HOT!!!!

isn't the ifc nice? it's certainly cool for that matter.

note: i didn't get a chance to publish my blog from yesterday, so there's an extra one below in case you missed it.
i just checked the weather forecast for hk and it's going to be insanely hot. highs of 92 degrees F for the next three days, with wednesday's kicker at a mild 90 degrees F. so yeah, it's going to be pretty fucking hot. it's actually a little warm today as well, but the high's only at 89 degrees F. my final week in hk, and it'll be a scorcher. many thanks to the weather god. thankfully, the humidity isn't too high.

yes, finally, the ending is in sight. next saturday, i'll be on a flight to japan and the saturday after that a flight back to the states. i want to say that i won't miss hk, but i probably will. probably miss my parents, my sister and other relatives as well. i'll miss having dim sum with my mum and grandma after morning exercises. i'll miss watching the hilarious detective sitcom. i'll miss my mum's homecooking. and probably miss doing nothing all day. i think i'll miss taking the mtr and walking around the stations because it's so clean.

speaking of the mtr, in between my last trip and my current trip (probably around 3 or 4 years, though i can't be sure), they installed protective plexiglass dividers on the edge of the platform in the majority of the stations. i guess they were a little afraid of people accidentally falling down or getting pushed into the subway tracks. it took some time for me to get use to the fact that there are plexiglass (or maybe plastic) dividers with sliding doors. i guess i don't like change much.

you can still see the adverts on the tunnel walls across from the platforms in each station. but now they actually have some flatscreen tvs on the walls displaying adverts with the sounds coming out of speakers placed directly overhead of the platform. i'm really a big fan of the mtr. one of the thing i remember most about my youth spent in hk is the smell of the mtr. it was and still is so sterile.

yeah, i think i came down with something. either that or the air's been so bad that i'm producing a lot of phlegm that i'm not getting out. the air in hk is pretty bad in the summertime depending on where you are. along the coast it isn't too bad. and air conditioned buildings are always good. but it's down on the busy streets where the air could be pretty bad.

even though the high-rise buildings in hk create one of the most gorgeous night skyline in the world, when you have so many high-rise buildings, they act like insulators, keeping the exhaust from cars, lorries, and buses down on the streets. mix in the heat, humidity and muggy weather, you have air that's not exactly clean or crisp. i think it was worse several years ago when the smog started killing people. it's pretty bad, and i live in la.

last monday, when i was visiting with father michael, he was telling me about the real estate bubble bursting and the housing authority. i thought it was pretty interesting so i'm going to write about it now. granted, this is something i heard from a 73 yr old man, and it's being reproduced via my memory and translation, so take it for what it's worth.

years ago, before the economic down turn, when everyone was happy and was able to work for a living, people purchased flats either for residence or to let (rent). all was good and well. but then, the real estate bubble bursted, flats were depreciated several times their initial worth. for instance, a HK$500,000 flat was able to devalue to HK$200,000 overnight. unfortunately, people still owe the bank or lender loans on the flat, which most likely were much more than the value of said flat. in addition, the economy turned bad and people started losing their jobs, which created the problem of them not being able to pay their mortgages. good times, eh?

then there were the real estate speculators. oh, poor, poor chaps.

the housing authority. many of hk's residential high-rises are grouped together in what can be described as villages. some are owned by real estate companies while others are owned by the hk housing authority. back in the old days, housing authority homes were pretty wretched places to live. the housing authorities' mentality at that time was to put as many families into shelters as possible, which meant that several families shared communal bathrooms and kitchens. so privacy and any sense of human dignity were thrown out the proverbial door.

but now, a more modernized and humane housing authority have homes which are incredibly nice according to hk standards. families don't have to share kitchens and bathrooms anymore. at least in most cases. there are your backwatered housing authority homes that still subscribe to the old way of living. how sad is that?

father michael lives in a flat that's a little more than 600 sq. feet in size. it's basically a typical american bachelor's pad (layout-wise) with a bathroom and kitchen. in hk standards, it's a pretty good size flat for a family. you can of course, build partition walls to make separate bedrooms. hk is a small place, so it's people are used to being squished close together.

i went to jusco (a shopping center) with my mum yesterday. that's why i didn't have time to publish my blog. anyway, the first floor of this shopping center contains a market (just like the westernized ones), a food court, and a electronic dept. after having a quick lunch at the micky d's there, we went up to the third floor (toys) to use the facilities. one of the displays in the toy department had a mannequin of a little girl with her eyes closed, slanted head tilting upwards, and her mouth open. i don't know if it's just me being really disgusting, but if she was on her knees, it would almost look like she was...

hey, i'm not too far from bangkok. who knows.

anyway, so my mum and i were walking through the market and the smell of durian permeated throughout the first floor. in the produce section, they had a worker opening durians, taking out the meat, and putting them on a styrofoam plate, wrapped in plastic wrap. oh, but the smell is much too powerful to be held in by just plastic wrap. so it was all over the place. and i LOVED it. arrgh.... forbidden durian.

okay, i have to run. mum just rang. hugs and kisses to all.

luxury

speaking of luxury... here's a bowl of shark fins soup. yes, sharks died so i could enjoy this. but sharks are evil. what? you dont' agree? you must not have seen open water.

i really didn't want to wake up this morning for a run. i'm not exactly sick right now, but i am waking up with some phlegm in my throat. i'm not too happy about that. but then my mum turned up the telly really loud trying to get me out of bed, which initially failed, but since i was awake, i decided to go ahead and join my parents at the park. i ran around the soccer pitch only four times today, but since it was nonstop, i decided that it was good enough. and then i walked the perimeter several more times with my father.

