Flashback: Summer at the Villa Orsula

Villa Orsula, Dubrovnik, Croatia

I can best describe Croatians as being a rusty variety of European. 

They are tawny of hair and skin, and tend to look monochromatic because the colour of tan skin is exactly the same shade as rusty hair.

In Dubrovnik, we stay at the 1939 Villa Orsula. The room, which H and I are sharing, feels claustrophobic. But it is tenderly pretty, with rambling roses on the right of the verandah, and a stunning view of the Adriatic Sea framed by cypress trees.

The bathroom has a bidet.

The medieval town of Dubrovnik, which we can see from the window, is said to be 15 minutes’ walk from the villa seems farther in the summer heat. In fact, it proved a tedious hike, but we forget everything once we get within the walled city, which is abuzz with interesting people, rich history, and beautiful squares all connected by vast glossy-smooth marble streets and dotted with mysterious dark cafes that make H smoke non-stop, in the manner of Maggie Cheung.

We go on a tour in a taxi, which is USD 70.

Breakfast at the Villa Orsula is quite the thing to do and the guests are out in full force, bright and early, eating under grape vines hanging with grapes. Stern ancient men serve yogurt and honey silently. H is thrilled by the view of the violently blue cove and sickle moon of white pebble, where later I collect vari-coloured stones in my Pleats Please pouch, watched by an old lady in a bikini, who sits there every day with her mutt until the last light fades.

The luggage boy wears tennis shorts, and is as cute as a porn actor.

The blonde towel boy is a trouble-maker who causes the lady at the front desk to lose her cool neatness and I’m sure she goes off work each day with a headache.

Blonde towel boy has a friend, a young teen, who throws mussels at the girls on the beach, causing them to shriek.

The boat man from the Villa Orsula is a white-haired mariner with white deck-shoes, who tirelessly ferries us in his boat to and from the little island of Lokrum every day.

Zurich 1995

Zurich is a bourgeois city full of well-groomed people, enjoying well-groomed lives with well-groomed pleasures within walking distance. 

In other words, it’s civilized.

People here are unhurried and helpful, and at the main station Halpenhoff, they give us directions, tell us exactly where to get off and get on the buses.

At the Croatian Consulate, a gruff officer at the door told us it would take one month, then one hour, then later, just 20 minutes to process our travel visas. 

Nearby, fit young people cycle by the lake in the cool crisp air, looking at swans and pairs of duck swimming cooly by.

On many streets stand more colourful cow statues than there are people.

There are many rich glamourous shops full of designer goodies, and the cafes swivel with heads sipping morning coffee. We have coffee at a quiet side street café, with two smartly dressed old ladies.

Heather and I both buy white orthopedic slippers I see on sale in a pharmacy – the only things we can afford. I go next door and buy the latest Vogue Italia. Then we bought a bag of fat blueberries from a greengrocer with a splendid display of fruit – served by a snotty Filipina. We ate the berries on the run, our mouths blue with juice.

Heather said: “Zurich airport is like Changi.”

I said: “In fact, Zurich airport looks like Marina Square.”

THE BEST THAI ESCAPE OF 2014: TRAVEL TALES

SUITE DREAMS (ARE MADE OF THESE)

Just a year old, Point Yamu, COMO Hotels and Resorts’s property in Phuket, delivers its promise of utmost seclusion in style but is this a vision of beach living for everyone? By Daniel Goh

Phuket isn’t off the beaten track for anyone – arguably very few places are now, and especially not Thailand, one of the most touristed destinations in the world – so it’s a challenge for any property seeking to distinguish itself in a location dense with hotels of all sorts. And yet Point Yamu succeeds in being memorable – perhaps this is where the Como style comes in.

