About Business in China
Work was slow and relaxing. Nothing much happened. Hanging out as a group with our new co-worker Rosalind. She's from York U, and you can feel it. She's got the designer clothes, the shopaholic attitude. Actually she's quite something her Chinese is really good, I don't know if she is better than Patsy or not but Rosalind can blend right in here in Hong Kong. But then again I think originally she is from Hong Kong. She's apparently cottage friends with Alvin.
Phyllis had lunch plans so based on Phoebe we invited ourselves out to crash her party. We got to met her childhood friend who is now a female cop. Actually she patrols the North Point area. Rosalind got pretty excited about it and wanted to know all the movie action style stories. But there were none. Still she told us training was very hard. I never would have guessed she was a police women, she has a typical small frame like most of the Hong Kong girls.
I met up with Kevin, Wendy's cousin, after work. I finally could deliever those books and the remaining bag of Doritos before even that disappeared. Of course now that I've gotten here and we discovered that you can buy Doritos at the Wellcome or Park'n Shop it made the Doritos a little less special. Kevin was really nice. I was waiting around at the Causeway Bay MTR station for him and he picked me out right away. I just won't have the Hong Kong look, which is probably a good thing. We went out for drinks as well afterwards, his treat again, and we had a really good talk about the type of opportunities that are out there. Kevin's story was interesting to me and an inspiration. Hopefully I will be able to find an opportunity on my own for business in China. He had a lot of experience to share with me and I am hoping we can meetup again soon so I can learn more. This has been one of my main goals for coming to Asia. I guess I'll know more as I plan for my trip to Shanghai in August when Chen Ming Jian goes home. She's suppose to give me the grand tour and maybe then I can find something worth looking into. I have had a lot of good experience teaching but it really is hard work and isn't the best work in Hong Kong.
University of Hong Kong
I have a day off so I decided to walk around to learn about my environment a bit. I wanted to visit the Central library since it seems like such a landmark here. The library is pretty nice, several floors with a lot of space. The view is quite nice from the library windows and there are tons of computers for people to use. I did not have a library card to access the system however. I continued my tour down the smaller streets around Causeway Bay. I ended up walking int "Lee Gardens" some high class, fancy shopping mall. A lot of name brand expensive stuff in here. Down below at the basement level of the mall there is a supermarket or grocery store. This seems to be the common trend, a lot of the shopping malls, like Sogo and Times Square, have supermarkets down below. I went to take a look for tortilla chips. While I was down near the diary section looking at what kind of milk selection they had an employee offered me a sample of some chocolate. He started talking to me, first in Cantonese then in English. Asking me about where I had bought my ipod shuffle case, and where I was from and such. After he started getting so friendly, he had a lot of the stereotypical "gay" characteristics. A slight lisp, some very feminine stances and behaviour. I cut the conversation short, thanked him and moved on quickly. I think De will get a kick when she hears about this.
I continued walking and ended up some place just past Wan Chai when Ada called me. She was just getting off of work and we decided to meet up in Wan Chai. Ada took me to the last place I should step into. The computer shopping mall in Wan Chai. The place is filled with so many little toys. I looked at a few and it already started me thinking about what upgrades I need for my computer. The things I had in mind where to replace my current harddrive with something bigger and faster. To replace my cdwriter/dvd combo drive with a dvd writer. To buy an external USB harddrive. To buy a set of USB powered speakers for my notebook and Wendy had a few things she wanted to shop for as well. I ended up just walking through quickly, I didn't want to be tempted at this stage because I was so poor. We wandered the streets a bit afterwards and saw some of the market areas. There are tons of these chinese style markets here of course. I still hesitate to go into them to buy things, I'm just so use to supermarkets. I was getting a little tired at this point so we headed over to a Starbucks to sit and chat.
Ada had class that evening at the
University of Hong Kong. I remember my cousin's pictures of the University of Shanghai and wanted to check out HKU. The areas I saw was pretty small. Not that pretty but gave me a flood of memories from Waterloo. They have a new building that seems very modern, and not suited to the Campus (a la Davis Centre) and stuck out like a sore thumb. I tried to sneak into class and well, I got caught right away. I was told there is usually more guys but that day there happen to only be 2 other guys, when I walked in, and a forth guy (counting me) showed up afterwards. There are tons of people late for that class and the speaker at that time was an Austrialian fellow. He picked me out right away and asked me for my name. Luckily it was all in English which I think won some favours. I explained quickly I had just arrived from Canada and I was visiting friends (Ada I suppose) and he seem to accept it and let me hang around class. I think he is a baseball fan because he was asking me about the Toronto Bluejays. He said later on in the break I would give a presentation about the Bluejays.
Great, I have no clue about the Bluejays. The only reason I know anything about them is because of Tomoka and Rui. The professor ended up being quite a joker, picking on other members of the class. It was strange because they basically held it in a computer lab like environment (but filled with IBM notebooks) and class was held in English. The lesson was about making a change in your educational work environment. The class centred around influencing one's principle and co-workers and improving your political situtation at work. I ended up staying for the whole thing and we went out to eat Won Ton mien afterwards which Ada knows fills my HK criteria of cheap and good tasting.
Hong Kong's Eye Hospital
The previous night I hosted a dinner party. It wasn't suppose to be a dinner party actually. Originally I was out shopping with Ada and decided to make a home cooked meal together. So far I made a tomatoe based pasta, and a sweet pineapple chicken during my stay in Hong Kong. We decided on a cream based pasta this time, so chicken Fettucinie Alfredo it became. On my way out I was talking to Erine and decided to invite them over. I had promised them a home cooked meal sometime and this was kind of a way to heal the rift that had grown between us. So the dinner party at my place was born. It was pretty basic, I did all the cooking and the cleaning while everyone had a nice social gathering outside watching TV. It turns out that I gave Phoebe a new client, since Ada is in charge of library books and needed to purchase English books for the following year. Later on we were chatting in my room and I asked how I could get to the Hong Kong Eye hospital. Erine find me a route based on my map and proceeded to instruct me on how I could possibly go there. Turns out I need to go Prince Edward (太子) MTR station. There's a light bus there (one of those vans) which will go to the hospital area. Just to make sure I should ask the driver, of course I can only ask in Chinese so we decided to record how to properly say the words in Chinese. We recorded "Excuse me, does this go to the Hong Kong Eye Hospital" in Chinese and then the next problem was locating the waiting area for the light bus. The instructions I was given was to find a pretty girl and ask "Hold my hand and take me to B2 exit" at Prince Edward station. Ada and Phoebe had a good laugh.
