Existence under construction

Y’all. No blog entries have been posted for a while, as you’ve no doubt noticed. I’m currently in between houses (not homeless, just in-between), as I’m using my boss’ place as a tie-me-over while he’s holidaying back in Oz & I’m still looking for a suitable place that isn’t moderately large & filthy or clean but cupboard-sized that costs less per month than the GDP of a small South Pacific republic.

I have very sporadic access to the Internet, so may not be writing anything worthwhile here for a week or more. Check back on Sunday or something & there’s hopefully going to be some kind of the usual drivel up.

Quick one though for those of you who are starved for Luke-news:

Friday night hung out with a friend Pei-San, who is a crazy expat. That was really interesting as she got a whole crew of her similarly crazy expat buddies together for dinner & listening to the stories & seeing the different paths everyone has taken to get here was pretty cool.

Saturday, had one of those slow-cooked hangovers that is never devastating enough to be able to legitimately write off the whole day, but still complained inwardly & did bugger all for a full 18 hours. Finally at 6pm, the 4pm appointment arrived to move my boxes & personal effects to my new temporary digs in Sai Ying Pun (Google map it). After much shouting in different languages, the barrier was finally broken, a grudging understanding met & off we went.

Sunday, safely ensconced in the apartment, I began that awkward living through the lens of someone else’s domestic existence. So, I got a bacon & egg McMuffin & a McDonalds coffee (famously horrific the world over), threw on a load of washing & headed the hell out to the Peak for another punishing run with Ken. This time we ran all the way to the top without stopping like geriatric emphysema victims. We were all high fives & sweaty fist bumps. Oh schyeeah! So, feeling cocky, we tackled the last piece of the puzzle: The Peak of the Peak. The view is rad in the extreme, although it was dulled massively by the thick haze of pollution. I’ve got some kind of half-arsed panoramic snapped out on my phone. I’ll piece it together when I get my computer happening again, but until then you’ll just have to take me at my word that I’m a badass & can go up things.

All for now.

Energicide

More crimes against nature from my office...

On top of the world?

So I nearly rented an apartment on the weekend.


So nearly.


The apartment itself was a bit meh. Not that big, not that new. Definitely acceptable, but it was also HK$20,000 a month ($2,700). Now, that's a fairly standard sort of price for a decent apartment in Hong Kong, but this one was just a little too small, a little too just not the best. It also would've required me to buy a lot of furniture, which on my budget, would probably not have gone very well. The one thing it did have however - that nearly made me throw all caution to the wind - was a rooftop. Designated entirely for this apartment, it was a bigass courtyard on the roof of this 27 story apartment block. You could see almost the whole island from there and barbeque things while doing it.


I know in my head, not taking this money sink was the right thing to do as I would've spent a fortune blinging it up, & whenever it rained, the apartment itself would've gotten small quick. But damned if my heart isn't still kicking me for being so sensible. People just don't have this kind of space in Hong Kong. The below pic makes it look a bit shithouse, but all you have to do is mentally throw in a BBQ & some plants & viola! You're in the land of get-away-from-it-all.

Left is the Peak. Right is the city & bay. Priceless. Unless you have a price :(

Sunday morning, however, was a bit more of a success. Went for another run up to the Peak & this time I didn't almost crap a kidney doing it. It's truly astonishing what three days without running & one day off the booze can do for the human body.


So we bashed that out. Neeeeearly made it to the top without stopping, gasping for breath & trying to get my legs to stop shaking like Christopher Walkin in Weapon of Choice. Poor Ken sounded like he was going to cough up an entire Chilean tobacco growing community. Actually, that kind of made me feel a bit better to be honest....Anyway, so we finally made it to the Peak after walking the last 10% like little girl's blouses, then picked up the pace again to run the whole circuit. That was also killer, but we did it as I think we both had something to prove to ourselves. Then it was breakfast time. In China.

Y'all know I like Chinese food. And breakfast.


Oh yeah.

Big feasts!

Mmmmm, breakfast wonton noodle soup. I wonder if there's a weet bix in there somewhere?

So that was a completely kick arse meal at a famous place called Mak's Noodles, which has decided to cash in & open a second restaurant on top of a frigging mountain. Works for me!


And after that, we walked all the way back down again. Which was nearly as hard as the trip up given that my legs has decided to mutiny & had jettisoned all energy from themselves in protest of the run I'd put them through an hour earlier. Stupid legs, I thought. F*ck you, I'll show you who's boss! So I decided to walk home.