Located on the eastern side of Phuket on the tip of Cape Yamu, the resort is miles away from anything, tourist or local, and is approached by driving up a gentle uphill meander through a rubber plantation. If you’re seeking a Victorian rest cure, this gated seclusion is ideal: ensconced in oversized daybeds indoors and out, comfortably propped up in nests of pillows, the serene panoramic views across the bay are a sight to soothe frayed city nerves. Unobstructed, they impose themselves on your psyche, stilling your inner chatter with the UNESCO-protected wonders of the limestone karsts of Phang Nga Bay, stretching into hundreds of islands on the Homeric sea, with the stately grace of a Noh screen that changes through the day in slow motion from slate-grey (early morning), to peach melba (dusk), and Tiffany blue (noon). You forget to wear your watch, and the hours melt into the ozone.

To enter this magical seascape takes something of an expedition. The calm Andaman Sea beckons, but Point Yamu has no direct beach access. Guests take the daily shuttle to the jetty, then a scheduled boat transports you to the beach of Rang Yai Island (a 15 minute transfer). Beach enthusiasts may find this inconvenient, but the schedule actually adds to the calm, imposing form on an otherwise lolling, shapeless day. Similarly a timetable of complimentary activities on a printed card marks the hours – Pilates at 11 am; Old Phuket Town tour at 3 pm; Flower arrangement 4 pm; Bike tour 5 pm. Just studying the timetable feels reassuring, like you’re on rehab or in a posh nursing home. You must take a day tour of the bay, known parochially as James Bond Island (the setting for Man With The Golden Gun), a magnet for divers, snorkelers and kayakers. Tear a rent through the gelatine skin of the sea in a longtail boat with the hotel’s guide Roman, who has been sailing these waters for 20 years, and who knows every ancient cave glittering with minerals, every deserted cove of wild monkeys, every tide, every fable, every pristine beach of every uninhabited island, as well as you know every nook of Orchard Road. His skin is the wet teak of the boat, impervious to sun.

Service staff can make or break a hotel, and at Point Yamu, the service made the experience perfect. Efficient and warm without being mechanically so, nor betraying their training, and without being anything other than Thai charm itself, patient, humourous, discreet, each attendant is Thailand’s USP. From housekeeping to front desk to the ladies serving meals, to the auntie who made ice-cream in an uproar of tinkling bells and clouds of dry ice, to the lakorn-lovely nong (braces, perfect British-accented English) who came to the room to try to fit the TV with cables so that we could watch a DVD, and failed – every one of them made the stay a joy.

The rooms have no DVD players, and the point is probably that those are outdated. Point Yamu is resolutely modern in look and feel. The interiors are contemporary without being minimalist, cheerfully coloured and have some Thai accents.

The result is light-filled spaces punctuated by splashes of aquamarines and oranges. All rooms have spectacular ocean views. Each room maximizes space, and the executive suite is larger than most four-room flats, with a generous verandah. Shorn of all gimmicks, real luxury was brought to the fore in quality fittings, firm beds dressed in the fine Egyptian cotton, a bowl of edible fruit, the bathrooms are clad in jade-coloured tiles and furnished with COMO Shambala toiletries.

Every self-respecting resort must have its spa and the pompously-named COMO Shambhala Retreat takes itself seriously and offers yoga, Pilates and treatments over two stories with a modern European feel. I didn’t try any of the treatments but must say the therapists look almost medical in their purpose so I should say you’d be in good hands (literally).

When you’re marooned in a resort and eat all three meals in - food becomes all-important. At Point Yamu, it’s elegant that there are just the two restaurants here (plus a pool bar that disconcertingly played strenuous dance music at tea – surely jazz or Noh is more suitable) serving excellent food. Located alongside the 100m infinity pool and open on all sides, La Sirena is the checkerboard dining hall where you go to for breakfast, Italian cooking and locally caught seafood. Just across the way, Nahmyaa serves really delicious, finely balanced southern Thai. The calorie-counting health junkie will appreciate the COMO Shambhala menu which is available throughout, designed for those who want their raw foods, living enzymes, unprocessed fibre and morals.

