Cabin fever

I have been in Hong Kong by myself for almost two weeks now. When I say 'by myself', I mean it literally. I am staying in a warehouse that has been converted into an apartment. I know what you are thinking; 'He's staying in a tin shed between a stack of pallets and a portable cold room', but industrial areas in Hong Kong are not like those of Australia. I am on the 18th (top) floor of a high-rise building in the outer suburb of Fo Tan and have all the home comforts including bed, television, kitchen, laundry and karaoke machine. I have been a lone-wolf pack, left with nothing but my thoughts and a lot of time.

I have seen several movies in which individuals are trapped alone and eventually cabin fever gets to them. I had always wondered if this was true or just a Hollywood concoction designed to help make horror movies but I think that I am suffering from it just a little bit. I mean, I'm not building an army of soldiers out of soap suds in order to take over the world or telling my reflection in the mirror to go ahead and make my day... Yet.

Instead, I have been coming up with a lot of crazy ideas and referring to myself in the third person occasionally. With so much time, you end up getting tired of Facebook stalking and tend to expand on small ideas until they are massive hypothetical impossiblities. In fact, here are my top five ideas...

1. A movie called 'American Sumo' in which, Will Ferrel plays an American wrestlers who decides to gain weight in order to break into the professional Japanese sumo leagues. Can't you just picture it? If this movie ever comes out, you know where the idea came from.

2. Get a tattoo. Now I don't just want to put some random artwork permanently on my skin. I don't want a tribal pattern despite having nothing to do with a tribe or profound words in Chinese characters that I will just have to accept that the tattoo artist is being honest about. I want something that is me. I have pondered the Southern Cross which to non-Australians might sound like a possibility, but to locals, may bring up memories of wearing board shorts and pluggers whilst starting a racial riot on Australia Day. So I searched for a cycling tattoo and what did I discover??? There is no such thing as a cool cycling tattoo. There, I said it. Prove me wrong. The closest thing I could find was the one below and it turned out to be the logo for Godspeed Couriers in the States.

3. Making an iPhone app that will put all of your pictures into one big picture like those mosaic ones you see of Star Wars images. I have a feeling that this might be a little too much for the old iPhone to handle though.

4. Learn cantonese. How hard could it be? I even downloaded translation apps on my iPhone. However, like learning to play the guitar, I quickly gave up on this idea.

5. At the markets here in Hong Kong there are so many cheap knock-offs. Shoes, bags, shoes, clothes, shoes, jeans and shoes. Why is it that you can only purchase these in Asia? Why can't I fill up a shipping container with this stuff, send it to Australia and sell it there? Even with the costs of shipping and import taxes, they would still be ridiculously cheap. Then I realised that there are probably some importing and copyright laws that I may be breaking in the process.

So that is my top 5. I am pretty sure that I will come up with a sure plan for world peace and resolve the global economic crisis soon so keep an eye out for those.