On the needles (/hook)

Oops - appear to have neglected the blog lately, although not really sure we've been doing much apart from working, eating and drinking! Stephen came back from India safe and sound Saturday morning and we had a very lazy weekend - finished off Dexter Season 4 (didn't like the ending much!!) and that's about it really!

Thought I should do a quick post about my latest knitting works in progress, given the name of the blog after all. As yet I haven't found any wool worth buying in Hong Kong but there's still plenty of places to explore so you never know... For now though it's all about ordering from the UK - postage can be expensive but the 20% automatic discount (don't have to pay VAT) evens it out nicely. A lot of the girls from knitting order from Jimmy Beans in the US so might have to try that too.

First up - some socks, these have been on the go since last September but are finally complete!

One only looks a lot bigger than the other because I tried it on lots when making it!

I made these with some wool I bought in New York back in March 2011 and a pattern from the Sock Innovation book Stephen bought me for my birthday last year - see I use things eventually! I did have grand plans to knit every pair of socks in the book but we shall see..

Another finished object - my lovely Snawheid hat! 

Love this so much! Doesn't get much wear over here though.

And what better to make with the leftovers? Some Snawpaws !

Cast on

Growing

Grafting the top!

Finished :)

Pretty

Love it! 

Have cast on the other one and making slow progress, then will finish them both off with a cute little pom pom!

Central park hoodie is progressing nicely...

Working my way up the back

Back finished, one front cast on

Starting to look like something...

Knitting the hood - think I'm happy with my decision not to carry the cables up, or should I have done!?

Hood finito!

Sleeve number 1 complete!

Finished the first sleeve last night so will probably cast the second one on once I've finished writing this... after finishing my 5 crochet squares for the day obviously.

What crochet squares I hear you ask? Or most likely probably not! Anyway - remember this?

Obviously there's quite a lot of wool here so can make many things from it but the first project is going to be a baby blanket. I'm shamelessly copying a blanket Heather at Little Tin Bird made (go look at her stuff - it's amazing!!!). 

I've been making 5 squares a night and here's my progress as of a few days ago:

I'm making 5 in each of 17 colours so will have 85 squares in a few days, my aim is an 8 x 11 blanket so the astute amongst you will realise I'll then need to make another 3 squares. I'm waiting till I've got 85 to see how they look together and decide whether I should take the pink out - there's no baby in mind for the blanket so should probably keep it neutral? We'll see. I'm really enjoying making these, got them down to 10minutes a square including weaving in the ends so a nice portable project - one each morning and evening on the bus etc.

9pm here and time for Spooks - seem to have got strangely addicted to old UK shows (so behind here, on the final series now at least), current favourites include Spooks, Hotel Babylon and Hustle - remember them?!

27!

I'm getting old! 27 - how did that happen?! Look what arrived in the post.....

Big squishy parcels.... and what might be in them?! 

Wool!

Ah wonderful Stylecraft, the best cheapo acrylic ever - so lovely and soft. This was a birthday present from my mum and dad with a crochet book thrown in which I wasn't expecting so a very nice surprise! (Not sure Stephen is much appreciating how much wool I am gathering... I have plans for it though, watch this space!).

Since it was my birthday I obviously had to have cakes... and what better than Sift cakes - so good!

This was taken in the shop, I only bought 7 for the guys I sit with in work (they're expensive!) and then another round last night for the friends we were out with.

I had a good day, but a fairly typical Wednesday - work and then knitting, with Stephen going to play football. We could have gone out for dinner but we do that most nights! I got lots of lovely presents and cards so thank you! (Except I know two cards are currently lost in the post - here's hoping they turn up).

British sweeties!! Ahhh these were a fab pressie, I don't think I realised how much I was missing sweets like this so will definitely be filling my suitcase up when we're back for Easter!

More :)

On Friday night we were both knacked after long weeks at work so just stayed in with a takeaway curry and film (Argo - strangely good). We made up for staying in Friday by going out last night and getting quite drunk!