afterwards, i went to dim sum with my mum and grandma. i keep telling my mum to get some congee, but she refused, saying the meats or thousand year old eggs may not be cooked thoroughly. what they do is pour boiling congee onto the meats and such as to cook them with the heat. i didn't really put up a fight, though i really, really love congee. so instead, i settled for chicken feet and spare ribs cooked with rice in a small bowl. good stuff.

i had a really odd dream last night that i've forgotten. but it involves me going to buy something with two other people... actually, it's not worth mentioning since i don't remember who was in it or what happened. but it was a weird dream.

went to the sai ying poo district market today. said hello to the fish lady. apparently, she has an indonesian maid who's on a months vacation. every two years, they get a month-long vacation, which is pretty nice. they get to go home and visit relatives.

for those of you unfamiliar with maids, hk is full of them. use to be they come from the philippines, but now it seems like they come from all over southeast asia. i'm trying to remember what's the pc term for maid, but i can't exactly recall what it is. something like 'dependents.' it's really bugging the hell out of me. oh, 'domestic servants,' that's what it is. okay, so these domestic servants get sundays off and they gather around in large groups in central, among various part of hk, to hang out.

a great deal of wealthy and middle-class resident of hk have domestic servants. it's just a part of hk culture and life. my college friend, jonathan's family, had three maids (his family is extremely... er... EXTREMELY weathly), a driver, and a person taking care of their boat in the marina. it's insane. as mark could attest, jonathan's family owns a bentley, a lexus and a land cruiser. not to mention the house that we stayed in, which was either four or five stories, with a two-storied bay window overlooking parts of repulse bay. it was incredible. we had eggos and oj everyday for breakfast, and hot dogs at night after coming back from bar hopping.

and the boat, good god. it was a temporary replace boat for the one that got stolen. i don't know much about boats, but if the replacement was that awesome, i can't imagine how good the new one is. apparently, it was being built in taiwan. but that's about six or seven years ago.

computer crashed

the fish section of the district markets. my mum frequents this stall because the fish- mongtress is really nice (fish- mongtress?).

i went to the ifc yesterday evening and had a club sandwich along with a bottle of orange juice that i sucked up through a straw. it's kinda strange, people use straws here for bottled drinks. it's just the way it is here i guess. i much prefer drinking it straight from the top. much easier.

we've been going there so frequently that most of the starbucks staff recognize us. i guess they're wondering who we are and why we're there so often. yesterday, we met a very shy, soft-spoken young man who worked there. his name is stephen. as he was leaving to change at the end of this shift, my mum motioned him over and asked him about the brownies that they have. we got to talking and he asked who i was in relations to my mum. it was quite hilarious really. i like him. quiet and gentle. yeah, weird way of describing a man.

i asked my mother if she thought i was older or younger than him, and she was like, "please n*gga, of course you're older." first of all, she didn't didn't really say, "please n*gga" cuz ,well, she wouldn't know what a n*gga is. but second, she said it so matter-of-factly that, i'm getting a little worried about my age. i can't believe i'm 28. i feel so immature to be 28. i should be 23. yeah. i should.

oh, and then this morning, after our morning exercises, my mother and i were having dim sum with my grandmother. so grands was saying how my uncle ho was 50 yrs old. and then mum says to her, "shit bitch, even he (gesturing towards me) is 28." my mum sure uses a lot of bad language.

speaking of morning exercises, i'm really out of shape. not surprising of couse. but still. i can't run worth shit. i think i'm going to blame the weather her in hk. muggy. humid. rainy. i could only run three times around a soccer pitch at a time. how pitiful. it's kinda interesting that the majority of pitches in hk isn't made of grass, but rather harden clay. i can't imagine playing soccer on such a hard material. certainly, there's no slide tackle. right?

i'm listening to janice long on the bbc radio 2. good stuff. just now, she played an old talking heads song, road to nowhere. and the only reason why i would even know of that song, given that i'm not a big talking heads fan, is that the song was in the movie, reality bites.

so about markets. there are three types here in hk the first kinda is just like what we have in the states. places like citysuper, wellcome, parknshop, where you walk in and it's clean and everything is placed neatly in front of you in shelves and aisles. there's a citysuper in the ifc mall, and it's incredibly nice. i actually saw a piece of meat from australia that cost nearly a hundred dollars a pound. it's insane. HK$141 per 100g. it's really marbled though.

they also have a hot deli food section there, which is almost unheard of in a hk supermarket. well, not that i've seen anyway. citysuper is of course the creme de la creme of the hk supermarkets. and since space is rather limited, not all the supermarkets within the same company are the same size. near my parents' flat, there's a parknshop that is about 1/8 of the parknshop we saw in tung chung the other day. so there you have your high-end, westernized markets. clean and well air-conditioned.

then you have your district markets, which is less glamourous than your supermarkets in hk. there are 18 districts in hk, so i'm guessing there are about 18 district markets. the one that i usually go with my mother is the sai ying poon distict market. i've seen or been inside several othere districk markets (western, wan chai, central, sai kong, etc.). i guess one of these days i could take a picture of the sai ying poon district market so you can have a better idea what they are like.

generally speaking, district markets are located in a building that contains several floors. on each floor, vendors sell similar goods and produce. for example, at the sai ying poon districk market, there's a floor that only sells vegetables and dry goods, two floors for fish and various seafood, one for meats, and yet another for poultry. the sai ying poon market is a little different because there's a skywalk to another building across the street where you can get eggs (chicken, thousand year old, salted, quail are the several i've seen) and clothes. oh and yeah, it's not normally air conditioned and since the drainage system is on the ground, the floor tends to be quite wet, which equates to being very dirty.