So there you have it: If your idea of escape is a cozy version of house-arrest set in stunning views, Point Yamu is the place for you.

Point Yamu by COMO, Moo 7, Thep Kasattri, Thalang District, Phuket, Thailand. Phone:+66 76 360 100

PASSION FOR MONSTERS: NOTES

Parco dei Mostri (Garden of Monsters), a renaissance garden an hour's drive from Rome.
"Ogni pensiero vola" - "all thoughts flee".

Vincino Orsini, a warrior duke and poet, started arranging the garden in 1552.
Located outside the small town of Bomarzo, northern Lazio.
Villa d'Este at Tivoli.
Cerberus, a three-headed dog who guards the entrance to hell.

Demetria, goddess of the harvest.
Terme dei Papi, papal thermal baths outside Viterbo
"il sacro bosco" - the sacred wood

WEEKEND READING LIST: ALL ROADS LEAD TO THAILAND

The last time I was in Bangkok was literally the eve of the anti-government demonstrations last November; the hotel manager called me that morning soon after breakfast and instructed me to pack my bags and leave just as I can because he had received advance information that demonstrators had begun to move towards the road leading to the hotel and would close it to traffic; he couldn't say if things would get violent but was advising guests to evacuate. Something in his tense voice over the phone made me pack my bags at once, and within an hour, I left in the hotel car. Turning back for one last look, I saw the crowd of demonstrators marching in, flags waving, with something of a festive air, but guards were beginning to bar entrances with barricades, and the streets were noisy with shrill whistles and clappers.

I felt like Sigourney Weaver in A Year of Living Dangerously.

Fast forward to (more or less) six months later and I'm simply longing to visit Bangkok again. As you know, for most Singaporeans, Bangkok is simply an obsession and a habit. I have not heard of any Singaporean who didn't like Bangkok; and according to my luxury brands PRs, the local press are always keenly enthusiastic about Thailand press junkets (as opposed to those to Hong Kong and etc ones, although arguably the press here salivate like a komodo dragon at any mention of a junket, with eyes bulging and ropes of sticky drool, cankerous tail waving). I wonder if it is thus for your country?

This last weeked I was reading 2011's Thoughtful Gardening by Robin Lane Fox, one of my favourite (living) writers and amongst the riveting chapters on cuttings and pests, Mr Fox remembers his visit to Bangkok as a young journalist. In particular he mentions the Phukae Botanic Garden, a gigantic park in Saraburi, some 60 miles outside Bangkok. Within the city, Mr Fox remembers Wang Suan Phakket (Lettuce Farm Palace), the lovingly tended garden of the late Princess Chumbhot. He took the bus number 3, which delivered him to the door of this "tranquil retreat". 

Reading about these gardens made me simply long to visit Bangkok.

I called my Thai sister Ms O. All my visits to Thailand are preceded by calls to my Thai sister.

She was busy making T-shirts.

What for?

Ms O was involved in what promises to be the mother of all demonstrations; she was making T-shirts for the anti-Thaksin army. Ms O said: "Honey please don't come between 5 May and 17 May. Millions of people are going to demonstrate to oust Yingluck. May not be that peaceful. Come after." 

Sure enough, the papers are full of dire reports on the impending demonstrations which will climax with new, and surely contested, elections in July. 

With this wearying warning in mind, it could be months before I see Mr Fox's Thai gardens.  

Four Movies and a Flight

On a recent trip, I buckled down with the goal of watching four movies by the time I got home, flying not being one of my favourite things to do. I don't like anything about flying do you? These were the four movies I watched: 
To Rome With Love

He's taken us to London, Barcelona, Paris and now Woody Allen has landed us at yet another luxury-tourist European capital, Rome. It's pretty and escapist and great in that honeyed sunset lighting and picturesque and familiar setting kind of way. In this ensemble/omnibus movie (it's got Judy Davis, who's always so droll!), not all the jokes come off, but on the whole it is engaging, undemanding fun with gags that are one-liners but milked for slightly more than its worth. It's a warm, slight movie, far from the greatness of his earlier ones, but fun nonetheless. I want to highlight that Allen's movies are always nicely styled, and all the actors look prosperous and attractive. I was especially thrilled to see the patrician Flavio Parenti (below), whom I first discovered in I Am Love in this movie playing the activist/lawyer Michelangelo. And Jesse Eisenberg who plays the architecture student is creamy-cute!

