Spottings

Saw Kenyon Martin's brother, Robert Martin, who is an And1 team member, on the Peak in Hong Kong. He was walking across the area with all the buses, under the Galleria. I was unable to get a good photo of him. I knew I'd seen him before but I couldn't place the face, and mistook him at first for Kenyon.

David Wu - if you haven't heard of him, forget about it. He was on my flight from Shanghai to HK, but celebs (he's more of an ex-celeb) are a dime a dozen out here.

HK is Smokin'

If you like to smoke, or smoke itself, come to Hong Kong. You still have until 2007 to smoke freely almost anywhere. It looks like a good third of all males here smoke cigarettes regularly. However, the way in which cigarettes are smoked here seems different from other places. It is a sad, desperate type of inhalation, in which they know each puff could be their last, but keep smoking because they almost want it to end. That does sound quite morbid, but that's the feeling I get. It's the type of smoking that is coupled by the squinting of the eyes as the smoke is drawn in, that tasty, necessary addiction being satisfied. Add in some local curse words about having lost the latest bet on the horse race and you pretty much have the complete picture. Alright, that might be a niche segment... but not as niche as you might think.

There is so much smoke that sometimes you can't simply hold your breath or walk around the mini-cloud. You are just...in it.

Japan is bad too, and lots more women smoke there vs HK, but the way in which smoking is carried out does not seem as desperate. It just seems more habitual, and not necessarily every cigarette is smoked to the butt.

Hong Kong, Shanghai

Recently I got to Hong Kong's immigration and I experienced another 30+ minute wait. But this time, it was for other reasons. To me, it was obvious why the immigration officials were taking so long. Most of the people in line before me were from the Philippines, probably off of the same flight. The officials kept questioning them about how long they were staying, how many times they'd been to HK, etc. They've never asked me that. Anyways, it's just my opinion that this was something fishy, and perhaps indicative of the culture here.

The pollution reports you've seen on TV about HK are true - in some parts of the city. All I can say is that when I was in Wanchai the other day waiting for someone, I couldn't stand on the street for 3 minutes before feeling so disgusted, sick of the dirty air from the traffic, that I had to seek refuge at an HSBC bank.

That said, Shanghai's pollution the other day was thick haze all day, through at least 12:00AM midnight. I kept asking the cab drivers what that was, and they all said, "Fog". Yeah... Fog doesn't have a scent. It smelled like burning leaves, which I have smelled, but it was the type that I envision SouthEast Asia's burning deforestation smells like. Every breath you take stains your lung just a little more black.