then the third kind of hk markets are the open air markets. during the daytime, most of the open air markets are stalls selling different types of vegetables and produce like tofu. there are some that sells toys and clothes as well. but at night, thats when things get really interesting. on the famous temple street, you have venders selling goods from zippo lighters to pornography vcds under strands of lightbulbs. we know a little something about that don't we mark? ;) there are stalls where they have photo albums of girls, which i personally think is a catalogue of hookers for you to peruse. if you're hungry, there are dozens of street venders willing to feed you fish balls on skewers or bowls of noodles with slice meats. then when you're through with that, at the end of temple street sits fortune tellers waiting to tell you your fortune.

my favorite street vender food is the sweet sheet of bubbled pancake made from egg batter poured into this two-sided iron contraption cooked over an open fire. each side of the iron contraption has connecting semi-circles so that when it's done, it looks like a sheet of bubbles. it's delicious, but my stomach probably can't handle them anymore. the story of my life. damn weak stomach.

and my grandmother, who's about 75 or so, played mahjong until 6am this morning. that's some crazy arsed shit.

okay, time to get some lunch and meet my parents at the ifc. i hope it's not raining too hard outside.

talk to you all later. hugs and kisses.

note: my computer crashed so everything i had after the third type of hk market has been rewritten.

from such great height

if hk is my home away from home, then the hk public library is my home away from home away from home. it's damn ugly on the outside, isn't it?

i'll give y'all a guess as to where i am today?

i'm back at the library. there are so many computers here that on the weekdays, you can just sit down at one and use it until you're done. however long it may be. on the weekends, when there are more people milling around, you have to sign up for hour-long blocks, two hours max per session.

it's wednesday today. i'd totally forgotten that the library opens at 1pm today, not the normal 9am. i got there around noon, and was a bit perturbed by it's closage. is that even a word? closage. oops, it's closure. hahaha. thank god for merriam webster. so anyway, i decided to go to the hmv in causeway bay (i tried to find the hmv hk site, but it's not readily available to me), which is only about a 10 minute walk away. for some reason, i don't feel the need to buy cds or dvds anymore. in past trips, the only thing i wanted was to get more cds and dvds. but this trip's been different. maybe i'm all growns-up and all growns-up (thank you trent), but i think it's more that i rather spend money on things that i need now. like a laptop and tuition.

therefore, i basically window shopped, looking at cds and dvds on sale. there were dvds selling at HK$20. that's like about $2.50 in US dollars. and they weren't like crappy dvds either. they were actual movies, and no, they weren't pirated copies. then in the middle of my window shopping excursion, my mum called to say that there's a storm warning and that i should head back to the ifc (which is in central for those keeping notes). i said okay, but headed to the library anyway. the internet cafes at the ifc are okay, but i couldn't have spent 2-3 hours there without someone pressing the damn timer.

i just got a called my mum and she was wondering where i was. the library, i whispered, since i was at the library. we'll meet you out there then, she whispered back. my mum's funny. also, i was fucking around with my chair and now the back of it is lifted up and it's sitting really ackwardly under my arse. i would feel so stupid if i were to get up to "fix" the problem and i'd feel even more stupid if i ask someone to fix it for me. so for the time being, i'm sitting very, very uncomfortably. damn, some library staffer walked by, but i couldn't catch her eye in time. damn. i hate sitting here. i could switch chairs though...

aaaah, i fixed it. now i'm comfortable.

there are so many things i want to write about, not that you care, or maybe you do, but it's more for myself, so i can remember what i saw and experienced on this trip. generally, i think of things on the bus ride over, but i keep forgetting the topics when i get to the library. it's really annoying. so i'm just going to sit here and think about it until i remember what i wanted to talk about.

for example, while on the bus today, i saw an old man who had a hunched back dragging a pretty large wickered basket behind him walking along the electric tram section of the street.

segue: i could never drive in hk. it's like impossible. a six-lane street is considered a major thoroughfare. yes, i realize that a six-lane street is considered big, but let's consider that streets are a bit narrower here. in the middle of the street (i think it's called de voeux rd.) two lanes are taken up for the electric trams. and not to mention that there are lorries (trucks) parked on the side of the streets half the time with people loading and unloading goods. then you have pedestrians who basically cross the streets regardless of what colour the traffic light is at. you have an incredible number of double deckered buses, mini-vans, taxis used for public transportation. it's maddening. btw, i took the bus today for HK$3.40 from sai ying poon to causeway bay. so damn cheap!

correction (7/29): i rode by it today and it's actually a six lane road with a middle section for the electric trams. but that's only near the pacific place. from sheung wan to central, it's pretty much as i had described it above. actually, it turns into single lanes near sheung wan.

back to the old man. if only i had taken a picture, eh? :) his poverty and physical deformity juxtaposed the modern and ultra hip pacific place, an opulent shopping center containing stores like louis vuitton and prada. anyway, all i could think about when i saw this man was, i wonder if someone like him could get laid. and if he does, he's probably always on top right? i guess there's doggy and numerous other positions, but seriously, is he getting laid? i'm kinda annoyed that i have a one track mind. christ, i should really take pity on this man or at least be thankful that i don't have to go through what he's gone through in his life. nope, i think about such trival things.

did anyone know that edwin starr passed away last year? i didn't either. and no, i don't know who edwin starr is either.

if i have time today, i'm going to talk about the markets here in hk.

