Back from Volar
Just got back from Volar. I just had to blog about it, it has been so long since I've gone. It was so nice being out clubbing with my friends again. I think it has been 3 months since I've seen Priscilla. The highlight of the night was associating with two models that I often see at Volar. I overheard one of them telling the other one about the way I move my hands when I dance, I think she remembers me from before. I spent a lot of time around them tonight and they were wild drawing other people into their wildness. They were dancing around with two HK girls who just kind tightened up when it happened. Back by 6:30 phew I'm tired, I danced several hours straight at least today.
Love in a Fallen City Press Conference
Me with some stars. Actually I had no clue who they were...I even had to ask for English names.
Well, apparently Multiplex isn't exactly closed. We were told that they were closed but I went up the other day to get my tripod and they still seem to be working. Luckily before I left I grabbed Apple's number from upstairs. She's been keeping tabs for me. We met the other day to talk about it quickly, hopefully Celia will be able to get our pay.
The only good thing out of this was that I got to go to the press conference release for
Love in a Fallen City. Staring
Tony Leung Ka Fai (梁家輝) and
Louisa So Yuk Wa (蘇玉華). Originally it wasn't suppose to be me, but I'm glad I went. I thought Louisa was really pretty in person, her skin was perfect. The Cable TV girl was pretty as well who was giving the interviews, but she had a lot of makeup on, her face was white as a ghost. I had some nice conversations with the stars got some camera time and some new experience. Apparently I was on TV as well, but I'm trying to find someone who recorded that segment.
Today I had lunch with Wincy, then met up with Connie and Tiff to do a bit of shopping. Well, actually to accompany them shopping since the mall we went to was only for girls. 3 or 4 floors completely devoted to girls. I dropped by Multiplex to drop off the photos and met their GuangZhou markeing man Lawerence, then rushed to the UA movie theatre to watch
Munich with HuHu. Actually the movie was pretty good. Not amazing and the end was kind of weak but it built up pretty well. There was a good mix of humor built into the story line.
*Phew* what else is on my list for Hong Kong?
Labels: Scams
Another Ending - Multiplex R.I.P. 2006
Well today was a surprise. We've been suffering a lot at work and now the whole thing has just collapsed. Today, to my surprise, we finally declared defeat. Multiplex Vocational Training School has closed it's doors. As I was finishing up my outline for my marketing manual Celia informed me that tomorrow we do not need to show up for work. Everything has been suspended indefinitely.
This is kind of crazy, I never expected to be there when a business just collapsed but without warning it just did before my eyes. I have had an endless supply of new experiences in Hong Kong. Like before everything happened suddenly, without warning. There were many signs that pointed to the failure of this company, but I did not anticipate that it would happen so quickly.
Well to make things a bit more interesting I bought a
Panasonic VS6 last night to give to my brother. He has had his Nokia for about 3 years now and the battery is shot. Hopefully this phone will work well for him in Canada, the features are pretty good and it comes bundled with Sonic the Hedge Hog which he should love. Mainly I picked this phone because of the 2MP camera.
After work I rushed home to have a switch fixed in my room. The switch to my water heater broke this morning. It would really suck if I only had cold baths to take. I was in a bit of a rush since I had planned a gathering at night. Willa will be going back to Canada soon and she has been kind enough to carry my brother's new cell phone back with her. I took Ian along and also introduced him to Denise and Fiona. We had Shanghai food tonight and I was surprised to run into Elaine on my way out. Actually tonight was very strange. After running into Elaine we had split up, Fiona/Denise going for a walk, and the rest of us going to Cafe la Vie to mess around with Willa's computer. On our way there I ran into Terry from SME Education Centre. Well an ex-coworker who use to handle IT for that centre. We spent some time chatting at Cafe la Vie (found out one of the girls working there is named Iris) and then spent some time looking at VCDs/DVDs. I guess I'll have more time on my hands now.
