Hong Kong, Hong Kong...

8 months into Hong Kong, 3 months into the year that is 2017. How time does seem to pass us by. The city is growing on me, slowly but surely. The initial questioning, the inquiry, the wondering. What is my purpose for being here. Here. Still there, but being masked by the comfort of a somewhat routine. So definitive I know. All will be revealed in good time.

Hong Kong life represents the epitome of #firstworldproblems, the problems, that a recent video portrayed, are not problems at all. But we knew that. Living an expat life in an expensive city, where taxes are low, bars aplenty, people are open, nature and warm weather is on your doorstep and all year round. Work hard, play harder. What's not to like? The life of a new expat in Hong Kong is centred on Hong Kong Island, with home and work likely to be within a 5km radius. Island life mentality and cabin fever easily can set in and there we seek comfort in the great outdoors or a plane ride to another city. Our apartments may be smaller but our sense of adventure and access has somehow gotten a whole lot bigger. 

I am grateful, don't get me wrong. I am grateful for the opportunity to be here, to travel, to work and be halfway closer to my family and friends in Sydney. I am grateful to experience living in another country and be met with the discomforts that greet me along the way. Yet with all the access and opportunities, and the affordability for it all, I feel the need to minimalise, to take a step back. The question comes up time and time again - how much do we really need to get by, to survive, to have an amazing life of abundance. We don't need that much and we live an extremely privileged and spoilt life, but that we have created and made for ourselves, so for that, we should be proud.

Outside and even amongst the bubble of expat island life though, many families in Hong Kong live below the poverty line. I don't know what that means in a practical sense but the number is around 20% and apparently the highest in 6 years. We also see it, people living on the streets, not homeless and begging but their home is there, on the street, under a bridge, by some stairs in a quiet, trendy corner of Sheung Wan. Their belongings are with them, they have portable gas stoves and rice cookers and makeshift beds, luggage and clothing. They are not homeless, they just make a life living with less. The less, of course, is all relative. I don't know these people, how they feel, how happy they might feel, how content they may be. As far as I know, they are the happiest people but on my mind's sake, it makes me question what I do have.  So at times I feel a sense of remorse, although I don't think I need to, but I do. We are privileged enough to not have to worry about our next meal, our next coffee, our next glass of wine but we take it for granted. I see it not only on the streets but in my own parents. Money is earnt and spent carefully, everything that I have access to now is a result of the hard work and courage of my family many years ago. For that I am grateful.

So this predicament lies in me and but I don't know as yet how to express this, how to implement something that is of course, completely selfish, and to simply allow me to sleep better knowing that I have made a difference, however small. Every action starts with a decision. What could you do?

Healthy Eating with a Side of Chocolate...

I've said it once, I'll say it again. My name is Annie and I am a chocoholic.

As the new year begins, so along with it comes the realm of resolutions and beginnings, promises of healthier eating, exercising 6 times a week with no alcohol in January, being more positive, saving more, spending less, eating more greens, eating less meat and getting hot. These resolutions usually last about the same time as it takes for someone to ask me in the bleak days of London January, whilst sitting at my desk, looking out the window into the greyness of St Paul's... Should we go for a glass of red?

The luxury of time. Such an abstract concept. Why should time be a luxury? I never feel like I have enough time. My nights are a constant battle, filled with all the activities I really do enjoy doing vs having time to not do all the things I enjoy. Downtime. Which means different things on different days. Tonight it meant going straight home after work, no yoga, no hiit, no football, no catchups. 

'You'll never find time for anything. If you want time, you have to make it....'

So in the abstractness of the evening, I decided to make myself some soup. Like chicken soup for the soul, except not, as of course, I'm trying to eat less meat. So instead it was roasted sweet potato, butternut squash, spinach and quinoa soup for a wintery January evening. It was definitely soul warming and soothing. Perfect with a side of chocolate. Abstract recipe below. 

So I did actually write a few things down for 2015, but none of the usual points listed above. All of the above will be a bonus in the quest for a year of difference, yet made with the same ingredients. Abit of being stirred, rising,  baked, shaken and consumed. Yes, all of the clichés.

It will be about balance, the Ha and the Tha and the enjoyment and indulgence with virtue and purity in the company of strangers and loved ones. It is continually cultivating this balance somehow, someway, somewhere....

Sweet potato, butternut squash, spinach and quinoa soup for the non-chicken soup drinkers.