i wonder why a large number of women in hk have highlights in their hair and some even dye it outright. so i asked my father about this and he said that people are bored and they see that it's the american thing to do, so they do it. just to get as close to the US as possible. this americanizing of the world is really annoying. if i wanted to see women with highlights i would have just stayed in the US. looking around the library now though, most of the workers at the library don't have highlights in their hair. i guess it's just wannabes who dye their hair and not nerds like us.

speaking of the library, i actually saw a white chick just now walking by my computer terminal to the service and information desk up front. the only reason why i would mention this is that i thought she was going to take my computer away. this is the only computer set to english, and hell if was going to give it up. but i guess it wasn't that because she's gone.

there are mccafes here in hk. mcdonald's owned cafes, with freshly brewed coffee, specialty sandwiches, and i think desserts as well. i think there are cities in the US with mccafes as well, but i can't be sure. in hk, i've only been to one so far, at the ifc.

another segue: good lord! i was just looking at the ifc website and i didn't know that the hotel that they're building is a six-star hotel . i mean what exactly is a six-star hotel? i don't go out much, but isn't the max four stars? what exactly makes a hotel six stars? do they bend over on command? do they drop to their knees if you ask? (there's my one track mind, rearing it's ugly head, no pun intended.) i have to do a little digging. give me a sec.

according to an article in the internation herald tribune, the designation [of a six-star hotel] should go to hotels that maintain "champion status," with exquisite personal service, unparalleled location and genteel exclusivity. uh, maybe this paints a better picture, according to Ricci Obertelli, global development director of the Dorchester Hotel Group, whose luxury properties include the Dorchester in London, the Beverly Hills Hotel in California and the Meurice in Paris,

"if you were a wealthy entertainer and you came to the Dorchester in London," he said, "and let's say you just finished your show and you wanted to have a five-course meal at two in the morning, you'd expect a chef to be there to prepare it. And that expectation would be met."

so pretty hardcore. but at between $700 and $800 a night, come on.

okay, getting back to mccafe's. i was watching one of those newsmagazine shows last night and they had this little section on how coffee drinking is becoming more and more popular in hk. so mcdonald's in hk decided to get into this cafe business. when i went, i didn't have coffee, but i had one of their specialty sandwiches, crawfish with egg salad. it wasn't too bad, but i didn't like the bread. my uncle joked (though, i'm not sure if it's true or not) that you can bring food from mccafes to mcdonald's but you can't bring food from mcdonald's to mccafes. kinda funny, don't you think? further on the section, the newsmagazine was showing other cafes as well and there's this one that has 15 cats inside. the owner said that she couldn't very well leave them at home when she went to work, so she brought them to the cafe. and cat lovers from all around go there to talk about their love of cats. (deidra, you would totally love it. hahaha.)

god, it's almost 4pm and i haven't eaten lunch yet. and my mum's been calling me on the mobile; the last time, i was chastised by a librarian staff. how rude. i couldn't very well leave the computer, could i?

okay, i'm going to get something to eat at the ifc. probably, most likely, at the starbucks. i'm famished. i hope it's not raining. remind me to talk about the markets and people still wearing surgical masks. oh, espcially about how the fish lady at the market is really cool and adores me. oh, and about my mum's brother ho. (at this point, i can imagine mark sitting there thinking about, a better tomorrow.)

as always, i hope you are all doing well. for those of you who are reading this, say hi to those who aren't. and for those of you who aren't reading this (like tony... how is japan? what the fuck is that?), fuck you. i'm kidding. no, i'm not. yeah, i'm kidding.

no, i'm not.

yeah, i am.

no, i'm not.

love you all.

yeah, i am.

thieved!

hk air con-ditioned bus. little tvs with ads and promos. it's like going to an american movie theatre early.

hola everybody.

i'm at the hk central library again. it's been a busy couple of days and i couldn't get my hands on a computer with internet access. but i'm finally back.

first thing's first. i think time goes really fucking slow in hk. i'm serious. it's the 27th today and i've been here for about two weeks. feels like 10 months. i'm thinking if the 7th will ever come. actually i wouldn't mind if the 14th was here so i can get back to the states.

like i said, it's been a crazy couple of days. busy wandering around from one end of hk to the other end. the funny thing is that all the days seem to melt into one another, so i have no concept of what happened on what day. i was really good earlier in the trip when i kept a little notebook on what happened each day, but then i got lazy.

yesterday, i think it was monday, i went to tung chung on lantau island. i've never been there before. well, not that i know of anyway. but since i started coming back to hk during my high school years, i've never been. so we took a double deckered bus to the ifc, which is in central, and then took the tung chung line of the mtr (the orange line on the map) to tung chung.

as you probably had noticed, tung chung is on a different island than hk island. the mtr runs under bridges that they'd built to connect kowloon and the island just to the left of it and lantau island. as well as the airport, which is on and island that's been reclaimed (they basically piled a lot of dirt and sand and stuff to make the island bigger so they can fit the airport on it). so for most of our journey there, we were above ground rather than underneath it.

so if you click on lantau island on the above map, you can see that on the island just to the left of kowloon, is a place called tsing yi. a lot of people moved to that island and commute to hk island to work. so as you're riding the mtr to tung chung, you see a great number of residential highrises. it's incredible and a bit scary having these concrete monstrosities jutting out of the floor of a small island. i guess it's also because they are so close together in proximity. you can literally hand someone in the next building a can of coke.

another thing is that the cost of going from central to tsing yi is only about HK$11 (approximately, US$1.40), which is quite affordable for those who commute daily to hk island for work, HK$22 roundtrip. however, if you were to live in tung chung, the cost of one trip is HK$20 (approximately, US$2.50), HK$40 roundtrip. it may not seem like much, but the salary that they get paid would make it cost-ineffective to live in tung chung. so for the most part, tung chung is like the florida of hk, mostly retired people.

