Work's been quite busy and a little too stressful and a few of you have heard me vent a bit about it. But a real weekend followed by Monday, followed by a holiday on Tuesday and I'm right back where I need to be.
First, I didn't work 12 hours on Monday. Couldn't and wouldn't. More like the normal 9. I've got a new project with a ton of strict technical requirements so I spent half the day reading through all the material and I barely made a dent. More reading tomorrow morning. But it looks interesting and I'm looking forward to getting into it. I have a meeting with some of the other team members tomorrow.
Second, Saturday was my second trip on the Arup junk boat. It was a friend's birthday so she reserved the boat and brought a bunch of friends. The weather wasn't nearly as idyllic as my first trip back in November, but despite the rough seas, I had just as good a time. We played cards and drank a few brews and some of the group still went swimming. And afterward we went back to the Birthday Girl's place to help finish off the food because there was way too much of it, but we were sorely disappointed to find that the one food item that disappeared between the boat and the apt was the cheese. The one thing a bunch of white people in HK can't afford to lose...
And third, but perhaps most important, I had a great yoga class today that just left me with such a body high. This class was good for relaxing all that built up tension. This work/life balance is a little better. Obviously I won't get holidays all the time, but... well this was much needed.
What else, what else, it was good to see W again and have some dinner with her and some friends of hers. Tasty hot pot.
I had a long conversation with the Kiddo today. Really hoping to see her in China before she comes here to Hong Kong. I'm a little curious as to how a bat (like a live bat) managed to kill our conversation. But it's cool.
Anyway, it's late and I don't have much important to say here. Just checking in.
Cheers!
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Not in a Chinese Prison
I made it back to Hong Kong, meaning I'm not being held in a Chinese prison for being a political insubordinate or some kind of uppity revolutionary. Phew.
So a little back story. I had no travel plans for Easter weekend. (Qingming Festival fell in the same week as Good Friday so we had Wednesday, Friday, and Monday off work. Anyone who took Thursday had a nice long stretch off work). So on St. Patrick's Day while out with some friends, my friend J says that I should join him on a trip to mainland China to Huang Shan a popular mountain in the Anhui province, to see some old villages and do some hiking and really get away from it all. I liked the idea and I could still a grab a reasonable ticket, so I did. I figured two Americans who speak absolutely zero Chinese would still be able to figure things out with a lot of pointing and gesturing and a little bit of luck and help from nice locals.
Well... then J tells me the day before we're supposed to leave that he can't make it due to work. I understood his predicament and I felt bad that he couldn't make it, but I didn't want to waste my plane ticket, my visa to get into China, and my vacation day. What was I going to do here? Sit around HK for 6 days? Nope. I told J to forward me all the info on the hostels he reserved and I picked up his Lonely Planet guide to China (if you're going to go to China get the Lonely Planet book, trust me) and took off.
My flights were out of Hangzhou, a city I'd actually like to see more off. I didn't get to spend much time there, but it seemed like it had a lot to offer and I really enjoyed the hostels in the city.
Getting from Hangzhou to Tunxi was the first episode in a running theme for my trip: "how I got there." One of the staff at the hostel tells me how to get to the bus terminal. I end up at some sort of bus station, but to me it seems more like a giant parking lot with a bunch of buses and people seem to know where to go somehow. I'm completely lost. I've got a map with Tunxi written in Chinese and I'm clearly a lost white dude in a bus parking lot. Someone comes up to me and asks in very rough English where I want to go. I point to the map and he indicates he can help and I follow him. He leads me to some other guy on a street corner who tells me to wait there for a while. I do. Eventually he comes over and for lack of a pen and paper, writes the price in the dirt with a rock. I nod as that's the price that LP approximated. A few minutes later this guy is waving at me like mad to run with him and catch some bus that's just pulled out. This isn't like a Greyhound mind you, this is old and dirty and sketchy. So I'm thrown on this bus and I pay the guy and then he hops off the bus and I'm left to hope I'm going in the right direction. It wasn't until the young man sitting across from me asks in his best English where I'm going that I get any assurance I'm headed in the right direction.
From the bus station in Tunxi, I need to get to the hostel where I'll be spending the next 3 days. I show a taxi driver where I want to go and he shakes his head no. So then some other guy comes up to me and says he knows where to go. He puts me in his rickshaw/motorized bicycle hybrid which he's willing to take on the highway, putting both of our lives in Jeopardy. He then turns on the music playing device that I can only describe as just that. It's playing Christmas music. So there I am in this vehicle that feels like something from the Red Green Show listening to Jingle Bells in April once again hoping I'm headed in the right direction.
The hostel in Tunxi was great. It was comfortable, it had a nice private bathroom, a water boiler, it was great. The cafe in the hostel was also convenient. I could go down in the morning and get breakfast. I could get a beer there in the evening and meet other travelers. They have wifi, so I can check my e-mail (but not Facebook, it's apparently one of the websites that's censored up there...). The hostel was a great little area called "old street" which is like an old fashioned Chinese market street. Here's a shot at night while I was eating dinner one night.
