So, I've got bugger all photographs to share for once, so I'm just going to use a good old-fashioned WALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXTWALLOFTEXT
There, that might weed out some of the reading haters.
So the let's get Kronkite on this fortnight. What it is, what it was, what it shall be.
Is:
Well, this kind of is what it is. I'm now really in the swing of things here I guess. Got my Hong Kong on. Eating a lot of Chinese food for some reason. Working my butt off. Well, by Australian standards anyway. Enjoying my little house. Not really enjoying my rubbish cable TV. Seriously, it's like the volume of channels dilutes the quality of the programming. If you've one channel, there's often something on at least a couple of times a week. With 75 channels you're lucky if it isn't just 40 channels of Gilligan's Island, nine different MasterChefs from five different countries, news in three languages about things you don't want to hear, the usual Bloomberg screamers (Buy buy buy screamers, or sell sell sell screamers, & increasingly the hold off for now because we're becoming more & more out of touch as the mountains of information flying around everywhere at the moment makes it really difficult to corral into a cohesive argument for or against any kind of action at all screamers) & documentaries about things that aren't true or interesting.
Oh, but life is good. Sorry, got a bit carried away there.
Was:
And life was especially good this last fortnight given that my wonderful girlfriend visited me here for the first time. Was pretty awesome to have someone to share my whole Hong Kong experience with who wasn't this blog (no offense), or my boss, who generally cops the frustrations & dumb stories more than the ups. So, weekend before last we went with some mates on a tour of one of the local 'wet markets'. A wet market is just the Honky name for a food market. "A tour"? I hear you sneer. Hell yes, a tour. A guided tour. With a true to life tour guide. If you think this is a little bit touristy & knobbish, then you're probably right, but just for a minute picture the Queen Victoria market. Okay, got it? Now, put it somewhere that you can't remember how you got there in a place you've never been with fruits, vegetables & fish you've never seen before in conditions you're really not used to, all signed & spoken in a language you cannot possibly comprehend. Makes it a little more challenging, right? So this tour guide was a MAJOR history nerd who had gone completely native. He's an Aussie bloke who lives somewhere in the New Territories, which is Hong Kong's new suburban development boondocks way out past Kowloon, speaks Cantonese, & taught HK social history at one of the HK universities. His big redeeming feature however, was his monster reservoir of knowledge about food in Hong Kong. Where it comes from, how it's treated, how hygiene factors in, what to buy, when to buy it, what to do with it. The works. Was freakin awesome. I am now almost completely at ease going into those crazy little markets dotted all over the city & getting what I need without looking like a dickhead, without annoying any shopkeepers, or without buying something that is going to sit in my fridge slowly dying of fading good intentions.
As for the rest of the week we just hung out, ate a whole bunch of different food, looked around the city & generally riffed off the Hong Kongyness of everything. Was an awesome week. Oooooooh! And we went to the Peninsula for high tea. That place is way posh & it served pretty tasty food. I lied before, I actually do have a photo or two of this. Foods:
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| Some big, fat guy enjoying his high tea less than us. Check the surroundings though. I want to live in this hotel. |
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| Mini things. Maxi flavour. |
We also had a trip up to Victoria Peak. Essential Hong Kong activity, especially on what one would call a clear day by Hong Kong standards. We sweated like only hairless mammals can sweat walking up the whole way, but it was worth it. Felt good & drank fruit juice while taking photos of stuff.
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| Photo of stuff. |
And then last weekend, it was time to wrap up with a few cocktails at the Intercontinental. I've been really curious about this hotel since I read about their infinity pools. The hotel itself sits out over the water of the harbour, right above what they call the 'Avenue of the Stars', a cheesyass knock-off of that boulevard of fame or whatever it's called in LA where stars are laid out with actors' names & they stick their hands in the cement. The lobby lounge itself was hotelish enough: A live jazz band playing innocuous tunes in the background, just that little bit of character lacking, comfy chairs, an over-abundance of waiting staff & a drinks list that seemed to have become frozen in time. Actually, the whole place has to be honest. It is starting to shows signs of its age with the cream & brown colours, plastic flowers & tiered floorspace, it's got 80's flavour like a bunch of blonde flattops rocking guitar-shaped keyboards. Anyway, we went there with some mates mostly to sate my curiosity, but also to see the nightly light show, where the local government coordinates with local building developers to waste monstrous amounts of energy flicking coloured lights on & off of all the buildings on Hong Kong island to give a really pretty effect while blasting floodlights into the sky that could honestly bring down the moon if they concentrated on it they're so goddamned powerful.
But we missed it.
We'd all pigged out at this really good Indian place hidden away in some god awful looking Tsim Sha Tsui low-rise building, & then tried to make our way to the hotel without getting rained on in a big way. So that was a bit of a shame, but the fact we had nothing to do but drink & wait out the storm that had followed us there meant we had a pretty good time anyway. Although no light show, we did get a good glimpse of a bunch of storm clouds sliding down the hills & over Hong Kong city. The only decent shot I go is the one below, but take my word for it, it was pretty cool. Well, I was excited anyway...