the reason why my parents and i went to tung chung was to visit a friend who we haven't seen in over 14 years. he is a retired priest from lincoln city, oregon that we met once on the way to washington state. father michael is his name, and he was a friend of the priest (friend, father peter) that we were traveling with. and no, i was never molested by either of them (you people are sick). so we spent a couple of days there at his house, and it was really one of the most fun times i had as a kid.

i think we saw them again once after our trip up north. after that, we kinda lost touch. actually, i should say that he and my parents lost touch. his personal assistant called my parents several days ago and they set up a date to meet. at first i was really reluctant to go with them. i hate when i have to entertain my parents' friends, especially when i have to get my ass out of the flat to do so. but i'm glad that i went because it seems like we never fell out of touch. we talked as though we've been having dim sum with them every week. so it went quite well. i paid for afternoon tea, and his assistant paid for dinner. by the time we got back home, we missed half of my favorite tv show.

the day earlier, i was pickpocketed. i was kinda pissed, but what can you do? luckily, all they took was my octopus card, but it had about HK$330 (approximately, US$41.25) on it. we went to sai kong, which, if you look at the map from above, is on the right hand side, located in new territories. what my father failed to mention was that there are a lot of kids who are taught to pickpocket tourists (since it's a touristy area), which i was miserably one of.

my sister and father were standing along the railings running along the side of the bay, watching fishermen selling fresh seafood from their boats. and apparently, a kid bushed up against me and took my octopus card. the kid then tried to steal my father's wallet, but he had it in the back pocket of his pants, buttoned. when my father looked down to see what's touching his pants, the kid ran off. since at that time, i didn't know that i'd been pickpocketed, we walked around the beach area and had some dessert.

a little segue, for dessert, we had mango and durian pancakes. when i first heard of pancakes, i thought literally, pancakes like what they served at ihops or denny's. but it's actually pieces of the fruit with whipped creme, wrapped in a piece of crepe like pastry. it was really good, especially the durian one. it smelled horrendous, but tasted heavenly. we also each had a bowl of pudding (i'm not sure what the english equivalent is called... but in chinese it's called tong suai, sugar water). i had tapioca with slices of mango. yum.

so as we were getting out of the cafe, i discovered that i lost my octopus card. after searching for it at the cafe, we concluded that some fucking little punk took it out of my pockets. it was highly annoying, but what can i do? adding to the frustration was that i had just added money to the card the day before. HK$300. arrrgh!

on the way home, my father said that he saw an b-level actress riding in the same van as us. my mother and i were a bit skeptical, but my father insisted that she was some actress on some tv drama. oh well. but then the other day, we actually rode in an elevator with an actor i recognized. he's actually on some sitcom that's running at 9pm on channel one, so that was kinda cool. he was with some asian chick going to see a movie at the ifc mall. see, the ifc mall rules. toilets with sensors, starbucks, and stars with asian chicks. what more could you ask for.

today on the bus ride to the library, i saw on the tv (they have tvs on the bus with ads or little shows running) that some japanese pop star (chick) is called BoA. i'm trying to think if she realizes that her "name" is the same as bank of america. i mean, seriously... BoA? that's just pitiful.

several days ago, while sitting at starbucks, my parents actually chatted up this girl. it's incredible how my parents could do stuff like this. just shocking to me. remember how i told you about strangers sitting at the same tables? well she was sitting there eating her cherries when my dad asked her how much she got them for. that snowballed into them finding out she was going to oxford in the fall to get her masters in social administration or something like that. apparently, it takes only a year to get a masters in england. lucky them. i could never do that.

crap, i need to go now. my mum's aunt-in-law is taking me out for afternoon tea and dim sum. i'm actually running really late. anyway, i'll try to write more later. as usual, i hope you're all doing well and happy.

i miss you all, but i miss my girlfriend deidra the most. yes, i wanna go home. i miss milty, durgha, zoefvig and yoshi. i miss kt. ciao.

bedshaped

this is a picture of the mtr (subway system) in hk. i guess they were showing arthur when i was there. the one thing i love about the mtr is that it's ridiculously clean for a subway system in a major city.

i'm at the library again. i froze a computer earlier so they decided to move me to one that has windows and is in english.

after i left the coffee shop yesterday, my parents wanted to eat out. they tried calling my grandparents to see if they wanted to come along as well. my mother couldn't reach them, so we decided to go home for dinner. on the way home, my grandmother called and said that she was in the showers earlier. a little later we all got into a taxi and headed out to dinner at some chinese restaurant.

it was very good. they had sliced pieces of roasted goose and some small oyster fried in eggs, two of my favorite dishes. we also had some pig intestines which was interesting. after dinner, we rushed home to catch the detective show. at this point, the detective is investigating some cult that forced girls into prostitution by giving them "holy juice."

my dad went to see the doctor yesterday. every since his operation, where they removed a kidney and part of his bladder and urethra, he's been complaining that different parts of his body hurt. so finally we got him to go see a doctor, and the doctor told him that he's doing fine. that he should do some light exercises like walking and swimming. maybe some jumping jacks as well. but nothing too stenuous. my dad has this fear that he's going to die because the surgeons didn't get all the cancer out. but the doctor yesterday told him that he shouldn't worry about that. medically, they've done everything they could in getting all the cancerous junk out, but who knows what will happen. he continued by telling my father to just enjoy life and not worry about it any longer. i guess that gave him a new outlook on life.

