Work, work, work...
Work seems to completely dominate my life at the moment. However I wasn't going to let that interfere with the rugby this Saturday. Rugby on TV is one of the few things I really miss about the UK, I'm not really an avid fan but I like to watch all the international matches. I have now subscribed to Setanta's internet sports service so I'll never have to miss a game again. The Italian's played valiantly on Saturday but with superior strength and an awful lot of luck, England prevailed (31-16) and are odds on to win the Six Nations.

Rod, my colleague from Costa Rica and I decided to head downtown on Sunday. I wanted to build a new PC and there's no better place to buy the bits than China Town. Prior to buying the components we caught some lunch at the Sky Dragon, it's a Dim Sum place, nothing fancy but it has a style all it's own. This may be normal in China but not having eaten there I don't know. A constant stream of waitresses walk the aisles between the tables with saucers and steamers of all manner of dim sum, you indicate which plates you are interested in and they are dropped on your table with a ramikin of the appropriate sauce. Within 5 minutes of sitting down we had half a dozen plates of asian delicacies spread before us. Rod, who is a black belt at eating, quickly got the hang of the new ordering technique, we ran out of room on a table for four and within half an hour were completely stuffed. Rod remarked that the Americans had a lot to learn about the fast in fast food. The table cloths are polythene and when it is time to clear a table, a waitress picks up the table cloth by the corners, encapsulating the plates, cups, glasses and bottles and carries them off; another waitress lays out crockery and a fresh pot of green tea on the fresh table that was under the previous one. The food is good, there is an amazing variety and it is cheap too. We both balked at the steamed chicken feet but everything else was great.

Walking outside we found ourselves in what seemed like the last vestige of the Chinese New Year celebrations, with people in dragon costumes dancing to the beat of drums.

I managed to get the PC parts from a store in the same area and it has all gone together without a hitch. It's nice not having to use a laptop at home.


For those of you that are interested, I have updated my gallery site with photos of New York, you can see them here.