Odds and Ends

You see a lot of different, humorous and crazy things in a place like Hong Kong. With millions of people crowded into a relatively small area, you are bound to encounter them daily. In between the times when you see something touching that pierces you soul, like seeing an elderly woman twisted by scoliosis or osteoporosis- so that from the back it looks like she was just shot with a cannonball, which nearly brings you to tears as you pray for God to give her relief from what has to be painful, you see other things that make you laugh or think "what the heck?!"

I was riding the MTR (subway) when my friend Mike pointed out a concert T-shirt that a guy was wearing. It was for Bon Jovi, who you may know is from New Jersey. Seeing a Bon Jovi T-shirt is not all that odd, even if it is a little uncommon, but the line up for the tour was pretty funny to Mike and I and we had a good time discussing it for several minutes.
London - sounds like a great place to start off a big world tour, right?
Milwaukee, Wisconsin - uh, maybe they like cheese or Schlitz?
East Rutherford, NJ - okay, back on track in the Big Apple. Yes, it is Jersey, but it is part of the greater NYC area.
Calgary and Winnipeg Canada - nothing like the Canadian Rockies in the summer time... I guess.
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin - 2 stops in Wisconsin? Really?
One other stop that seemed reasonable, like Minneapolis or something like that.
Cheyenne, Wyoming - Cause Bon Jovi is a cowboy... on a steal horse he rides? Not really big market ticket sales on this tour.
Newark, NJ, for something obscene like 10 days in a row. Even if you are the hometown boys, unless you are playing Ed's Bar, could you really sellout 10 straight days?
And that was the tour. A few big cities, a few puzzlers and a bunch of shows in lovely Newark, sounds like a winner to me.

When Rufina and I went to the Peak I noticed a trend- about a dozen people wearing the shirts they got from running in the Standard Charter Marathon. Standard Charter is a bank here in Hong Kong and a few months ago they hosted a marathon. Well, apparently the cool thing to do is to wear your shirt on Sunday (or the weekend) as you participate in some other outdoor activity; it's kinda like a red-badge-of-courage, to let people know you aren't just some person enjoying the weather, but that you are a dedicated athlete or health-nut.

Finally, I read recently where researchers and marketers had discovered that if you create an aroma of fresh, baked goods, it entices shoppers to buy more things. As I was walking through the mall that connects the MTR station to my apartment building, I couldn't help but notice the delightful smell of what seemed to be cookies just brought out of the oven. I looked around, but didn't really see anywhere that would be baking cookies or the likes. So I wondered if they were pumping in the smell as a marketing ploy. Later, I was 2 stories down on the ground floor at a department store having a sale. As I walked through there looking for bargains, I noticed a smell... or rather a stench! It smelled like cabbage or some other foul dish. I wondered if this was an attempt to bring in a different clientele or just the results of being located underneath a stinky restaurant or the dumpster.