Month: September 2006

Saturday was a long day, even though I woke up late. Dinner was at the Spaghetti House in TMTP (which on weekends gives life to the metaphor of swimming through crowds). I had angel hair with sun-dried tomatoes and mushrooms—a typical Hong Kong dish, dontcha know. About a quarter-day later, after endless “primping” (to pretty hilarious effect), the girls were ready and about ten of us hit the town, hard.

We exited Central MTR station at 0000 exactly on the 24th, and headed straight for Hardy’s. Country Roads with the full WVU complement (Garrett, Tim, Jessalyn, yours truly) was a hit. Walk the Line was so bad it cleared the place out. So it goes.

We did other stuff too. Most of it will remain lost to history, though I can plug the food at Cul de Sac (yes, in LKF off D’Aguilar St. like everything else). To cut to the end, we left Hong Kong Station on the first train, around 0600, and I turned off my mobile at 0700 when I went to bed.

About seven hours later I was back to inaction. Got laundry done and so on. That evening we went to eat at a hot pot restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui. I got to try the daypass trick (shaving HK$7 off my bill) on the West Rail, which worked smoothly enough. The hotpot dinner was endless and not half bad.

Today, after class and optical wrangling, I headed back to TST for my suit’s second fitting. The pants were perfect, and the suit about 100 lbs. too big. That will be fixed. Afterward I stumbled into the infamous Chungking Mansion where I had the worst cheapest haircut you can imagine. The clippers on the sides and back worked fine, but the top has a mighty long version of finger-length and I’m pretty sure the razor, clipper, and scissors gave me several strains of hepatitis.

But it was HK$40.

I don’t think I’ll go back.

This Thursday I might make it to Macau (though I’m jinxing myself by mentioning it, it seems). Friday evening I leave for a whirlwind tour of Manila. I should probably be doing work now.

Nothing very exciting has happened recently, sorry for slacking.

Went out to Old Cafeteria Beach (yes, that’s the name) last night as part of a big, overexerting barbecue party, but came back early and very tired. I tried some dried squid (chips?) but that’s about as fun as it got for me. Got 11 hours of sleep out of it though.

I should be in Macau today but that would have interfered with sleep. Also, there is a big birthday bash coming up in Central tonight. We’ll see how that goes.

Signed up for a boat trip to Sai Kung, on the east side of the N.T., on the 14th. That should be pretty cool.

Someone found my pictures from the following page: http://www.google.com/search?q=FRIGHTENING+PHOTOS+&hl=en&lr=

. What can I say?

I picked up my HKID today, fortunately finding a cooperative fingerprint reader this time. I’m no longer an unperson to the Government, although many locals would beg to differ. It might have my best ID picture yet on it, but that’s probably because it’s in glamorous black and white.

Tomorrow I have a dental appointment in TMTP. This is not a drill—I hope. Just a checkup and scaling. The phone Engrish has been tolerable (got a reminder call today) and I hope the Doc’s at least matches it.

Thailand seems to be purging its Thaksins. I can’t say I’ll cry much for him. The gremlin on my shoulder is whispering things about ends and means but I’m trying to block him out.

The Mainland seems to be thrilled at this news because it gives it an excuse to issue strongly-worded statements about states’ internal affairs :-) On the (TVB Pearl) news tonight, Taiwan’s (apparently well-funded and nattily-dressed) protesters were suggesting that “President” (to use the China Daily formulation) Chen take note of the coup. Fun.

If I’m reading the scribblings correctly, the title of this post contains my name (for Mandarin class purposes). The Pinyin is Hā Dánéng.

Today:

Class from 9:30 to 11:30, running off to Chung Fu to deal with the optical shop, running (and barely making it to) the PRC pseudoconsulate in Wan Chai, a leisurely ferry to TST, waiting around idly in Sam’s and getting my first fitting, and back home by an unorthodox route (free interchange bus K16 from East TST to Nam Cheong).

There is a temporary promotional one-day pass available for the West Rail at HK$20 for one day. The trip between Siu Hong and Nam Cheong is $14.4. I might just get the pass next Monday (second fitting, and it’d make the Chung Fu trip quicker for free). The trouble is that it can’t be used at the MTR/West Rail transfer gates in Nam Cheong, so I will have to go around the long way and hope I’m not in a hurry.

In other transport geekery, I think I’ve saved at least $20 by now with the student status on my Octopus. Sweet. Unfortunately this means I’ve been downtown way too much for my own good.

The visa is a double-entry “L” visa with an “enter before” of 14 December and 30-day stay duration. I think that date is for the second entry… if so, that’s not as fun as I’d hoped. But I can’t complain about an incentive to force travel. An interesting quirk: the “Full name” field lists only my last name and first initial, although my full full name is clearly legible in the OCR text along the bottom of the sticker.

This weekend was a full one, so I’ll try to prune my flowery writing.

Saturday, Carry and Tim (both had exchanged at WVU from Lingnan last semester) went around Hong Kong Island with Jessalyn, Garrett, and I (this semester’s WVU exchange students) and Cassie, an honorary WVU student yesterday (and a Beloiter normally). We ate at a Vietnamese restaurant in Causeway Bay (no longer a bay). Then we went to the tacky tourist market of Stanley, where construction and haze obscured what natural beauty remains there.

None of the other exchange students had seen the Peak by night, so we went there next. Since I’ve been there an observation deck has been opened. We watched the 8:00 light show (not that exciting from that angle) and soaked in the views. From there we headed back to Central, where we discovered that Tim had not seen Lan Kwai Fong. We showed him its dubious merits for a couple hours before returning on the next-to-next-to-last train, a welcome improvement on the last time I was there.

Today, Jessalyn, Carolyn (Beloit too), and Cassie went to Causeway Bay to shop, and I tagged along (within a few floors of the Times Square mall, anyway) to make sure I was doing something. On our return J. and Cassie split off and Mike (yeah, Beloit…) and Alex (Germany by way of Scotland) joined a typical feast at the Golden Dragon Thai place, which is still making it hard for me to walk uphill.

A nightcap at Park n Shop (to stock up on cereal) and a minibus ride later, I’m back, ready to prepare some material for class tomorrow and get ready for the rest of tomorrow’s errands. Tomorrow I have to stop by an optical shop in Chung Fu to figure out what went wrong with my glasses there, pick up my passport (with Mainland visa) in Wan Chai, and get a suit fitting in TST. If I’m out late enough maybe I’ll stay and watch the light show from Kowloon.