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Today our Mandarin teacher took us out for an extremely generous lunch at the Spring Deer restaurant in TST, where we feasted on Peking Duck and everything else you could possibly imagine. It was a long lunch and I think we’re all grateful and a little sore.

Afterward, we walked around Central. A lot. Taking the Star Ferry over to its new Pier #7 (the old one was decommissioned Saturday night in the name of progress, destroying heritage and helping highlight a record air pollution index in Central), we walked back into civilization, through the ifc mall, and eventually up to the Mid-Levels Escalator. This supposedly longest escalator system in the world kept going and going (with a stop at a Krispy Kreme featuring small, unconvincing doughnuts), giving us a nice view of the SoHo area restaurants.

From there we worked our way downhill to the Hong Kong Zoo and Botanical Garden—or a small corner of it, anyway, before working our way further down and ending up in Hong Kong Park near the Peak Tram lower terminus and Admiralty/Pacific Place. Thence back to the escalator (some new people had joined us), to a “Taco Loco” Mexican place (not too exciting, but the price was pretty good for the area) for dinner. Carne Asada burrito. Review: eh.

We then made our way back down through some dark alleys to the Central arteries of Queens and Connaught Roads Central, and back to the new Star Ferry pier where we lazed around for a while. Unbelievably, two of the group hadn’t yet ridden the Star Ferry (and I suppose will never have used the old Island-side terminal), so we took it back on our way home (taking the scenic route on the observation deck over the Avenue of Stars before going directly through the various subways back to TST instead of squeezing under the Salisbury scaffolding).

The air pollution was visibly really, really bad today in Central. The view from TST in the early afternoon was wretched, just as I’ll be in the morning for typing this now.

This week hasn’t been too awfully bad. Monday I wrote a term paper. The results of the Tuesday election have been a pleasant surprise. I went for curry at Jordan Curry House on Wednesday, which was… ok. Fabulous mango lassi, of course, some middling other stuff, and a very tasty mushroom and peas curry.

Today I got admitted to two law schools [well, I was admitted to them in the end of October, but they didn’t exactly use FedEx] and signed up for a library card at the Tuen Mun public library, where I now have access to a wealth of slightly out of date guidebooks. I don’t actually get a library card: instead I “allow my Smart ID card for library purposes.” This means I don’t need to worry about paying for a lost library card. Supposedly there are privacy firewalls: the Immigration Department should not have any idea what I’m doing with the library side, and vice-versa. I’m not here long enough to worry about it, and anything interesting enough to be subversive is probably in a university library already.

I inadvertently discovered the cheapest public transportation method for a quick trip to Town Center. By taking the K51 feeder bus in one direction and the Light Rail in the other direction (doesn’t matter which one) within the transfer time, the bus leg is free. In my case, today, it worked out to HK$1.95 each way.

I probably should have walked, though.

I’ve been making a habit out of going to the English Corner (and Wednesday’s Son of English Corner). The “big” Corners have the advantage of providing my lunch two days per week [is there a proper way to write out “two days a week?”], but they’re all interesting. Sometimes. Usually, I guess. The idea of coming back as an English Tutor next year is an interesting one. “Interesting” is the most I’ve been able to pin it down. Lots of pros, lots of cons.

Tomorrow I’ll be trying (again) to meet future Lingnan to WVU exchangers for lunch. I should probably be awake then and asleep now.

While the architecture of the campus at Fu Tei is modelled on the original in Guangzhou, it has also incorporated novelties with black, white and grey schemes forming its unique colour spectrum. The grandeur and solemnity of the campus building never fail to impress people with the qualities of perseverance and determination.

[gohk.gov.hk]

I also find that it takes perseverance and determination to appreciate the architecture on campus, but I don’t come out and say it.

HCMC continued:

I forgot to mention that on our way to the botanical garden we crossed a formidable (even by Vietnamese standards) half-dozen-lane-or-so divided highway without a crosswalk for kilometers in either direction. That was “interesting.”

After the botanical garden we met our host for an excellent Japanese lunch, picked up our guidebook (for its all-important map), and set about walking. A lot. We walked up and down Dong Khoi, a ritzier tourist street, and gawked a bit, eventually running into the cathedral. The post office was open so we enjoyed its benches and my partners wrote postcards (being gifted with a memory for addresses which I lack). After that we made a long trek toward the backpacking quarter, where after extensive misnavigation (remember that memory I lack?) we found a recommended institute for the blind where said blind give what are supposed to be very good massages. Claudia’s supposedly lived up to the reputation, but the other two massages were decidedly worse. I think I just got bruises. Oh well.

We (sorely) picked our way back to the market and then back toward “home,” where we had dinner at “Skewers,” a transparently foreign business with artsy, insubstantial portions and rather frightening service. We were stared at intently at every moment, including the addition of the tip to the charge slip. Also, dessert involved some of the thickest “crepes” I’ve ever seen. A quick google reveals that the place is considered chic and highly recommended. I’d agree it isn’t bad for Ho Chi Minh, but it’s so thoroughly outdone by Morgantown’s Mediterranean all-stars (Voyagers and Mercury) that it isn’t funny.