The pasta turned out okay. It wasn't the best I've made, the sauce came in a jar and it wasn't hand made. I didn't want to risk making a mess since the kitchen really isn't mine. Next time I think Erine has something planned, and Ada owes me a homecooked meal.
The next day I had some frustrating talks online with my parents. Problems with the old house and the bills and my Uncle. Really, that old house situtation is such a pain, even half way across the world, a month later it still haunts me. Apparently my brother isn't doing so well himself. I guess he has lost a lot of weight and hasn't been taking care of himself. That is kind of a problem, I worry but there's not much I can do. He is very independant and stubborn sometimes. I have to be so careful dealing with him, except my parents feel as if I have a lot of weight so they always put pressure on me to do something about his situtation.
I fell back asleep then woke up later and decided to try to make it to the hospital before visiting hours was over. I got lost on my way, first thing was I took the bus and got off near Mong Kok instead of Prince Edward. I walked around a bit thinking I had gone to the right stop looking for a street that of course did not exist in the area until I finally noticed I was looking at the wrong area and walked over to Prince Edward MTR station. I found the light bus easily and it was very convient and cheap to ride.
When I got to the hospital I found my roommate on the 2nd floor, 19th bed. I guess they remember people by their bed numbers there. I ran into her aunt, uncle and younger cousin while I was there. Like always the uncle was very helpful talking to me. He has strong hands and practices some sort of chinese massage therapy. My roommate's cousin, Heidi, was so abrupt and rude. Maybe not intentionally but it sure came off that way. Very similar to her older brother except a little bit more extreme. I initiated basic discussion with her, like where she went to school, what her English name was, whether she likes her English name or wants to change it. I know in Canada it is pretty common for a Chinese person to just change their English name when they get tired of one of them. I stayed chatting until I was kicked out then I noticed the light bus had stopped running. I opened up my map book and proceeded to walk back to the MTR station.
Some how along the way, I got lost again. I thought I was following Argyle Street back to Mong Kok station but I think what happened was I saw Waterloo Street and decided to take a picture of the sign. After getting my picture I ended up following waterloo street until I got back to the main road, Nathan Road, but instead of being near Mong Kok station I ended up near Yau Ma Tei station. I saw a girl giving out fliers along the main road for one of those chain restaurants and she seemed miserable enough that having someone to talk to would make her life a little more interesting so I asked her to give me directions. Actually it worked out, I needed to eat as well and they had a promotion for a meat and rice dinner set, with drink, for $25 HKD. Pretty cheap and since I was eating by myself that was exactly what I needed. I went in to order and I don't know I guess I looked like a tourist, with my map book, and so they asked me in English what I want to eat. If someone starts talking to me in English usually I respond in English so that's how it started. One of the other girls handed me my dinner and said something in Cantonese so I responded in Cantonese and then they were both shocked. I don't know should I have talked in Cantonese because I know enough to order or should I have just continued to talk in English because one of them started to talk to me in English? Is it bad of me to speak in English when I notice the other party's English is poor, even though they started speaking to me first in English? This happens a lot here in HK. I guess I really just don't fit into the population.
Careful With Your Eyes
My roommate told me that she was admitted into the Hong Kong Eye Hospitial today. Here situtation seems serious which is terrible news. She is such a good person and I feel it has been a bit unfair for her. This is a big wakeup call for me as well. We live in a society where most people don't even consider the dangers to their eyes when they put on or take off their contacts. I've heard of a number of problems with females in general related to contacts. I personally feel that maybe the girls I know tend to like to wear contacts more than guys, and they wear them for longer periods of time. The did not look good when I went to the doctor's office with my roommate.
Work went well except for an incident with one of my classes. I have these two students (usually three actually) Michael and Cynthia today. Both are fairly smart like the rest of the children that come to our school. I've seen it time and time again with the boys, they just tend to be a lot more hyper at that young age. I don't know what it is. Michael is no exception he generally can not sit still and likes to run into me making fighting or attacking noises. What happened today was just before class they were in the other room. Michael had his own markers and both of the children used them to draw on the white board. They did wipe off as expected. Generally in my new found role as an educator I think that most incidents I can not just let slip by. It isn't my place to punish other people's children, but I generally let them know if I find their actions are "bad". I caught them talking about it hidden in the washroom, at that point in time I was unaware that the marker on the board was permant. They had refused to say anything but it was clear that something was awry. Afterwards when we actually had class, Cynthia asked to take a Readership branded pencil and I agreed. I had not known that she was involved in the incident and thought it was only Michael. I mentioned to Michael that there would be no reward for his actions today and he felt it was unfair and exploded into this irrational fit of emotional behaviour. Michael is a well off child. I have a feeling he gets his way often at home. He did something wrong and I really didn't care to support his emotional outbursts. Phoebe and Phyillis came in to try to deal with him and afterwards he rejoined our class. They need to treat him well because it is a business. I just hope Michael learned something because I'm more worried about the end result.
I was hanging around Causeway Bay for Ada to get home from school and headed back to one of the t-shirt shops behind Sogo to pick up a few more t-shirts. I had sent most of my t-shirts home with Ivan to give to my brother. When Ada got back from class we headed over to some place in the area that served pretty good fish balls and noodles. They seemed a little fishy but overall the MSG soup base covered it up pretty well. I think it only cost lke $11 HKD. Something pretty cheap. We went to try the McDonald sundaes afterwards. I got the mango and she choose the red bean. The mango seemed really fake, but it was sugary and sweet. The red bean seemed more original and tasted better in both our opinions.