on our way home, he mentioned that he wanted to go on a short trip to singapore, malaysia and indonesia with my mum and i. it's kinda weird having that coming from my dad. i would much rather they take the trip by themselves and not involve me. i'm perfectly comfortable being in hk rather than having to travel to southeast asia. we'll see.

it's kinda funny how i'm blogging more than i do when i'm at home in the states.

i don't think i can survive here in hk if i have to live here the rest of my life. i don't know how people do it. i look at the all the foreigners out here and i think to myself, boy, i can't imagine having to live here for money. i mean, can anyone really honestly say they love living here? it's hot, humid, crowded and dirty. sure there are good parts about hk. it's not like completely horrible. but if i had a choice, this wouldn't be the place i would chose to be living in.

it's time to go have lunch now.

one little thing...

to tell you the truth, i have no idea where this is. if i have to guess... i think it's of wanchai cuz i think victoria park is just to the bottom right of the picture.

okay, that fucker's finally off. anyway, i just wanted to add that i just saw some white girl... probably just out of high school, wearing a white dress in the coffee shop just now. she walked up to the section where they have the bottled drinks, your snapples and various juices (watermelon, strawberry, honeydew, etc). the wall behind the section contains a bright fluorescent light. she was wearing a really thin white dress.

needless to say, it was basically seeing her nude from the waist down. she was wearing a thong and you could see both of her ass cheeks. i was almost ashamed to look... but you know me, i like to absorb everything around me.

just something i observed on my trips to the ifc.

i'm now reading angels and demons by dan brown. he's a really good writer. usually, when i have to read descriptions of things in a book, i get really bored by them and would have to read them several times because my mind would wander. but with him, i would just have to read it once. it's great.

the only reason why i'm still at the coffee shop is because i'm waiting for my parents to come by. it's getting to be around dinner time and i think we're all going to take a taxi home. earlier this week this tv series premiered on tv and it's really hilarious. okay, so i don't understand half of what is said, but it's still really funny. it's about a detective who solves crime in a ridiculously funny manner.

okay, my parents just rang, so i'm off. until next time.

the weather's better

starbucks at ifc. i got scolded for taking these pictures. fucking corporate mofos.

hello, america. i think i might have SARS.

maybe, maybe not. i'm not sure. i did however cross over the border into china.

yesterday, in the middle of a rainstorm, my mother and uncle took my aunts back to china. my father was too weary to make the long trip to shenzhen, which is literally a skip, hop and a jump over the hk border. first we took a taxi to the hom hung train station on the kowloon side. then we took the kcr (train) to the very last stop on the hk side, lo wu. then after passing through all the immigration and customs, we arrived at shenzhen.

i actually saw black people there (no need to get too excited jenny. - smiley face). i don't know why i'm surprised at anything any longer. i was sitting at the starbucks at ifc the other day, the place i like to hang out cuz it's as close to home as anything here in hk. some chinese woman, maybe a little younger than me, came up and asked me if anyone was sitting next to me.

i guess i should explain the culture her in hk. as i had explained in the entry before, hk isn't a very big place. so you have about 6 million plus people being stuck in one city the size of... i don't know... la? not a very big place. anyway, it is really customary to sit next to total strangers at a table. i, of course, is completely not used to it, but what the hell, when in rome right?

so there i was, sitting at the starbucks, on a couch, and this woman comes up and asks me if anyone was sitting there. before you get all excited or pissed, the place was packed, so it wasn't like she was hitting on me or anything like that. she said it in chinese, so i thought nothing of it. i said, no, go ahead (in chinese). next thing i knew, several of her friends came by, two guys. and they started speaking in hk english.

see here's the thing, i like hk english. but only in small doses. it bugged the hell out of me when they had a 20 minute conversation in hk english. it's so annoying. it's like english english, but rougher. like more accented. anyway, so i was like, shut the fuck up already. they did eventually leave. thank god.

i don't know what it is, but there are some really attractive asian women in hk. maybe i'm getting soft in my older days, but i actually find some of them attractive. and i don't even have to mention the mixed population. hot damn! the other day, i was taking the tram from central to sai ying poon to have dinner with my relatives and who walked into the tram but this really elegant-looking woman. she looked white, but with a dash of asian in her. it was incredible. i'm not writing this to piss anyone off, but it was just one of those things.

earlier today, i was taking the bus to the hk central library, and i saw this woman who was the splitting image of kathy, but older. then further on the line, i saw someone who looked a lot like me when i had really short hair. what a strange world.

i'm sitting in the internet cafe at ifc and some fucker just pushed the 15 minute timer to my computer. what the fuck? i'm going to sit here until my 15 minutes is up. i mean i can't believe this fucker is actually doing the timer thing. yeah, i know it's there for a purpose. yeah, i know it's the only fair thing to do. yeah, i know, etc., etc., etc... but still, who the fuck does this? how fucking rude.

i just saw my second uncle on a whim. i was at the library and i saw him walking around. i wasn't sure if it was him or not, so i walked by him and stared at him. he was like, who the fuck is staring at me, and then a look of recognition hit his face. it's a bit ackward because i didn't call him when i got to hk. i don't know why. my parents didn't feel the need to do so, so i didn't call him. anyway, i'm suppose to have coffee with him next week. weird. i wonder if he'll try to hit me up for money, like he did my sister. kinda funny since i have none to speak of. poor guy.

i now have about 8 minutes left on the timer. i'm just hoping that the people next to me, who've been here much longer than myself, will leave soon. it would be rude of me to press the timer button on them wouldn't it? anyway, they're foreigners visiting hk. i don't want to give them a bad impression of hk. though it is really sticky.

