Don't expect me to cry, don't expect me to lie, don't expect me to die for thee

So I'm writing again. It's Monday, I just blogged yesterday, what could I possibly have to talk about?
Dinner.

My landlord invited me over for dinner with her family. It was her and her husband and their son and of course the domestic helper they have.
The food was delicious. Cantonese style food. We had three dishes: a sweet and sour pork dish with peppers and pineapples and other veggies, some kind of a chicken dish with carrots and potatoes, and then scallops with I think snap peas and more carrots and mushrooms. It was all delicious. We had a soup after that and then the chocolate mousse cake that I brought (always supplying the healthy food!).

They were so polite. And they started teaching me how to say a few things in Cantonese. It was a really nice gesture and I greatly appreciated it.
We had a nice conversation about Hong Kong, the culture, they asked a lot about my and my family and America. I just... I feel very lucky. I really like them and that makes my living situation so much more... comfortable.

[The Australian news show just used the word "spifflicated".]

Thursday is apparently the winter solstice which is an important holiday here where most people leave work early to be with family. Our group is all going out to a big lunch all afternoon. (I've got too much work to do to afford the time off, but if everyone's going...)

And of course to tie back into the title of this post:


Cheers all!

An afternoon beverage...

I got my Christmas packages sent out today, I'm a little skeptical about the process of writing the contents on the box for customs and how that kind of ruins Christmas... Don't customs officers love Jesus?

But none the less I sent things as fast as I could, I think. The guy wouldn't really commit to anything, more of a suggestion. And it wasn't all that expensive. The shipping didn't cost more than the items. Nice.

So feeling good about being done with that hassle (and let me tell you hauling boxes full of gifts on the MTR, through TST, to the ATM to get cash, and finally to the post office was exhausting) I thought I'd reward myself with lunch and a pint at a pub.

A pub with Stars of David on their Christmas decorations.

Now I'm finishing my lunch and enjoying the second half of my Guinness when a gentlemen walks in and sits down who happens to wearing a Devils cap. There are like 20 of us Devils world wide and most of them live IN NEW JERSEY. Meeting one in Hong Kong seems impossible. But there I am having a conversation with another New Yorker about American sports and specifically our New York area teams. Nuts.

To add to the chain of coincidences, while I'm talking to this guy, an architect that I'm working with on one of my projects walks in with his girlfriend/wife.

In the span that I was there, I met a guy who lives in Hells Kitchen who's also an engineer and a Devils fan and ran into one of the countable number of people I know in Hong Kong... Was there some mystical significance to that place? Was I supposed to be there on a metaphysical level? The world may never know.

In other news the apartment is a lot more apartment-y with a couch and pretty much all of my furniture. I know how exciting my furniture news is for you guys.

Right now I'm looking forward to seeing my old friend Mr. Jeff Dalton for Christmas. We'll probably head out to the western district and see what kind of trouble we can dig up.
Oh and my landlord invited me over for dinner this coming week. Her and her husband have been nothing but nice and helpful about the whole process. So I'm looking forward to it.

That's all, what's up in your world people? I love hearing from my friends and family, so please throw me a line.

Merry Christmas everyone and I'll catch you on the flip side.

closer to normalcy

I mentioned that I finally found some moderate priced shopping. Well it was all part of last weekend.

I met with my real estate agent again (I ran into some road blocks in negotiations with the place I had been interested in previously*) and she had two apartments to show me. Well they were both in a really nice quiet development that's close to work and really practical. One of them was really nice, clean, renovated, had new bathroom and kitchen fixtures. I really liked it. It's a decent size for my needs and there's a supermarket and a small shopping center just next to the complex. There's also a bigger shopping and restaurant area near the MTR station about a 10 minute walk or so from the apartment. This is where I found places to buy the stuff I'll need to fill out the apartment.

I actually just bought a bed and mattress to be delivered on time so that I won't be sleeping on the floor.

So the apartment: two bedroom, about 500 sqft, I'll take pictures later. I don't know what else to say other than I'm looking forward to having a place to live (not a hotel).

I met the landlords. A couple and their son. They were really nice, and they spoke english well which really helped. They asked about me and were in general just nice polite friendly people. They have to move some stuff out that they were storing (stuff like their sons old toys and some sports equipment etc etc...) and they have to finish up the work in the kitchen.

So the details: I finalize the paperwork and get the keys on Thursday. I'll move my bags in on Friday and sleep on my new bed.

But everything's not perfect. The extra time it's taking to get into the apartment pushes me over the one month limit and I'm living in a different hotel. The serviced apartment that work paid for was not available for me to stay in (they were full) so I had to pack everything into a cab and move to another hotel (which is actually a hotel room and much more cramped with all my luggage). The bad news is that the money I wanted to spend on a Christmas trip is going into this hotel, but I'll spend the holiday continuing to get my apartment in order and reading and exploring Hong Kong. This means that I'm going to start encouraging people to come visit. I should have money in my reimbursement budget for second bed...

I haven't had the time to adventure much lately, it's been all work and apartment stuff. Work has me learning plumbing and fire protection on a project that's already so tightly scheduled as to be ridiculous even if I was working in my own discipline. This is going to be a really busy week for me.

I did see this today:





I guess you get your haircut by a quarterback. I would always assume the kicker is most likely to be into cosmetology, but who knows.

Live note: I was watching some English language movie channel. And it's been normal movies. X-files was on at one point, and then some movie with Jodie foster, but now it's "Lesbian Vampire Killer". I can't tell if it's a campy comedy, a really bad sci-fi fantasy movie or something in between.**

Where was I? Oh yeah.
I also wanted to point out that this beer is in all the supermarkets:













It's Ice Smooth!

Thanks again for reading!

*The landlord of the first place I was interested in wanted to avoid paying taxes by renting under the table and not letting on to the government that the place was occupied. Not wanting to wind up in a Chinese prison somewhere with no way of notifying my office that the Terminal 1 work wouldn't get finished... I politely declined.

**So far Lesbian Vampire Killer has it all: dry British humor, profanity, some eye candy...