After about 45 seconds or so it stopped seeming like such a good idea, but it actually turned out to be fairly pleasant. Hong Kong has a long stretch & scratches it's nuts for at least 4 hours on Sunday mornings & is actually relatively quiet for the most part. So I just sort of wandered through a park & took a couple of snaps on my way home. Where incidentally I ate more noodles. Enjoy:

That one guy wrecked this photo. What a dick.

Hong Kong, yo.

Same dude. Backdrop is supposed to be some kind of inspired City vs Park, but it really doesn't work.

There's also a really crazy phenomenon in Hong Kong on Sundays that doesn't really register until you get here. An outcome of Hong Kong being populated with a massive number of bankers & high-flying executive knobs is that this city is chockers with domestic helpers, most of whom are from the Philippines. And most of them get the day off on Sunday. So effectively Hong Kong becomes little Manila. It's completely crazy, I'll take some shots next week. No use explaining without visual aids.


Anyway, I saw a bunch of these ladies all heading to church, Philippinos being the devout Catholics they are. And upon clapping eyes on their destination, I just had to take some pictures of the church. Tell me this building doesn't look horribly out of place. Firstly, it's blue. And not just blue, but like a kind of "Hi don' theenk so honey. Joo wanna wear that, joo so gonna need like a lemon scarf an' flats or joo just gonna look like one o them hookers from the ceety" *click fingers*. Also, it's that kind of Gaudi-was-a-genius-but-it's-the-70's-now-so-we-pretend-not-to-care sort of architecture that was so popular in Spain for about 15 minutes. Well, I thought it was remarkable. you be the judge:

Euw

Eek.

WTF?

Special mention however goes to the Lippo Centre. I was over photos & over the morning. I wanted home, a shower & good, long sit down. But I had to stop & take just one more of this total mess. Funny how standing directly under a building, you get a whole different idea of just how much crystal meth or meow meow some architects must smoke when they're designing buildings in super cities. What goes on in their heads?!? 'How do I make this building stand out from the rest in a city that is only such buildings? I know, I'll make it look like the kind of disaster that would be born if Optimus Prime shagged a coffee grinder. Yeah!'

Good. Gravy.

Who stole the sole?

You've been Mong Kokked!


Not the kind of thing you want to hear someone say to you. I've been what?!?! You've been Monged sounds like you just got your wallet stolen by a bunch of kinds on the short bus. You've been Kokked. Well. I mean that just sounds like buttsecks really. Not cool.


But you've been Mong Kokked? Ouchies.


There's a whole mess of shoes stores in this place on Kowloon side called Mong Kok. Like a street full of them. Some genius decided to nickname it shoe street. Must've been a goddamned slow day down at the brain farm. Anyway, on 'Shoe Street' you can shop around a bit (provided you've an aggro local or a front-mounted human spatula to help you fight through the crowds), & ultimately find yourself a pair of reasonably priced running shoes. Rad. However, there is always the small chance that you'll pay full price for a counterfeit knock off. Now, I bought myself a pair of Nike running shoes the day after I got here. They look pretty awesome I must say, but they've got one of those cool chips in them that lets you hook remotely up to your iPhone. SInce I now have one I thought I'd be hella fly & get all connected up. But there's one of several unfortunate things going one here:
1. I'm an idiot & can't get it to work; or
2. Someone pinched the damned chip out of the sole of the shoe & I've been Mong Kokked; or
3. It's a fake shoe & I've been Mong Kokked; or
4. The shoe was beaten around so badly in transit (or by it's previous owner) that it's irreparably busted & I've been Mong Kokked.


Dammit.




What's in a name?
It's a silly name when you come from an English speaking background, but somehow it just suits this joint down to the ground. Mong Kok is one of the busiest places on this little ball of rock we call Earth. No, really. I truly mean that. It's one of the most jam packed pockets of seething humanity you are going to see anywhere in the world. Certified. This photo was taken on Sunday afternoon as I walked to the Langham Hotel (more to follow on that bling bling later) & it is the quietest part of Mong Kok I've ever seen. If you look in the bottom lefthand side, there's totally space there. People, people:

No! The one with short hair! The Asian guy! Oh, dammit, you missed him.

Everyone who comes to visit me in Hong Kong must come to Mong Kok with me. I know nothing about the place & we'll get lost almost instantly, but it's just so worth seeing.


Don't wear hooped earrings.