Day one in Anhui: Qiyun Shan
Qiyun Shan is a smaller mountain in the area and it's apparently sacred to Taoists and I can see why. It's simply beautiful up there. I loved the combination of geological features and religious shrines.
This mountain is one awe inspiring view after another. And the statues and shrines are so bright and vivid.* The path up is easy and pretty and there are little pagodas along the way to stop and enjoy the views. But once you're up there it's like a playground.
It was amazing to come through a cave or tunnel in the mountain and see it open up to a massive rock wall with writing on it with stairs down to a water pool and more altars. Stunning. I absolutely loved this mountain and I wish I had had more time to explore the active village at the top past all of the Taoist relics and shrines.
Of course getting back in the afternoon is another adventure. Getting to the mountain was simply a bus from the local bus station to the nearest village and walk from there. The way people get back to Tunxi however is just to wait by the side of the road and flag down a bus heading back. And this is just how things are done there. It's fine, but I was a little curious at one point when the lady taking the money had everyone who wasn't in a proper seat duck down so as not to be seen. And it's not like it's a scheduled, numbered bus or anything, it's simply someone with a bus driving between these towns making a buck.
Day two in Anhui: Xidi
Xidi is an ancient village but still an active village. So there are a number of old houses dating back to different dynasties from hundreds of years ago but there are people who live in houses right next door, just doing their thing. It's a little weird to be one of many tourists wandering around this old village taking pictures browsing in shops and passing right in front of people's homes. But it is what it is.
These old buildings are typically laid out with an area in the middle of the main hall that's open to above and there's a little pool/pond and trees. I don't know what to make of it. Very interesting to see these old structures and how people lived up in this area so many years ago. While crawling over the hundreds of art students there to sketch or paint different areas of the village, I did try a bit of the local food. I couldn't really tell you what it was, but it had egg in it and it was tasty.
Day three in Anhui: Hike up Huang Shan
The hike! The weather was nice and sunny, I was well rested and had eaten a huge breakfast early before catching a bus at 6:25 to the mountain. I had water in my camel-back, snacks in my back pack, and music on my mp3 player. It took about 2 hours to get up the 7.5 km hike up the east stairs and then maybe another 20 mins or so from there to my hotel. Along the hike there some simply fantastic views of the rest of the mountain. I don't know that I can do them justice but I've linked to all of my pictures below. There are plenty of people going up the mountain but never enough that the steps are congested or anything. They're all very nice and most of them are a little surprised to see a white boy on his own hiking this mountain. At one point on the way up, there were some local monkeys just hanging out doing their thing.
I've been up the mountains in Colorado and didn't see any monkeys. Get on that, Denver.
Here are some of my favorite shots from the mountain:
Since I started the hike at 8-8:30 I'm up at my hotel by 11 or so and checked in and putting down my back pack before noon. The hotel was a proper hotel, there are a few of them up there at the top. It was actually really nice to have the hotel to go to when I got up. I ate one huge meal in the early-mid afternoon at the hotel restaurant, going with the buffet so that I didn't have to try to communicate with a waiter.
I spent the afternoon checking out sights from the top and watching some people play basketball on the court up by the hotel. Actually the hotel apparently rents out space on the court for people to pitch tents and camp out. So as people are setting up their tents the playable area of the court is getting smaller and smaller. But it was nice to sit outside, sip a well earned beer and watch some pick up basketball for a bit.
Day four in Anhui: Sunrise, more hiking, and eventually down the mountain
It's popular to get up and watch the sunrise from the top of the mountain and since I crashed early, I figured I would do just that. So I throw on the only jacket/sweatshirt I really have with me and wander up with everyone. And everyone who spent the night up there crams into the best viewing spot on the mountain for the eastern sun. And I'm up there with them hoping to see a great sunrise. Well it was more of a gradual gray lightening. It was so foggy and overcast that morning that the sunrise was a bit of a disappointment. Ah well.
So after catching a little more shut eye back at the room, I check out and get on my way. Of course rather than heading right down, I end up taking some loops on the west side that I hadn't seen the day before. Great views of the rock faces, and some good hiking, but by the time I've finished them, it's getting on with the morning and I need to get on with the hike down to catch a bus back to Tunxi, and from there, catch the bus back to Hangzhou. There were so many people trying to get down the west steps at the same time I was that there a few real log jams. People end up funneling themselves to top of one narrow steep set of stairs people backed up going single file. It was so bad that I was sweating getting down in time and so in the interest of time, halfway down I grabbed the cable car down the rest of the way. I'm actually pretty glad I did. The bus that took an hour to get from Tunxi to the mountain, takes two hours, making all kinds of long stops along the way back. I finally reach the bus station and with a little help from a nice guy in the station, figure my way onto the right bus back to Hangzhou. Seriously, that guy was great, I couldn't thank him enough, and I just want to throw some good vibes out into the ether for him and his lady friend who was traveling with them.
I finally make it back to Hangzhou, find my hostel, eat a nice meal right at the restaurant downstairs which is open to outside and the perfect evening weather. A nice relaxing ending to a great trip in China. I actually would like to see more of Hangzhou and might try to talk the Kiddo into meeting me there for a long weekend while she's in Shanghai this summer. We could stay in that same hostel and see some of that city. My visa is good for another trip into China and the flights are easy and inexpensive.
