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.
the weather looks awesome in your pics.
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