It is one of the few strange things about Hong Kong that I can never understand. And it is one of those that pissed me off a lot!

There are many shopping malls and office blocks (be it small or big) in Hong Kong that are in this "sick and stupid" trend of locking up toilets. It is not because their bowls and taps are made of gold..but most of the mall toilets are "meant for tenant only" (and not for its shoppers!).  If that is the case, why bother to open a mall? If you need to use the toilet, you need to get a key from the tenants.

Last weekend, one of my favourite mall "Winsor House" joined this sick trend and started locking up its toilets. I have to walk around the entire mall looking for the one and only toilet or the shoppers - which was located at the basement. And when I reached there, I saw a long queue of women. Trust me, it was long - about 30 ladies! Lucky for me, the queue for the Gent was so much shorter - only about 5 people in the row.

Outside the toilet, I saw pregnant women and old ladies and children in the queue. The management who made this decision to lock the toilet probably didn't understand the needs of a pregnant lady or the elderly! The cleaner was there and she unlocked the door for the ladies. Instead of being praised for her acts, the security manager in suit reprimanded the cleaner. "Do not let the shoppers use the toilet lah" he said to her in that typical snobbish tone! Man, for that spilt second, I felt like slapping his dick-face!

That was it! It pissed me off so much that I went straight to their customer service counter and yelled at the poor receptionist.  I cannot see the logic at all! The mall rather let their shoppers spend quality time queuing for the loos than shopping and spending money? That was just so fu**king STUPID! In fact, Winsor House was undergoing "upgrading works" now - an it says "let your shopping desire flow" on one of their hoardings. Yes, let my shopping desire flow elsewhere! The whole shopping experience was so lousy!

To my bigger horror, I later found out that the toilets were only locked on weekends (when it was also the busiest period!) ! This is certainly ridiculous! And after some observation, I suspect the ill-intention of the management. There were a lot of foreign workers gathering around the mall - my guess is they may not want these people to use the toilets. And if my assumption is true, then it will be a bigger sin - the management is simply racist!

Last Tuesday, the operation manager called me to "smoke" me with their standard "customer-service script". I interrupted her speech and gave her a hostile lecture about shopper marketing. Seriously, if they can't afford to keep the toilet opens, why bother to run a mall? And if they are worried about the non-shoppers who just come and use their toilets - they can simply put a cashier outside each toilet. Better still, shut down your mall entirely!

And I thought Hong Kong is a modern city... Bring your own bags the next time you are here.

Straight from Tokyo, Kenneth (our 74th-75th Hong Kong Visitor) hopped in yesterday with his wife, Karen! What a perfect timing for a Friday gathering - King Bug meeting Flu Bug. (I was down with fever and was on MC yesterday - not H1N1.) His Grass-Shopper Wife was somehwere out there at Mong Kok. It was indeed a very short meeting... and they flew back today. Gotta miss them throughout winter. Sigh... I have to wait till summer before I meet this bug again.

We have a long weekend this week (Monday is a public holiday in Hong Kong). Since Felicia and Elkan haven't been to Shenzhen, I decided to bring them cross the border and visit their most famous theme-park - Window of the World "世界之窗".

Built in 1994, "Window of the World 世界之窗" was one of the 3 famous little world theme-parks in greater China. The other two are located in Taiwan (Click Link: 小人国) and Beijing (Click Link: 北京世界公园). 

 

Our last meeting with Alicia was more than 15 months ago. We came to Hong Kong last June working on an event at Lan Kwai Fong. Since then, Alicia left the company and I moved to Hong Kong. It has been a long while since we last met. And on Saturday, Alicia was in town for just 1 day. We decided to gather at Shenzhen for our long weekend vacation.

This is the weekend party that I can't afford to miss - 2 birthday parties in fact! One for Elkan (17th Oct) and the other for my dear friend Hong Fei (18th Oct)! Since their birthdays are only 1 day apart, we decided to start celebrating from 10pm 17th Oct to next morning 18th Oct 6am!  Now, that is indeed challenging! (Originally, I wanted to bring the whole gang to Shenzhen for a hot, sleazy karaoke bash for the 2 birthday boys! But I guess their mothers won't be too please about my cool concept). Anyway, we certainly had a superb 8-hour of fun! I couldn't last out as long as them - I knocked myself at 4-5am into my own symphony (of course, that turned off the gang and they decided to call off the party at about 6am).

 

This must be the best time to be in Shanghai. Cool cozy Autumn weather with warm loving friends. It may be a short 24-hour stay but I have everything covered - right from the 1st minute I stepped out of Pudong Airport. A very well accomplished trip for both my business and personal agenda. Really, life can't be any better for me! I had a great gathering with Cousin Yei & Summer, Echo, Johnny and Ming, Calvin and a couple more familiar faces at my old Shanghai office. It is just so wonderful to be able to do so much things within 24 hours.

(Photo Taken: Big Lighters - For really kiasu smokers and your 60th Birthday Candles!)