Monday I grabbed lunch in TST with my new friend H and we indulged in a little bit of scrabble at the pub. We had been talking about getting together for scrabble and it was the perfect opportunity. She was actually recommending I join up and play with some of the more serious scrabble players that she plays with. We'll see. I feel like when it comes to board games and card games, I'm like Chevy Chase's character from Caddyshack.
Thanks for reading this far. It means a lot to me. All of pictures from my trip are here. Check them out.
Work's still busy, but I'm surviving. I've got mlb.tv so the Yankees are helping out me stay sane. I miss everyone back in the States. I hope you all had a great Easter or Passover.
Cheers!
So a little back story. I had no travel plans for Easter weekend. (Qingming Festival fell in the same week as Good Friday so we had Wednesday, Friday, and Monday off work. Anyone who took Thursday had a nice long stretch off work). So on St. Patrick's Day while out with some friends, my friend J says that I should join him on a trip to mainland China to Huang Shan a popular mountain in the Anhui province, to see some old villages and do some hiking and really get away from it all. I liked the idea and I could still a grab a reasonable ticket, so I did. I figured two Americans who speak absolutely zero Chinese would still be able to figure things out with a lot of pointing and gesturing and a little bit of luck and help from nice locals.
Well... then J tells me the day before we're supposed to leave that he can't make it due to work. I understood his predicament and I felt bad that he couldn't make it, but I didn't want to waste my plane ticket, my visa to get into China, and my vacation day. What was I going to do here? Sit around HK for 6 days? Nope. I told J to forward me all the info on the hostels he reserved and I picked up his Lonely Planet guide to China (if you're going to go to China get the Lonely Planet book, trust me) and took off.
My flights were out of Hangzhou, a city I'd actually like to see more off. I didn't get to spend much time there, but it seemed like it had a lot to offer and I really enjoyed the hostels in the city.
Getting from Hangzhou to Tunxi was the first episode in a running theme for my trip: "how I got there." One of the staff at the hostel tells me how to get to the bus terminal. I end up at some sort of bus station, but to me it seems more like a giant parking lot with a bunch of buses and people seem to know where to go somehow. I'm completely lost. I've got a map with Tunxi written in Chinese and I'm clearly a lost white dude in a bus parking lot. Someone comes up to me and asks in very rough English where I want to go. I point to the map and he indicates he can help and I follow him. He leads me to some other guy on a street corner who tells me to wait there for a while. I do. Eventually he comes over and for lack of a pen and paper, writes the price in the dirt with a rock. I nod as that's the price that LP approximated. A few minutes later this guy is waving at me like mad to run with him and catch some bus that's just pulled out. This isn't like a Greyhound mind you, this is old and dirty and sketchy. So I'm thrown on this bus and I pay the guy and then he hops off the bus and I'm left to hope I'm going in the right direction. It wasn't until the young man sitting across from me asks in his best English where I'm going that I get any assurance I'm headed in the right direction.
From the bus station in Tunxi, I need to get to the hostel where I'll be spending the next 3 days. I show a taxi driver where I want to go and he shakes his head no. So then some other guy comes up to me and says he knows where to go. He puts me in his rickshaw/motorized bicycle hybrid which he's willing to take on the highway, putting both of our lives in Jeopardy. He then turns on the music playing device that I can only describe as just that. It's playing Christmas music. So there I am in this vehicle that feels like something from the Red Green Show listening to Jingle Bells in April once again hoping I'm headed in the right direction.
The hostel in Tunxi was great. It was comfortable, it had a nice private bathroom, a water boiler, it was great. The cafe in the hostel was also convenient. I could go down in the morning and get breakfast. I could get a beer there in the evening and meet other travelers. They have wifi, so I can check my e-mail (but not Facebook, it's apparently one of the websites that's censored up there...). The hostel was a great little area called "old street" which is like an old fashioned Chinese market street. Here's a shot at night while I was eating dinner one night.
Day one in Anhui: Qiyun Shan
Qiyun Shan is a smaller mountain in the area and it's apparently sacred to Taoists and I can see why. It's simply beautiful up there. I loved the combination of geological features and religious shrines.
This mountain is one awe inspiring view after another. And the statues and shrines are so bright and vivid.* The path up is easy and pretty and there are little pagodas along the way to stop and enjoy the views. But once you're up there it's like a playground.
It was amazing to come through a cave or tunnel in the mountain and see it open up to a massive rock wall with writing on it with stairs down to a water pool and more altars. Stunning. I absolutely loved this mountain and I wish I had had more time to explore the active village at the top past all of the Taoist relics and shrines.
Of course getting back in the afternoon is another adventure. Getting to the mountain was simply a bus from the local bus station to the nearest village and walk from there. The way people get back to Tunxi however is just to wait by the side of the road and flag down a bus heading back. And this is just how things are done there. It's fine, but I was a little curious at one point when the lady taking the money had everyone who wasn't in a proper seat duck down so as not to be seen. And it's not like it's a scheduled, numbered bus or anything, it's simply someone with a bus driving between these towns making a buck.
