Today I...am curious

Today I...am curious about a lot of things actually.

I am curious about the very large Asian family (four grandparents, two parents, three little girls, and the most beautiful boy with a very broken body, and one nanny) who scolded their little girl Annabelle (a decidedly not-so-Asian name) in crisp, unaccented English when she:

1. Approached my table and watched me write in my journal
2. Smiled very very coyly
3. Covered her mouth with her hands and giggled
4. and snatched the Orchid off my plate.

I thought she was curious about me. Clearly she was merely an adorable cleptomaniac. But she got a severe scolding for being "very rude and very naughty" which made her cry and made me want to give her the Orchid she was made to bring back to me. But what cheered her up absolutely made my day. This little boy whose body has clearly betrayed him, wheeled his chair around the table and said "Come on Anna, lets go play". And she put her hand on the arm of his chair and he very independently wheeled out to the promenade with his dad following behind nonchelanty as if any 6 year old in a wheelchair should be able to head to the harbour on a whim with no barriers in his mind.

I am curious about the woman with the expensive camera who was infinitely particular about taking shots of the Hong Kong skyline...and then sat down beside me, pulled a white teddy bear out of her bag, and proceeded to talk to him for a good 10 minutes before packing her things, putting on a pair of musical note socks, and walking away. I was wishing I understood Mandarin. I can only assume she was telling him all about the pretty photos she took. Or perhaps she was promising him a tasty treat, like tentacles on a stick.

I am curious about how we managed to take decent vacation photos before we could instantly see how they turned out...and when we actually had to count in increments of 12 - 24 - 36 exposures. I have been here a day and have over 200 photos...a pretty slow day for me actually.

I am curious about the complete inability of people to take a simple snap shot. Why do these people even have cameras?!?

One of the challenges of travelling alone is that you have to find willing and at least moderately capable strangers to take your picture (so as to prove you were actually there and not just skiving someone elses photos). I employed several strategies:

1. Find another person travelling alone trying to take the "self portrait". Bingo. Great Success! But that was just on the first shot of the day.
2. Approach caucasian couples - high probability that they speak English and that they will want a photo of themselves together. Less successful. Photos of myself at Victoria Peak took about 8 tries to get some good ones. Whereas the couples I had asked to take my picture all walked away exclaiming "Oh! This is a great picture of us!" about the shot I took of them. So, I guess the upside of that is about 8 couples got nice photos of themselves at the Peak today.
3. Approach people with fancy cameras. Less likely to make a run with mine and chances are if they are going to shell out that much for a camera they actually have some skills. Not so much. Worst night snap shots of me - EVER! Unacceptable. I seriously had no less than 16 tries (seriously - I counted the blurry, over exposed, side ways, dark shots of me that I deleted) to get some marginally decent photos in front of the night skyline. I was determined! I wanted that shot damn it!

Having gone through 1 through 3 above the strategy that finally worked?

4. Approach the adorable Asian girl who is loaded down with her Louis Vuitton bag, a Starbucks coffee, a cell phone, laughing at herself trying to take a self portait. Take two great shots of her. She returns the favor and - voila! I have two shots - slightly blurry, but at least my eyes are open, I am actually in the picture, and so are the buildings across the harbour. Great success!

And finally, I am curious about how my fabulous sturdy and practical, yet fashionable shoes completely failed me today and tore my heels to shreds. And also how, after changing to flip flops so that I could actually walk without wincing, I returned from the Ladies Market to find that my feet were even dirtier than after returning from Khan el Khalili in Cairo!!! I just recovered from one plague so I am just marginally paranoid about contracting another. Perhaps I should try to wrangle a standing order of Amoxycillin in every city I visit. Dr. Bonnie can you hurry up and get a job running the World Health Organization so you can hook a sister up?

Today I...sure am grateful for Roxy flip flops, but am needing to get over my obsessive-compulsive disorder about how completely unacceptable it is to have dirty feet.