Cat Power

I looked out the window this morning and saw a woman doing her exercises. If you get up early you can often see people of a certain age performing calisthenics, or waving their arms around, or slapping themselves, or shouting very loudly.

This particular woman was standing on the roof of the hawker centre. There's a basketball court up there and a lot of air vents, and the woman. She was waving her arms around. I suppose if I'd hung around at the window long enough, she might have started slapping herself.

Sat at her feet, with a look of bored resignation visible even from several hundred feet away, was a white and ginger cat. The woman waved her arms and looked at the cat, then waved her arms again. I wondered if it was her cat, or just a feline that was wandering past and had decided to sit and watch her.

A good walk, spoiled

I got up at 6:15 today, despite being out drinking gin last night, and went off for my morning constitutional. For the last week or so, I've been running round to Marina Bay, which doesn't involve any inclines apart from the occasional escalator. So today I thought I'd go to Fort Canning, run up the hill, run down again, and go home. I had an 8am phone call, which gave me plenty of time for a run, some cooldown time and a shower before heading to the office.

Sweaty in Singapore

This morning I woke up before 6, and because I couldn't get back to sleep and couldn't think of anything better to do, I went out for a run. I've run every day that I've been in Singapore except for last Saturday, when I was hungover, and the routes are beginning to merge together.

Pilates

Tonight I went with my wife to a pilates class in Mong Kok. She's been several times before, whereas this was the first pilates class I'd been to since I left Kent for London in 2006.

Busy, busy, busy

Today I went to the gym, partly because I want to start riding my bike more frequently, and thus feel the need to get Big And Strong. Or at least a bit bigger and stronger. Or at least not have arms so feeble that I can't hold onto the handlebars, or legs so weak that I can't stand on the pedals for more than a moment.

But also because I drank three pints of Wifebeater last night, and needed to clean my system out.

Happy Mexican Taco Anniversary

Tonight I've been eating tacos at an American's apartment. I brought some Sapporo to drink, not realising the cultural insensitivity of giving an American some Japanese beer on the anniversary of Pearl Harbour. But since Hong Kong seems to be perfectly designed for the cultural insensitivities of the gweilo, maybe that was appropriate.

Poetry and sweat

Today I went to the gym at lunchtime, which turned out to be a mistake. I assumed that after half an hour of exerting myself over the rowing machine I'd be suffused with a post-exercise glow that would keep me cheery through the afternoon. Instead, I read a perfunctory email on the way back from the gym and was in a huff for the rest of the afternoon, this state of mind worsened by having worn myself out. At least I had remembered a change of clothes, rather than going to the office in a nylon singlet and a pair of short shorts.

Hiking in Hong Kong at night

... or perhaps I should title this The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill And Came Down All Sweaty. After the irony of not being able to sleep last night because the air conditioner wasn't making a loud dripping noise, I was feeling pretty shabby all day, but I put off going to the gym at lunchtime to blow away this ennui, because of an invite to go hiking from Tai Koo over to Repulse Bay.  That's 10 km in real money; rather than a flat walk in the countryside, it was going to be hour upon hour of walking up stairs, the greatest gift that the concrete industry of Hong Kong ever gave back to its citizens.

Consequences of drinking

This morning I woke up in bed screaming. As seems to happen on an annual basis, I'd drunk enough last night to rinse all the essential salts and other minerals from my body, and thus my left calf had decided to cramp up to the point that it felt the muscle was about to detach from my leg and spang across the room.