i still can't believe that the lakers traded shaq for odom, grant and someone i don't remember. it's terrible. apparently, and i'm not exactly sure about this, but they call shaq big mac here in hk. it's kind of a cool nickname i think. i can't believe texas is still in first place and that the angels are 6 games out. it's the pitching, it's not very good. i feel so out of touch without the internet in front of me everyday. or espn. or the food network. i was thinking of writing to $40-a-day and tell them to send rachel ray to hk. $40 is the equivalent of about HK$320, and you can get a good day's worth of food with that.

i now have about 3 minutes. the foreigners haven't left yet. they're still sitting in front of the computer, typing emails to people back home. i guess i'll write again later in the future. i hope this entry finds everyone well and happy. for those of you who want to read a book, tuesday with morrie is a good one. i miss y'all.

love you, d.

life and death

this is where my p. grand- mother is chilling. from l-r is my mum, my father's sister, my father's brother, and my father's other sister.

i went to visit my paternal grandmother's grave yesterday. it was a pretty emotional experience. one that i didn't expect to be so emotional. after all, i haven't really bonded with my father's mother as i have with my maternal grandparents (not that i've bonded that much with them, either). mostly because she was in china and i wasn't. i did, however, visited her three or four times when she was alive. the last was a number of years ago.

anyway, my mother, a paternal uncle and two aunts made the trip to this temple like place that serves as a resting place for a lot of people. given that space isn't a luxury we have in hk, well, i guess if you're really rich, you could afford to buy a lot of space. but since space is limited, people basically get cremated and interred at special sites around the city (i have no idea what they are called).

before we left, we bought a lot of paper money, clothes, shoes, etc., etc. to ensure that my grandmother will have lots of month and clothes in the afterlife. several days after my grandmother was interred, my father had a dream of her telling him that she doesn't have clothes to wear. so my father took some paper clothes up to her resting place and burn them in the incenerator. we also bought some oranges and a piece of roasted pork for her to eat.

it's kinda interesting. this ancestral worship. my mother wouldn't even go near the buddha statues because she's catholic. it's kinda funny, she would follow the specifics of ancestral worship to a tee, but if you were to go bow to buddha, she wouldn't do it.

the final resting place is in sha tin, which is in kowloon. it was an incredibly humid day yesterday. we had early morning showers, actually just after we left the flat. but by the time we got to the "temple," the rain had stopped. but in it's place was the torrid humidity. i sweated through a button up shirt. and being next to the incenerator didn't help either.

of course, it was an experience i wouldn't have missed. this was one of the reasons why i came back to hk in the first place. to pay my final respect to my grandmother. my father's two sisters came from china for this purpose as well. so the three of us had the pleasure (if you could call it that) of giving our respect for the first time.

there were a lot of incense burning and some sobbing. i didn't sob, but i did have some tears in my eyes. like i said, i didn't know her very well, but i still loved her cuz she was my grandmother. after a while, we took some pictures and left. it was a good experience. really interesting from a educational standpoint.

i finished the da vinci code earlier today. it's an incredibly good book. so interesting in fact. later ,when i have the time, i would go investigate all this crap. i'm going to go ahead and get the prequel to this. he's a very good writer, dan brown.

i was watching a chinese sitcom with my parents last night and this white chick was speaking perfect cantonese. i mean, if i wasn't watching the television, i would have thought that she was chinese. it's incredible. i don't think the notion that white people could speak chinese will ever cease to amaze me.

anyway, i have to run. i'll write more later. today is dinner with my relatives. shark fin soup night. sorry d, i've gotsta eat it.

some of my maternal family and i at dimsum. from l-r, my mum, my mum's aunt-in-law, my mum's aunt, my mum's uncle, your's truly, and my grandma.

it's hot again. and humid. i'm now sitting a the hk central library typing this entry. it's cool and given that it's a sunday, there are a lot of people milling around. i had to reserve computer time which doesn't bother me too much. it gave me time to read more of the da vinci code. it's incredibly interesting and there are many facinating details about things i didn't know. PHI!

i had dim sum again today with more relatives. my mother's uncle came out from his house in new territory to treat us. he was married once, but his actions make me think that he's pretty fucking gay. saw my mother's aunt, her other uncle's wife (her husband, my mother's uncle passed away recently) and several of my cousins. it's pretty wicked trying to figure out who's who amongst my cousins. i don't know them at all.

i continued with the row with my father today. it's incredible how stubborn a person he is. makes me wish i can come back all the sooner. i miss home, deidra, my friends, my parental-less life. it would be so much better when i go back to school so i don't have to deal with all the familial drama.

hk has lost it's appeal to me. i think the only way i could stand to be in hk is with friends or deidra. it's just not so exciting anymore. i much rather go elsewhere.

my mother figured out that i'm living with deidra. it wasn't too bad. she accepts it as fact and hasn't bother me about it. it's a nice reprieve from what's going on with my father. we had breakfast this morning in a chinese cafe. i had a cornbeef and egg sandwich, coupled with a small bowl of macaroni and ham soup. that's like my favorite meal in the whole world i think... the macaroni and ham soup. and only in hk style. it just isn't the same in the US.

i'm about a 1/3 of the way finished with the da vinci code. it's an incredibly fast read. i think i'll get the prequel to it entitled, angels and demons next.

damn, the lakers traded shaq. damn, kobe signed a freaking seven year deal. damn, druggie lamar odom is a laker. damn, washburn and colon won in the same week. what in the world is going on? i can't believe it. shaq isn't a laker any longer. fucking kobe. i hate the lakers now. i really do. i have no nba team. no more.

