This is a town where botox and skin-whitening treatments are included with an "Intro to Yoga" package,

where you know it's Sunday as thousands of domestic helpers occupy each cheaply-glazed brick of Central district, chattering round fountains and squares, sitting on plastic bags in summertime and cardboard boxes in winter, hawking phone cards and mobile phones with signs written in Tagalog;

where career-women can easily work full-time thanks to said helpers who are flown over on cheap flights from Southeast Asia and are paid next to nothing for it, a practice one HK woman has admitted is "gender equality for Hong Kong women at the expense of other women";

where gender equality for men is apparently an identical desire to be hairless, poreless, and well-dressed and -toned at all times;

and where "limited edition" lychee-flavored condoms - made and marketed by Durex - are prominently displayed next to the supermarket cash register.

Every day's a frustrating adventure into the barely-known, most of it lived seaside. It seems I've a talent for drawing caricatures, so have been well-compensated for drawing them for hours at holiday parties.

While I'm on the lookout for a fascinating, flexible job, I tutor a young businesswoman in English. In shopping malls throughout the city - it was her idea. I don't think schooling gets any more surreal than that. This weekend I plan to take her to an outdoor market - fish, flowers, fabric or all three - so we'll get a grittier take on this town.