from Tripadvisor that allows me to record where I have travelled. Thus far, it tells me that I have been to 34 countries, including 368 cities. By “cities” the application really means cities, towns and villages; but I’m not complaining. It also tells me that I have travelled 294,688 miles and seen 25% of the world. 

I aim to increase all of these statistics before I say hello to God in person.

Here is a map of my travels:

I thought I’d would repeat a similar post I wrote way back in 2010 (you can read it here) and share a few more snippets of fun that I have experienced from my travels from 2010 to the present day:

(1)        Muscat, Oman – I had a rather strange but very tasty dish: Camel Biriyani.

(2)        British Columbia, Canada – I stood on a glacier in the snow drinking whiskey. I hate whiskey but it was required to warm myself up.

(3)        Reykjavic, Iceland – I found myself on a dance floor in an Icelandic night club surrounded by five gorgeous, tall blond women. Mrs PM said that I looked terrified.

(4)        Boston, USA – I met Henry VIII on a street – promoting Virgin flights to the UK. He didn’t think I was English and asked if I wanted the trip of a lifetime – back to England.

(5)        Cape Cod, USA – We stayed with a wonderful old couple in Cape Cod who referred to us as “the kids”, not really realising that I was 48 at the time.

(6)        Salvador, Brazil – The only way I could communicate with a lot of Brazilians was using very bad Spanish in the vague hope that they would also speak it as a second language. It worked – once or twice.

(7)        British Columbia, Canada – the scenery in this wonderful part of the world is amongst the most breath-taking I have ever seen.

(8)        Seattle, USA – Mrs PM’s dad was asked for ID when ordering a beer. He was 68 years old at the time.

(9)        Muscat, Oman – the hottest temperature I have ever experienced is 46°C. I thought I was going to melt.

(10)     Hakone, Japan – I used an onsen for the first time. It was like taking a hot bath.

(11)     Barcelona, Spain – Barcelona is home to one of the greatest football teams in Europe, if not the world. And I managed to find a bar showing my own beloved team’s game. They are Walsall and are in the third tier of the English football league.

(12)     Santorini, Greece – I climbed a volcano in beach sandals.

(13)     Berlin, Germany – I walked into a restricted area outside the Reichstag, reserved only for German politicians and staff. A stern but friendly German police officer showed me the correct way to go.

(14)     Muscat, Oman – I refused to carry on a training course until my students agreed to form the Omani division of the Walsall Football Supporters Club. They agreed but wondered why I don’t support a good team like Manchester United or Manchester City.

(15)     Alaska, USA – Alaska is the only place I have ever seen blue ice floating in a freezing cold sea.

(16)     Blue Lagoon, Iceland – Heaven is sitting in a geothermal spa with a silica mud mask drinking a glass of beer.

(17)     Boston, USA – I informed a group of American tourists on a famous boat used in the War for Independence that they were lucky to have won and that one day we’ll be back. They took it in jest rather than lynching me – I guess Americans do understand British humour after all.

(18)     Tokyo, Japan – The Robot Restaurant is the craziest and entertaining show I have ever been to.

(19)     Bύzios, Brazil – Mrs PM and I saw a model phot shoot at our hotel whilst relaxing by a pool. I did not stare at them and I certainly didn’t take any photos myself (well not many anyway).

(20)     Alaska, USA –                 I was introduced to log rolling, where two men run on a log in water until one of them plunges into the icy water. Great fun to watch but not much fun if you lose.

(21)     Reykjavic, Iceland – I ate whale for the first and only time. Not a whole one!!

(22)     Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates – The only mosque I have ever visited is the Sheikh Zayed Mosqu in Abu Dhabi. It is huge and beautiful and can accommodate 40,000 worshippers.

(23)     Kunming, China – I was asked, as guest of honour, to select the fish we would be having for dinner. The poor thing was swimming with his friends and ended up on our plate. I was sad about this particularly at the end when the tank was missing one resident.

(24)     Lisbon, Portugal – Lisbon has a smaller version of the famous Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.

(25)     Hakone, Japan – We stayed in a Japanese-style hotel and wore a yukata for mealtimes.

(26)     Monaco – I have never seen so many supercars in one place at any one time.

(27)     Rome, Italy – I celebrated my 50^th birthday in Rome with friends, one of whom , another Dave, was also 50. We were forced to wear a “50 Today” badge while the women in the group wore a T shirt with a picture of the two of us enclosed in a heart with the slogan “Happy 50^th Birthday You Old Gits!”