I had invited her over to cook tomorrow so we went to Wellcome to shop for more food. Ada and I are pretty interesting in the supermarkets, we can walk around like it is some department store looking at various items. I'm getting pretty low in cash so I need to plan out how I will survive in the weeks ahead. There are signs that the relationship at work is healing, and I have a notice that the immigration office recieved my application so things seem to be going well. The worst of the news revolves around my roommate.
Tired Normal Day
Rainy, rainy, and rainy. Even Ivan mentioned he hasn't seen this much rain his whole trip through Asia. I sometimes like rain, it can be peaceful and calming, but this much rain is just depressing to me. I like the sun. I find when it rains I have a harder time waking up. Is this true for anyone else? Though I'm not a morning person that's for sure.
Ivan should be leaving today, I was a bit late for work staying up late last night and got my excercise running the stairs at the MTR station. I've been trying the different types of transportations to find the quickest and cheapest way to work. So far from North Point to Tin Hau the cheapest is tram>number 10 bus>MTR>then other buses. The tram is always $2 HKD and it runs along the main road. Timing wise they aren't all the much different except I live pretty much across the street from the MTR station. The only thing is that instead of walking around to the street I have to down several levels to get to the platform. The MTR seems the best way to go right now though, it is quick and comfortable. It cost me $3.8 HKD one way to Tin Hau station. I cooked dinner again at home for my roommate. This time it was based on Gary's famous pineapple chicken. I bought a Papaya by accident and I'm not sure what to do with it, I thought it was a mango. Oh well, I think they enjoyed the linquine more the first time and they made some comments about my chicken being too plain. Better luck next time, I still thought it tasted pretty good. I had an assitant cook this time, my roommate's cousin. He's a traditional Chinese medicine type of guy so he has been reluctant to try my meals. Now that he's cooking for me I might have some better luck in converting him to the dark side of the force. If he only knew the power of the dark side ...
Ivan In Hong Kong - Day 2
Work was pretty standard. I made plans with Priscilla before to go over to Mong Kok since I knew my cousin needed to do some shopping. Causeway Bay is nice, but Mong Kok is a bit better for finding a good price. When my cousin called me I found out he had been there all day so I decided to change the location at the last moment to Tsim Sha Tsui. It would be closer to where he was at the moment, and he has never been there yet. I called Priscilla who happened to be at the gym and she seemed fine with the change in plans. I randomly selected an exit (A1) which happened to be the same exit I met Raymond's girl friend at when we went to TST to meet Raymond. I thought I got there early and went over to Watson's to pick up some shaving gel. I walked back and found my cousin waiting who had also arrived early be decided to walk around the area. We were on our way to find a spot to eat when Priscilla called so we back tracked to find her. She took us to a really nice restaurant with a pretty view of the harbour. It was my time finally to pull my weight in the family, so I treated my cousin and Priscilla to a nice dinner. We went off in search of Gelato right after, the one thing I really miss from Toronto. I still haven't run across a Gelato place I like more then Hollywood Gelato in Toronto. This place in TST is pretty good though I must admit. It is called "Da Dolce" and Ivan treated this time. We walked down one of the streets that is full of these nice little bistros and restaurants and then walked around TST for a while chatting. Priscilla was giving me the 411 on some of the places to eat and the movie theatres she likes. I remember going to eat at the Red Ant with Ada and was told by Priscilla that it is actually pretty good. Potentially I went to the wrong one and on a bad night so I promised to try it again. We looked at some shoes and Ivan bought more candy this time for someone local. Even though he does tons and tons of labs, he couldn't figure out how to use the candy scale. When we were done walking around TST we decided to head back to Causeway Bay.
Once we got to Causeway Bay we had a decision, look for more things to shop or to go out for drinks. Ivan was pretty shopped out so we headed to find a lounge to sit down in. Every floor we tried in this one building (the same building I went with Alvin and the other readership teachers when I first got into Hong Kong) was basically full except the bar. We finally found one where people were leaving so we decided to wait. The place is called Census and I forget which floor it was on. It looked pretty much the same as Shelter, the one I went to before. We got our drinks, chatted until Ivan felt like he needed to go home and we parted. I walked Priscilla back to her place, enjoying the long winding climb up Tin Hau Temple road and I took a nice look and some pictures on my way back down of the night time view in the harbour. The only thing is I came home to some bad news. My roommate had contracted Keratitis. It seems serious even looking at the medication the doctors have given her. She tells me it is very painful, I hope she will make it through okay. Ivan leaves tomorrow back to Canada, but first he told me he will try to catch the new Initial D movie.
Ivan In Hong Kong - Day 1
My cousin Ivan came in from Thailand. Actually he's been travelling Asia for 40+ days and this is his last stop before heading home. Since I am still new to Hong Kong I have to ask a few more experience friends to take us around so I made arrangements with Ada to meet up afterwork. Ivan got in the previous night but I didn't hear from him right away. We we spoke briefly he told me the place they are staying in is out in Sha Tin. The place is apparently pretty small so he wanted to stay with me a night. His mission in Hong Kong was to shop like crazy for himself and his sisters. He wanted to be efficent with his time. We made arrangements to meet over at Tin Hau MTR station after I was done work. I didn't recognize him right away, well I kind of did. He was so tanned from his travels, he looked almost like a different person. We headed back to my place to drop off his stuff and we ended up downloading some of his pictures onto my notebook. I got a good feel from his pictures about the different places he travelled to. This will help me plan my trip a bit better out in Asia.
We headed back to Causeway Bay and did some more shopping. I actually ended up doing the shopping because I bought 2 more t-shirts to give to my brother. My brother loves stealing my t-shirts. When I approach him about it, he passionately replies "What are you talking about?! You gave this to me!" So now Ivan will be delivering 4 back to him.
