One of the habits I have picked up over the past year of being a housewife is reading a weekend paper on Saturdays and Sundays. By the time I am usually up, the paper gets delivered to the door and all I have to do is to make myself a hot cup of earl gray tea (full cream milk, mad cats mug), sit down and realise that the weekend is just about to begin. I start with the thin glossy Canvas magazine (apparently, Qantas airlines award for the best newspaper mag), which is about everything and nothing. It has brain teasers (I am ashamed to admit, I like them), botox specials around town (also, very ashamed to be looking at them), and about 40-odd pages of articles on various topics. Occasionally, it is politics, often it is going green, every now and then there are "intellectual" celebrities and arty interviews. The notorious Shoe Of The Week section always features some high-end fashion pair at a thousand dollars or so. There was a huge debate recently, with people writing angry letters to the editor, mentioning recession and quoting rocketing grocery prices. Back off, - the editor responded, - art is art, and there is no price tag on it. Price tag or not, they could be picking prettier shoes more often. Anyway, the start of last weekend was marked with an article about China. I know that everything is about China these days, and the further we go, the more humongous it becomes, yet that one caught my attention. The one-child policy is having a hiccup, and things are getting more and more out of control.  Kids are lottery whether it is one of six of them, yet the risk is higher if you only get one chance of making your point in this world. So the parents - the middle of the road Chinese citizens - are placing their bets on the one and only precious thing they have - their child. Mothers carry their child's backpack around; couples forgo lunch so their child can have plentiful snacks or new Nikes. Of course there is a price tag. For the pleasure of being the only child and not having to share anything, the child gets the obligation to support the parents when they are old. In order to provide good support, you have to do well at school. And what is the best way to get good marks? That's right, study more. So this is exactly what they do - they study. Often a kid comes home from school in the afternoon, has a bite to eat, and goes straight to doing his homework - in some cases, they do it till the bedtime. Everyday. They. Study. For. Like. Ten. Hours. A Day. At one top Beijing kindergarten, students must know pi to 100 digits by the age of 3. Mad, mad Chinese! Of course, when you study for ten hours a day from 1988 till 2001, you'd have exorbitant expectations about your future, your job and your pay check. But alas - there is the reality check. Not only is China not providing enough job opportunities, it is also that everybody is just as good. Tough competition for a very limited number of applicants. So they might find it hard to adapt to blue-collar jobs and less nicer lifestyle than their parents have been setting them on to. Which just repeats my views on participating at all those crazy shows like Fear Factor and Survivor. It is OK to do it if you win - but boy, it sucks to lose. So it is OK for a parent to give everything up for a child, as long as the child pays you back. But all those years of sacrifice for possibly nothing - God forbid. PS - I am going away for the month of August, I have already recorded a new voice mail message and learn the guidebook by heart. Europe, Europe, there I come! I haven't been before, so, just as those Chinese kids, I have very high expectations :) Please wait for me, as I shall be back. Podcasts on eugenia.co.nz in September, a gorgeous black-and-white photo session with me barely clad and much more to come. Buen viaje, ciao and au revoir, mon cher amis. Yours truly, Eugenia.

