Ripped from Deutsche Presse:<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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].<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Not content with running up and down Harbour Rd. a few times, I caught the Morning Star<\/i> 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\u00e2\u20ac\u201cjacket flat fronted\u00e2\u20ac\u201ctrouser 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.<\/p>\n
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 caf\u00c3\u00a9 food. Swedish meatballs and lingonberry in Sha Tin, mmmhm.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Oh yeah, and I survived an earthquake. Whee.<\/p>\n
Chinese is still impossible, now that I’ve borrowed a copy of the text from a classmate.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
I’m going to start reading and hope my roommate thinks about turning down his lively RTS<\/abbr> game some time soon. At least it’s not soccer. Lately he’s taken to accompanying matches with Frank Sinatra classics. It’s fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hong-kong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielharr.is\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielharr.is\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielharr.is\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielharr.is\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielharr.is\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/danielharr.is\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielharr.is\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielharr.is\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielharr.is\/read\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}