Okay, enough about that, let's talk about the Langham. It wasn't a life changing experience, but there is a lot to be said about a quiet, spacious beer garden where you pay HK$480 (about $65) for all you can eat gourmet pizza, which is surprisingly enjoyable & awesome, & all you can drink bubbly, wine & beer. They have Monteith's Golden Ale. Anyone that's tried Monteith's Golden Ale will know what a front-of-pants experience it is drinking that liquid heaven, anyone that hasn't should be reaching for their car keys right now to go & get some. Seriously, you should go. The blog will still be here when you get back. So anyway, it's a three hour Sunday session, which is pretty rad as it's enough to get saucy & stuffed, but not so long that Monday is a complete shitfest of hungover horrors. More than anything, it's open to the elements (with umbrellas etc. to block out the sun like people love to do) & somehow doesn't seem to suffer from the constant drone of background noise that afflicts every other inch of Hong Kong lower than 150m above seas level. 


I chewed through about 7 beers in the time I was there, so I was clearly a bit tipsy by the time I left. Had a great time just doing a real Aussie kind of Sunday session. Very enjoyable. Observe poor quality photos taken with the iPhone:

A fountain! With Water!

Peeps in the Langham's "Backyard" beer garden. Yes, actual people whom I spoke to.

(Note for later, check the escalator in the very top left corner)

Looking directly up at the Langham & it's equally monstrous neighbour.

Mong Kok escalator action. We watched this escalator all night & it was never even remotely empty.

A terrible photo of people being sucked up into a time/space vortex.

A much better, much closer photo of the same thing. It's indoors. It amazed me at the time. What? I'd been drinking.

So that was Sunday evening. But what about the morning? Well, that's a whole new blog entry...

Aussie Aussie Aussie! Nom nom nom

Idi Amin. Hitler. Pinochet. Rush Limbaugh. A very short, very incomplete list of some of the greatest shitheads the world has ever seen. I realised something very important today. Actually, I may have inadvertently solved some of the world's greatest political conundrums. Milo & vegemite. None of these jerkoffs ever just took five & munched on a piece of vegemite on toast, or enjoyed the cooling, pleasing & nutritious chocolately goodness of a big glass of milo.

No wonder they were such douchebags!

They were just mean because they didn't understand that it only takes a few seconds to make some of the best snacks on planet Earth! If only someone had shown them the way. I say, we get an emergency drop of nutritious yum yums into Egypt & Yemen stat! Might cool the heads of the military who are as I sit enjoying this glass of rad, rad malt awesomejuice, are drafting the new constitution of what may very well turn out to be tomorrow's newly democratic Egypt. But without Milo, maybe they'll just think bugger it, I'm taking over.

Also, the EU could do with a big dollop of milo love, dicking around as they are looking for a new central banker while their entire economic union goes down the s-bend. Milo people! I've rediscovered an important classic.

Thank you Australian yearning, you've led me back to one of my true spiritual homes.

Whoop woddy wat, yeeeah, gaaahd daAATCHOO!

So many sick people! Hoh my gosh, every second effing person in my effing workplace is effing ill at the moment. The tragic amount of sleep I've been getting lately - a mixture of culture shock, socializing, & good old fashioned douchebaggery - should be putting me in a position where I'd be prime real estate for some kind of nasty exotic virus. Maybe I'll be the first Australian to succumb to the new goose flu. How about cow flu? Why not Al Packer flu? Swine flu 2.0. I can see it now, H1N2: The Snottening. Oh, what about computer flu!?! H1D2. Ugh. Enough. So anyway, you may be asking yourself the question, why am I not sick? Well let's put it down to a combination of the 8000 immunizations I was pumped full of before heading over here & the fact that everyone here wears those hospital masks when they're crook so as not spread their germs so readily. They are totally face condoms. Ha. That always cracks me up. Face condoms...Yeah. So anyways, the net result of all this is that my entire freaking office is a Howard Hughes wet dream, so cram packed full of weirdos wearing surgeon's masks that it's like a game of Where's Wally except you're looking for Michael Jackson & when you find him you win a lung crippling supervirus. Realistically it is an entirely sensible thing to do, but damn does it take some getting used to.

Oh, & I guess the logical question that follows would be 'why on earth is everyone so dang sick then? Luke.' Well look, I'm no doctor, but I'd say a good portion of it is the fault of the unholy cold that hong kong is experiencing at the moment. This is - is it not? - supposed to be a tropical island. 10 degrees in the afternoon with a rich helping of rain & a 30km/hour wind is NOT a good combination for the poor locals, all of whom are currently dressed like the Michelin Man in their enormous puffer jackets at the moment. And Michael Jackson... Also, tropical island! Hello! This was not in the freaking brochure! I didn't sign up for sub-arctic conditions. We get enough of that shit in Melbourne, thanks very much anyway Mother Nature. 