OK, well, the worst city I have been to is Bangkok. When I found myself there, on a four day stopover between England and New Zealand, I was both disgusted and horrified. First it was the heat, second it was the smell. The smell of the sweat and the sewage was thick and overpowering from the moment I stepped my foot to the ground. The very first Thai experience, right after getting an oversized ink stamp into my passport, was being ripped off by a taxi company. Having read all those horror stories about single female travellers getting kidnapped and sold into go-go slavery, I allowed some uniformed woman to arrange a cab for me. I paid about 900 bhat for the transfer to the hotel. Four days later, hailing a cab from the hotel lobby cost me only about 150Bh. So I check into what was supposed to be a solid four star hotel, and go for a walk in the neighbourhood. I like the fruit vendor - a tiny stall  where a smiley man sells various fruits none of which I recognise (oh, those mangosteens, dorians and star fruit!). I buy a pre-cut  "assortment", just to get a taste of everything and trying not to think of the food handling hygiene (Oh my good, is there an A grade on display?!). I instantly dislike a rather large food stall - not so smiley vendor selling some noodles in a take away plastic bag, out of which you are supposed to eat just walking down the road.  Err. I walk down the road, trying to find a decent place to get something to eat. I am in the mood for some authentic tom yum soup. I see a sign Body Massage in English and a Thai woman outside handling out the fliers. I inquire about the price, which seems unbelievably low, and tell her that I get something to eat and come back. Then a typical Thai thing happens - she grabs my arm and tells me she knows a great place for lunch, kindly suggesting to walk me there. I agree, thinking to myself that I am such a cool tourist,  doing Thailand and befriending locals. We walk down the road in a frisky pace and end up in a small cafe with plastic chairs and laminated menus. It looks plausible, so I order and wait. The massage woman, though, is sitting on a tiny chair by the door, watching me eat! I tell her that she does not have to, I will be able to find my way around - but she just nods and smiles. I eat, she watches. I feel awful, I shovel my soup down and obediently follow her back to the massage place. I get a decent massage, which kind of brings the score to the draw of 2 positive experiences (fruit+massage) to 2 negative (food vendor + persistent woman), and I decide to return to the hotel. Other than that, it is a great slum, overpopulated, dirty, noisy and ready to take advantage of you. You have to walk two blocks to cross the six lane road by the overhead bridge, and it is so narrow you basically force your way through the beggars. It is hot and humid and sticky and shops don't have large-ish European sizes (44 is a problem), and you feel the power of dollars and it makes you sick, knowing that they'd do anything for it. I was glad to be flying out, and I hope I won't have to have another out-of-airport stopover. Disclaimer: This is a topic post about the city which I consider the worst. There were many things I liked (the shrines and temples, the cultural show, the transvestite show, the floating markets, the Thai elephants, the river Kwai bridge, the kickboxing and the counterfeit gucci watch I bought for my brother), yet I have to struggle to recall them. All I remember is that woman taking me down the dirty street along the people eating something with their chopsticks out of plastic bags as they keep walking.

As previously stated, technological progress scares me a little. Yet the spam filter on my letter box is doing a good job, shielding the unwanted information and burying it forever in the trash tin. Still every now and then I would receive a letter offering some lasting longer enlargement replicas, or - the best restaurant in the world. Of course with spam you cannot trust a thing they promise, only an indication of direction for those vaguely interested. Still it grabbed my attention - the best restaurant in the world - does it exist? So apparently it does. It is called El Bulli, all three Michelin stars, two hours north of Barcelona. A truly unbelievable story! They are open April to September only, and to get a reservation for April, you have to email them in October. It accommodates only 8,000 diners a season, with 800,000 people calling to try and book places - around 400 requests for every table. So you get the reservation first, and then you book your airfare! The kitchen team consists of 42 chefs. All of their crockery and cutlery is specially designed for their courses - which change daily. The menu is designed at the lab during the months when they are closed, behind the closed doors, incredibly confidential. The restaurant has no menu - you eat what you are given. There are 35 courses, divided into the following categories: cocktails, snacks, dry snacks, fresh snacks, tapas, dishes, predesserts, desserts, petit fours, and morths. It takes 6 hours to dine and you are allowed intermissions between the courses - to breathe and to digest. The meal costs about 150 Euros, and those who hope to get in would pay much more, as it is not a mere meal out - it is a culinary revolution. Although the rumour has it they operate at a significant loss, and they keep going only for the love of food. I imagine this is an absolutely different level of a culinary operation, and any dining experience. I am not too sure if I even want to go there, and whether I am capable of eating for six hours straight. However, it would be a different story - and a different wish-list, should I live in Europe at some stage. I am more interested to know whether they do a wine pairing, and how one does after 30 glasses of various wine, downed in 6 hours.