Day two in Anhui: Xidi
Xidi is an ancient village but still an active village. So there are a number of old houses dating back to different dynasties from hundreds of years ago but there are people who live in houses right next door, just doing their thing. It's a little weird to be one of many tourists wandering around this old village taking pictures browsing in shops and passing right in front of people's homes. But it is what it is.
These old buildings are typically laid out with an area in the middle of the main hall that's open to above and there's a little pool/pond and trees. I don't know what to make of it. Very interesting to see these old structures and how people lived up in this area so many years ago. While crawling over the hundreds of art students there to sketch or paint different areas of the village, I did try a bit of the local food. I couldn't really tell you what it was, but it had egg in it and it was tasty.
Day three in Anhui: Hike up Huang Shan
The hike! The weather was nice and sunny, I was well rested and had eaten a huge breakfast early before catching a bus at 6:25 to the mountain. I had water in my camel-back, snacks in my back pack, and music on my mp3 player. It took about 2 hours to get up the 7.5 km hike up the east stairs and then maybe another 20 mins or so from there to my hotel. Along the hike there some simply fantastic views of the rest of the mountain. I don't know that I can do them justice but I've linked to all of my pictures below. There are plenty of people going up the mountain but never enough that the steps are congested or anything. They're all very nice and most of them are a little surprised to see a white boy on his own hiking this mountain. At one point on the way up, there were some local monkeys just hanging out doing their thing.
I've been up the mountains in Colorado and didn't see any monkeys. Get on that, Denver.
Here are some of my favorite shots from the mountain:
Since I started the hike at 8-8:30 I'm up at my hotel by 11 or so and checked in and putting down my back pack before noon. The hotel was a proper hotel, there are a few of them up there at the top. It was actually really nice to have the hotel to go to when I got up. I ate one huge meal in the early-mid afternoon at the hotel restaurant, going with the buffet so that I didn't have to try to communicate with a waiter.
I spent the afternoon checking out sights from the top and watching some people play basketball on the court up by the hotel. Actually the hotel apparently rents out space on the court for people to pitch tents and camp out. So as people are setting up their tents the playable area of the court is getting smaller and smaller. But it was nice to sit outside, sip a well earned beer and watch some pick up basketball for a bit.
Day four in Anhui: Sunrise, more hiking, and eventually down the mountain
It's popular to get up and watch the sunrise from the top of the mountain and since I crashed early, I figured I would do just that. So I throw on the only jacket/sweatshirt I really have with me and wander up with everyone. And everyone who spent the night up there crams into the best viewing spot on the mountain for the eastern sun. And I'm up there with them hoping to see a great sunrise. Well it was more of a gradual gray lightening. It was so foggy and overcast that morning that the sunrise was a bit of a disappointment. Ah well.
So after catching a little more shut eye back at the room, I check out and get on my way. Of course rather than heading right down, I end up taking some loops on the west side that I hadn't seen the day before. Great views of the rock faces, and some good hiking, but by the time I've finished them, it's getting on with the morning and I need to get on with the hike down to catch a bus back to Tunxi, and from there, catch the bus back to Hangzhou. There were so many people trying to get down the west steps at the same time I was that there a few real log jams. People end up funneling themselves to top of one narrow steep set of stairs people backed up going single file. It was so bad that I was sweating getting down in time and so in the interest of time, halfway down I grabbed the cable car down the rest of the way. I'm actually pretty glad I did. The bus that took an hour to get from Tunxi to the mountain, takes two hours, making all kinds of long stops along the way back. I finally reach the bus station and with a little help from a nice guy in the station, figure my way onto the right bus back to Hangzhou. Seriously, that guy was great, I couldn't thank him enough, and I just want to throw some good vibes out into the ether for him and his lady friend who was traveling with them.
I finally make it back to Hangzhou, find my hostel, eat a nice meal right at the restaurant downstairs which is open to outside and the perfect evening weather. A nice relaxing ending to a great trip in China. I actually would like to see more of Hangzhou and might try to talk the Kiddo into meeting me there for a long weekend while she's in Shanghai this summer. We could stay in that same hostel and see some of that city. My visa is good for another trip into China and the flights are easy and inexpensive.
Monday I grabbed lunch in TST with my new friend H and we indulged in a little bit of scrabble at the pub. We had been talking about getting together for scrabble and it was the perfect opportunity. She was actually recommending I join up and play with some of the more serious scrabble players that she plays with. We'll see. I feel like when it comes to board games and card games, I'm like Chevy Chase's character from Caddyshack.
Thanks for reading this far. It means a lot to me. All of pictures from my trip are here. Check them out.
Work's still busy, but I'm surviving. I've got mlb.tv so the Yankees are helping out me stay sane. I miss everyone back in the States. I hope you all had a great Easter or Passover.
Cheers!