We finished killing time at the Wild Horse, a nearby bar with hilarious “Western” decor and even worse music from a cover band. We arrived early enough the hear the guitarist jamming away on some classical guitar, which was really quite good, but before long the band was set up and pumping out Wild West theme music, “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” and whatever other incongruent/eclectic (same thing, different name) hits came to mind.

At 3:00 a.m. local time this morning my mobile woke me up. As it happened, the ride to the airport took only 15 minutes with the streets empty, so we got to sit for a while. I knocked back a final iced coffee and watched the end of some random English football match.

If you remember my bitter complaints about the liquid check from HKG to SGN (going away from the United States), you might be amused to know that passengers were freely walking on to the SGN-HKG leg (which continues to SFO) with water bottles in their hands.

Immigration and customs (everything gets X-rayed going in and going out, there’s no “green channel” in Vietnam) were a breeze as the guards were too tired to even spend much time carefully observing the reflections in my passport. The flight was pleasant enough on a freezing cold 747, as we snagged seats in the exit row 35. This is an exit row’s exit row: spacious, ancient, a bit drafty, and in United’s Economy Plus too (any advantage from which was dwarfed by the exit space, which was wide enough to fit a herd of Americans four abreast). It was definitely an upgrade from our seats in rows 61 and 62 (the final rows in Economy Minus) on the way down.

The food was tolerable though pieces were unidentifiable: the omelet, for example, looked like a roll of bread. It was OK, though. The plate with three wedges of fruit included dragon fruit, which I got my first good taste of. Tastes like a very weak kiwi. Looks much more interesting (before peeling, anyway) than it tastes.

Hong Kong airport really brings out the advantage of the Hong Kong Residents line. I was through before the bags were out, and HKG gets bags out fast. With some buses and a lucky break, I was in the second half of a lecture before the professor remembered to pass out the attendance sheet.

I’m back in Tuen Mun after a second crack at Macau this weekend. I traveled with a group of seven others, which is a bit large for my taste but ended up working out decently enough.

This time I wasn’t miserable from unexplained sudden blistering on my feet, so I was able to enjoy everything more. We took the ferry from Sheung Wan on Hong Kong Island this time, which is actually about as close (in transit time) as the much (physically) closer TST China ferry pier. We stayed at the Sun Sun Best Western, fairly close to Largo do Senado (the central square)—but everything in Macau is pretty close to everything else.

Since it was the first trip to Macau for many in the group, we didn’t make it to the islands. Maybe next time. Or the time after that.

We saw the usual sights. New ones for me included a long walk up and around the Guia hill/fortress/lighthouse complex, the Lou Lim Ioc (sp?) gardens, walking in the Leal Senado, and generally a lot of walking around the more central and eastern parts of the peninsula. We largely neglected the north and south, and stayed more or less in the west (which is pretty boring).

Claiming a bed in this Best Western was a bad idea as I was destroyed by what seemed to be a bed full of some creature. My panicked laundry session and careful isolation on returning seems to have worked, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Last night I had a set of merged welts from bites almost entirely covering my right bicep, but the magic of Mopiko has me looking a little less freakish today.

Once again the walking around (unencumbered by blisters) was my favorite part, or would have been if it weren’t for the food. For Saturday’s lunch we tried a Portuguese place called Boa Mesa near L. do Sen., which seemed to be well-received by the group. For dinner we found a semi-Shanghainese place near the casinos where I tried the famous xiao long bao, or soup dumplings. I had the crabmeat version. Look them up, they’re fun—a literal flavor explosion. After going to Portuguese Mass at the cathedral (one of the least impressive I’ve seen, but hey, it’s in China) and getting ice cream, Sunday’s lunch was at the Café Chocolà on the same alley (Travessa do São Domingo, maybe?), a café pretending to be Italian but with obvious Portuguese food. I had a set lunch of a mushroom torte with soup (cream and vegetable) and salad (boring, but with plenty of azeite [olive oil]), a papaya–sweet lime (tasted a bit like Key lime) shake, and pigged out with a guardanapo (literally, napkin… or a rocambole (sp?) to Brazilians) afterward. Most of the others had very reasonably priced and pretty good-looking baguettes.

I’ve now been to a casino (a couple) for the first time in my life. We went in both the Wynn and the Lisboa on Saturday night. It’s easy to see why the Stanley Ho/STDM monopoly (e.g. the Lisboa) is losing business. Popular games (for people with more money than I) are baccarat and sik-bo (big-little, a Chinese dice game that has gameplay and odds similar to a wheel-less roulette). I got tremendously lucky on a ten-cent slot machine (ten HK cents… heh) and wound up pulling myself out of the red and cashing out 30 HKD in the black. Very, very lucky. I’m not trying that again any time soon.

I think that covers most of the weekend. Today, I have a trip in the works to Wan Chai to get my Vietnamese visa, but first I’m going to English Corner where there is such a thing as a free lunch.