Ingredients

1 sweet potato

1 butternut squash 

1 onion

Few cloves of garlic

Few handfuls of spinach

1 cup of cooked quinoa 

Vegetable stock

To garnish (optional)

Parsley

Chilli flakes

Pepper

Crumbed feta 

1. Chop sweet potato and butternut squash into small chunks, drizzle with some Olive oil and roast for about 30 minutes at 190' (a highish heat!)

2. Gently fry the onion and garlic

3. Add the roasted squash and sweet potato to the onions and fry again briefly, then add vegetable stock and simmer until the vegetables are soft. Leave to cool slightly.

4. Cook the quinoa separately

5. Purée the soup in a blender or with a hand blender then pour back into a saucepan.

6. Add the Spinach until it wilts.

7. You can either add quinoa to the pot or just add desired quantity to individual

Servings (which is what I did).

8. Garnish and drink up!

On another note, the greyness of St Paul's can be rather mesmerising.

Musings of an Avid Dreamer

Some words are meant just for me and some are not. So many notebooks and blank pages of sorts. I have a binder of yoga materials, an A4 notebook from my class with notes, and a couple of black books, thrown in with a few others. A journal for my yoga practice, a black book of ideas, a book of thoughts, blank pages and a giant art book yet to be used. Each one has a different purpose and it reminds me how much I love books and stationary and what they represent or the potential of what they could be. 

For the most part, they are just words. However, a word on paper is more real than one that exists only in my head. In there, they get lost. On paper, I am reminded.

So my coffee breaks have become my little brain dump. Well, they will become. 

Love Always, Paris.

Sunday and Aperitif hour in Paris on the typical pavement tables of the popular Les editeurs in Saint germain. My 'pamplemousse fraise' has just been delivered in a tall glass, half full. The price of prime real estate and pavements in Paris.

Beautiful Paris in Autumn with what felt more like a summer's day with bare legs, Berthillion ice cream, a full picnic of

Mousse de canard, du fromage, jambon, poulet, crevettes et baguettes in the beautiful grounds of the Jardin du Luxembourg. Before lying on the observation deck on the top of the Montparnasse Tower and enjoying our black sesame eclair and matcha and salted caramel tart from Sadaharu Aoki. Here you are presented with the panorama of the pyramids of Paris streets and the view of the Eiffel Tower and other monuments. The Top of the Rock of Paris. 

A certain something something about this city, the ease and simple and effortless elegance of its inhabitants, the sexy French language, the fresh produce markets, people watching and wine drinking, baguette et fromage eating culture that make it so addictive. The authentic Vietnamese food an added bonus. Like any additiction, you keep wanting to come back for more. 

People watching, eaves dropping on conversations, or rather just enjoying the accent and interactions. A girl from Hong Kong is studying French and talking about how the Paris way of life was alot nicer, greener than what she was used to. She had now met her boyfriend'a parents and was to meet the grandparents, but he has yet to propose. She was having pho with what appeared to be a new Parisian friend at Pho14 in District 13 and we were sat on the cosy neighbouring table.

The very mixed group of people next to us at Les editeurs, writing in their notebooks for what appears to be a business meeting of sorts. One guy now sporting a large bottle of champagne. A celebration peut-etre? 

The guy outside Merci asking if we were lost. No, we said; shame, he said - for it would have given him a reason to speak with us. Still, he persisted, suave. Well, where are your boyfriends...for, if you were my girlfriend, I would not let you travel to Paris without me. He sounds possessive. Ah, but life is unfair (in an almost sing song voice). It is, for we were not lost in lust with his grey track pants. We understood.

I want to live here for a short time and practice my infant French. To be able to say more than 'is it possible to get a small slice of the Beaufort cheese?' (which, btw I was quite happy to be able to string together!). I want more. I also want the Brie and the Camembert and the Brillat-savarin (yum!). I want to stay around the Luxembourg gardens and go for morning runs, before picking up groceries from Rue Mouffetard, where my Dose of coffee is good and the barista who makes it is cute. I will then read and write on my Juliet balcony or one of the plentiful cafes as I sip my glass of red. An over simplistic view of what it means to live in Paris! 

Yes, I can do these things in London, for the parks and coffee shops And wine bars on offer. It might just be a tiny bit weird to ask for things in French.

So why Paris, what is it about you. Each time I visit, there is a new street, market, area or side to be seen. There is always the beauty of touristy Paris along the Seine, as well as the charm of typical Parisian streets with its plentiful boulangeries and colours. Some new pages and some repeated chapters to a never ending book which is read over. It never gets old. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Paris, I will always love you.