Sunday, March 18, 2012
March on
Last weekend, I took a walk/hike through some areas of HK near the boarder with China that are only recently opened to the public, Sha Tau Kok. Before last month, only villagers who lived up there could come and go. It was all for boundary protection. Anyway, I saw some old ancestral homes and the oddest part of the area was the fact that derelict abandoned homes and temples are steps away from brand new buildings going up with modern cars of commuters parked out front. Crazy.
My favorite part would have been the old WWII era bunkers from the British Army. They've just been left in the hills around the boarder. These were apparently defense against the Japanese coming in through China.
This an old ancestral home. I'm not sure how old, but it was completely abandoned.
The particular group of people I went hiking with (I was invited by some friends to join their church group that goes on these hikes regularly) went out to dinner afterward and I tried my first taste of feet. Here I am eating a duck foot. It didn't taste bad at all, but there's not enough to it. It's a lot of work for some skin and collagen...
This past weekend I did a little more celebrating. We had another night out with the airport team, expats and locals. It was a ton of fun. Then yesterday I celebrated St. Patrick's day by having lunch and few Guinnesses at an Irish Pub and then going to a friend's rooftop bbq. I briefly excused myself from the party to video check in with friends in NYC, Boston, and Israel. Guys, it was great to hear from you! We ended the night by going to watch rugby. Wales won, which I guess was what most of the British guys wanted. All in all it was a fun weekend! Just what the doctor ordered.
Here are more pics from Sha Tau Kok if you're interested. The weather was kind of gray, but I like some the shots.
I'll leave you with this image, live the dream!
My favorite part would have been the old WWII era bunkers from the British Army. They've just been left in the hills around the boarder. These were apparently defense against the Japanese coming in through China.
This an old ancestral home. I'm not sure how old, but it was completely abandoned.
The particular group of people I went hiking with (I was invited by some friends to join their church group that goes on these hikes regularly) went out to dinner afterward and I tried my first taste of feet. Here I am eating a duck foot. It didn't taste bad at all, but there's not enough to it. It's a lot of work for some skin and collagen...
This past weekend I did a little more celebrating. We had another night out with the airport team, expats and locals. It was a ton of fun. Then yesterday I celebrated St. Patrick's day by having lunch and few Guinnesses at an Irish Pub and then going to a friend's rooftop bbq. I briefly excused myself from the party to video check in with friends in NYC, Boston, and Israel. Guys, it was great to hear from you! We ended the night by going to watch rugby. Wales won, which I guess was what most of the British guys wanted. All in all it was a fun weekend! Just what the doctor ordered.
Here are more pics from Sha Tau Kok if you're interested. The weather was kind of gray, but I like some the shots.
I'll leave you with this image, live the dream!
Monday, March 5, 2012
Tai O and other thoughts
It's spring training down in Florida and Arizona and I couldn't be more in the spring mindset. As far as the temperature is concerned it never got to real winter temperatures here, so it's basically been spring for a while and right now I'm in a springtime kind of mood.
Actually this got me to thinking about why baseball is so perfectly intertwined with American life. Baseball lines up with our own natural calendars. Spring is in general a season of hope, rebirth and renewal, and no ritual is more a symbol of that than spring training. Every team has hope, every dream of a title is reborn. It's great. The season plays out over the summer while we try to relax and enjoy the long nights with our summer heroes. And then just as the weather starts to cool down, the season winds down. Before the coldest days hit, a champion is named the awards are given out, and we pack in and settle down for winter once again. I love it.
And, I'm not just looking forward to the upcoming baseball season*. I've got an excellent opportunity to find out how Hong Kong (or more accurately, the expats in HK) celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Can't wait.
Tai O:
I went out to Tai O, a little fishing village on Lantau Island with W on Saturday. Let's start with the fact that to get there, you're on a somewhat ventilated, large bus going around some windy hilly roads. This whole area is basically coastal mountains (not mountain mountains, Colorado people, but mountains in their own regard). Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, getting motion sick on my way out there. So the bus ride out (and back) turned into eyes closed resting time. It was okay though, W works even more than I do usually and so we could both take advantage of the down time. I was surprised by who touristy the village was. And the people there milk that for all it's worth. Locals set up shop right in front of their house selling treats and trinkets. And they have lots of little shops and places to grab a bite. Seafood that's alive and swimming in till buckets outside the restaurant so you can pick which one you want for lunch. The village also seemed to have a collection of semi-domesticated cats. It seemed like they didn't really belong to any one person or house but just kind of roamed the village, probably helping with pests and getting food from various people. Pretty good deal if you're a cat, fresh seafood and not being locked up in a house all day.
I tried some dried, then grilled/fried seafood. Kind of like a cooked shrimp jerky. Sort off. It was alright.
Ther
e were lots of fresh fruit trees too. Bananas and I think mango, we couldn't be sure.
My favorite thing had to be the historic police station that's been renovated and turned into a hotel that operates as a non-profit organization to bring money into the village for preservation and other things. It seemed like a pretty interesting place to stay if not for the fact that it's so remote.
Anyway after getting back to the city it was out to SoHo for drinks and dinner. I'm starting to spend more and more time down in that area. I wish it was cheaper to live in that neighborhood. While walking around before dinner, I found a little sports bar that's a knockoff of "The Keg" chain in Canada. And like anything Canadian, they have hockey. Plus, the guy outside (bartender? manager? friendly barfly?) gave me a program to the CIHL, a local 4 team pro hockey league. Go Kowloon Warriors? Anway, Saturday was a great day.