Observe the mist of sickness over a cold, cold Hong Kong. Brrrr.

Convinced? Well, now let's have a look at some other potential factors shall we? Let's start with...oh, I don't know, how about the goddamned freezing cold airconditioning that runs 24 hours a day inside every goddamned commercial building in Hong Kong! It is sacrilege the amount of airconditioning that juices the damned air in this place. It's freezing outside, but still, Hong Kong soldiers on in it's fervent belief that all indoor areas bigger than a toilet must be cooled to the point where the freaking aging process is slowed. My office is a prime example of this national hobby that seems much longer on cheap power than it is on sense or necessity (not unlike those houses absolutely covered in Christmas lights at holiday season, man that gets my goat...seriously people: pretty is good, Times Square in the suburbs is just confusing). So my office. It is generally cooled to approximately 10 or 11 degrees (really, that's a real number, I do not jest here), so everyone wanders around constantly mentioning how cold it is inside. Not that you can ever tell who just said it as we're all talking through surgical getup. Don't believe me? This picture is from the desk on the other side of my partition: 

Yep. That's a radiator. Know what that radiator is doing? It's competing with the airconditioning.


It's competing with the airconditioning.


Now, I know I take a pretty grey view on most things & really go hard at just about any topic I can get my hooks into. I have a graaand auld time giving out on the world from the comfort & relative safety of my computer. But this! This has got to be a dictionary definition of nuts. Turn the f*cking aircon down! Honestly, this is what would happen to the whole world if it was left in the hands of bankers and admin staff. Bedlam.

Wow, I actually had a lot more to say tonight & now it's gone. My brain got all bent out of shape just now all yell typing & everything...ummm. Nope, it's gone. Sorry.


Well, as promised: Communications to Australia & househunting. This'll be easy.


Communications to Australia:
Rebtel. Get onto it. All of you.


Call internationally for the cost of a local call over actual phone line. None of this bad IP Viber crappola, no Skype wireless dependency, just a bit of buggerring around with calling each other & then you're set. Almost free calls for as long as you want, mobile to mobile across ze wooorld! Awesome. Loving it all up.


Househunting:
My appointment got set back a day, but I was a little excited as I was looking at some proper old school, Wong Kar Wai set-quality 'walk-up' apartments (ie, no lift) in a suburb called Tin Hau, which is much nicer than than Central Hong Kong. As it turns out however, the majority of walk-up apartments suck surprisingly hard. They're in old buildings & they're, for some reason, old. Also, they're populated largely by people that seem to need cigarettes to stay alive. Booo! Looked at one place tonight & as soon as we walked in the agent started apologising. 'Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't get a chance to see this place beforehand. Oh, I'm sorry. Um, we can go if you want. We should go. No, please don't go into the kitchen...we should go...' and so on. The best part was that when I walked into the kitchen of one of them, it looked exactly like the kitchen in Abbotsford, just a whole bunch smaller. Anyone who saw my place in Abbotsford will know precisely how bad that apartment is now. Spee-yew.


Anyway, I managed to see one fairly righteous place tonight. It was furnished, had a modicum of living space, a good sized kitchen, is in a reasonable neighbourhood, & has a view of the whole harbour across to Kowloon. Not too bad really. That's on the list. Looks a little dated due to the tacky furniture, but whatevs. I can deal. I'll let my fruity side out for a day & get gay-man's-interior-decorating-secret up on it & just turf indian throws over everything.


Anyway, I've got work to do. More to follow on this in the near future. Seeing something like 10 apartments with two different agents on Saturday, so as the Bad Boys would say: This shit just got real.


Cannot wait to move into my own place. No doubt that'll be a hell of a blog post.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

BURPING AND TALKING WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL ARE NOT RUDE IN CHINA!


Goddammit.

Hazy days

Okay, so I haven't exactly fulfilled my promise of blogging around twice a week. To be honest my brain has been utterly devoid of useful or interesting material that doesn't involve work for at least the last week. A lot is happening, to be sure. Work is MENTAL, I've got deadlines up the wazoo & somehow I don't feel stressed about that yet. A worrying portent into a very long week to come  as I no doubt get the 11th hour OMFG moment at...well, at the 11th hour. I'm continuing to learn a huge amount at a psycho rapid pace, but now have the added factor of (boooooo) responsibility & deadlines. The honeymoon is over people & now I have to deliver. Sucks. 