Labels: Scams
Central Versus Mong Kok
I really need to move back to the Hong Kong side. Kowloon is interesting and different in its own way but I just find Hong Kong to be more comfortable for me. The air in Mong Kok is pretty bad, I'm always coughing as soon as I get out onto the streets. I don't care about the number of people, but the type of people that are there. A lot of young boys and girls dressed up in their semi-Japanese rocker punk styles.
My security fob seems to have run out of battery so I went down to the
Hangseng bank this morning to get it changed. Oh, the serving staff are so much prettier. Maybe there really isn't any difference except for the fact that they are dressed more maturely. I like the young OL look I think. The simple hair styles also appeal to me. But then again, successful women tend to have higher standards themselves and possibly are much more materialistic.
I guess that's been the elusive answer to the question why haven't I found a girl friend yet? I'm picky myself but I'm not marketable enough to attract the ones I want? I7m going through phases where I'm more concerned about work then about personal relationships which has helped me get by. But once in a while it is pretty hard not to feel a little lonely.
I just paid my 5th month's rent last night, after April I can start looking for a new place to live.
Labels: Hong Kong
Post Valentine's Day Crap
Okay, now that Valentines day is over and done with, there was so much stuff that happened out of the blue. A friend lost her job, another two are fighting and are on the verge of breaking up. I feel so tired. I remember paying attention to the couples on the street. Tons of couples with flowers, but one girl only had one flower and her face seemed really unhappy. Is it really embarassing if you only have one flower? People's expectations are so high here. If you do something for a girl you need to go all the way or not do it at all.
Last night I was partying with Wincy and her friends at Neway for her birthday. Happy Birthday Wincy, you're only older than me by about a month!
Up Coming Craziness
I've been putting too much overtime into my new job. My team of 4 or 5 turned into a team of 1. Even the person writing the text for me has been pulled off to do more "urgent" things. This project has been horrible from the start, I've been extremely frustrated with it but I at least got to see first hand what happens in the worst case senarios. Who knows how long I'll last at this company. The other thing that makes it hard is my boss is pretty sensitive and defensive. Really a learning experience.
I had a quick lesson the other day on smiling. Oh I need to practice how to smile, there's a lot of facial excercises that actors use to improve their control over their facial muscles.
I met up with Henry and Kevin last night. I think because of the period of time that has elapsed since we last met we kind of settled back into our daily routines. We had a stroke of genius/madness last night ... but I'm going to keep it a secret for now. You'll see what it is soon...
Happy Valentines day for all the love birds. I spent Valentines day observing other people. HK girls are pretty demanding, a lot of them expect flowers and if you bring too few they'll accept it and feel really mad about it. I had some interesting conversations about this and the fact that some girls want to haven an ABC/CBC boyfriend to kind of show them off. We're some sort of trophy boyfriend. haha
Wireless, Mouse and Relationships
I've been thinking about a wireless mouse for a while to go with my notebook. I've decided to "test" the market with a product that is about half the price of the microsoft mouse I was looking at previously. I ended up with the
e-Blue Slide-in Mobile Mouse. The sales person lied to me though telling me that my 8 hour mouse usage days would only require me to change the battery once a month. The product clearly states a 20 hour usable time. Aside from brief usage last night I started using it about 10 am this morning so we'll see how long it lasts me. The colours match my notebook so fashionably it is a hit. e-Blue has a lot of products in Hong Kong, I'm fairly impressed because the price range is pretty good and the build is decent. They play the lower-mid range market but they focus a lot on style with their products and offer a variety of choices for consumers. This is my first real experience buying them so I'll review my experiences later.
In terms of
wireless relationships, I was involved in something of a "wireless" relationship. Maybe for a little bit of stress management. But we had a discussion about it recently and the danger is when we become emotionally involved. Not that I don't care for the other person, but this is also my first time being part of this type of experience so emotionally I have mixed feelings about it. Hong Kong has been a place for me to learn, and learning I have been doing.
