Eshin Direct

Wakeboard Resurgence?

It seems wakeboarding is back into fashion. Well, it wasn’t out of fashion, it’s just that I hear more and more people talking about. My old boss introduced it to me when I first arrived in Hong Kong nearly three years ago, so as bleeding edge trend, it ain’t exactly new. I have a suspicion it might be an age thing. The people that I’m hearing from about it are younger than the people that first introduced the sport to me.

I’ll admit, my interest in the sport was rekindled after Saturday when I managed to stay on for longer than 15 seconds. My estimation was about two minutes but then again your own elation at achieving it for the first time can warp these things. In any case, it was a reputable length of time since I had spent the previous twenty minutes giving advice like I was some sort of pro. I still fought with the damned boat, so hence the ache in my arms, but I’m slowly conceding this point of contention.

So I’m back to reading wakeboarding websites and dreaming of actually owning a board. Of course, it would be more logical of dreaming of actually going and doing it but then if I was thinking logically, it would be more practical to get a stable source of income first. We can but dream.

Insomnia

Being unable to sleep because of the discomfort of my food poisioning, which I feel will have abated by tomorrow, I couldn’t sleep because the mirrors in my room gave me a fright. Yes, grown men shouldn’t get frights but you do if you believe in ghosts and spirits. I’ve always suspected my flat to be inhabited by another spirit. We got off on the wrong foot when I first moved in as I was rude enough not to introduce myself. After they broke a few of my glasses, I think we came to an arrangement.

Anyway, I think it comes from being close to the Man Mo temple. Surely, the proximity to one of Hong Kong’s oldest temples would suggest that spirits were close at hand.

I had installed mirrors in my bedroom about a year into living here. Yes, it has been remarked that this was a very trashy Mongkok thing to do and one or two people have said it was a bad thing to do a la Chinese feng shui.

I have faith in my God to protect me from anything serious so it usually stops me from going off the deep end with paranoia. Except tonight was the first time that I got a weird poltergeist type feeling when I was lying in my bed. The mirrors seemed to be a cause for concern for some reason. Anyway, without getting too freaked out about it, I decided to get up and surf the net until I can go to be without these things preying on my mind.

Food Poisoning

Methinks it was food poisoning rather than heat exhausation or prickly heat. Or it could have been a very, very, very mild dose of decompression sickness. Of course, if it was decompression sickness, I should have rushed myself to the hospital to be repressurised immediately. Perhaps I will explode in the next day or so still, but I rather think that the cause of my discomfort these last few days was Hong Kong’s favourite deadly snack - the innocuous looking fish ball.

For those of you unfamiliar with HK cuisine, fish balls, prawn balls, and meat balls, the size of golfballs are popular snack foods for Hong Kong people. You’ll find them bobbing away in oil at street stalls, 7-11’s (yes, UK, they still have ‘em here), and you’ll also find them gracing most cheap, mass mealtimes that have a local flavour to them. They are also shipped in by the truckload at workplaces as locals have “tea time” around 5pm. Great on their own, the best way to have these is from the street vendors who drench them in curry sauce spicy enough to make your balls shrivel.

Yep, I love ‘em, locals love ‘em and expats usually deny eating them. And yes, it’s still the food variety of fishball I’m talking about.

But I suspect that it was this cute looking fishball on the diving trip that got my attention or the attention of my immune system. The week before my mate, el revez, seemed to be complaining of some food allergy after we bbq’d down in Repulse Bay. I think that’s ’cause he had roasted a bucket load of these fishballs over the coals. I hadn’t eaten quite as many as he did that time but I certainly gorged myself on ‘em on Sunday.

I would advise against eating these dodgy looking fishballs since the ones you get in more “sanitary” and “upmarket” places aren’t usually worth your while, and the ones that are worth a bite, usually come from shabbier places. But then again, with no proof, I really can’t point the finger at one fishball or another.

Weekend Exhaustion

I think I over did it this weekend. I think right now I’m suffering from heat exhausation and prickly heat. The main culprits are lack of non-alcoholic liquids and sleep. First there was Friday night which ended at about 3am and I only got to bed at 5 am. Then there was the early start for Elsa’s junk trip. The only sleeping I managed to do was pretty much on the way there though that was a restless one.

I promised myself not to get into the water (I’d see enough of it the next day) and certainly didn’t want to do any wakeboarding as I knew my arms would ache the next day. I got Elsa, Amy and James to all go wakeboarding so that I could take some cool pictures. Stupidly, watching them got me back interested in doing wakeboarding. So did it and finally managed to get up for longer than I ever have done previously. My arms still ached but not as much as last time I did it. I guess I’ve stopped fighting the tug of war contest with the boat.

Junk trips always seem to take it out of you no matter how lazy you’ve been the whole day. Saturday night was no exception. Unfortunately, the Netherlands was playing and national pride required that I show my support. After sleeping for a few hours, I groggily watched the first half, irritably shouted at the screen for the second and just wanted them to take the penalties quickly at the end of the night.

By the time I went to bed, I had only one hour’s sleep to get up for diving. The problem was that it wasn’t the usual Sai Kung departure point and my old instructor fancied going to the Wong Shek pier for the departure point. The stress of having to remember everything after a year combined with lack of sleep, it was a wonder I didn’t kill myself (ummm…inflating your bcd shouldn’t pose any problems). The first dive went alright but after we surfaced, the boat dude couldn’t get the boat started, so we spent the heat of the midday sun floating on a boat, with no water, no nothing. The divemasters had to swim a marathon distance to get to a building with a phone (which was lucky). Second dive went great. I went with two divemasters which was a little intimidating but all in all a good learning experience after not having dove for a year. Plenty of schools of fish and the visibility was great.

In the end, Bibian took sympathy on me, I guess, and I could hitch a ride all the way back to Causeway Bay with the company van. I think I got the prickly heat from my wetsuit, the heat and partial dehydration. Gotta make sure the same doesn’t happen next time. It’s a fun weekend where I got reaquianted with the watersports I like to do in HK.

Hup Holland!

Oh beautiful! Netherlands are through to the semi-finals. Albeit they won on penalties, but they finally managed to exorcise the demons that have plagued them in past penalty shoot-outs at this level. Not a spectacular game and de Boer was off for an injury leaving the captainship in the less capable hands of Cocu in my opinion. I think it subsequently had something to do with Davids being substituted for Heitinga.

Ibrahimovic was an annoying tit for much of the game and at one point fancied himself for the gold at the Olympics for diving. But I can’t be too hard on the guy, as he must have still been playing for Ajax when he, as the commentator put it, “Beckham’d it” during the shoot-outs.

Anyway, penalty shoot out is not what I wanted as now it gives me about an hours sleep before I have to wake up to go diving. Was it worth losing sleep over such a lacklustre game? Of course, we won.