Also, I've been looking at a few apartments. That's an experience no one should ever miss. Shopping for a place to live in Hong Kong is potentially the most un-Australian thing that a person can do. No un-Asstraayan like rigging a cricket match or punching a pensioner, but un-Australian in the sense that it just grates against the very fabric of an Aussie's being. "Yes, this place has a HUGE master bedroom & spacious living area" (living area sold separately, batteries & soundproofing not included, all rights to space up to three inches past the front door are foregone & are public property, microwave space optional extra excluded from factory model, written & authorised by the commonwealth government Canberra). So yeah, generally they sound great, but you quickly learn that there's a fairly heavy subtext to all these claims: THERE IS NO GODDAMNED ROOM IN THE APARTMENT. You know something's been quite seriously damaged with your expectations when you get into a lift & start to think 'this is nice'.


Other than that I've been eating like a swine having finally begun to rock a lot more actual Chinese food & have been going out a lot. Got a mate in town from Melbourne (Alfy for those who don't know him, one of the most singular men in existence, a one-man party), so have been out a few nights with him & friends. Actually, I blame him entirely for the aneurysm-inducing hangover I lugged with me all through a long, long work day on Thursday. I tried to speak to my boss after drinking about 13 cups of coffee in the morning & my tongue had actually glued itself to the roof of my mouth. Glazed eyes & talking like the gross dude, Sloth, from the Goonies (pictured) does NOT go down well in a corporate environment. Just a warning for those of you out there that are planning a mutant impersonation session at work sometime... Yep, I need a glass of coke, that was too weird...

Nnnyyaaaa! Your shpreadsheet iss reeaaDEEEE borssss!

Okay, back.


Oh man, that's tasty.


So, we all went to a spectacularly underwhelming den of pretension last night called Red. It's in the IFC building (the one that Batman jumps off in the Dark Knight & also that giant one to the right of centre on the backdrop of this blog), which is a very impressive piece of architecture, but is way new. It's like they've somehow managed to sterilize then air-condition the entire neighbourhood. Getting up close to it was kind of like the same feeling I had in Osaka back in 1997 when I entered a really awesome old five level pagoda palace only to find it had been gutted & retrofitted as a multi-level museum & gift shop complete with lift & climate control. Actually, no, that's not fair on this poor building. It's not that horrendous as it is a pretty new structure, so I guess I can't expect it to exactly be the cultural centre of Asia, but it's just got a bit of a soul-sapping sort of vibe. So anyway, we would like to have sat outside at this place after a freaking awesome steamboat meal in a little suburb called Tin Hau, but unfortunately it turns out that Hong Kong has a winter & it was last night. It was about 12 degrees & blowing an absolute gale, not exactly balcony weather. So the obvious alternative was indoors, or what I like to call it: Where the Wank Things Are. This bar was nice. All new interior, flashy looking bar set-up....ummm, yeah that's about it. Ikea furniture, metal tables, staff that don't understand how to make drinks or speak the local language, all topped off with flat mixers made this bar seem just a little too big for it's boots. All in all, I give it a pffft.


Oh, that felt good. Been a while since I had a good whinge. I should be a critic in a really snooty magazine. I could convincingly dislike fun if I was paid for it.

A poor quality shot from the base of the ultra-imposing IFC building. The only office block in the world that asks 'What the f*ck are you looking at?'

What else? Oh, yeah! I've got an iPhone4 now, so I've joined the place that was reserved for me in the legion of iPhone users. Now I'm one of them. It's a cool little machine, but I haven't buggerised around with it enough for it to have changed my life just yet. But importantly, I do now have an official Hong Kong phone number. If there's anyone reading this who'd like it, please give me a holler over email. Since I've lost all of my contacts along with the phone I left in that taxi the other week, I've now got like 7 numbers in my contacts list. Mr Popular.


But more than anything I've just hit a wall that I thought I would come up against at some point, just didn't realize it would be so soon: I'm homesick. Horribly so. Very frustrating feeling, as I'm powerless to do anything about it until it just kind of goes away. I guess I'm just going to have to keep attempting to shoehorn myself into a lifestyle here that I enjoy & ride the more lonely moments out. Well, that & I've got to keep getting out. It's such a strange city in that it is relatively small but there's a lot packed in here. Every time I step out I find somewhere new & I've begun to explore suburbs further & further out now. Enough about that though, I'm just going to make myself miserable if I keep going on about it. No one wants that! The only reason people read this thing is because it is a window into the bullshit machine that is my mind.


Now look at my whiney photos (yes, I can actually do that. What can I say? I'm gifted). Today I was meant to go for another run up the Peak & to some apparently ritzy-ish pub called the Hong Kong Football Club, neither of these happened though on account of inclement winter weather. Cold in the tropics. Lame.