Bel Ami

Pat Pat and Kristin Scott Thomas

Can you resist a costumer with Uma Thurman and Kristin Scott Thomas? Robert PatPat plays a pale, vampiric Belle Epoque social-climber with greasy hair under his hat and suggestively poufy breeches and seduces both Uma Thurman and Kristin Scott Thomas. Of course I had to watch this! Adapted from a novel by Guy de Maupassant, the unsympathetic protagonist, a would-be journalist, Georges Duroy clambers clumsily from a roach-infested garret to the poshest salons of literary Paris. I've never read the book, and the movie doesn't make me want to, as the script seems sketchy and cliched and none of the characters seem particularly sympathetic or indeed interesting. I think the story's point is that Pat Pat  is both foxy and self-deluding, but Pat Pat just comes off as petulant and sulky and in need of a good shampoo. Pat Pat always looks clammy and unwashed and I'm sure Ms Scott Thomas (who seems to be in a separate, better movie) must have fought the urge to bury her nose in a hanky doused with Jicky. There's lots of Pat Pat's white, thickly-fleshy body in this movie if that's what you are into.
No judgements!

Farewell, My Queen

This much lauded period piece about the French Revolution is told from the perspective of a servant to Marie Antoinette in Benoit Jacquot’s rather claustrophobic film. Most of the film is situated in smallish chambers or hallways and seems unfamiliar, a sort of 'fresh take', I suppose, but one does like a bit of grandeur and pomp in period movies, doesn't one? Sidonie Laborde (Lea Seydoux) is the queen’s devoted “reader,” and Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger), who spends most of her time considering patterns for new dresses and dithering over her infatuation with the beautiful Duchess Gabrielle de Polignac (Virginie Ledoyen in too brief an appearance) seems mostly bored out of her wigs. It's not escapist fare and I clutch at the introduction of  a handsome gondolier (Vladimir Consigny), who isn't even necessary to the plot. How sad. This movie could be of special interest to history buffs, who will appreciate the “behind-the-scenes” speculation, but I'm not sure this is all that good an idea for in-flight entertainment. Much has been made of Ms Kruger's portrayal of Marie Antoinette, but I almost want to say I prefer KiKi Dunst's in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. 

Magic Mike 

Could I have missed this?
This is the perfect movie to watch just before you land because it's silly fun, and you can rush through it with your finger on the forward button and still enjoy it entirely. Inspired by Channing Tatum's stint as a male stripper, director Steven Soderbergh's comedy uncovered Alex Pettyfer for me, and that's enough. He's dreamy and a Brit and if you can hug his image all the way to the hotel like a double cashmere coat . Matthew McConaughey is the big daddy stripper, and despite the chocolate bar abs doesn't register as sexy. There's just a hint of erotic energy (unapologetically targetting the reliable gay dollar)- there's ample, if unthreatening, man candy, of course, fit for the mainstream. The script isn't polished or strong on character with no narrative originality or emotion, you don't really care about the girlfirends, and the poverty and drugs never seems real. But you can almost read this movie as a bromance because it seems more about male camaraderie and the buddy element is the emotional core of the movie. If anything, the friendship between Tatum and Pettyfer is the main narrative - it's Brokeback Lite. The Chinese uncle sitting next to me was so riveted by the stripping scenes that he actually leaned over and asked me what I was watching - I told him, pointing to the title in the the menu, and then he turned it on, put on his headphones and studiously ignored me me for the rest of the movie. Well, at least one person enjoyed the flight.

