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Ripped from Deutsche Presse:

Hong Kong was shaken and left moderately stirred Thursday evening as an earthquake measuring 3.5 on the Richter scale made skyscrapers sway in the high-rise city. Buildings shuddered and some residents ran out into the streets in panic [not around here] when the underground earthquake struck in waters near Hong Kong shortly before 8 p.m.

The Hong Kong Observatory later said the earthquake took place in the sea around Dangan Island, about 26 kilometres south-southeast of Hong Kong. There were no reports of casualties [or hints of damage].

It’s been a long day on my feet. It started with a false fire alarm at about 7 o’clock. I was planning to go to the US Consulate to add pages to my passport, but discovering an extra pair of pages hiding at the beginning let me postpone that one. I took the MTR to Wan Chai and went to the PRC pseudo-consulate, where I filled the visa form and let the Red Chinese (genuine article) play with my passport for the weekend. I should have a double-entry visa and 590 HKD less in my pocket if I can get there to pick it up in time Monday. The facility was very austere and… kind of PRC-looking. I got a little chill just looking at the seal over the door, and the carpet was a peculiar institutional green.

From there I headed to the nearby Consulate-General of Brazil, where I got my yearly military excuse stamp (and a fresh set of tape for the certificate). Only twelve stamps to go until I’ve collected them all! I guess I’ll need to head there after the elections to sort that mess out, too. Fortunately they are small and bored enough that I don’t need to worry about security or appointments.

Not content with running up and down Harbour Rd. a few times, I caught the Morning Star from Wan Chai to Tsim Sha Tsui. There I placed a suit order. I got ripped off slightly… I bargained down a bit but thinking back I’m probably paying about 50 USD more than I need to be. It’s still a pretty good price, if they get everything right—a custom suit for about 30 USD more than a good off-the-peg suit (from G2000 or Marks and Spencer, say), which are themselves a good 100 USD cheaper than I’m used to seeing. I’ll go for my first fitting Monday after I pick up the PRC visa/my passport. Let’s hope this narrow-striped charcoal two-buttoned–jacket flat fronted–trouser masterpiece is worth it… I’d like to have a good place where my measurements are on file so I can bargain for a reasonable supply of law school camo when I get back.

Dodging the touts again, I fought my way back to TST MTR and swam through tunnels of people to East Tsim Sha Tsui where I took the East Rail to Sha Tin. By the time I arrived the weather had failed me, so I didn’t see the 10,000 Buddhas (except from a distance). However, I did make the Ikea pilgrimage. It’s as big as everyone had said, and diabolical… you think you’ve escaped, and then there’s a whole section of stuff (lamps, say) sucking you back in. I did escape buying anything permanent, but they did part a few HKD from me for the café food. Swedish meatballs and lingonberry in Sha Tin, mmmhm.

From there I headed back to Tuen Mun—all the way to Tuen Mun on the West Rail, which was a first for me. I walked from the Tuen Mun WR station to the Town Plaza, where I had something to pick up at the Jusco (big Japanese department store), and made it on the Light Rail in time for a free ride (interchange) back to Siu Hong and the university.

Once here, I discovered that the Park n Shop at Fu Tai is woefully understocked in cereal. I bought a few bricks of milk, but the best I could find in cereal-land was an undersized box of Honey Corn Flakes. I guess I need to factor in a weekly shopping trip to the TMTP branch to buy a couple boxes of cereal.

Oh yeah, and I survived an earthquake. Whee.

Chinese is still impossible, now that I’ve borrowed a copy of the text from a classmate.

Tomorrow I have a tutorial at 9:30 (eww) in Psycholinguistics, which I have not (and need not… it’s basic stuff and drawing straws to determine groups) prepared for, followed by a lot of nothing, followed by an hour of Mandarin at 16:30.

I seem to have completely forgotten to mention yesterday. It was wet—really wet. Red rainstorm and a brief T3 Strong Wind signal. After my 13:30 class it thinned out enough for me to sneak out and pick up my student Octopus, and caught dinner with a few people at Fu Tai that evening. Pork in lemon sauce is interestingly good. Any kind of slow- or long- cooked beef is still not. The tropical depression moved along—not even T1 was up by evening.

I’m going to start reading and hope my roommate thinks about turning down his lively RTS game some time soon. At least it’s not soccer. Lately he’s taken to accompanying matches with Frank Sinatra classics. It’s fun.

