Happy happy joy joy in Bellevue

Everyone is very cheerful in the shops in Bellevue. Being English, a sunny disposition is something I view with a great deal of suspicion. It juust doesn't seem reasonable for a person to enter a semi-orgasmic state of bliss just because I've purchased a bottle of pre-shave oil from them.

Or a jar of yeast.

Or a tube of toothpaste.

Or made no more than an enquiry about the roaming ability of a particular Nokia smartphone.

Well, writing those things down will ruin any hope of surprising my wife on her birthday this year, but too bad: I've been seriously freaked out by this over-overt display of friendliness from the shopkeepers of the Greater Seattle Area.

OG

Today, as could have been expected, I struggled to be a useful part of the universe. I switched off my six o'clock alarm and slept through until nine, but I was still a shambling useless mass until late afternoon. Coffee didn't help, breakfast and lunch revived me not, and it was only when I'd been to the OG department store over the road and purchased a food processor that I felt any better.

Stick a fork in it

Funnily enough, after spending three hours playing Sleeping Dogs, I failed to get up and run this morning. Some might say that was a waste, but I got to see a man on fire run screaming from an exploding car, before the words "You Died" flashed up on screen as if they were worried about any ambiguity existing in the situation.

That meant I didn't get to wear my compression tights to work today: again, it's unclear if that was a missed opportunity or a lucky escape. I managed to pass the day without getting too depressed at this lack of high-tensile undergarments, and then this evening we went shopping for cutlery.

A gift from above

A bird shat on me today, as I walked to work. I suppose that's good luck. It was a little splatter of green-brown guano that hit my trousers and the edge of my Kindle. I must have been lucky, because I had a packet of tissues in my bag and I wasn't looking up at the source of the defecation.

Then again, perhaps if I'd been really lucky it would have missed me completely.

I hope it was a bird. Let's say no more of that.

Sale! Sale! Sale!

This weekend Kinokuniya is having a 20% off sale, so this afternoon we went to their bookshop on Orchard Road, along with half the population of Singapore. The shop is tardis-like in dimension and labyrinthine in layout: I must have spent half an hour looking for books about running, and when I did find them I realised I didn't want any anyway. And I'd walked past them five times without realising.

Sale! Sale! Sale!

This weekend Kinokuniya is having a 20% off sale, so this afternoon we went to their bookshop on Orchard Road, along with half the population of Singapore. The shop is tardis-like in dimension and labyrinthine in layout: I must have spent half an hour looking for books about running, and when I did find them I realised I didn't want any anyway. And I'd walked past them five times without realising.

Late night shopping

After going for a post-work run, and then going back to the office and working some more (until I noticed I was literally dripping sweat everywhere) I went home and wobbled until our new washing machine arrived. Then, as we needed to buy some blocks to elevate the washing machine above the drainage pipe, we went over to the Mustafa Centre.

Stuff and nonsense

My plan to buy less stuff by writing everything down seems to be working. Or at least up to a point.
Today, I bought another pair of shorts and some trainers, but this was the first thing that I've purchased since the 23rd of February. If you exclude food, that is. I did think about tracking all the things I've eaten and drunk, but last time I tried that my head exploded when I realised how much I was spending on mushroom and cheese pockets at Starbucks.

Ice cream and happy landings

We flew back to Jakarta today in a small jet, that felt like it landed sideways on the runway; it certainly wasn't a smooth touchdown with the wings horizontal, and I was clenching the arm rests hard enough to leave fingerprints. Still, at least we landed and came to a halt without any sort of disaster. That's not too much to ask.

You'd better watch it

Today I went to replace the battery for my watch. I tried a ludicrously expensive shop on Queen's Road first, who sent me down the street to King's, a tiny shop full of watches, and a very old man almost completely hidden behind a stack of boxes. The salesman directed me to him, yelled a bit in Cantonese and then the aged man put on what looked like an Alice band made from pipe cleaners and elastic.

The Perfect Bag

My laptop case, just three months old, is close to death. The outside is tearing apart as the strain of a laptop, a couple of paperback books, a Kindle and countless other electronic ephemera is taking its toll on the poor thing's fabric. And so I can see, as its demise creeps over the horizon, that I need a new bag.

Toothpaste

This evening I went shopping in Bellevue, in hunt of prosaic things.

Manly pursuits in Hong Kong

This evening I was intending to ride a BMX at the track in Tsing Yi. There comes a time in early middle age when a man feels the need to ride a child's bicycle down a ramp and then snap both his wrists in a completely avoidable crash.

Dissolving

Today I was meant to run 8 miles, which should have been no trouble at all, but a combination of comedy last night (great, despite me having been drinking in the afternoon and thus both sunstruck and hungover by 9pm) and then being woken up by UFOs (Unidentified Feline Objects) half the night left me shattered, capable of nothing more than sprawling on the sofa or passing out on the bed.

I did put the laundry away, but as that was my greatest achievement of the day, you can tell that the bar was pretty low.

Singapore is not as easy as Hong Kong

Perhaps I've been spoiled by the shops in Hong Kong, but it seems more difficult to buy things in Singapore. In central Hong Kong I can leave the office and go and buy a baguette, or a widescreen television, or a paperback novel, late into the evening.

A few museums in New York

The rains that were threatened for today never materialised: instead, the skies were blue and clear. And at ground level and below, the air was thick and damp, cloying, even. I would say it isn't as polluted as Hong Kong but the fumes from all the trucks, construction sites, frozen yogurt shops, illegal DVD hawkers and dog walkers have to go somewhere.

The nice people of Canada

The last couple of days have had slightly mixed weather - sometimes sunny, sometimes foggy, mostly warm, sometimes cold - but today was nothing but warm sunshine and blue skies. We drove into Halifax and breezed through picking up our marriage licence, then spent some time with the wedding photographer and then wandered back into town along the boardwalk.

Sham Shui Po

After work I hopped on a train and headed up to Sham Shui Po. Barely fifteen minutes from all the expense and glitz of Central is a street selling vast amounts of intellectual-property-infringing gadgets, and stuff for photography.

Buying cameras in Wan Chai

Today I went with my sister-in-law-to-be to buy a camera at the Wan Chai Computer Centre. This is a two floor maze crammed with tiny shops selling electronic devices. It's a strange array of shops as they all seem to sell almost exactly the same things, with very slight variations in price.

Still suffering Ebeneezer after-effects

More than 24 hours have passed and that rogue felafel is still wreaking havoc; I've spent most of the day doubled up, clutching my stomach and whimpering. I suppose some of this could be the strains provided by yesterday's biking, but that has never tied my guts in knots before.