Belinda Hamnett (Hon Kwan Ting) has always been a big kid and she loves to collect toys, with all her daily objects at home all dressed up like toys, Her favourite cartoon penguin character Pingu appears on her lunchbox, flannel, dolls, pens and stickers and with everything, she has spent over $20000 on him.

Apart from her four cats, Belinda's love is for Pingu. She has collected many Pingu products, the most expensive of which is a $3000 limited edition soft toy. As this was a Japanese limited edition only available over there, she especially flew over just to buy the toy. She laughs: "This toy is worth more than $3000 because of the money spent on the plane ticket and the hotel, he even has a birth certificate."

Belinda says that six years ago when she was on holiday in Australia, she saw a little penguin doll and she found it very cute. When she bought it and returned to Hong Kong, she came across Pingu products and started collecting. Now she has over 100 items and has spent over $20000. She says: "The products are quite expensive, a pen can cost seventy to eighty dollars and just buying and buying has spent a lot of my money. I can't bear to use a lot of the things so it is just to look at. I did buy a telephone decoration, but the leg fell off and I was so upset, so after this I don't use anything I buy, not even the stickers because when I go home and see them all, I am very happy." The funniest thing is that she has almost 10 Pingu lunch boxes. She takes her own lunch into work every day and she has a different lunchbox and utensils every day. She feels that this makes her lunchtimes especially happy.

As well as collecting Pingu products, Belinda also likes to watch Pingu cartoons. There are no words in Pingu cartoons, only the calls of the penguins, however Belinda is captivated by this and laughs out loud as she watches. She says: "The cartoons are great to watch, although they don't speak, you know what they are saying and they are very funny. However the DVD was very expensive, costing $300. I bought it in Japan."

She laughs that luckily Pingu has not got as many products as Hello Kitty, with her electrical products and motorbikes, otherwise she would be bankrupt. She says: "Luckily there is not a Pingu motorbike, otherwise I would learn to ride it as it would be rather cool to ride out on a Pingu bike!" She says that every time her friends go to Japan, they will buy her Pingu products as souvenirs because there are a lot of products there that are not available in Hong Kong.

http://www.singpao.com/20031005/gossip/456075.html