 Shitty day

Crappy weather

Next update: the relative successes & failures of my continuing apartment hunt & I attempt to work technology to my advantage so I can call people in Australia without being broom-buggered by the telecoms companies. It's infuriating. No doubt I'll become so obsessed with finding a solution that I'll start homebrewing some hair-brained super aerial, end up electrocuting myself & get found with three phones wired together through a small current-muffling marsupial & bobby pins wrapped in alfoil hanging out of my ears. Darwin awards? Not the way I want to be remembered.

Okay, so as you've all no doubt noticed, because you totally check this blog every 20 minutes, I did not post anything up here yesterday. I was actually quite busy believe it or not. And today, unfortunately, was more of the same.

With the addition of actual work & the time that requires me to be still in front of a computer not thinking about Hong Kong & seeing the sights, comes the inevitable decrease in the rate of interesting material for me to put up on this blog.  So, sorry all, but this looks like it will become less of a daily occurrence & maybe more of a couple-of-times-a-week situation.

Other than this sort of pseudo apology, I really don't have anything else to say. On account of the fact I was working all day. Really.

So, bye then.

Oh, except a quick update on Dr Death, the personal trainer from hell: Went back again today to do another circuit. I was so apprehensive I started sweating before I even walked through the damned doors, but as it turns out it wasn't so bad this time. By the end of it I still felt like I was going to pass a kidney & I was literally saturated with my own sweat, but I wasn't actually approaching fatality. And that felt like a marked improvement. All I need to do now is figure out a way to not sweat right through my work clothes the instant that I put them back on. That is way nasty. Let's face it, as sexy as I am, no one likes sitting across a table from a dude in a closed & air-conditioned room while he slowly melts through his clothes. Euw.

All for now. Laters.

Mo'

Somehow I missed these three photos:

Wave bye bye, Buddha.

Aaaha ha ha ha ha! Suckers! Pity I didn't wear a kilt today...

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Bushwalker.

Make Buddha Buddha. Make Buddha Buddha Buddhaaa!!

Well, this post will mainly be photos so you're all spared my usual 2 page brain dump. Aren't you lucky?


Today I went to Lantau Island to visit the world's largest Buddha. Bronze Buddha. Sorry, sitting bronze Buddha. What? Oh, sorry, world's largest outdoor, sitting, bronze Buddha. Anyway, list of caveats aside, the statue was still pretty awesome. I left fairly early in order to beat the crowds, something I feel that I more-or-less achieved given the liiiiiiiines waiting to get onto the cable car when I was coming back. 


It was still super crowded of course, but that's Hong Kong. Actually, that's China in general. It's a big space, but it's kind of hard to share anything with a billion or so people comfortably. Funny thing about that is that it's pretty easy to tell the Mainland Chinese from the Honkies when it comes to crowds. I'm currently building a portfolio of photos with the working title of 'lines lines lines!' because it's pretty much mandatory to line for everything in Hong Kong. It's like a national pass time here. Mainland China, not so much. It's more like American Football without the rules, stoppage time or importantly, the armour when trying to get into or exit just about anything over there. So, effectively what happens in long lines is everyone lines up in an orderly fashion, then when you get to about the halfway mark, you start to see pockets of people completely lose their shit. They argue with one another, swing their heads back & forth to see what could be taking so long, & occasionally & with hilarious results, burst out of the line & head off in all sorts of directions to try to get a ticket to whatever it is we're all waiting for while bellowing at the orderlies. That usually ends awesomely.


Digression. Sorry, photos. Yep, so this was my morning. Aside from the fact that it's clearly a gigantic money spinner & there's shops & crap everywhere, Lantau was kind of cool for a tourist trap. Enjoy:

Took the 'Crystal Cabin' on the cable car, which is (obviously) the glass bottomed deluxe model.

First(ish) glimpse of Buddha from the cable car.

Now, this I've got something to say about. Those jerks charged me $180 HK for a pot of freaking tea. It was good tea, don't get me wrong, but I'm a bit cranky at getting stooged in Ngong Ping village. I hate falling for tourist shit, makes me feel like...well, a tourist really. So this village was full of very 'Chinese' stuff like chopsticks with calligraphy on them, tea, fans, etc. Pretty much Sovereign Hill for Buddhist China. Dammit. I hate being that guy...I sucked at this point...

Oh well, Buddha made me feel better. This is actually a fair few stairs. I saw a couple of potential heart attack candidates at the top panting like crazy.

Big Buddha against a clear sky.

There's six statues holding offerings to Buddha. Also bronze.

Gives you some idea of how terrifying the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man really was for the Ghostbusters.

Who dat?