Street music in Wanchai

One of those random nights but really good fun. We met some friends for some beers before heading to the Hong Kong Arts Centre (well, outside of it) by the Harbour for a street music festival. The bands were surprisingly good; crazy french rockers, chinese style country music and a decent jazz band to finish. It was a really good atmosphere just drinking beers (Smirnoff ice in my case...) and listening to good music by the side of a busy road / roundabout! We then rounded the night off with a curry - all good!

Today we went to a fancy pizza place we'd been eyeing up for a while but had been closed for refurbishment. The pizza didn't disappoint (really really good, possibly the best in Hong Kong) but the place is just too expensive for what it is and there was loads of annoying kids running round being annoying.... I'm sure we'll be back at some point though, I can't resist a good pizza!

It was good!!

Now, I'm home alone again for the week as Stephen has gone to India with work - not sure it's really somewhere on our holiday destination list so looking forward to hearing what he thinks of it, although he's not likely to see much apart from hotels and offices I don't think! I've got a creme egg and a trashy magazine to read so with a bit of knitting that's my evening sorted!

Fun weekend anyway!

Even though we didn't make it to Taipei we still had a fun weekend! I met Stephen in Causeway Bay after work on Friday for dim sum. We'd been to this place before but I didn't realise until we turned up that it's based in Taipei - the restaurant, Din Tai Fung, appears 6 times in the top 15 restaurants in Taipei on tripadvisor!

Spring rolls, peanut noodles and pork/vegetable wontons

The Taipei sign and saying how it made it to the New York Times top 10 restaurants one year!

Steamed pork buns

Soy noodles

This is what the menu looks like in a typical dim sum place - you just tick things! (We tend to only go in ones that also have english translations, and preferably pictures too!)

The meal was really nice and just what we fancied, having not had any dim sum for a while. There's also a Michelin starred dim sum place we'll hopefully try at some point but given how it's the cheapest Michelin restaurant in the world (think £3-4 a dish) there's inevitably massive queues outside!

After food we went for a couple of drinks and yes only a couple, thought I best take it easy since the doctor told me not to drink at all....

Pretty chinese new year lanterns en route to the bar

Love this stuff, reminds me of being in the states last summer!

On Saturday we were planning to take the cable car to see Big Buddha but it was a bit of a smoggy/foggy day and visibility wasn't great so thought it best saved for another day. Instead we went to Nan Lian Garden (a chinese classical garden) and the Chi Lin Nunnery (buddhist temple complex). We got the tube to the nearest stop and guess what we found? Another enormous shopping centre! We went to one of the many bakeries inside and bought ourselves tasty snacks for lunch. 

Stephen was particularly pleased to discover the egg tarts were deeper than usual and came with a spoon!

I loved these lily pads in the nunnery

Pretty

Trying to capture the nunnery and failing, think this but repeated lots!

There were lots of really impressive gold plated statues of buddha and his key people (not sure what the proper term is?!) but you were't allowed to take photos, given it's a place of worship. We then crossed over the road to the garden, another really impressive space given they're in the middle of loads of high rise buildings! They're both free entry but you had to pay to go into the 'contemporary chinese embroidery' exhibition which was on and with hindsight I should have gone for a look round (I think it was only £1.20 entry!) but I can always go back.

Gold plated building with a bright orange bridge!

We were probably only there about an hour or so total but it was a bit different and slightly cultured at least! We then thought we'd go back to the Globe (I don't think a week goes by when we don't end up here - but the beer and cider selection is just too good to resist) and treat ourselves to pie.

Ahhh proper 'pint' (500ml) of cider!

They'd run out of the only pie I liked so I ended up ordering prawn, ham, spinach and chilli pasta - yum! (I also got to steal some of Stephens pie so not all bad!!)

After the Globe it was time for Mr Bings - Stephen had been earlier in the week and was singing its praises so I had to go try it! 