(28)     Berlin, Germany – We actually ate a Berliner, which contrary to a popular ex-American president, is a doughnut (a Berliner Pfannkuchen in fact).

(29)     Tokyo, Japan – Mrs PM and I got lost in Shinjuku railway, not once but three times. The third time, a member of staff who tried to help us was also clueless.

(30)     Boston, USA – I had a beer in Cheers.

(31)     Nice, France – Nice is my favourite city in France and I will not let the antics of a nutcase in a lorry stop me from going back.

(32)     Puerto Banús, Spain – I strolled down a crowded street walking between a cruising Ferrari and a cruising Lamborghini. Bloody show offs!

(33)     Dubai, United Arab Emirates - In order to conquer my fear of heights I climbed the Burl Khalifa in Dubai – the tallest building in the world at 828 metres. My quest  failed. I am still scared of heights .

(34)     Tokyo, Japan – This city is absolutely huge. Having spent three days there I only saw about a quarter of the place.

(35)     British Columbia, Canada – I met a Mountie, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

(36)     Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – We strolled along Ipanema Beach whilst drinking a coconut and shortly afterwards on Copacabana Beach while drinking beer. Beautiful.

(37)     Marbella, Spain – Keen to show off my blossoming Spanish skills I ordered  a beer and ended up with shandy!

(38)     Kyoto, Japan – Two very drunk businessmen starting talking to us in a sushi bar and tried to persuade in very broken English to join them on a bar crawl. Thankfully we had a bullet train to catch.

(39)     Kunming, China – I ate some of the most wonderful yet weird food I have had. I avoided insects.

(40)     Beijing, China – I ate some of the most wonderful yet weird food I have ever had – again! I avoided pig brain.

(41)     Dubai, United Arab Emirates – You can buy gold bars from a vending machine. I didn’t because I am skint.

(42)     Alaska, USA – There is a photograph of me about to put a dollar bill in the cleavage of a very buxom waitress.  And Mrs PM’s dad was doing exactly the same. Don’t worry  - everybody was doing it; we were in a themed restaurant/bar pretending to be a whorehouse and it was a bit of fun. The photo was taken by his wife.

(43)     Tokyo, Japan – I used the world’s best toilet in Tokyo. I’m glad I work in IT so I could work out how to operate it.

(44)     Berlin, Germany – We were in Berlin for the 25^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall but missed the celebrations by two days.

(45)     Kunming, China – I saw the world’s worst toilet on a building site in Kunming. I am delighted that I didn’t have to use it.

(46)     Iguaçu Falls, Brazil and Argentina – I visited something more impressive than Niagara Falls, namely Iguaçu Falls. We were so impressed that we saw them in Brazil one day and just over the border in Argentina the next day.

(47)     Barcelona, Spain – La Sagrada Familia, the famous cathedral in Barcelona, is still not complete 135 years after it was started. It will finally be finished in 2026.

(48)     Kyoto, Japan – We visited a shrine with around 10,000 sacred gates (torii). An amazing sight.

(49)     Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - In order to conquer my fear of heights I climbed Mount Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro to see the legendary statue of Christ the Redeemer. My quest  failed. I am still scared of heights

(50)     Hong Kong – After visiting for the umpteenth time in 2013, I can safely say that it is still my favourite city in the world. Mrs PM and I hope to go again in 2018 for our 20^th anniversary.

That's it for now. If I have made you laugh or held you interest for a minute or two then that’s great. 

See you for post 701 and once again thank you so much for bothering to read the nonsense I write.

Cars, Trains, Bikes ... and a Tank

I was looking through some recent photographs and I noticed that I had taken quite a few pictures of various modes of transport.

I’m not really interested in cars, trains and motorbikes to be honest, but when I see an interesting vehicle, I do feel compelled to take a photo of it.

I thought I would share a few with you, dear reader in the hope that you find them as interesting as I did when I captured them, starting with the car above, which I saw at a classic car show in Manchester.

I spotted the car below in a multistory car park in Bordeaux. I think it's meant to serve as a warning to drivers to be careful when driving around corners.

The truck below was parked outside a James Dean themed restaurant in Prague, in the Czech Republic. It was a great advert for a very enjoyable place.

In Collioure, in the south of France, they also use a car to advertise a restaurant.

Regular readers will know that I love the city of Hong Kong and the double-decker trams in that wonderful city are iconic - and cheap too.

In Europe, we rarely see bikes as beautiful as the one below. We have to go across the pond to Boston to catch a glimpse.