We went to a Vietnamese style restaurant tonight and it was pretty good. Our salty lime drink turned out to be some ginger ale with a lime or something in it. It pretty much tasted like soda. The food was pretty good though, another good choice by Ada. When I was going out to eat with Erine and Phoebe maybe I had not adjusted but it was a little harder for me to accept the food. We did a lot of walking around in the area and I kind of wanted to go to the Peak but it started to rain so we called it off. Ivan was pretty tired from his travels so we headed back a bit early chatted and off to bed since I had to work. Tomorrow we'll be meeting with Priscilla.
Chinese Lessons in Causeway Bay
My roommate has had a nasty case of red eye for a couple of days now. I went with her to see the doctor today. The examination was interesting, I was surprised to see the old fashion flashlight but I suppose it is functional. It doesn't look good for my roommate, there's some sort of scaring tissue or cloudiness building underneath her eye. Another interesting thing about the system is the lack of phramacies. You pick up your medicine right at the doctor and most of the time he's handing out antibiotics like they're going bad and he needs to reduce inventory. My father mentioned it is a viscious cycle in Hong Kong, people just want the best and they're willing to pay money for it. They don't bother educating themselves and they want the quick fix solution so if the doctor does the proper thing and withholds antibiotics until it has really be determined that it is nesscary to use it then the patient will feel as if they aren't getting the best treatment, they'll take their business else where.
I went out on my own afterwards and walked from North Point to Causeway Bay. In Causeway Bay I got ahold of my new HK tour guide Ada and made arrangements to met up in a little bit. I found this place call Franc Franc which sells some really nice household items and furniture. a really nice magazine rack came to about $680 HKD. I went to Ikea again afterwards to look for more things for my room. Met up with Ada and we went out to eat in the area, afterwards we headed over the Time Square. Time Square was getting crowded. Apparently there was some sort of promotion going on for the new Initial D movie. I suppose some of the stars were coming out and people were lined up all over the place. It was even raining slightly. A picked up another set of Adidas wrist bands, this time black and was in search for a particular style of polo shirt. We ended the evening meeting up with Kobe and finding a dessert restaurant to talk about the different lifestyles. I'm slowly filling up my little learning journal. I learned a couple of silly Cantonese idioms today I just can't type them out yet.
Shopping at Hong Kong's APM Mall
I travelled over to the new APM mall today. The mall is really something, large, new, and flashy. Very impressive and busy. I don't remember how many levels there were but there were a lot. My roommate's cousin stayed over last night, he taught me how to play some playstation gundam game this morning. I think I actually beat him once, but most of the time I wasn't exactly sure what was going on. He wanted to look for a new bag, and I was in the market for a new bag myself since I brought some 6 year old messenger bag with me to Hong Kong. So my roommate Ceci, her cousin Alex and I travelled together.
Oh shopping is a bad idea for me. I think if Wendy was with me it would have been worst. I picked up a cheap green and white Adidas wrist band first. I was looking at this set of DC wrist bands but at $80 that really wasn't worth it. I meant to just use it as an accessory. I had something in mind for a while and I wanted to build it up. We stopped at a few shops to look at shoes and bags and ended up at Porter. Porter sells
Astroboy, or should I say Tezuka Productions Astro Boy, items aside from their bags. The new style t-shirts are similar to the one Sunny bought in Japan. I had 3 that I really liked, but after trying them on, and thinking about my budget I ended up splurging on one of them. The t-shirts are $350 HKD each (unless you have a membership, but of course I don't have one) which makes this probably the most expensive t-shirt I ever bought. This is the first time I used EPS and it is very convient. I found out the system is quite fast so I could see all my transactions for the day when I got home that evening.
We sat down afterwards and I had some Hong Kong peanut butter toast and some Hong Kong bubble tea. I really didn't find anything special about the toast aside from that it was really really fat. Am I just being too critical of Hong Kong? My roommate thinks it has just been difficult choosing places to take me to eat because I seem overly picky about everything. I wonder if this is related to my culture shock? I like desserts in general, and I heard about the peanut butter french toast like snack from my older cousin Ethel a while back. It didn't really live up to my expectations.
We went afterwards to an area close by that had this factory outlet shops. We were looking for t-shirts and shoes. I ended up paying $200 HKD for a pair of white high-top Converse shoes. They have a green trim on it. As you can see, I'm trying to bring in the green this summer for myself. There were so many floors to explore and we gave the sales people a hard time. I really couldn't decide between buying the white and green Converse or the white and green Adidas shoes. There was one little thing in the adidas shoe that I didn't really like, and it was $100 more. The Converse were safe and a much needed replacement for my old Etnies. We ended off the day with a very basic meal of street bought BBQ Pork, and my famous plain steamed Brocolli.
First Home Cooked Meal in Hong Kong
Yesterday was still pretty bad at work. I guess when problems come out it really changes the nature of your relationship. There is a lot of non verbal feeling in the air. Phoebe likes to talk to Phyllis a lot and lucky for me Phyllis isn't taking sides. I try to cover for her when she's slacking and that has helped me a bit. I got paid and finally got it deposited into my Hangseng bank account. Only very specific machines will accept the deposit so I need to make sure I look for the right sign. The system is pretty efficient though, it confuses me why people are still going to the counter. When I signed up for the service they offered me two choices, either I pay a monthly fee and I can update a passbook and I get free usage of the tellers at the counter, or I pay nothing and have unlimited ATM access. If you pay a monthly fee, you need a min account balance, if you only have ATM access that doesn't apply. Not to put the tellers out of business, but the ATMs are just so much quicker and electronic banking is just so easy, I check my balance when I get home after shopping. Are people doing this because that's the only life they know? Even Erine and Phoebe never looked into the ATM banking and electronic banking.
I actually walked over to Forest Hill to deposit my money. My roommate's boyfriend lives near there and they had planned to meet up later. I stopped by the gym there to inquire about the rates. I noticed I've been losing a lot of weight since I came to Hong Kong. It could be because of my new diet here combined with the fact that I just don't get the weight training excercise anymore. I try to do pushups, etc in my room but it is pretty hard and boring for me to do. It is hard to replace the free weights. The sales tactics are pretty similar. When we got there we met with a "consultant" who showed us around and showed us the service. There's a lot of services bundled in including free movie rentals for members. When it came time to bargin the price, we talked and they brought in another person. They tried to sell the one day, one time deal only bit to me but luckily I had other people there who are native and have been at the gym for a while. Looking at it, it might not fit with my budget so I think I need to figure out another way to not end up like one of those skinny HK kids.