Beijing Street Crepes

Cool entrance

This bag had two crepes in, it was seriously heavy!!

I was really full so didn't eat much of mine (not entirely sure what was in it but it was coconut based, Stephen had a peanut butter one) but it was so good and I'll definitely be back when I'm properly hungry!!

Sunday was a lazy day, Stephen watched NFL / Football and I knitted - all good!

So yeh, not the weekend in Taipei we had hoped but still good anyway and now we're on the countdown to Chinese New Year... only 18 days of work.... and tomorrow it's my birthday - the big 2-7, agh getting old!!

The weekend in Taipei that wasn't meant to be

I'm sat here writing this post from the comfort of our lovely flat on this sunny Sunday watching the boats go by in the harbour.... not exactly a bad thing - but we should be in Taipei!

We booked this trip about 6 weeks after we arrived, we knew we were going to work through the Christmas period to save holiday so got this in the diary as something to look forward to. It was supposed to be our first trip in our 'explore as many places as we can while we're here because we're unlikely to be coming back' series. 

Unfortunately it wasn't meant to be - stupid me ended up with a stupid ear infection and being told not to fly by a doctor, sad face!

On Monday I admitted defeat since my cold had finally cleared up but I still couldn't hear out of my left ear and that I should probably go see a doctor. I'd heard that they hand out pills like sweets over here but even I was surprised by what was handed to me, I actually laughed in the nurses face as she handed them over explaining their dosage.

That's 3 different pills, cough medicine, throat sweets and ear drops!

Turns out I had tonsillitis, burst ear drum (this had happened a week before so the hole had healed but it was still a bit blood stained and messy so wanted to see me again a couple of days later after I'd been taking the drops), bad ear infection and conductive hearing loss.... oops.

I went back on Wednesday for a checkup, told him I felt absolutely fine, just annoyed that I still can't hear very well.... he then prescribes me exactly as per Monday night, minus the ear drops! I now have a good stash of pills since I gave up taking everything apart from the penicillin, the others are just over the counter stuff - no way in England would you get drugs given to you in little packs like that (i.e. not blister packs!). He also referred me to an ENT specialist since my infection hadn't cleared up at all.

So on Thursday I took myself off to see specialist man - seriously impressed with the efficiency of healthcare here (although think I'm in the private system with my health insurance card from work, but not entirely sure....) - no appointments necessary you can just walk in and see a doctor whenever or make an appointment if you don't want to wait.

He looked in my bad ear and told me it was 'very very bad', then looked in my good ear and told me that 'wasn't very well either', bummer. He then told me not to fly for at least two weeks, double bummer. I told him I was flying tomorrow, he said that wasn't a good idea. I then questioned him for a good 5 minutes as to the severity of this advice and why and how etc but he just told me that although it wouldn't be life threatening by any means, if I flew but I would be in 'intense pain' which would last the full weekend and take a lot longer for the infection to clear, great.

That's when I realised our weekend away really was cancelled and I was pretty upset! I left the docs with only one set of drugs this time (just more of the same antibiotics) and a checkup appointment for Monday. That's four doctors appointments in a week, more than I've had in about 10 years! 

The most upsetting/annoying thing? I feel absolutely fine! A little bit lacking in energy but that may just be a function of my own laziness! Needless to say we were both pretty gutted! Fortunately we were flying with Cathay Pacific who have been really good about it and given me a full flight refund (with doctors note) and Stephen a full refund minus $600 (~£50), we also got one of the two hotel nights back. I know my hearing is worth more than a couple of hundred quid but it's still rubbish and at least getting some money back softened the blow at least!!

I'd be a lot more upset if it was our trip back to the UK that got cancelled and Taipei is an easy enough place to visit from here in future (only 90min flight) so I'll stop my moaning now! Hopefully doc will tell me my ear is ok tomorrow because I don't want to be banned from flying forever.... might take me a while to get home on a boat!!