Last Few Days in Asia

June 15, 2008

My first day back in Hong Kong was extremely uneventful. Serene was on a short trip to Bangkok so we had the flat to ourselves (and the cats). We got back from the airport past midnight the night before, so we enjoyed sleeping in. Will had to spend most of the day hanging out with an old family friend, but I stayed behind. I spent the whole day in the flat, except for a couple short walks to the laundromat and grocery store. It was just a quiet rest day for me.

June 16, 2008

Will and I went shopping in Mung Kok (the big shopping area in Kowloon) today. My shoes were pretty well wrecked after heavy use and it was time to buy new ones. There was an area of about two city blocks that contained about fifty shoe stores. We walked around to find myself a pair of really good walking shoes and then find the cheapest store that sold them. It took a long time and stretched the limits of my shopping ability. I eventually got a pair of (what I hoped to be) a really good walking shoes from Merrell for HK$479 (CA$63).

Aside: I'm writing this blog post two weeks later, and the shoes are still holding up. Looks like I found some winners!

We got some street food, too. Will had been hyping this kind of street food he called "stinky tofu." It was a kind of fermented and deep fried tofu that they sold for HK$7 (CA$0.90) from street-side stalls. The stinky tofu lived up to its name. I did not enjoy it. It had a very strong and unpleasant flavour. Will said it was an acquired taste. I guess I hadn't acquired it yet!

I think this is a picture of the stall where we got the stinky tofu from. Even if its not the same stall, then the stall in the photo is pretty representative of food vendor stalls in Mung Kok.



After getting some tea to wash away the foul taste of stinky tofu we continued walking around Mung Kok for a while looking for t-shirts. We didn't find anything good, so we got on the MTR and went a few stops away to a place where they sold lots of electronics. I guess it was Hong Kong's equivalent of Tokyo's Akihabara (except for all the anime stuff you can buy in Akihabara). It was very cramped and had a LOT of people. It was hard to browse and shop when you kept getting pulled along with a flood of people. If you wanted to stop and look at something, then the whole flood of people would crash to a stop since there was no where else for them to go. Eventually though I found myself a new pair of headphones (my old ones died) and Will found a micro memory card and reader for really cheap. Sadly, the next day the card reader died. Doh.

June 17, 2008

Will and I wanted to go to Macau today, but it was raining a LOT. We waited at the bus stop in front of the condo to get a ride down Central Station. We didn't want to walk down all the way in the rain. Sadly, no one else wanted to either, and the first bus that went by was full. We looked at each other and decided that going to Macau in the rain would not be fun. Tomorrow was my last day in Hong Kong, so we postponed the trip and returned to the flat.

We then spent the whole day playing Nintendo DS, watching anime, listening to (and downloading) music, and generally doing nothing of consequence. Even though we didn't go to Macau, we still had a good day! I had very few Hong Kong Dollars left, so our options for entertainment were limited. I had to save what I had left for Macau the next day!

Serene came back from Bangkok that night. We got to tell each other about our separate trips and show each other pictures. My pictures were the best, of course.

June 18, 2008

Today was my last full day in Asia. Tomorrow I was flying back to Australia. However, first, I had one more day of sightseeing left! It wasn't raining (though the sky was gray), so we enthusiastically headed down to the ferry dock to get to Macau.

Even though both Hong Kong and Macau are part of China, they have separate immigration controls. Even though I was taking the ferry for one hour to another part of China, I still had to get my passport stamped to exit Hong Kong and enter Macau. Later that day, of course, I'd get stamped out of Macau and back into Hong Kong. Crazy. Will didn't need to get his passport stamped at all since he had ID Cards for Hong Kong.

As we boarded the fast ferry, the first drops of rain fell. It would rain for almost the entire day. We had umbrellas and tried to make the best of it.

We had originally planned to meet Mike Micacchi (Chris' brother) in Macau. He had been working in Mainland China, just across the border from Macau, on and off for about a year. However, he had run into complications with his visa and would not be able to cross the border into Macau. Actually, to be more correct, he could enter Macau on his Canadian passport, but would not be able to return to China. Because of the upcoming Summer Olympic games, China was tightening the rules on visas for foreigners and Mike was temporarily left out in the cold.

Nevertheless, even though we couldn't meet up with Mike, and even though it was pouring rain, we still tried to make the best of our day in Macau.

After clearing immigration at the ferry terminal we found a free hotel bus to hitch a ride closer to the city centre. It was only about a ten minute ride on the bus, but we drove past a LOT of casinos in those ten minutes. Macau is the centre of gambling in Asia, and it showed. Will and I have no interest in gambling (we both actually greatly dislike it), so the casinos had very little pull for us. We did, however, get some photographs of the Casino Lisboa since the bus did drop us off right there!