Jet Set Jackie

Jackie in Capri

The King of Bhutan

King Jigme Singye Wangchuck (born 11 November 1955) was crowned the fourth king of Bhutan at age 28, making him the youngest King in the world.

Weekend Reading List

This last week was spent in retreat, walking, swimming and sunning by the pool and studying the books from the resort library. Don't you love a resort which has a library? It's civilized, I have to say. I had the pool all to myself most mornings, as the tourists all go on tiresome expeditions after an early breakfast. The library, which looks out on the newly-mown bright emerald lawn, too, is wonderfully deserted all day.
After some leisurely laps in the pool, I would sit on the teak decking and open the day's volume; and then I'll look up across the Mae Kok River and try to spot the novice monks in the clearing of the bamboo forest. Their saffron robes show wonderfully against the jungle green, and sometimes they come right to the edge of the river and splash in the muddy, swift-flowing water.Amazingly, the library had the fascinating Mughal Painters and their Work, which included analysis of the paintings, portraits, calligraphy and translation of some of the poems. Time fairly whizzed by as I studied the book, and I turned slowly brown.

I'm too tired by the time I droop into bed at night to read seriously but what fun to flip through the People magazine's tribute to Dame Elizabeth Taylor (commemorative edition) in bed to the soundtrack of a hundred insects in the jungle and the rain splashing down. The archival pictures are stunning (I love the one with Grace Kelly and Taylor getting off a plane), many I haven't seen before, so someone out there is doing something right (Mr B, this one's for you). The pictures carry the weight of the magazine which otherwise basically comprise long captions plus quotes from her friends and admirers - almost all were men. Well what do you expect?

Weekend Reading List: Flight

Even as you read this, I'm probably on a plane off for the long National Day weekend. I've packed all the stories I printed last Thursday in the office and put them in a blue Prada folder. I packed those in first with my pouch of sun care stuff (Clarins and Sisley), along with the two books I'm reading. Then I chucked in my Capri sandals and zebra print pony belt and a bottle of Coramandel and then I left, feeling heavy-hearted and slightly sad.I'm already in the middle of the the long-awaited (seven years, to be precise) Alan Hollinghurst novel, The Stranger's Child, which is exactly what I like (that means 'country house') - it's like Henry James, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton and - mostly - E M Forster modernised. It reminds me of Howard's End, and Maurice, with a pinch of Brideshead Revisited. It's glorious and I'm savouring it like a delicious, late meal. I read that it had come out in June in the announcements that it made this year's Booker Prize longlist. Critics and punters are speculating that it will win. This would be Hollinghurst's second Booker Prize, if so. His last book, The Line of Beauty won in 2004.
The call from Kinokuniya Liang Court came when I was in the cocoon of EN's beautiful car. In the rain, in the carpark behind Hilton. We were laughing at the pictures in my iPhone. I don't know much about cars but EN's car was palpably beautiful; it feels like you're inside a Kelly bag, with its tan leather interior and white top stitching. It's a deja vu moment. I've been in a car like this before, talking for hours, in just this carpark, in another rainstorm ages ago. So many things happened, in so many cars which circled, and stalled and went nowhere. The magical time in the car, with the radio on, and the aimless cozy chatter is like a bubble that couldn't stand the test of reality. You can't stay in the car forever, and so the bubble bursts, and you're there on the sidewalk with the rain in your face.Kinokuniya wanted to know if I still wanted their last copy of The Stranger's Child; I said I bought the book at Harris already. I hope a lovely young person buys that copy and becomes inspired like me.
It was raining sheets that morning; I had to pick my way out carefully in my sandals around the puddles from the cargo lift floor to the road so EN could pick me up for lunch. I saw the flash of EN's white smile when he saw me huddled under the Burberry umbrella as he zoomed past to the traffic light to make the U-turn for me and that lit me up, even though my toes were all wet by now and the new sandals ruined beyond repair. He didn't know I saw his smile.
What R said about me at the dinner at the Killiney Road S11 is true - I do love a challenge. The best way to make me do something is probably to say I can't, or won't. One of the things I printed out to read was Getting Bin Laden, by Nicholas Schmidle, about the ambush and killing of Bin Laden that night in Abbotabad. It's 17 pages long, and I find it fascinating. Did someone say I wouldn't like terrorist stories? The food, incidentally, was unexpectedly good; but it was damn hot. R and Mr B were both wearing skull pendants. R's was lime green plastic, and Mr B's was white gold with diamond eyes.
The other things I printed out: Alex Ross's essay Deceptive Picture on Oscar Wilde's writing of Dorian Gray, and Jackie O, Working Girl by Greg Lawrence, on the icon as an editor. Jackie O had a literary side, did you know? It wasn't always sunglasses and champagne.The other book I'm reading is The Classical World by Robin Lane Fox (I love Robin Lane Fox!). I'm at the chapter on Pericles - I told you, not everything's about sunglasses and champagne.

