As I seem to be coming down with something (bird flu?) I’ll keep this one short. The off-campus tour went fairly well. We took the Light Rail to Tuen Mun Town Plaza and gawked a little, took it back to our local station (Siu Hong), got on West Rail there for Mei Foo where we changed for the MTR to Mong Kok. All was made easy and money slipped away at a frightening speed (not so frightening after the exchange rate) thanks to Octopus.
Ate lunch at a Japanese place—I hope not the cause of this sickness, though I don’t think dehydration or pollution are that much better options. One quirk is that free, cold, drinkable water does not exist here and as a result I’m not getting near enough—if I’m feeling well enough tomorrow I’m shopping for a water bottle that can accept the 98.5 Celsius water from downstairs. Or two.
The typhoon didn’t form, and the signal was cancelled this morning. Still a bit rainy here.
After lunch in Mong Kok I went on a rather painful search (considering the amount saved) for a phone, settling on a nice dual-band Nokia 1600 for HK$500 and a pre-paid SIM from PEOPLES. My airtime charge is around US$0.03/min with no additional charge for calling the USA. +852 6739 1405 is the number: replace the + with your international access code (011 for most US phones). Calls (especially time-zone appropriate) or international SMS will make my year.
My rates for sending SMS and for roaming are a bit less than extraordinary—my local airtime is about twice the normal charge for pre-paid here but I think the savings dialing the US will more than outweigh that.
Time to hit the Nyquil.
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