Today after work I went over to the Park'N Shop with my roommate for come grocery store action. Buying things are a little different when it comes to veggies and stuff like that. It is interesting how a lot of fruits and veggies are all wrapped up in syran wrap. Since the kitchens are so small here it seems not many people cook at home. Well not that many that I've talked to. On occasions they do, but really nothing extensive. I made a slightly spicey pasta that tasted quite good if I may say so myself! It was nice to eat my own cooking, no MSG flavouring to contend with, and I know basically what is in there. The problem is the kitchen space is hard to work with. Hopefully in the future I can continue this because it taste better, and is cheaper. Just more time involved. My roommate's boyfriend gave me a really good review on the pasta.
An Emotional Surprise
Yesterday I had the starting of a horrible week. I had a discussion with my boss and her boyfriend after work about my work performance. Granted I haven't been performing well, not exactly modivated and I wasn't exactly communicated to well. They were frustrated that I didn't do what they want, but they weren't clear on what they wanted either. The whole argument (or nearly an argument) started off on the wrong foot. Every time I brought a point up my boss would start to roll her eyes. A sure sign she's not listening to me. We nailed something out and I need to learn to just not care as much.
I recieved my first mail to my new address. Oh what a surprise it is, the finished farewell video project from Simon. I hurried to show my roommate and we watched it on the TV. I was so excited to see the finished project. From the opening it was great, it really felt like a movie experience. The songs from the menu and the individual scenes were perfect. It started with Andrew's creative video which show cased Queen street's attractive and unattractive saying good bye to yours truely. Following with the hidden filming at my farewell party and linked with tons of scenes from my various friends scattered all across Toronto (and outside of the GTA!). I saw scenes of new houses, Ikea, and Tiffany's car. The sneak peak into Aritzia was horrible Rui, those girls don't even know me!
I didn't cry, for those who want to know. But, I felt a sense of warm joy watching the video. There's little things in each person's character that I can pick up again watching them speak. The familar scenes are nice because it sends a flood of memories. You look on things differently when they are not so easy for you to see anymore. I miss my friends, I don't have as close friends here though I met some good friends as well. I have been lucky, but it hasn't exactly been the same. I'm not as relaxed I suppose. Hopefully Sunny can get his webcam up...
PS Rui.
Jean Luc Picard rocks. Sorry James T. Kirk.
Thanks Sai and Mike. Your projects always turn out perfect.
Red Ant Dinner
After work today I met up with Ada for dinner in Causeway Bay. She was nice enough to spend some time with me so I'm not so bored and lost shopping for more household items. We went to a restaurant called something like "Red Ant" (紅螞蟻). It was out behind some boutique shops in Causeway Bay. The restaurant really wasn't good. The base for both of our dishes (one noodle and one rice) tasted so bad. We toured Causeway Bay for a bit and then headed to a Japanese $10 (basically a dollar store). Ada helped me pick out a towel hanger (one that I can just stick to the wall or my door), a container for my showering things, and an air freshner for my room.
To erase the memory from the substandard dinner we went in search of a nice dessert place. We ended up in a place just behind Sogo that always has a lineup. The place is called "Fai Kee" (發記甜品) and apparently there might be a famous dessert place in China with the same name. It was a little strange when we were seated, we got put at a table with another couple but to save space this is the typical Chinese style. It was a good thing though because the couple were travellers from Singapore. I heard them speaking English and struck up a conversation with them. We got into a great conversation about the different foods and the cultures. The guy had been to Hong Kong before and was taking his girl friend around to different places to eat. He really knew his places to eat. The restaurant had some sort of magazine or newspaper article written about them and it was posted up. The article talked about them having a famous Singapore dessert, which it just happens that my new found friends from Singapore have never seen before. I also learned that Singapore fried noodles don't exist there as well. I am really getting the feeling that I can't trust the media in Hong Kong. So much marketing and people here can lie without batting an eye lid. Ada's boy friend had joined us for dessert and we found out that all three of us were teachers. The conversations continued for a while but the people from the dessert restaurant really wanted us out so we exchanged e-mails, paid the bill and went our separate ways.
Immigrations Office
Well I went to the immigration office out in Wan Chai to try to get my Hong Kong Identity Card. I made an appointment last week, only to find out that it really serves no purpose to make the appontment because I haven't submitted the documents yet. Instead of going to the 8F HK ID office, I need to go back to the 2nd floor to Visa enquiry to ask about getting a package then I have to submit that in as well. I hope this all works out, I was getting a bit pissed off because they couldn't explain to me why they wanted me to go get a visa. I called Alvin and he told me he didn't even need a Visa. Well, I can't blame them for not being able to speak English but I certainly was a bit confused.
Afterwards I walked over to a McDonalds to look over the forms. Of course they ask for my parent's Hong Kong ID cards so I needed to contact them first about sending me a copy. So I decided to walk back from Wan Chai to Causeway Bay and maybe do some shopping for household items. I was really short on money after paying my rent and such so I decided to exchange this $100 CAD bill I had with me. I just walked up to one of those exchange booths that rip you off on the admin fee or the exchange rate. The lady in the booth quoted me 5.8. Pretty bad since the banks would give me probably 6.1. For $100 CAD that doesn't make that much of a difference so I decided to just do it while I'm there so that I can get something to eat. I don't know what happened, I have a bad habit of trusting other people to count out money properly, but she gave me over $800 HKD back. I had already walked away by then and I don't quite remember where along the street between Wan Chai and Causeway Bay that little booth was. Instead of being all lonely and eating by myself I decided to go home instead to find my roommate.
