Alex's Asian Adventure

• One two-piece suit, in a fabric that says Big Swinging Dick.
• One sport jacket, also designed to look like it belongs to a Big Swinging Dick.
• Two pairs of pants
• Three shirts

The whole kit is setting me back the cost of a good off-the-rack suit in Canada, if purchased somewhere other than Harry Rosen. Alternatively, it is less than the cost of a crappy suit at Harry Rosen.

I also located the professional photo district in town and got some of my film developed. The good news is that the film I accidentally checked into my baggage for the Chengdu-Kunming flight appears to have survived unharmed. The bad news is.... the internet cafe by my closet (wait, I mean "hotel room") has computers with no CD drives. So no posting of pictures. This is really getting on my nerves.

Also, today I bumped into a wandering Yogi from India. He did some sort of trick where he read my face and wrote some things down (encoding my wishes and problems and whatever) without showing me what he wrote. I held the paper. He then asked me questions and wrote appropriate things on a piece of paper that I did see. For example, he wrote "P-CW" for "problem - crazy women". He said if the writing on the paper in my hand matches what he noted down then I'll be blessed with good fortune, success, and no more crazy women in my life.

Well, the good news is that the papers miraculously matched. No more crazy women. I don't get it, since it's not clear to me how he could have pulled the trick considering I either had the face-reading paper clenched in my fist, or had my eyes on it the whole time. The bad news is that he wanted an absurd amount of money for his service. I don't know what the consequence of pissing off a wandering Yogi would be, and I hope I don't find out.

Anyway, according to him I'm going to live a long & successful life, although he claimed the success is "moderate" as opposed to "massive" - something about a sun star or somesuch. I have no idea what any of this has to do with anything. But, now that I've read Holy Cow and learned about what happens to neurotic Australian women when they piss off a Yogi, I'll proceed with caution and accept that maybe I'll live a long & successful life.

Also, tonight I met up with a girl I worked on my AFM 476 cases with, and her very cute friend. The AFM 476 girl is doing zilch, whereas the cute friend is an investment banking intern somewhere in town. We had dinner and walked around. I might see them again tomorrow or the day after.

Tomorrow: more Hong Kong. The weather continues to suck, and the forecast calls for 29 degrees and thunderstorms. Wonderful. I was going to climb The Peak (all 500m of it) and catch views of the skyline, but if the weather is craptacular then there doesn't seem to be much of a point to doing that.

I leave for Delhi on Thursday, and already have brunch plans for Friday morning.

# posted by Alex Perel @ 12:22 PM