Tempest7: Blogger

Christmas in Hong Kong

First off I want to say Merry Christmas to everyone!

Even though I knew it was coming Christmas kind of surprised me this year. That is, the whole last week seemed so busy so I haven't really thought about what I plan to do for Christmas this year. I was actually a little afraid because I thought I would miss my family, and truthfully I do, this whole month I have been thinking about them.

Recap. Just a lot of work this week. Classes just keep coming up at SME and I even worked at Readership almost all day Christmas eve. It has been a good thing because I've been spending money this holiday season. As you know we've gone clubbing a couple of times and Mike Yam is in town visiting. I met up with Mike to shop around for a little Christmas gift for myself. We both ended up buying a new Sharp 703 SH mobile phone from a store called Moshi Moshi in "SinDat" (or Sincere House Commercial Podium). I was warned by a lot of locals to avoid SinDat but after we checked out a bunch of stores and talked to a bunch of people I found the employee at Moshi Moshi to be most helpful. If you're looking at the same phone then check out Shop-G73 at Sincere House Commercial Podium. Look for a lady named Sharon. I bought a protective adhesive for my screen and she did a professional job putting it on for me. We're turning out to be two peas in the same pod this Christmas. We met up on Christmas eve to buy a mini-SD memory card for our phones. It is pretty tempting to get the 1 Gig card, but we decided on a 512M card each. We're giving Transcend a try. They seem like an okay memory company with some quick write times (80X for our mini-SD cards).

The review so far is that the phone is amazing. It feels great in my hand. Some people don't like the clicking sound of the cover when you're moving it to the various positions (when you open the phone) but I think it makes the phone feel really "solid". I was a little afraid because I wouldn't have mp3 ringtones like many of the other phones, but I find that 40-Polyphonic ringtones are good enough. I can convert any mp3 song into a Yamaha SMAF/MMF using Wave Sound Decoder and it sounds almost exactly like the mp3. The 703 SH only supports MA-3, but the 903 SH supports MA-5. The problem with the phone is the volumne of the ringer. Even after I adjust the audio level of the song on my computer before converting it still sounds really quiet. Maybe I need some louder songs. The vibration on the phone is a little weak. I expected this since when I tested both phones I noticed the 703 SH vibrates a lot weaker than the Sharp 903 SH. I have nothing but positive things to say about the screen. Sharon mentioned that when you buy a Sharp phone, you'll be chasing Sharp phones for the rest of your life because of the screen. I can totally see this at this point in time. Connectivity wise I was using bluetooth before I bought my mini-SD memory card. Blue tooth was kind of a pain to setup. Since my OS is completely in Japanese I asked Natsu to try to help me before she left back for Japan. After some searching around I find a forum posting about needing to setup a dial-up profile for my phone on my computer before running the handset manager. After I figured it out it works perfectly. I can transfer files between other phones as well so dispite everyone saying the bluetooth on the Sharp phone is hampered it works well enough for my current usage. Mike Yam has been testing the camera a bit more extensively than I. I think the pictures look pretty decent on the phone but a little lacking on the computer. I can't complain since the camera is only 1.3 MP. But I notice it has been more convient to use my cell phone to take pictures then to power on my camera each time. The speaker phone volume isn't very loud either but at least I can use speaker phone if need be.

Enough about the new phone. Last night I met up with Raymond and Connie at a bar in TST. The streets of TST were just full of people. I don't even know what those families were doing walking around the streets. We had a great time in the bar and I had met some really nice people to have fun with. Like always Raymond and Connie taught us a lot of drinking games. One of the members of our group took part in a drinking competition and managed to win $500 HKD. We were invited later on in the evening to go karaoke upstairs on the 3rd floor with some stranger. I have no clue how that happened by he was a native English speaker. I lost Gloria during that transition but I was trying to take care of another girl that was upset that night. It was a lot of fun and I practically lost my voice by the end when we left around 7am. This is really a reflection of the social life in Hong Kong, I wouldn't be doing anything so crazy in Canada.

I just remembered something funny that happened to me earlier this week. I was out with Natsu at Starbuck in Causeway Bay. Natsu must find it kind of boring in Hong Kong because it is difficult for her to make friends here. I see this happen all the time with Japanese people in Toronto so I can understand. Anyway, after we chatted for a while I was trying to get her to help me pair my notebook with my new Sharp mobile phone. I'm known to be pretty geeky sometimes and one of the geekiest things I've done recently is add several Star Trek (TNG) sound bites into my computer. My startup and shutdown noises are all borrowed from the USS Enterprise. Well as I was shutting down my computer blurted out a sound bite and I noticed two travellers sitting beside us searching on the power books. They both looked up suddenly at my computer and started to smile. They knew right away I was a geek. The good thing is, it takes a geek to know where the sound bites are from.

posted by Tempest7 @ 20:26