For full res and all my pics go here.
So at lunch one day last week, for probably the 53rd time, the guys on the team asked me what I usually do for dinner. I never realized that the eating habits of a white guy living on his own in Hong Kong were that interesting. The answer is simple stuff I can make at home: pasta, chicken and rice, spinach salad, etc etc. Now you know.
That's all for now.
Cheers all!
*But it seems like the Hong Kongers have a few details to work out, at least they have the right team?:
Actually this got me to thinking about why baseball is so perfectly intertwined with American life. Baseball lines up with our own natural calendars. Spring is in general a season of hope, rebirth and renewal, and no ritual is more a symbol of that than spring training. Every team has hope, every dream of a title is reborn. It's great. The season plays out over the summer while we try to relax and enjoy the long nights with our summer heroes. And then just as the weather starts to cool down, the season winds down. Before the coldest days hit, a champion is named the awards are given out, and we pack in and settle down for winter once again. I love it.
And, I'm not just looking forward to the upcoming baseball season*. I've got an excellent opportunity to find out how Hong Kong (or more accurately, the expats in HK) celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Can't wait.
Tai O:I went out to Tai O, a little fishing village on Lantau Island with W on Saturday. Let's start with the fact that to get there, you're on a somewhat ventilated, large bus going around some windy hilly roads. This whole area is basically coastal mountains (not mountain mountains, Colorado people, but mountains in their own regard). Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, getting motion sick on my way out there. So the bus ride out (and back) turned into eyes closed resting time. It was okay though, W works even more than I do usually and so we could both take advantage of the down time. I was surprised by who touristy the village was. And the people there milk that for all it's worth. Locals set up shop right in front of their house selling treats and trinkets. And they have lots of little shops and places to grab a bite. Seafood that's alive and swimming in till buckets outside the restaurant so you can pick which one you want for lunch. The village also seemed to have a collection of semi-domesticated cats. It seemed like they didn't really belong to any one person or house but just kind of roamed the village, probably helping with pests and getting food from various people. Pretty good deal if you're a cat, fresh seafood and not being locked up in a house all day.
I tried some dried, then grilled/fried seafood. Kind of like a cooked shrimp jerky. Sort off. It was alright.
Ther
e were lots of fresh fruit trees too. Bananas and I think mango, we couldn't be sure.My favorite thing had to be the historic police station that's been renovated and turned into a hotel that operates as a non-profit organization to bring money into the village for preservation and other things. It seemed like a pretty interesting place to stay if not for the fact that it's so remote.
Anyway after getting back to the city it was out to SoHo for drinks and dinner. I'm starting to spend more and more time down in that area. I wish it was cheaper to live in that neighborhood. While walking around before dinner, I found a little sports bar that's a knockoff of "The Keg" chain in Canada. And like anything Canadian, they have hockey. Plus, the guy outside (bartender? manager? friendly barfly?) gave me a program to the CIHL, a local 4 team pro hockey league. Go Kowloon Warriors? Anway, Saturday was a great day.
For full res and all my pics go here.
So at lunch one day last week, for probably the 53rd time, the guys on the team asked me what I usually do for dinner. I never realized that the eating habits of a white guy living on his own in Hong Kong were that interesting. The answer is simple stuff I can make at home: pasta, chicken and rice, spinach salad, etc etc. Now you know.
That's all for now.
Cheers all!
*But it seems like the Hong Kongers have a few details to work out, at least they have the right team?:
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Clerks and Chicken Parm
Last night I had to explain what the word cheesy meant to a guy at work. It's definitely a more difficult word to define than I would have thought before I tried.
Anyway, I'm not hear to talk about cheesy things accept maybe the chicken parmigiana referenced in the title.
Today... I had a 9:30 to 4:30 meeting cancelled. (Nothing good can come from a 7 hour long meeting. Nothing. That many human beings cramped into a small room together for that long a period of time with no alcohol can only amount to trouble). But it was only cancelled after getting to the location and being told half an hour later. Fair enough. But this sets the tone for the entire day.
A group of us went out to lunch today to a vegetarian place actually. I only know what half of what I ate was, but it was all vegetarian and some of it was styled like meat. It was all pretty tasty, though. As we're heading back and the folks from the main office have broken off, we start getting notified that we can't go back to the office. There was apparently a big fire in the building our office is in, and a lot of the building was filled with smoke. So myself and the group of friends I went to lunch with walked around the pet stores checking out all the kittens, puppies, turtles, lizards, rabbits, etc. After maybe an hour we decided to do tea and pastry to kill some time. Then we headed to a mall nearby to putz around. Mind you we keep getting updates about the smoke and how we can't get back to the office... finally between 3:30 and 4 they've opened the building and we can go back. Yay.
The building still had smokey smell to it but mostly in the elevator/lobby areas. Our office was fine.