Jackie's Capri

Tod's sent me this book just last week and I must say it's one one of the things that really delighted and inspired me! It's a catelogue from the Tod's sponsered exhibition in Capri called “JACKIE’S CAPRI”. The exhibition is a selection from the photographs taken by the papparazo (one of scores that dogged her every move)Settimio Garritano during Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s frequent visits to Capri from 1969 through 1972. The evocative pictures capture moments of Jackie’s habitual pastimes on the island: frequenting shops, cafés and restaurants, with her husband Aristotle Onassis, her two children John-John and Caroline Kennedy, and various friends, during walks and visits to Capri’s historic sites and legendary attractions. I had the good fortune to be in Capri in 2009 and I bought, and still wear, many of the Capri sandals made by the same cobblers that Jackie O frequented! She had such style!

Hello Again

Well, it's good to be back.
I did like the days in Amsterdam a bit, but I prefer being home, to be honest. The roses and those Tudor style houses along the canals actually reminded me of England.
I liked looking out the windows from the Okura room at the people whizzing by on bikes and the badly dressed oldies (this isn't, I must say, a fashion sort of city) walking their fluffy dogs.
The pollen was flying in the Japanese garden where I had some very early, and very delicious Japanese dinners; I was the only one wearing a sweater and jeans amidst a sea of business-suited, sleek haired businessmen.
I have to say I prefer the Okura than the creaky, winding up and down boutique Pulitzer, which is in many ways, just a really big bed and breakfast. Its heavy gloom was not enlivened by the chatter I can hear from two rooms down, nor the constant slamming of heavy doors or the clatter of guests clumping all over the place.
I read rather a lot during the week(magazines and papers), and I'd especially recommend the novel Landfalls by Tim Mackintosh-Smith, about a Moroccan traveller of the early Renaissance. This is a heavily researched book lightened by jaunty prose. It does dwell enlighteningly on Islam, which one learns is more complex and less dogmatic and not completely abstract.One learns as one goes along, doesn't one?
On the other hand, my first trip up to Bangkok in four years was spent hectically catching up with friends I'd lost contact with for a while. I didn't manage to see everyone of them, but I managed at least to collect their numbers, so next time.I also made some new friends, as I was travelling with a young group I'd never travelled with before. The meals and traffic jams were made hilarious by the constant patter of rubbish from one young man called DH. This trip will always remind me of him, and his obsession with vintage jeans, sunglasses and watches. An afternoon spent giggling with DH in the back of a sedan isn't at all dreadful, I must say, even if it was pouring in sheets outside. Also the Greek-American model, 20 year old Christian, made quite an impression, and I only wished I had more time with him under the chandeliers of the gilt and mural Edwardian ballroom of the Oriental.
I love the Oriental Hotel, don't you? The rooms are so comfy, and the service civilised. Of course the food's really great. I ate quite a lot, I'm afraid.
The traffic jams are as horrific as ever, and the city is steadily, unstoppably transforming into one gigantic, dust-coloured mall. One morning, very bored, I bought on a beauty binge:1. Olay Professional and Pro-X products, including the age-defying day moisturiser (SPF 30), wrinkle smoothing cream and a deep wrinkle complex (don't ask).
2. Boots No 7 Protect & Perfect Serum.
3. Laura Mercier Creme Brulee Honey Bath.
4. Kyoku For Men Lava Masque which has mineral-rich mud, black sand and ash from Mount Fuji (don't ask, and let's not go there).
5. Tengan exfoliator which has shirasu volcanic ash, sourced from Japan's southern island of Kyushu (is it radioactive? Let's not go there). I do, in fact, have a thing for volcanoes.
But just to tell you that I'm not all vanity, my hair is all grown out of shape, and the grey is showing, but I can't be bothered to spend three hours at the salon.
Go figure, and have a lovely week ahead.
X

