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.