Alpha's Summer Adventure

[Dual]

Kowloon
17-06-09

I love Chicken and Lemon foods, mostly chicken.

We know!

Great post again Alpha.

[BobbyDigital]

Wow, it really does look amazing there mayne. The amount of signs is crazy. Props on the photos.

[rogwilco]

Great pictures Alpha. I've been in that Toys r Us many years ago and yes it was ace. I actually bought the original Gameboy black and white camera in there! 1996 I think?

Anyway a question for you. When I was there in the Kowloon area I think it was a Sunday and there was a mass (literally hundreds) of non Chinese looking women (maybe Philippines?) all sat around in the outdoor areas chatting and knitting/sowing. It was a massive meet up. I never did find out what it was about but someone in my hotel said they were maids and it was their day off. Apparently maids aren't allowed to spend their day off in the house? Ask Antonia or her parents and see if they know what it was all about.

Nice post though, keep up the good work.

[Alpha eX]

Pudding and The Frog
18-06-09

This post is about two things, Pudding and LaQ Construction. I will do a normal daily post later but just wanted to do a special post about Pudding and LaQ Construction without having to cut it down in my daily post.

Pudding



Pudding is the family dog, he is 5 years old yet acts like he is 500. He came from the SPCA, it's basically the RSPCA but no longer royal, an Animal Shelter. He was abandoned by his previous owner and treated very badly.



Sadly, Pudding is on a special diet because he cannot eat any human foods or he will get sick, so he always watches us eat with a sad look on his face.



He is quite (very) lazy and spends most of his days lying on the cool marble floor. He doesn't have many toys, just a tennis ball which he adores. I brought him over some new toys but he doesn't seem to like any of them except the dog bone chew.



Here are some pictures of Pudding I took today while we were playing with him and his tennis ball. After a while he got tired and decided to rest again.

LaQ Construction

As a child I was a big fan of Lego. I enjoyed getting sets and building a huge model out of what seemed like an ocean of bricks. I still buy Lego models from time to time but that's only if they are nice little display models, like animals, otherwise I stear clear.

While looking around Toys R Us yesterday I saw a display for a new type of construction toy from Japan, LaQ Construction.



LaQ Construction is flat triangles and squares which connect together using 7 types of joints. You use these to connect the shapes together at an angle to build up a 3D image. It is quite different from Lego but seemed like a lot of fun. I decided to buy two sets, a Panda and a large set with many pieces allowing you to build more than one animal.

The large set I chose was the Chamelion set.



This set allows you to build 5 different animals by following the included instructions. The animals are, Chamelion, Crocodile, Turtle, Frog and Bush Warbler. Because there is only a limted number of pieces you can only build one animal at a time because you will run out of pieces needed for the other animals.



The kit comes with a large bag of pieces and joints, in this box there were 118 (it's on the box, I wasn't sad enough to count them all) an instructions booklet and a leaflet about other LaQ Construction sets.

Me and Antonia decided to build the frog because they are one of my favourite animals. The insturctions showed that it had to be built in two parts, the head and the body. Antonia was in charge of building the head and I was to make the body.



We started with no problems but I came into difficulty when things seemed out of proportion. It turned out that I had used the wrong joints so some of the angles were wrong. I rebuilt the parts that were wrong and the body was complete.



Antonia didn't seem to have any trouble putting the head together and finished about the same time I did. We each took around 10 minutes to build our seperate parts.



Here are some more pictures of the construction process.

We then attempted to put the head and body together. It should have connected with two joints completing the model but as we did that, it was obvious that something somewhere had gone wrong because our frog was a little disabled and couldn't stand up.




After looking carefully at the instructions we noticed that we had both made more mistakes with the joints. You have to be very careful when choosing as some of them look similar but the angles they connect together can change everything. It took us about half an hour but we finally finished the frog.

Here it is in it's completed form.




After we finished the frog we decided to have a break but then Pudding waddled over and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. He seemed to like the frog and tried to take it as his own. He eventually got tired again and layed on the cool marble, we took advantage and took some funny pictures with him and the frog.



Here are some more picures of Pudding and the Frog.

The LaQ Construction is a really interesting toy. I think I will buy some more sets before I go home as they were fun to make and i'm sure my younger relatives will find them just as if not more interesting than me and Antonia. There are many sets in the series, I think I will get the Eagle or Shark set next, I would like the expert set with over 2000 pieces but it's over £100...

Here are a few more pictures of the models we made today. You can see the Panda set which is made up of just afew peices, these sets are quite cheap, only a few pounds and create one animal, took about 5 minutes to make and looks cool on a shelf.