Hong Kong

Why can't Hong Kong be like this today?Photo: Scavullo

Weekend Reading List: I Heart Taipei

What is it about hotels that makes me eat like I'm in a Hollywood movie? This morning, I woke up in Taipei and went down quite eagerly to breakfast, and ate alot unthinkingly, including two large, fluffy, flakey croissants with lashings of butter and strawberry jam. And then I put on a sweater, and walked next door to Eslite. Eslite is the largest bookstore chain in Taiwan, and has a flagship store in Eslite Mall, located in the glossy Xinyi District. It's a lovely four-storey bookstore, set within a charming mall (more food, and all sorts of novel, pretty things to browse). Eslite has a "store within a store" design, with a Japanese bookstore, Chinese bookstore, arts bookstore (I found this section engrossing and comprehensive, and they even had an exhibition/art space and a charming cafe) and many other themed "stores". There is, unexpectedly, a wide range of English books and magazines, and an entire floor dedicated to the children's bookstore and children's discovery museum on the fifth floor. Which brings me neatly to the point that Taipei is so much more civilized a city than Hongkong - I've often been rather stumped that a city that prides itself as being cosmpolitan does not support any sort of a proper bookstore at all. Hong Kong has sprawling malls full of designer junk, and in the crags you find a half-hearted Dymocks or newsstands crawling with cheap tabloids but a proper bookstore like Taipei's Eslite, or even our own lovely Kinokuniya? I remember once wanting to buy a proper a book in Hongkong one sad bookless weekend and it was exasperating. Even the international magazines were months old. No wonder that Hong Kong people scare and bore me. You know, of course, that the expats thrive there - it really is the last outpost of the colonial era, isn't it? They really do the kow-tow properly in Hong Kong, like nowhere else I know. It's uncivilized. It's boring. It's the only city that makes me want to huddle in my hotel room untill the ordeal of being there is all over.

Valentine's Bouquet

The paintings are from Fragrance Fills the Courtyard: Chinese Flower Paintings through the Ages, an ongoing exhibition at Taipei's lovely National Palace Museum. That one chrysanthemum is sublime! So refined and elegant beyound anything on earth.

Truly Hardcore

PC Air, a newly launched Thai airline has adopted a policy of recruiting transsexuals as flight attendants in an effort to offer equal opportunities to the 'third sex'. This is a world first, and I like the pioneering spirit. The transgender attendants will wear a special gold-coloured 'third-sex' name tag to help passengers and immigration authorities know what gender they are dealing with, she said.Thanyarat Jiraphatpakorn, winner of the 2007 Miss Tiffany transsexual beauty pageant, was among the six successful candidates to land a job on the new airline, which launched flights on March 1.

I approve completely.
And just to remind you how great the 1990s really were: Linda, and all the supermodels of thte day were truly the first transexual trolley dollies that ever took to the runways! They will never win a Miss Tiffany would they? I don't think they would even get inot the finals!