Tonight involved a very enjoyable trip to “GOLD DRAGON THAI ASIA RESTAURANT” (yes, I took a card) where the curry was coconutty (this is a good thing, even if it doesn’t sound like it) and the fish fresh. We (a group of eight) split about as many dishes with drinks and dessert for 475 HKD.

I’ve decided I’ll be spending a lot of time in Thailand if I get the chance, parked in a restaurant. Dishes I remember: some kind of long shellfish, a whole non-shell fish in broth and veggies, broccoli with garlic and shrimp, yellow curry, red curry (incredible), satay chicken and pork, crab cakes (barely breaded large hunks of crab meat), and Thai custard dessert.

You should come check it out.

Also, the trip to Manila is official (barring cyclonic intervention)—I have tickets for the evening 29th to evening 2nd, a reservation in a guesthouse, AND instructions on how to undercut the arrival-area taxis by about four-fifths. I’ll be flying solo, but that can and will be a good thing.

I made a dental appointment for Thursday a week. I wonder if I’ll come back with any teeth? Even if I don’t, getting that many extractions for about 10 USD is a bargain (retail price around 40 USD).

Today I had grand plans to shop for cheap pseudo-Scandinavian household goods (at a store I’ll keep anonymous) in Sha Tin. Today my Global Environmental Politics class discussed the depletion of forests in Russia for cheap Chinese furniture. Err. I re-targeted on the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery (also at Sha Tin), but by the time I’d gone out to TMTP (Tuen Mun Town Plaza, for the ilacronymate) and come back and bummed around for an hour doing nothing it was too late to head out—monasteries have closing times (how insensitive!). I could still go out to Sha Tin and shop, but the weather indoors is pretty cold (normal overpowering air conditioning plus sane outdoor temperatures) and this way I can feel better about myself and ignore the siren song of the Snafüsfalafelfjørdling floor mat set.

Everybody is scared of the Philippines (or is being polite about not wanting to go there with me, at least). I guess the terrorist activity or the travel warning might have something to do with it. It’s still tempting and I may not make it to tomorrow without tickets. I can die anywhere, and Manila can’t be the worst place to do it.

This page has been somewhat short of material lately. It’s my fault: I haven’t gathered much. I’ve been haunting my usual haunts (the bakeries at Siu Hong). As classes go on and I adjust to Lingnan it’s natural that things get less exciting.

Yesterday was one of the most depressing days (in terms of weather) I’ve had the misfortune to experience, anywhere. Gray, gray, gray. I had planned to go out to Sha Tin but that got scrubbed because nobody felt like going outside. We experienced the wrath of a Red Rainstorm Signal–deserving day of rain—not bad enough to force cancellations, but pretty wet just the same.

Last night (yes, Saturday) I did laundry. Washers (even snazzy, modern-seeming front-loaders) here are the last stand of cash: they require six HK$1 coins to operate. Each one of those coins will buy you seven minutes of drying time.

Today we are reaping the benefits of yesterday’s outburst: decent weather. The RH has been in the 70s, but the temperature hit the 70s (Fahr.) too. This is pretty amazing. I’m looking forward to winter. Unfortunately, the lingering clouds over Macau (according to weather services) got me to scrub the trip I’d hoped to take this weekend. The next free, sunny weekend day, I’m there.

A pair of public holidays is coming up in October, and I’m itching to travel (though I’ve still seen embarrassingly little of Hong Kong). I’ll fix the Hong Kong part after Wednesday, when my student Octopus will make me feel less poor as I make the long trek on the MTR into Kowloon and Central.

As for the upcoming long weekends, I’d like to try to hit some of the places that will be out of the way on a potential overland Southeast Asia fling over the winter break. Low-fare airlines are a plus (and rare). It looks like about US$150 tax-in on Cebu Pacific to Manila, so I might be headed there over the [PRC] National Day weekend. Other out-of-way destinations include Taiwan (a possible stopover if I get a CAL flight anywhere interesting), destinations in China (Beijing and Shanghai are on the want list, but Guangzhou is doable on a regular weekend), Japan, Korea (money grows on trees in my imagination), and Indonesia (possible low-fare connections here).

At Lingnan:

You can’t add or drop a lecture/tutorial mode class during the add/drop week without a signature from the professor who has invariably not posted his office hours. Adds I can understand, but drops?

You enter a keypad code to get into your hostel, then swipe/tap your ID at the front desk. One should be enough, no?

WVU had its share of petty bureaucracy but at least most of it made sense to me.