So now I have to try to refocus and finish the calcs I was trying to work on this morning between my cancelled meeting and lunch. Meanwhile everyone's talking about the smoke and the fire and the secretary is telling everyone that they're free to go home if they don't feel well from the smoke.
While I'm doing this, I get asked, even though it's 5 on a Friday, if I could be available to travel to Dublin for meetings on Monday/Tuesday. I have a site visit here in Hong Kong that I don't want to go to, but I've already arranged on Tuesday, but I'm being told that if we can pull off the travel, I should go to Ireland and blow off the site visit. Now it's inching closer to 6, I want to call it a week and get out, I have no ability to focus on the calculation in front of me, and we're trying to see if we want to throw everything together last minute for me to go on on this trip.
The verdict, after a call to Tokyo to talk to the PM and then a call our team leader's mobile, who was out of the office on a personal matter, was to scrap attending the meeting live and just live with teleconference. It was all just talk. The chaos subsided I settle down to finally finish my calculation before I leave the office.
After all the excitement I settle on not going out anywhere and just making my way home. I stop at the grocery store and pick up the necessary ingredients to make myself a nice chicken parm hero. I've earned it and there's not really anywhere out here that's going to make one as good as I can make one for myself. So I settle down, with my delicious sandwich, in front of Clerks, a movie that will bring me home to the shore, and at the same time remind me of the guys back in Colorado with whom a well timed Kevin Smith reference rarely goes unappreciated.
The reason I'm writing all this is to get to a moment I had at one point in a movie I've seen countless times. I was sitting here, thinking, as I had in the past, that I didn't understand Dante. Why was he doing all this? Why was he jeopardizing a good thing? But then I realized, I've been Dante. I know exactly what goes through Dante's mind. And it's kind of shocking because every previous time I've watched this and even the first half of this time, I'm sitting there shaking my head wanting to smack Dante. It was a bit of an eye opener.
Well here's to the start of what's sure to be an interesting weekend.
Cheers!
Anyway, I'm not hear to talk about cheesy things accept maybe the chicken parmigiana referenced in the title.
Today... I had a 9:30 to 4:30 meeting cancelled. (Nothing good can come from a 7 hour long meeting. Nothing. That many human beings cramped into a small room together for that long a period of time with no alcohol can only amount to trouble). But it was only cancelled after getting to the location and being told half an hour later. Fair enough. But this sets the tone for the entire day.
A group of us went out to lunch today to a vegetarian place actually. I only know what half of what I ate was, but it was all vegetarian and some of it was styled like meat. It was all pretty tasty, though. As we're heading back and the folks from the main office have broken off, we start getting notified that we can't go back to the office. There was apparently a big fire in the building our office is in, and a lot of the building was filled with smoke. So myself and the group of friends I went to lunch with walked around the pet stores checking out all the kittens, puppies, turtles, lizards, rabbits, etc. After maybe an hour we decided to do tea and pastry to kill some time. Then we headed to a mall nearby to putz around. Mind you we keep getting updates about the smoke and how we can't get back to the office... finally between 3:30 and 4 they've opened the building and we can go back. Yay.
The building still had smokey smell to it but mostly in the elevator/lobby areas. Our office was fine.
So now I have to try to refocus and finish the calcs I was trying to work on this morning between my cancelled meeting and lunch. Meanwhile everyone's talking about the smoke and the fire and the secretary is telling everyone that they're free to go home if they don't feel well from the smoke.
While I'm doing this, I get asked, even though it's 5 on a Friday, if I could be available to travel to Dublin for meetings on Monday/Tuesday. I have a site visit here in Hong Kong that I don't want to go to, but I've already arranged on Tuesday, but I'm being told that if we can pull off the travel, I should go to Ireland and blow off the site visit. Now it's inching closer to 6, I want to call it a week and get out, I have no ability to focus on the calculation in front of me, and we're trying to see if we want to throw everything together last minute for me to go on on this trip.
The verdict, after a call to Tokyo to talk to the PM and then a call our team leader's mobile, who was out of the office on a personal matter, was to scrap attending the meeting live and just live with teleconference. It was all just talk. The chaos subsided I settle down to finally finish my calculation before I leave the office.
After all the excitement I settle on not going out anywhere and just making my way home. I stop at the grocery store and pick up the necessary ingredients to make myself a nice chicken parm hero. I've earned it and there's not really anywhere out here that's going to make one as good as I can make one for myself. So I settle down, with my delicious sandwich, in front of Clerks, a movie that will bring me home to the shore, and at the same time remind me of the guys back in Colorado with whom a well timed Kevin Smith reference rarely goes unappreciated.
The reason I'm writing all this is to get to a moment I had at one point in a movie I've seen countless times. I was sitting here, thinking, as I had in the past, that I didn't understand Dante. Why was he doing all this? Why was he jeopardizing a good thing? But then I realized, I've been Dante. I know exactly what goes through Dante's mind. And it's kind of shocking because every previous time I've watched this and even the first half of this time, I'm sitting there shaking my head wanting to smack Dante. It was a bit of an eye opener.
Well here's to the start of what's sure to be an interesting weekend.
Cheers!