[Fatal Exception]

Pudding.

[Alpha eX]

Anyway a question for you. When I was there in the Kowloon area I think it was a Sunday and there was a mass (literally hundreds) of non Chinese looking women (maybe Philippines?) all sat around in the outdoor areas chatting and knitting/sowing. It was a massive meet up. I never did find out what it was about but someone in my hotel said they were maids and it was their day off. Apparently maids aren't allowed to spend their day off in the house? Ask Antonia or her parents and see if they know what it was all about.

Maids (most of whom are Philippino) are certainly allowed to stay in the house if they wish, but frankly they spend most of the week in the same house, so I suppose they'd prefer to go outside and be able to get some fresh air. Also, a lot of them have lots of social activities to go to- meeting up with friends, church, selling wares, offering manicures/pedicures. You can see these gatherings everywhere in HK- in Central, the Star Ferry Pier and big shopping malls.

So yeah, they were all maids you saw. When we was on our way to the IFC to watch a film at the cinema, I noticed something similar, there were so many! Had no idea what it was, I assumed a mini festival but it was just a load of maids having a social gathering on their day off.

[Dual]

Pudding and The Frog
18-06-09

That picture made me lol. Pudding seems to be disgusted at the thought of you playing with LEGO.

[Cuttooth]

He is quite (very) lazy

I think Pekingese dogs have problems with their legs so don't travel far at all.



Best image of the entire trip so far.

[Count Nood]

Epic Pudding post.

[BobbyDigital]

Pudding does look like a quality dog mayne.

Any pics of the chick you're boning then???

[rogwilco]

Maids (most of whom are Philippino) are certainly allowed to stay in the house if they wish, but frankly they spend most of the week in the same house, so I suppose they'd prefer to go outside and be able to get some fresh air. Also, a lot of them have lots of social activities to go to- meeting up with friends, church, selling wares, offering manicures/pedicures. You can see these gatherings everywhere in HK- in Central, the Star Ferry Pier and big shopping malls.

So yeah, they were all maids you saw. When we was on our way to the IFC to watch a film at the cinema, I noticed something similar, there were so many! Had no idea what it was, I assumed a mini festival but it was just a load of maids having a social gathering on their day off.

Cheers, thanks for the fast reply! At least that clears that one up then. I presume then the maids at your gf's place are Philippino then?

@ BobbyD

Alpha have you been to any real traditional meat markets yet? I went to one in Kowloon where it smelt pretty bad and they actually slaughtered a lot of the animals (mostly chickens) there and then. It's certainly worth a visit as its an eye opener.

[Qikz]

Caption: "Sort of want"

Pudding is so amazing and for a construction toy that thing seems very complex considering it's made for children. Glad your having a nice time out there.

[Poncho]

Maids (most of whom are Philippino) are certainly allowed to stay in the house if they wish, but frankly they spend most of the week in the same house, so I suppose they'd prefer to go outside and be able to get some fresh air. Also, a lot of them have lots of social activities to go to- meeting up with friends, church, selling wares, offering manicures/pedicures. You can see these gatherings everywhere in HK- in Central, the Star Ferry Pier and big shopping malls.

So yeah, they were all maids you saw. When we was on our way to the IFC to watch a film at the cinema, I noticed something similar, there were so many! Had no idea what it was, I assumed a mini festival but it was just a load of maids having a social gathering on their day off.

Cheers, thanks for the fast reply! At least that clears that one up then. I presume then the maids at your gf's place are Philippino then?

It's Filipino by the way.

[Fatal Exception]

[The People's ElboReformat]

I love Pudding. Can you bring him back for me, Alpha.

[Roonmastor]

Chalky provides .gifs of his pets. I think the thread demands you make a .gif of Pudding.

[Rightey]

Is that tennis ball pudding has a real tennis ball? If so then you should replace it, or at least give it a stab to let out the compressed air. I used to work at a pet shop and we'd always warn people not to give their dogs real tennis balls as they can bite down on them, and blow out their teeth if the ball explodes due to the compressed gas.

[The People's ElboReformat]

not to give their dogs real tennis balls as they can bite down on them, and blow out their teeth if the ball explodes due to the compressed gas.

Ooh, make a .gif of that.

[The Alchemist Penguin]

Great stuff, Alpha.

What do they think of you taking pictures of everything? Whipping out the camera and taking pictures of the food instead of the family must have got you a strange look or two at first.

[Roonmastor]

I bet they think "Bloody British tourists!"