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| Gotham City! |
But of course, things had to come to a temporary end with a goodbye at the airport express train terminal. But it was a happy goodbye & a good end to a great week. And just in time for a return to the pile of work that was no doubt building up on my desk after a few days off.
Shall be:
Now, given that I'm here just floating around, I've been instructed by someone that I've got three weeks to develop a new hobby. Seemed like a reasonable request at the time, but it's not a lot of time when you're regularly finishing work just in time to get home do a load of washing, talk to yourself a bit, cook, then wander in very tight circles on a very small piece of floorspace muttering & plotting nothing in particular....hang on, wait. That sounds shit. Kill that. Forget I said anything. I mean, it's not a lot of time when you're busy. And yeah...when you're busy...oh, who am I kidding. I need to find something to do with myself.
I've taken to waking up at the same time every day, which is actually working out pretty well for me so far. 6:30am every day I'm out of bed, bright-eyed & bushy tailed. Well, yesterday morning I was blurry eyed & banging into things while still talking to my dream friends about flying houses, but I was still up & 90% of the time it's relatively pleasant. It was put to me by a bloke who came to our work to tell us how to be more 'resilient'. Evidently he was some kind of Guru on Everything in Life Ever given the amount of stuff he covered, but wading through the thicket of bullshit he laid down every 15 minutes of that 8 hour-long session, he did hit on one thing I was really concerned about. Namely, sleep. He said if you wake up at the same time every day you'll sleep better. Then of course, went on to yak yak yak about ultradian rhythms, & how we work in conjunction with the sun & probably some other bollocks about how his swami helped him ride the ancient meridians on a wave of self-righteousness to sacred Nirvana where he saw straight into the browneye of eternity, etc. Point is, that one thing made some sense to me. (The sleep that is.) So getting up early each morning has really helped me sleep better & now that I've become sick to death of being the first person into work, I've decided to go to the gym in the mornings. In an effort to make this something I've got a stake in beyond the usual guilt & terror of becoming a fat, white expat, I hit the pharmacy last night & bought a bucketload of toiletries & essentially moved house this morning. Most of the stuff that I require to make myself presentable in the morning is now located at the gym, so unless I got there I'll probably get that whole 'homeless but he's okay' vibe going at work. Body & hygiene ransom. I'm a winner.
So that's one thing. But I mean, if you're one of those people for whom the gym is considered a hobby then...you know...that's kind of....well, gay really. So gotta find something else. Hong Kong being the socioeconomic freakshow that it is, this is not an easy thing to work out. Ballroom dancing is - as was the case in Australia - expensive enough that I'd probably be better off just making my hobby weekend flights to everywhere in Asia. So that's out, which sucks as it's fun. Rowing? What about rowing? Oh, no sorry, that's some kind of ultra-elitist wanker sport here for people who spend their youth being fit & rich until one day they're wearing their MCC blazer on the bus everywhere & complaining about gout & getting up to pee at night (but are still rich). It's like $30,000 Aussie to join the Royal (pffft) Yacht Club who apparently have some kind of rowing monopoly & then you have to pay god-only-knows how much in monthly fees to keep their stupid boat house air-conditioned all year around. Presumably so the italian marble flooring & golden boats don't get too warm when the army of cabana boy schleppies prance out in their white shorts & canvas shoes to polish the fixtures with champagne...okay, anyway, you get the picture. Rowing is for pricks & is out. Going to learn Canto at work! That will be cool. I'm assuming given that it's being run by people who actually work at my work that it's not going to be the most structured learning environment however, so calling that a hobby is not going to work real well. Gaah, what else...?
Taking suggestions by the way people. Feel free to throw them out there.
Maybe I'll buy an electric guitar & take that up again? Make my neighbours hate me with a vengeance. Nah, that'll take up too much room, get boring & perhaps a certain girlfriend will ram it down my throat when I try to play Slayer solos all day. Also the neighbour vengeance may hurt. I totally want an electric drum kit, but given that I had to opt for a smaller washing basket on account of space concerns that is completely out of the question for now. Also, I need to do something social. Painting classes? No, I don't like mess. Writer's Club? Hell no, thought about that a bunch of times & the thought of someone actually READING something I made fills me with paralysis-inducing, heart-wringing terror. I really don't get ball sports, so that kind of thing is out. I really can't get enthusiastic & competitive about goals unless those goals are a) being scored by someone else & I have a pie/beer/both in my hand, or b) something I'm going to get paid for. SUPERHMMMMM....
Really peeps. Help a man in need out over here.
Good gravy. What utter drivel. So that's the fortnight to come: Thinking about perhaps doing something. Rock on Luke... Oh, & my buddy is getting married soon so there's a buck's night happening in Macau. That's kind of equal parts exciting & terrifying. Those things freak me out a little. Expectations of bad behavior, vindictive drinking, & vicarious mongitude are a dangerous combo. Lucky I'm a supertanker when it comes to booze resilience. I'm crap at hangovers though...not looking forward to that. Anyway, the Code being what it is, don't expect a report of that here. I will however, delight in giving a minute-by-minute breakdown of the following day. It goan be purdy.
So until then...
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