After gawking at the casino, we walked up to the city centre. Macau was an old Portuguese colony. In fact, Macau is one of the oldest European colonies in Asia, since it was founded more than 400 years ago. The Portuguese influence was clearly visible in many places. The sidewalks and town squares were tiled with the same wavey patterns that I saw in Lisbon two years ago. There were many Roman Catholic churches with Portuguese names, and Portuguese foods and pastries (including the fantastic egg tarts) were available everywhere. Even with all the Portuguese influence, Macau was still clearly Chinese. The city centre was filled with Chinese jewelry, food, and antique shops. The place was a product of all of its influences.

Macau is much smaller than Hong Kong and was easily walkable (as long as we clung to our umbrellas to protect us, and our cameras, from the rain). We followed the walking tour suggested by Will's Lonely Planet guidebook. We ended up walking for about six hours. Our only respites from the rain were when we entered churches to look around.

Its a good thing, though, that Macau had a lot of churches!

The first one is located very close to the town square. The second one is the cathedral.

We were getting hungry, but didn't want to spend too much money on food. Macau had its own currency (the pataca -- which trades almost one-to-one with the Hong Kong Dollar) and we could spend our Hong Kong Dollars there, but would receive change in the patacas. Since the Macanese currency wasn't very useful to us in Hong Kong, we just decided to spend very little in Macau itself. The only food we had was a few pastries, including some delicious Portuguese egg tarts.

There are many more photos from our daytrip to Macau on my Picasa Web Albums, of course. I won't write much more about it here since it was just a day of sightseeing and I think the photos tell the tale.

We got back to Hong Kong around 7:30 PM and met Serene in IFC. Since it was my last night in Asia (and Will was leaving in only a few more days), she wanted to take us out for dinner. We went out for Thai food in Soho. Oh man, it was so good. We had Khao Soy (the Chiang-Mai style noodles and curry), Tom Yam soup, and CRAB! The crab was prepared with lots of chilis and garlic. Since, of course, you have to eat crab with your hands, we made a huge greasy mess. Our fingers were covered with the chili and garlic sauce and we literally licked our fingers clean. I'm now officially a big fan of crab. Do you hear that, you lobster lovers? ROB LOVES CRABS!

Will and I stayed up late that night in the flat. I had to pack and we still had a lot of beer to finish, so it took a while. It would be my last night hanging out with one of my Toronto friends until September, so we had to have fun. It was very important. I would be spending the entire next day in airports and airplanes, so it didn't matter how tired I was, dammit!

June 19, 2008

My last day in Asia. By midnight, I would be in a plane back to Australia. I had spent just over one hundred days in Asia. What's my impression of the place? It's hard to say. I know I've left lots of little impressions in this blog. Some of them are positive. Some of them are negative. Overall, I would say that my experience was a really positive one and I'm happy I went. I wasn't the best sightseer (but even just opening your eyes and going for a walk is sightseeing). I wasn't the best at befriending the locals (it happened sometimes, but not nearly as much some people I know). One of the only times I had a meaningful conversation with one of the monks, all I did was play him Arcade Fire from my iPod.

That's okay! It's my trip, and I did it my way!

I had to wake up early, throw my stuff together and make my way down to Hong Kong Station. It was my last ride on the escalators. Since it was early in the morning, the escalators were actually running downwards, so the trip was much faster than usual. I said bye to Will in the station and got on the Airport Express train. No tears were shed (unless Will cried after he went home), but we did hug!

I needed to take three flights to get to my destination Melbourne. Sure, I could have gone in one direct flight, but I had time, and the three flights were much cheaper. I think my three flights were about CA$450. A direct flight was over CA$700, I think.

The first flight was three hours from Hong Kong back to Singapore Changi Airport. Changi is, by far, the best airport I've ever been in. I was there for seven hours, but that's okay. There's lots of ways to entertain yourself at Changi. I spent the last of the Singapore Dollars I had stashed on some tasty ramen (not the instant kind!) and soy ice cream (tastier than it sounds). I spent about two hours watching TV in chairs with built-in speakers. If I had wanted to, I could have watched movies, played XBOX, or gotten a massage (if I paid for it).

My next flight was about three or four more hours to Darwin in Australia. Luckily, I got to sit in an emergency exit row. I landed at about 4 AM, local time. Ugh. I cleared customs and quarantine (after my bag was searched) and slept in the waiting room until my next flight left at 6 AM. Again, I got a window seat in the emergency exit row. We took off shortly before sunrise and I got to watch the sunrise over The Outback.

The flight, again, was about three hours. I landed in Melbourne at around 10 AM.

Australia. Rob is back!

An Asian Sidetrip: Korea

June 10, 2008

We didn't do much during the day today. Mostly, we got our stuff together and packed for our trip to Korea! We had temporarily lost our airplane tickets and hotel voucher (my theory is that the maid threw out the envelope), but Fun managed to get another copy faxed to us before we left. Whew!