On a side note, my boss is strange, they've been sleeping at work (meaning over night) for the last week almost. There is something wrong here...
Post 200! lessons from the office
Wow, so this is my 200th weblog post. Lets see things I want to talk about. My office is still as crazy as ever, but slowly calming down. I noticed that for women in the office they really need that social support structure to relieve stress. My father decided to educate me on a little hormone called
cortisol that is released in stressful situtations. My father had wrecked his own health years ago working like your average Hong Kong worker. Unhealthy amounts of over-time, and an unbalanced diet. Lucky for me I've seen it happen and hopefully I can take preventative measures to help. Stressing doesn't help anyone and I've had to increased my
EQ ever since I started working in HK. Well I just need to learn how to
manage stress.
Everybody has stress. Everybody wants to make money as well. There has been a new trend in Hong Kong where ladies sit on the streets begging for money with children in their hands. I've heard stories where people "plant" food in garabage bins just to "find" them later to eat infront of everyone. Some of these beggers look really bad, but some of the methods used are just horrible.
I frequent the blog of a Russell Beattie and he has posted some very good
stories recently. Including one on
Asterisk the open source VoIP system. There's a great link to an online video showing people the potentials of asterisk.
I've been debating about spending money on a wireless mouse for my notebook. My notebook has had so many problems recently but I still love it. People still think it is new, since it is very rare to see this kind of notebook even in Hong Kong. Well because I'm use to the quality of Microsoft hardware I've been looking at the two new laser mice from them. The choices are the
Wireless Notebook Laser mouse 6000 or the
Wireless Laser Mouse 6000. Do I spend $350-$450 HKD on a mouse I don't really need (but it allows me to do away with the cord so my notebook becomes really portable), do I choose a larger mouse that is more expensive but fits better in my hands, or something smaller and a bit more portable?
Chinese New Years - Came and Went
Happy Chinese New Years! Since it lasts for 15 days I guess I'm not too late. So it is the year of the dog, I believe this is my mom's year.
What has happened recently in my life, I stuck at work doing all the work that I'm suppose to have other people working on. My designer does some nice designs but he's more of a fine arts student or something, often he gets things to me way too late. I've been interviewing other graphic designers but we haven't hit a good match yet. The last girl I interviewed was promising though a bit young. Cute though, as everyone pointed out since she included her picture with her resume. As I said to other people HKers judge people by their appearance more than anything else. In the end they couldn't settle on a salary so now I'm still stuck with no one to cover for my designer.
I had a ton of text I wanted written up, but there must have been a communication breakdown between myself and my administrative assistant assigned to write the text. I need to learn to communicate more effectively in Chinese I think since I'm dealing with mainly Cantonese in the office now. We have a new copy person working for us, Ian, and he's so into languages it should be relatively easy to do an exchange.
Speaking of language exchanges things are going well with my Japanese language exchange with Natsumi. I don't get together nearly as often as I would like, but we're both busy and our objectives are both different. She has been very paitent with me and my weak Japanese. I introduced her to Henry recently and his Japanese is quite good. They really hit it off together, though the fact that he "mentioned" he doesn't have a girl friend probably helped. Some how I thought the words came out a bit too easily...
I don't have much to say. I spent half my vacation working on my project and I managed to find one day to visit the big Buddha on
Lantau island. It was a fun trip but really not that impressive. I suppose if I was more religious I would be more impressed. I didn't manage to get any money into the hands of the statue which is kind of disappointing. It is harder than it seems to throw money into their hands. I managed to track down one of my ex-students who works for a web design house. I got him hired to do a flash intro and he has done a great job thus far. Hopefully the end result of my project will be good despite having so many setbacks. I have learned a lot through my difficulties, so despite the headaches I should appreciate the chance to learn. This really feels like an episode of
The Apprentice. I have a whole new found respect for what those people do in the limited amount of time on the episode.
I don't want to end up in the board room.