My roommate has been tutoring at home. Every morning and sometimes in the afternoon these kids come by and they hold sessions. It is pretty fun to think that these kids consider me a giant. One of the kids asked if I hit my head on the door frame because I am so tall. Well the kid was also afraid to speak with me, I don't know why. Hong Kong kids are pretty shy I find. Afterwards we went down to Causeway Bay to find a Cafe to get some sort of drink. I had gotten a hold of Priscilla earlier and made arrangements to meet up with after she got her hair cut.
We met Priscilla over at Sogo and my roommate decided to head home. We went over to eat at this place called Satay Wong. The food is okay and the price is cheap. They have these interesting seats in the back where you have two people who step into what looks like a small boat. It looks romantic but if you are by yourself it looks lonely.
Afterwards there is this dessert place close by that sells these cremed milk desserts. I don't know how to explain it, they just taste like milk that has been cremed. But it was an interesting experience, I'm happy to get some calcium in me while I'm in HK. Priscilla likes to walk and I am use to walking. We decided to walk over near my work place and then eventually back to her house. It was suppose to be one station then it just ended up the next one and then up the hill back to Quarry Bay. The road has a decent incline and you can feel it work somewhat like the step machines. The experience was great the hill tops are beautiful. Priscilla lives all the way at the end of Tin Hau Temple Road. I grabbed some juice at her appartment and she showed me the view from the balcony. It is truely splendid. I forgot my camera but if she permits I'll make the trek back to see the sight. I met her cousin as well, a very energetic and lively person. She has so many stories to tell and we made fun of her americanish accent all night.
Wandered around a night down towards the mainroad and managed to find my way back home and bonded with my roommate for the rest of the night. Trying to turn this into a
Westmount style living. There's a lot to see of Hong Kong still, hopefully I can head up to one of the mountains sometime.
A Room to Call My Own
A room at last! I had a pleasant night spending it with my roommate bonding and we went out for lunch today waiting around for the Ikea people to call me. Just after 3 they showed up with my bed, closet and chair. I spent about another 3 hours putting it all together. We went to a thai place in the neighbourhood to eat. The service was so poor. The waitresses were fine, but somehow they took our order and we didn't see anything come our way. after half an hour of waiting we stopped someone to ask about it. I don't know where that person went, but he never got back to us until we were forced to ask again. It was pretty frustrating. But, eating here is pretty cheap once you convert it over from Canadian.
Shopping in TST at Harbour City
Today is a special Saturday. Hong Kong is celebrating some special holiday. All I know is that some king's official sacrified himself and so people through these kind of rice dumplings wrapped in leaves to the fishes so that they don't eat his body. It was nice getting the day off though Saturdays are the worst for me, because the school is so busy then.
I made plans with Clara to meet in Tsim Sha Tsui for lunch. She got up a bit late and told me to kill some time by wandering Harbour City. Harbour City is this shopping mall in TST that is just simply huge. It just makes Eaton Centre/Yorkdale/Square One look so sad. I really got lost in this place, I couldn't even locate the food court. The shops are so good as well, so many high fashion shops there. I stopped by the Lacrose store and wanted to buy up half of the golf shirts there. I was tempted to pick up a few Puma tshirts as well. I ended up wandering to one part of the mall that had this JC Design shop their motto is that they "make life INreresting" (
http://www.jcdesign.jp/). Actually since I have been looking to get an armband for my ipod shuffle If this case was functional and cheaper than the typical Apple official armband then I thought I would go for it. I had an interesting experience, Rui would laugh so I might as well write about it. There were two girls in the store working, and I wandered in to take a look. I was wearing my ipod shuffle so they noticed me walk towards the display case where the ipod cases were. One of the girls decided to speak to me in English and told me that "they two have ipod shuffle". Now, I took this as a friendly conversation and I said "Oh, you two have an ipod shuffle as well?" and they proceeded to look at my strangely, so I decided to try my chinese. They didn't understand me the first 2 times... unless they were switching modes. Eventually they did and they were really friendly there, asking me about my situtation and helping me try on different cases and deciding on the pattern. I ended up with a camo green plain design, which as one of the girls put it, looks great in the summer. The strap seems fine, good enough for running and the gym. On my way out I also noticed they sold umbrellas and they managed to convince me to pick one of those up as well. The umbrella is pretty nice functionally though some of the little work detail was left un finished it seemed. We stopped a stranger and took a picture as well.
Clara got ahold of me shortly afterwards and directed me to find the food court. I totally missed it and got to the end and turned around and still missed it. Eventually I convinced her to meet me near the Wellcome store and she took me around. I found it interesting that you order your food in the food court, and then bring the bill to another central counter to pay for it before returning back to the original stand to pick up your food. So we went to a stall to order ramen noodles, another stall to order a fruit drink. We went to pay for it and then walked back to those 2 stalls to pick up our individually purchased items. We talked and hung out for a bit and I decided to walk her home before leaving myself. When we got close to her place a man ran out of a shop nearby calling her name. Apparently Clara's mother is travelling and left a lot of pictures to be retouched or developed. I wasn't exaggerating when I say a lot. She had a gym bag full of pictures and a small box, both fairly heavy with photos. It was perfect that she had a guy walking with her, so I took her stuff up to her place and hung out and played with her dog while she was changing for her interview later.
I headed home after and met up with my roommate Ceci infront of our apartment structure. She found some new bed sheets while we were shopping around and decided to help me look. She took me around to different areas to look at sheets and I ended up buying a whole set of Casablanca (250 thread count) sheets for $339 HKD and a matress protector for $119 HKD. The set included a fitted sheet, 2 pillow covers and even the comforter (and the cover for the comforter). While I was buying everything the sales lady's fish tried to escape. Okay, apparently she bought a fresh one for dinner and it was stored in a box. It had jumped out and was in one of the isles near us. We headed over to a $10 store to buy some cups, chopsticks, and a container for my showering items.
After we took everything home, I decided to wander out myself to pick up a few more items. I headed to the Watson (drug store) to buy some shampoo, conditioner, and some hand soap. While inside one of the ladies who stands around and tries to sell people make up decided to approach me. She physically dragged me to her station and started to apply some sort of toner to clean my skin. She tried to describe somethings and I just tried to explain that I'm not interested. She kept laughing at my accent saying it was so cute. I eventually escaped and decided to go back to deciding which type of conditioner was good for me since I could not read the Chinese in the back. She came by again to explaing the differences and to help me choose items to buy. I have to admit at least she was helpful, I paid for my things and left.