Below is another couple of classic cars I spotted at a show in Manchester.

Back across the Atlantic Ocean in Alaska, there is a very enjoyable way to tour Skagway.

In Canada, in the past, a rather special vehicle was required to take tourists onto a glacier. 

These days, the Canadians have replaced it with a monster bus whose wheels are almost as tall as I am.

In a warmer climate, its obvious that there are people in Monte Carlo have a little more disposable income than the rest of us.

And a few kilometres away, in the French city of Cannes, the story is the same. Here is a random car I discovered parked outside the shops.

Before the wall came down in Berlin, East Germans drove around in tiny little cars called Trabants. These days, they also use them to advertise shops.

In Japan, you can travel the length and breadth of the country in super fast Shinkansen bullet trains. They roar through train stations at such high velocities that if you are standing on a platform it is actually almost a scary experience. The picture below was my fourth attempt at capturing this magnificent train. 

Japan is the only place in the world where you will find a neon tank. It is probably the most wonderful place I have ever visited and probably the strangest too. Only in Japan would you experience the Robot Restaurant and find yourself face to face with the tank below while eating your meal and witnessing what I can only describe as the weirdest but most entertaining show I have ever seen.

I will tell you more about the Robot Restaurant in a future post.

The tank was one of the more sensible parts of the show. 

I'll bet you can't wait to hear about it.

Fragrant Harbour

Hong Kong is my favourite city outside the UK and I worked out recently that I have spent well over a year of my life there.

My first visit was in the mid 1990’s with work and at first I hated the place, mainly because the project I was working on was very intense and extremely stressful, so much so that I felt physical symptoms, awakening the hypochondriac within me. It was a wake up call and became a bit of a turning point in my life.

I was making several trips to the city every year for around four years and I gradually grew to love the place, particularly because that was where Mrs PM and I got together.

Now, it holds a very special place in my heart, and if I ever win the lottery I will aim to visit there as often as I can. In fact, whenever I head east on a holiday, I always try to squeeze in a visit, even if it is slightly out of the way.

More recently, we popped in on our way to Australia in 2005, on our way to Thailand in 2008 and last year on our way to Japan. I have already made a rough plan to go back to Japan, probably in 2018 and, of course I shall visit Hong Kong as part of the itinerary.

I feel it is like visiting an old friend.

Here are some of my favourite memories of the city.

(1) Top of the list is of course, Mrs PM and I starting out on our relationship way back in 1998. Being a blind fool I had no idea that she was interested in a man like me, so effectively she had to make it obvious. I can be so dense sometimes – particularly when it comes to women.

(2) The view from Victoria Peak is arguably one of the greatest in the world. Hong Kong is resplendent with extremely modern skyscrapers and from the Peak you can actually look down on the splendour of the city. I would recommend having a meal in Café Deco, one of my favourite restaurants in the world. From there you can enjoy fantastic food and enjoy the magnificent view.

(3) Wan Chai is a very exciting area for night life and I have suffered the consequences of an excess of entertainment there on a couple of occasions, whether it be trying to buy a drink in Carnegie’s Aussie bar from between the legs of one of the many people dancing on the bar itself or watching a progressive rock tribute band playing Pink Floyd’s The Wall in its entirety (or at least the first few songs before I was unceremoniously dragged out by Mrs PM as she hates the band).

(4) Chinese food is fantastic, and I have to say that the cuisine in Hong Kong opened my eyes to new things to eat. Not all of them are appetising, for example eel stew or “thousand year old egg” but I certainly tried quite a few dishes I could barely imagine before visiting the city. We once went to a local restaurant , i.e. a restaurant that was not obviously  for tourists, and blindly ordered a set meal from a very grumpy waiter. The meal was fantastic and much cheaper than the more tourist oriented places we had eaten at previously.

(5) The Peninsular Hotel is probably the most expensive hotel I have ever seen. I can only imagine staying in one of the hotel’s most expensive suites, costing a few thousand pounds a night and offering breath-taking views of Victoria Harbour from your own private balcony, enhanced with a telescope, as well as your own private gym and a butler. The hotel also has a fleet of Rolls Royce limousines and a helipad shuttle service to take the most important guests to and from the airport. That is definitely something to do if I win the lottery and want to blow a wad of cash for one night.

(6) I mastered the art of politely refusing an offer without saying a word, thanks to Tsim Sha Tsui, or TST as it is known to locals. TST is a shopping area where there is a plethora of shops (in fact Hong Kong is a magnet for people who love shopping) but you can also buy tailor made suits, copy watches or jewellery. As you walk along the streets, you will almost certainly be asked if you want to buy such items and, being experienced now, all I have to do is raise my hand and shake my head slightly as soon as I am approached, rather than trying to engage them in conversation as I did in my naïve youth.