Hi fi'e

Gah! Cable cars!

Shot of the cable car line against HK airport.

Lantau's main city, Tung Chung. Credit where credit's due: These guys do not screw around with National Parks. There isn't a huge many people on this island but they've gone straight for the über high-density residential zoning.

Now, these fisherman are stopped right under the cable cars...the glass bottomed cable cars...come on gents, use the Internet like normal people...

Oh & one last thing. I saw a dude have a fit on the train today. That was kind of freaky. Everyone leapt into action though. Talk about grace under pressure. If that had happened in Melbourne, everyone would've just stared, but not in HK. Old old man was down ferrying people, two dudes were on their phones, a young guy cranked the emergency intercom & handed over the speaking job to the oldest guy present. Efficiency. I hope that kid's okay, his head smacked the deck pretty hard. I'm sure there's someone looking after him though. Seems to be that kind of place.

Attack of the good times

Today was set aside for sleeping, then wandering around the city with no sense of purpose & I managed to nail both of these aims with admirable precision. After waking up at like, 11, which was the best thing ever, I had a bowl of musili & a pot of coffe. An espisode that took a good 90 minutes out of my life moving at the glacial pace I'd set myself up for. But eventually, I got dressed & prettied up & I headed outside to finally tackle my horrid sense of bearings. My goal: To get lost, then get found again & to repeat this as many times as necessary until I was bored, overexcited, found the perfect shop/restaurant/pub, or actually lost. Sadly, it was the former that won out. Although it kind of didn't end with anythig exciting, it was an excellent four hour walk right through the heart of Hong Kong checking out all the glitzyass stores on the high streets, through the even glitzier shopping centres, down crappy little alleys that billow more steam that you'd think was possible from such tiny collections of doorways, up along the pier & ferry terminals, & then kind of back again on a much wonkier route. But oddly, it's remarkably difficult to get lost in Hong Kong. No doubt, that's a function of the narrowness of the city & the fact that it's flanked right along one side by a huge bloody great mountain. Word to the wise: Ignoring a mountain is exhausting.

I did a good job of planting a large number of landmarks in my mind & getting a much better lay of the land, which was one checkbox solidly ticked. Didn't do so well at finding anything remarkable though, which was a tad disappointing. This is probably just as much to do with everything being down side streets & signed in Chinese as it is with my enormous lack of the spirit of adverture. I effectively became a scowling cardigan scowling its way right through one of the world's major cities & back again. Just the iPod, a very quiet public holiday, some actual sunshine (albiet filtered through a cloud of sloooowly clearing skypoo - see last post), & the scowl I kept catching myself wearing.

So that was fun. End of that day, I decided to check out the roof 'garden' at the top of the complex I'm staying in. It's basically just a roof that's swept clean & has some outdoor furniture, which is nice enough I guess. So I dragged my book up & sat down for an after-dinner chill session. About three minutes into my chapter, I hear this almighty KABLAMMO which echoed like crazy off all the buildings around me. 'Gah Christ! We're under attack! Duck & cover!'. As I pitched out of my chair in some sort of spaz hybrid of a high speed one-legged stand & a dive almost hurling my book off the 32nd floor, I suddenly realised these were the Chinese New Year fireworks over Victoria Harbour. Lucky, as I really didn't want my last thoughts to be 'thanks for being on a roof during a bombing, dumbarse'. So for the next 20 full minutes, as my heart began to slow down again, I had front row seats to one of the best fireworks displays I've seen for years. Most city skylines look pretty at night with all the glass & lights & whatnot, but Honkers went bonkers tonight. There were lasers, there were fixed lights flashing up & down the skyscrapers, & over it all a constant dazzle of fireworks...Guess that shows how important the environment is to the SAR authorities... But seriously, this was really, really pretty. This display could have made Tennant Creek look beautiful. Although it probably also would have set it on fire & bankrupted the NT government. Would've looked great though.

Sorry everyone, I didn't get any video or photos as I didn't want to leave my vantage point to get my camera, but just believe me when I say you missed out & I didn't. But, being that this is the 21st century, it's been a whole half hour already, & technology has gone mad, there's already YouTube videos up. This one only captures the beginning of the show & it looks like it was taken from the Kowloon side, but it's still pretty cool. Also, shows how Chinese people really have a thing for the number 8. Enjoy.

Rad.

Happy...new? Year...?