I stopped by the McDonalds near my place right after to get some icecream. They have a normal cone of ice cream that they dip into either hot mango (syrup?) and a chocolate. The coat freezes ontop of thier drinks so they need to eat through it to get inside. The counter girl also was laughing at my accent, but she was really nice. She put a lot of effort into making my icecream. We had some miscommunication when I ordered and instead of turning my plain icecream into a chocolate dip, she decided to make a new one. There was even a guy there telling her to just turn the old one into a dip.
Is it really true that my Cantonese accent is cute? Or is it just simply annoying as I feel it must be?
Fortune Telling Street
Well even though Alvin stopped working at Readership he managed to stop by today to visit his kids. When the kids ask where "Mr. Alvin" is I end up drawing a goofy picture on the board to represent him. It was fairly busy towards the end of class, we had a few surprise teachers come in from South Africa and New Zealand who were interviewing with Pheobe. One of them lost their portfolio and we spent a fair amount of time after work searching Readership for it. They were apparently teaching in China and happen to come to Hong Kong for a quick vacation. The guy managed to find it downstairs in the art store right beside our building.
After work I went out to meet up with Carman and her friends. She happens to be in Hong Kong as well, infact she came to Hong Kong the same time that I did. I met up with her at Jordan MTR station and then me her friends. They have a tendency to wander off and do their own thing. We headed down to Ya Ma Tei to shop and over to Temple Street. They hung around long enough for me to buy 4 t-shirts, one of them a cool pixel art SD street fighter t-shirt. I'm sure my brother will love it, I've been on the look out for t-shirts to get him since he stole all my old t-shirts Kel bought for me in HK. Of interesting note, one of Carman's friends pointed us in the direction of this street where they were selling many sex related toys. They put up a cardboard square infront of their face to shield customers or to sheild their identiy from potential customers. It was pretty strange to see, and I don't know how safe that stuff is.
Temple street was interesting. A street filled with these Palmstry stands and fortune telling stalls. We spent a fair amount of time just wandering around looking and listening in. I don't know what kind of people really believe this stuff here. I guess people like to go for fun. Carman and her friends were set on finding a place to try so they went around and we looked at each "portfolio" of pictures. They post pictures on the side with them up in the temples with other monks or them with some famous actors. There were a couple of cute girls in the area though so I wasn't totally bored. They finally settled on possibly the oldest guy there and he read nearly the same fortune to them as he read to some other girls before us. It was an interesting experience and still a productive night since I managed to get a few t-shirts.
Oh, and my dinner that night was at the 7 Eleven. This was the first time I bought something from the store to "ding" in the microwave there. It wasn't good.
Household Needs and My New Roommate
Readership went well today. I had maybe one hard class but having the discussion class with the older students at the end helps a lot. I don't have to put so much energy into the end of the day. The parents are starting to get use to me I think as well as some have already started talking to me about their children and have been making a point to say hello to me. I finally got my bank notice from Hang Seng bank but when I went that afternoon to pick up my card, they told me that it still hasn't arrived. Afterwards I went to find this pair of Adidas shoes I saw while shopping with Patsy and Ada. They were not the same as I pictured it, and I am still debating about buying them. My priority is to stock my new place with household items so I went to Pricerite in Causeway Bay and with Pheobe and Ernie's help I bought a summer quilt/comforter ($79.90 HKD), two pillows ($99 HKD for both), and a little 1.9 L water jug ($29.90 HKD). We went to eat out at some famous Macau style restaurant started by someone's 4th wife or something like that. It was so so. Pheobe and Erine have been great and I have been growing closer to them. They asked me to work on the reader-ship.com webpage so I will be working with Erine on it. Erine is a good person (INFP) and actually a little famous since he designed a kind of "Ugly Doll". He does a lot of illustration for Cosmo magazine. My new roommate has been really good. We got to bond a little late last night when I got home. She lived in Montreal for a period of time (but born in HK). She is fluent Chinese/English/French so it makes things really easy for me to communicate. She has been so helpful. I heard the basic story of our other roommate. Apparently she is very unreasonable and a typical HK women. The roommate I bond with had an accident nearly a month ago and has difficulty walking and lying down, so hopefully I can help her out around the house. We started off on the right foot so hopefully we can grow the relationship well. I have bonded well in the past well with my roommates and it makes living a lot easier. The two girls are not talking, but I guess since I moved in here they haven't been fighting. She choose me specifically to be her roommate because I am a guy and because I am detached from the Hong Kong culture (I am "Jook Sing"). Now all I need is my bed and I'll be set. I have a hard time getting a good night's sleep on this floor. It was a little bit better now that I have the comforter.
Moved Into My New Place
Not a busy day at work, after work went to PriceRite and Ikea with Clara. bought a double bed there, having it delievered for sunday the 12th. She was really nice taking the time to help me talk and buy things. We went out to some Viet cusine place and met up with her friend to have dinner together. The guy is from Vancouver but working in IT downtown for some investment hedge fund companies, and similar finacial companies. I had to leave quickly after the meal was done and rushed back to pay my rent, got my keys and moved my things in. I've been causing Erine and Pheobe probably a lot of headaches. I need to learn to manage my time better, I am just constantly late for things. So far my roommate is awesome, she has just been so helpful. Found out I can steal internet as well. So doing well. sleeping on the floor hasn't been easy but I just need to put up with it until Sunday. Pheobe and Erine lent me a few house hold items and CiCi my roommate lent me a chair so I can at least act like a human being in my room.