it's kinda weird and a bit exciting to find out news like this. i feel like i've been hiding in a cave somewhere for the last couple of days (feels like months, actually). i wonder what else is going on. how's everyone. you people should leave a comment... well if you're actually reading this.

so i finally quit my job. as of july 31, i am no longer an employee of the university of california, los angeles. i'll be a bum. a bum looking for a part-time job. i'll also be without medical insurance, which is really great. but at least i'll have a good amount of cash to hold me over until i find a job.

i'm getting a bit hungry now. i think i'll go get something to eat somewhere. i hope you're all doing well. can't wait to get back to the states soon. i think hk should be a domed city with controlled temperature. it's ridiculous how uncomfortable the outside is. ugh.

it's raining, it's pouring...

this is a picture of victoria park (named after the queen) and people actually play football on the concrete. in the lower left corner sits a statue of the queen.

i'm sitting at an internet cafe today. people are smoking behind me and it's actually annoying the fuck out of me. it's no fun sucking up the second hand smoke if you're not actually doing the first hand smoking.

anyway, there was a category 8 typoon yesterday. but then it wasn't too bad, just a lot of rain and wind. it beats being in about 29 degrees C and 93% humidity. it was actually cool, which makes the high humidity tolerable.

since it was a cat 8 warning, i basically stayed indoors all day. yes, it was pretty fucking boring. especially when hk tv only carries 4 stations. two cantonese and the other two are the english equivalent. and no, my parents don't have cable. and... AND, they don't have internet access. not even dial-up. woe is me.

this morning i woke up at about 5:45am. stared at the ceiling for about 40 minutes and when there was enough light, continued to read the pelican brief by grisham. it's the only english book in my parents' flat, but it was a good read. finished it later in the day, so i went and got a paperback version of the da vinci code. hopefully it'll last me a while.

around 8ish, i went and had dim sum with my grandma and uncle with my mother and two of my father's sisters. afterwards, we were suppose to go visit my sister along with my father. but then on the way, i got into an argument with my dad, so i ended up just hanging out by myself the rest of the day. it was actually pretty good. i wanted to hang out by myself anyway.

i ended up at causeway bay and walked around the hmv there for about an hour. took the mtr back to admiralty, hung out around pacific place for the rest of the after noon. around dinner time, i took the mtr to ifc - international finance center. ifc 2 is the tallest building in hk now. it has really nice toilets. i took a dump there today. and i think i'll go again when i'm done here.

met up with my mother and my father's two sisters for dinner at the spaghetti house. it wasn't too bad, but i much rather eat something that won't cause me number 3. my father showed up, but when he saw me at dinner, he left. hahaha, it's so sad. i mean christ, i'm not 12. he needs to treat me like a freaking adult already.

i think i'm done for today. the smoke is getting to me. now that i know there's an internet cafe around and that it's not too busy in the evening, i can blog more often. yeah, it's free.

first day

this is a picture from hk island. across the bay is kowloon. looks to be a pretty nice day.

woke up early today so i could pack before my 2:30pm flight out to hk. 6:30am, which is really messed up. i wanted to sleep more, but deidra told me to get my ass up so i could pack. i was sleepy.

we decided to go to starbucks to get some coffee and breakfast. it's always a good idea to not get anything oil/fried/mickey d's before you travel. it's a hassle to go number 2 on a plane or in an airport.

packed. your basic shorts and shirts, shoes, undies, socks, toiletries, chocolates for the relatives and shawn's perone (tequila). i don't think i left anything that i need for this trip unpacked, but who knows. it was a short amount of time as i was leaving at around 11am for the airport.

deidra drove me to the airport. it was kinda weird cuz i haven't flown anywhere after 9/11 so i wasn't exactly sure what the security is like. first i waited in the WRONG line because some airport security person told me to go to the incorrect line. then i have to wait an 1:30 minutes to get my luggage through. but overall it wasn't too bad. i was smart and wore sandles instead of shoes... just in case.

the plane ride wasn't too bad at all. i sat in the middle section of a large boeing 747 with the personalized tv screens. since there are four seats in the middle section and only me and this other person sitting there, i had a lot of room. the flight was about 10 hours to tokyo but it seemed shorter than that for some reason. maybe it was cuz i slept a little on the way.

the in-flight movies weren't that great. 50 first days with adam sandler and drew berrymore, some japanese movie called quills about a guide dog and his unsure owner, torque which i didn't watch at all, a french film called, chaos about a woman helping a prostitute get away from her pimp, peter pan which i didn't watch, some chinese movie that i didn't watch, and charlie's angels which i didn't watch either.

the meals weren't too bad. i do hate the smell eminating from the kitchen whenever they start cooking, oops, i mean heating up the meals. lunch was curry rice w/chicken, a red bean bun for snack, and dinner was ravioli w/ cream sauce (i took a lactaid pill) and fruit. on the tokyo-hk leg of the trip, i had another meal consisting of chicken w/rice and fruit jello.

i waited for about an 1:30 minutes at narita and then took a smaller plane (more crowded and less room) to hk. met mum at the aiport express station in central. walked outside and it was incredibly humid. i was sweating heavily by the time i arrived at my parents' flat just a little before 12 midnight.

my parents told me that i looked fat.

took a shower and had some congee, called deidra to tell her i've arrived safely, then went to bed. slept for about 8 hours. saw the scars from my dad's surgery and they looked pretty fucking gnarly. big cuts.

now it's about 3pm on the 15th of july. just had lunch with my sister (noodles and little dragon buns steamed) and is typing this at her work computer. i should get off now. not sure when i'll have a chance to blog again. my parents need internet access. what the fuck is that about? no internet access.