What a day. So much so that I had to get up out of bed & write it before I can sleep. You know, just one of those ones where your luck bangs up & down like a Richter-scale. For instance:
Up
Had breakfast & went for a run up to Victoria Peak. Got an awesome run in (the bits that I ran for anyway) up a slope which would have seriously been at least a 30° incline the whole way up. Got to the top & saw a view of almost all of Hong Kong city & Kowloon.
Down
15 minutes previously, I'd been chasing a taxi down an even steeper incline whistling as loud as I could trying to get the douchebag's attention as I'd just left my effing mobile on the back seat. (Little tip: don't put your phone in the pocket of your running shorts if you're in a pre-coffee, pre-exercise daze. It doesn't work out well).
nb. If anyone tries to message me. It won't work out, the phone's gone & sim card has been cancelled.
Up
Actually discovered that there's quite a lot of vegetation only minutes outside of the city & then a running track on top of the tallest hill, which all considered, gives you a practical 360° of Hong Kong island. Running a pretty, tree-lined path on a languid national holiday morning & getting some fresh air? Lovely.
Down
Mainland China is now exporting absolutely everything including the gigantic cloud of air turd that's been hanging over the city for the past few days. So move aside fresh air, Chairman Smogcloud is coming through!
Up
Had an awesome lunch at Ken's parent's place (for those of you who don't know Ken, which is probably most of you, he's a buddy who lived in Melbs for a few years & is a really good dude & his folks have this pimping apartment which almost has a better view than the peak & they're really awesome people). Which included a dish called century egg, or thousand year egg, depending on which parent you asked & look WAY nasty, but was actually super tasty. Figured it was kind of rude & a bit loltourist to start taking photos at the table, so this snap is from Google, but is pretty much as raunchy as they actually looked. What can I say? The Chinese make really foul-arse looking food that just happens to be made from super icky shit that ends up somehow tasting freakin' awesome.

Naff looking eggy weggy

Down
I was about to take my last mouthful of abalone (yeah, you read that right - go me), when it burst out from under my fork kazanged off my (white) shirt & landed right on my lap, covering me in a nice splatter line of seafoodey goop from my collar right down to my junk. Sigh, go me.
Up
Gong hee fat choi, gong hee fat choi, gong hee fat choi. Woo hoo, lai see! Chinese lucky money is a big deal. It's a sign off respect making sure that you accept it & say thank you & happy new year, etc. That's pretty rad. Also, the folks convinced me that international calls are ultra cheap in HK & it was cool that I called Vodafone (jerks, by the way. Don't use 'em if you're in a Australia) & cancelled my sim card, so whoever was currently calling a sex line on my now considered stolen international roaming rate phone would have their morning buggered up just that little bit.
Down
After going for a run first thing in the morning, I was looking a little tragic (I'd had a shower by the way). Also, my steenky running gear was in a plastic bag as I left my back back in Australia. That would all have probably been okay had it not been for the fact that it was time to head over to Ken's grandma's house! Woooooeeeeaa...wait, what? Yep, his grandmother, someone else's grandmother(?), six uncles & aunties & about a hundred cousins were all packed into one house & doing the for reals Chinese new year gathering. Now, you're thinking; grumpy bastard, what's wrong with that? Nothing aside from the fact I was completely unprepared for it, covered in abalone mess, with my hair looking like a failed Flock of Seagulls shoot, my shoes only half tied up & wearing a hoody, all while carrying around a smelly shopping bag with running shoes sticking out of it kind of made me feel just a little awkward.
Up
Evidently, all of Ken's family are awesome.
Down
I was forced to eat a second lunch. It was really, really tasty, but I'm fairly sure I can still face-floss noodles I'm so damned full.
Up
In retrospect, my own little failings were the only thing that let me down today & after belting my knee for the third time on the corner of my bed this afternoon I finally reached this 'for f*ck's sake' moment which then kind of zenned out to me realising that alone, in my quiet little apartment, I was really glad to have done a big, proper Chinese New Year day, even if I was horribly unprepared for it. I met some really lovely people who took zero explanation as to who I was before dragging me through their home, laying a dozen lai see packets on me & feeding me at their table while asking after my health & plans & happiness, & just generally ensuring that I wasn't left out for a single second of the biggest family celebration of their entire year. I think that's worth a stupid phone & a bad hair day. It was pretty cool.


Anyway, here's some photos of the peak in all it's chloroflurocarbonised glory.

Smoggy.

Very awesome. But a bit smoggy...

Aaaaand smoggy.

Oh, look! A smog eagle!

Random shot of my stupid plastic bag full of stinky running clothes & Ken's parent's insane 4 month old Akita puppy.

And the pièce de résistance: An empty street in Wan Chai, Hong Kong. Now that is something you don't see everyday. It's like catching all four Baldwin brothers together or something...