Snoopy Land
I went to run errands today on my day off. I went Hang Seng Bank to see if I could pick up my debit card. Apparently it had not arrived yet so I have to wait until Thursday or Friday still. I had to go to another bank to exchange my travellers cheques for cash. I need the money to pay my rent and my realestate agent fee. It took much longer this time, I thought Hong Kong people would be familar with cashing travellers cheques but it really has been a hassel. I got ahold of Patsy who was going to Snoopy Land out in Sha Tin with her aunt. She suggested that I go to Mong Kok first, which really isn't a good idea for me at this point, so I decided to meet her at Snoopy Land. I probably won't ever go on my own so this is as good a time as any to go. Patsy probably spent an hour there already before I arrived. We spent another 2 hours once I got there. We went off to Mong Kok afterwards to do some shopping in the streets. I bought on T-shirt ($50 HKD) with a little bargining from Patsy. We spent the rest of the time looking for shoes, a pair of pascal coloured Converse for Patsy and white/green Adidas for myself. We must have went into 30 or more shoe stores, all along this one stretch in Mong Kok. I am actually tired from all the walking I have been doing in Hong Kong. No wonder the girls rarely wear high heel shoes here. We met up with Raymond and his girl friend afterwards in Tsim Sha Tsui and Raymond treated us out to a nice place to eat and an interesting icecream dessert afterwards. I guess I paid for it by being the focus of their jokes, my Chinese really is terrible. But, I must try to correct this, or else I will continue to be taken advantage of. I didn't make it out to Wan Chai to inquire about my HK ID but I made an appointment for next Monday. I need to get to sleep, first working day of this week tomorrow.
Shopping in Causeway Bay
After such a crazy Saturday it was nice to sleep in. I woke up about 11 and tried to write down a bit of my memory before it all disappears. I have been blogging into a text document because I don't have online access. I try to upload entries when I can but so far I am so far behind. Hopefully I can spend a little time each night to catch up a little bit. I had a relaxing morning and planned to go out by myself. Erine and Phoebe had plans with family so they were ditching me in Wan Chai at some wedding convention held at the convention centre. I decided to not follow them inside and with a little help I found my way out back onto the main road. I walked along the road until I was under the Sogo sign.
Because it was the weekend, the streets were full yet again. I waited for Patsy and her friend Ada for a little while until they called. It was so classic the entrance was located on the corner and I happen to be standing on one side of the corner and they were standing on the other side, both of us looking around for each other. Ada took us around shopping, Patsy was first out of the gate looking up rings and shoes. The shoes selection in Hong Kong is really good, there is so much selection here, we found some interesting styles. We stopped by a shop called Hiroshima which sells "Japanese" handbags. We were looking around and they did not have stock of a particular colour of a certain bag. But since Patsy was going to Japan it didn't matter she would look for it there. The sales lady told us that the style we were looking at is only avaliable in Hong Kong. How strange! We went through a couple more interesting fun stores and the girls managed to help me pick a stylish dress shirt ($250 HKD) and a nice golf shirt ($100 HKD).
I'm off to a good start, Patsy is suppose to show me around Mong Kok tomorrow so hopefully I won't get cheated again. Patsy got picked up later by her cousin and Ada showed me to Time Square before leaving me to go home. I wandered Time Square for a while and the surrounding area. I ended up eating in a Chinese/Japanese style ramen noodle house. It looked like a chain, and it seemed clean, I wasn't in the right mood to take a risk since I haven't been reacting well to the food so far.
All in all it was a fun and successful day off. Thanks Ada and Patsy!
First Crazy Saturday Teaching
Alvin's Saturday schedule is pretty hectic. I just took over his schedule and it starts from 9:45 to 6:00 with less than 2 hours break. First thing in the morning I have the 5 girls (Caren, Meir, Natalie Cho, Natlie Tsang, and Shirley) who are a delight to teach but tend to get distracted easily. As soon as one finishes an assignment they like to hide under the table. They also invented the silliest song about "going to Japan". Meir is the clown of the group and tends to throw them into fits of laughter or silliness. Right after I have another large group but this one is a little harder. I have one person who just doesn't really respond in class, and several energetic kids. Basically if you have one tough class during the day, you really wish to die by the end of it all. It drains you so much when you have to deal with one student. Saturdays are rough; I don't look forward to Saturdays. This is basically my second Saturday in Hong Kong. Since I am no longer living out in Tin Shui Wai, I still was invited by the previous MJ playing group to meet them tonight after work. I called to confirm and Wendy's mother told me they had cancelled.
There has been so many interesting little events. I have been living at Pheobe and Erine's place. Pheobe must be so jealous I always get her boyfriend distracted, so we stay up so late every night. We just start talking about interesting things and it keeps going. She always throws in comments that we should get married and that she'll move out with some other girl so that I can move in. He has this box set of Kitano movies (they guy with the twitch in his eye in "Battle Royale" the movie) and forced the movie "Brother" on me. It was actually interesting about a Japanese gangster who flees to America and starts another gang. I was thinking how much Rui would love this movie. The other day when Pheobe and I were leaving in the morning for work we ran into the scarest sight. Hong Kong's infamous cockroaches. Something had plugged the septic tank or some part of the sewage system. They had openned up a little man hole at the base of the entrance and were busy trying to clear the clog. The water had back flowed onto the surrounding area and there were little chucks of what could only be things from other humans. There only safe path was close to the wall and even the cockroaches would not walk on the ground. They had climbed up all along the wall. These things are about 5 cms in length, they are so big. Luckily there was another entrance so we took the second way out. But I think the incident scarred me for life. A day or two afterwards I was stepping out of the elevator and I heard a loud pop. I was with Erine at the time and I was just talking about getting ripped off in Mong Kok buying those cheap shoes. I thought the air bubble in my shoe had just popped and I looked down to check it out. Nope, the air bubble was fine and I looked back and I see this large twitching cockroach on the ground. I was so startled and grossed out I was shivering right there.
The experiences have been pretty interesting so far. The rooms I have been looking at aren't all that promising. Pheobe and Erine have realised that the washroom is so important to me, I haven't adjusted to a shower area infront of my toliet.
I survived my week and Pheobe paid me early since I was running out of money. I will use the money Monday to pay off my 2 weeks of rent in Advance and my real estate agent fee. Hopefully I will be all settled in soon.