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Ceci n'est pas une blog post
I haven't written anything in a while because I've had nothing to say. Or too much. Or too much and nothing at the same time but to the wrong people. I can't put my reasoning into words but I had some crazy reasoning.
Canada was perfect. I felt completely at home for the first time in a long time. They say home is where the heart is... to my travel companion in the great white north: you're awesome and I miss you and those dinners were amazing!
I was in Manila briefly. It happened. I'm still laughing. Thanks, Jade.
When I first wrote this I wrote a bunch of stuff that was sort of on my mind but it was very boring mind dump kind of stuff. I deleted it, don't worry you weren't missing anything. But I will say is that writing anything as late in the night as I did will lead to some pointless rambling. Not drunk talk, more... the kind of things you feel are really necessary to write about at 1:30 in the morning... and then you get up and do normal life stuff for a while and your real brain gets back on the job. It's like the minute or so in basketball when mostly bench guys are on the court and the team lags a little while the starters rest. Then the minute the coach puts a few of the starters back in the game the team picks right up again. Last night, the bench brain squad was on the metaphorical mental court, while the starting brain was sipping Gatorade and getting the cheerleader's phone number. But this morning the starting brain was back in the game and order has been restored.
A few weeks ago, I went out with a bunch of locals from work for the first time. These guys and girls are good people, but it seems like if I'm out on a Friday it's always with expats. But that night was fun. I had some great food with them (I love eating with locals because they just order a bunch of stuff and I don't have to think about to order.) But the event of the night was a bar/pool hall that also has set ups for you to play your favorite old college drinking games like beer pong and flip cup. I haven't played either since I was in college. It was mostly locals and a small group of expats that work on the airport project with everyone. It was great to be out having fun with the local guys, socializing with them, cracking jokes. I had a blast and I hope I can get out with them again soon.
While I was out yesterday, getting some half decent pizza and exploring some more western areas of the city, I stopped off for Brooklyn Lager and to read an English language newspaper I picked up. Bon Jovi and Springsteen came on the sound system in succession. It's like some greater force was trying to let a Jersey boy know that he was welcome, that home was just one "Born to Run" mp3 away.
I think I did well today. Good conversation with my folks, went to yoga, then got sushi and went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art for a while. That's a pretty passable in Sunday in my book.
I want to throw some congrats out to my multiple friends who got engaged recently, now if you guys would kindly coordinate your weddings to make MY travel easier ;-)
Kidding.
Sort of.
Closing thoughts: A friend at work (originally from Long Island) says that she talks more like a New Yorker when she's around me. I guess I'm a good frickin' influence on people.
Cheers and happy Presidents Day to all of my Presidential American friends.
Canada was perfect. I felt completely at home for the first time in a long time. They say home is where the heart is... to my travel companion in the great white north: you're awesome and I miss you and those dinners were amazing!
I was in Manila briefly. It happened. I'm still laughing. Thanks, Jade.
When I first wrote this I wrote a bunch of stuff that was sort of on my mind but it was very boring mind dump kind of stuff. I deleted it, don't worry you weren't missing anything. But I will say is that writing anything as late in the night as I did will lead to some pointless rambling. Not drunk talk, more... the kind of things you feel are really necessary to write about at 1:30 in the morning... and then you get up and do normal life stuff for a while and your real brain gets back on the job. It's like the minute or so in basketball when mostly bench guys are on the court and the team lags a little while the starters rest. Then the minute the coach puts a few of the starters back in the game the team picks right up again. Last night, the bench brain squad was on the metaphorical mental court, while the starting brain was sipping Gatorade and getting the cheerleader's phone number. But this morning the starting brain was back in the game and order has been restored.
A few weeks ago, I went out with a bunch of locals from work for the first time. These guys and girls are good people, but it seems like if I'm out on a Friday it's always with expats. But that night was fun. I had some great food with them (I love eating with locals because they just order a bunch of stuff and I don't have to think about to order.) But the event of the night was a bar/pool hall that also has set ups for you to play your favorite old college drinking games like beer pong and flip cup. I haven't played either since I was in college. It was mostly locals and a small group of expats that work on the airport project with everyone. It was great to be out having fun with the local guys, socializing with them, cracking jokes. I had a blast and I hope I can get out with them again soon.
While I was out yesterday, getting some half decent pizza and exploring some more western areas of the city, I stopped off for Brooklyn Lager and to read an English language newspaper I picked up. Bon Jovi and Springsteen came on the sound system in succession. It's like some greater force was trying to let a Jersey boy know that he was welcome, that home was just one "Born to Run" mp3 away.
I think I did well today. Good conversation with my folks, went to yoga, then got sushi and went to the Hong Kong Museum of Art for a while. That's a pretty passable in Sunday in my book.
I want to throw some congrats out to my multiple friends who got engaged recently, now if you guys would kindly coordinate your weddings to make MY travel easier ;-)
Kidding.
Sort of.
Closing thoughts: A friend at work (originally from Long Island) says that she talks more like a New Yorker when she's around me. I guess I'm a good frickin' influence on people.
Cheers and happy Presidents Day to all of my Presidential American friends.
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