(7) Hong Kong is made up of the Kowloon peninsula and a staggering 263 islands, only a fraction of which I have visited. Lantau is the biggest island, closely followed by Hong Kong Island; in fact the airport Chek Lap Kok is also an island. Chek Lap Kok was originally just a tiny little place but was utterly flattened and, with the help of land reclamation turned into an island big enough to accommodate a huge airport. Mind you, having flown into Kai Tak, the original airport in Kowloon, I have to say that landing a plane at Chek Lap Kok is much safer. There are few experiences more terrifying than being on a plane that has turned sharply to land between high rise buildings in an extremely densely populated area of a very densely populated city.

(8) Hong Kong is full of skyscrapers and between visits a couple more have risen out of the ground to take me by surprise. I remember looking across Victoria Harbour during one of my more recent visits and exclaiming “Where the hell did that thing come from?” as my eyes caught yet another huge building. Talking of which, the view from the Kowloon side of Hong Kong to the enormous skyscrapers on Hong Kong island is breath-taking during the daytime but even more magnificent at night time when they are all lit up to great effect.

To be honest I could write an entire book on Hong Kong – maybe one day I will (it gives me an excuse to visit the place again) but I shall stop for now. I will leave you with some photographs of my time there.  If you get a chance to visit, please do; you will not regret it for one second. I know my next visit can’t come soon enough.

Taking a little bit of Walsall to Hong Kong in 1999.
I was working - honestly!

Noon Day Gun

Hong Kong Tram

Jumbo Restaurant, Aberdeen

Hong Kong Island at night.

View from Victoria Peak at night

Skyscraper City!

Hong Kong street life

Live band in a very packed bar in Wan Chai.

Dancing on the bar in Carnegie's

500 Posts? Really?

Welcome to my 500th post. 

Yes, that’s right; I have written exactly 500 posts of bunkum in the past six years. I’m surprised that I have managed to keep this up to be perfectly honest. 

Regular readers will know that I have done a fair amount of travelling, some of it with work and the rest with holidays. In total I have visited thirty six countries (if you count England, Wales, Scotland, Hong Kong, Macau and Vatican City as countries – for poetic license I will do just that!).

I have acquired quite a few photos that are taking up a fair amount of space on my hard drive and for this special post and for a bit of fun, I have decided to share a few of them with you under the guise of lessons learned:

Not all creatures in Australia are out to kill me. Australia is full of venomous spiders, venomous snakes, vicious salties and monstrous jellyfish (and even the platypus has venomous spurs on its ankles) but the cuddly koala is harmless:

Poor Koala! (Australia 2005)

Even the plants in Australia can be dangerous.

Nasty tree (Australia 2005)

When I take over the world, I will use the robot army I discovered in Japan.

Piers Morgan - watch out! (Tokyo 2013)

Random strangers in Iceland are very friendly and like to cuddle Plastic Mancunians whenever there is a photo opportunity.

"Can I just hop into your photo?" (Reykjavic 2010)

Never ever ever EVER wear a Hawaiian shirt – not even for a laugh at a beach party in Barbados. It’s not cool and it certainly isn’t clever.

OH MY GOD!!! (Barbados 2007)

Glaciers are very cold. It is sensible to wear a warm coat and gloves. I failed.

"I really think you should wear a hat and gloves, young man!" (Canadian Rockies 2010)

Random strangers in Hong Kong are very friendly and like to cuddle Plastic Mancunians whenever there is a photo opportunity.

"My life's ambition - to meet a Proclaimer!" (Hong Kong 2013)

Don’t ever ever EVER grow a beard ever again. 

Can you actually see it? (Beijing 1999)

It is impossible to get a close up of Niagara Falls without getting your camera wet.

Can you actually see the Falls? (2001)

And finally, here are a few random pictures of some great places I have visited:

Grand Mosque - Abu Dhabi (2012)

Boston (2009)

Alaska (2010)

The Great Wall of China (1999)

Hong Kong (2008)

Kyoto, Japan (2013)

Lisbon (2011)

Niagara Falls (2001)

Pompeii (2006)

Rome (2012)

Sydney (2005)

Post 501 should be on its way soon - where normal drivelsome nonsense will be renewed.

Thank you so much for reading so far. I really appreciate it.