We boarded our Korean Airlines flight shortly after midnight (technically on June 11). I was used to flying on budget airlines. Korean Airlines was no budget airline. The plane was a 747 and, even though we had booked economy class seats, we were seated upstairs. Even though we weren't seated in an exit row, we had a LOT of legroom. I was able to stretch my legs all the way out! We were even served Korean food on the plane: bibimap (complete with a tube of chili paste!). I drank a couple of free beers and fell asleep for the rest of the three hour flight.

June 11, 2008

We landed in Incheon International Airport shortly before 5 AM, cleared immigration, grabbed our bags and took a bus into the city. Will fell asleep on the bus. I think I did, too, since I remember the ride back from the airport (three days later) taking a lot longer than the ride into the city. I woke up after a while though and watched the city pass by in the windows. Seoul looked a LOT like Tokyo, except in Korean. Seoul is one of the largest cities in the world (population 10 million, and that doesn't include the neighbouring suburb cities like Incheon). We got dropped off at the hotel around 7 AM. We tried to check into our hotel at that time, but our room wasn't ready yet. I wasn't surprised by that, but it was worth a try anyway.

We hit the streets. Even though we had very little sleep, we intended to make the most of our limited time in Seoul. I know that I was a very lackadaisical in Hong Kong (in many places, actually), but that was not to be the case in Seoul. We were sightseeing to the MAX!

Our first, and most important, objective: find coffee.

We found coffee pretty quickly, but decided it was too expensive. Our hotel was in the city centre and we were spoiled for choice. However, we were cheap bastards and were picky, too boot. We wanted good coffee at a low price. Was that too much to ask?

After a while of aimless wandering, I finally peer pressured Will into buying coffee from a vending machine for 300 won (CA$0.30). He didn't really want to get it from the machine, but I feel that he had waited long enough and he needed it badly enough, so I had to turn the peer pressure gears a little tighter.

It took Will a few tries to figure out how to use the machine:



What kind of coffee would you expect to get for 30 cents? Well, the general rule is, you get what you pay for:



Will didn't finish that coffee. He poured it into a sewer grate.

Anyways, despite the fact that we were not sufficiently caffeinated we wandered around the central district of Seoul. We found ourselves in an area filled with office buildings, banks, shopping malls, department stores, to name a few. Many streets were wide and busy. Many of these streets had pedestrian underpasses underneath them so people could walk around without waiting for traffic lights. All of these underpasses had steps though. After walking for four days straight in the city, up and down stairs, we grew very weary of them. I'm sure that going up and down the steps uses up more energy that going straight across the road, so I wasn't a fan of these underpasses.

Some of these underpasses had cool things in them, though. One of them near the city hall had a big advertisement for tourism in Ontario, of all places. I had talked with a lot of people from a lot of countries, but traveling to Canada was relatively low priority for many people. But, here we were, in Seoul, looking at an advertisement luring people to my home!



I can even see my former home in that picture! Can you see it right beside the Skydome (er Rogers Centre)? I'm amused that the tourism features of Ontario are "Niagara Falls," "Shopping," and "City."

One thing that was quickly hilarious was how often Will was misidentified as a local Korean person. Over our four day stay in Korea, he was probably mistaken as a local at least ten times a day. People would stop and ask him for directions. Restaurants and sales people in shops would immediately talk to him in Korean (and usually ignore me). Will was mistaken for a local in Japan, too, but it happened much less often. I guess this means that Will looks more like a K-Dude than a J-Dude.

Now the real sightseeing would begin as we arrived at our first real tourist attraction: the Deoksugung Palace. This palace was the home of the Korean Emperor at the beginning of the 20th century. We roamed around the buildings and gardens for a while and captured many excellent photographs.

After a while, we heard music and marching from the front gate. It was a parade! But not just any parade... it was a changing of the guard ceremony! Since there is no emperor in Korea anymore, any such ceremony is obviously just there for the tourists. It's a good thing that we were tourists! We rushed to the gate to view the spectacle. It was pretty awesome. The uniforms were very flamboyant. The marching band played sweet tunes.



When the band finished playing, we marched off on our own stamping the same beat. The band used trumpets made from sea shells. Trumpets are usually my favourite instruments in an orchestra and the sea shell trumpets sounded especially sweet.

The weather in Seoul was perfect. Not too hot. Not too cold. Blue skies. Not windy. Not humid. No rain. After the oppresive humidity and constant rain in Hong Kong, Seoul was a blessing. The weather was good for our full four days in Korea.

After the palace, we started to wander our way back to our hotel. We walked through Namdaemun Market on the way back. This market was like you would expect a street market in Asia to be: crowds of shoppers, street vendors, lots of wares set out to peruse, and enthusiastic hawkers promoting their goods. The smell of chili wafted through the air as we meandered through the street vendors. It was obvious how much the Koreans love their spicy food!

We soon found ourselves back at the hotel where we completed checking in. After a nap and showers, we were ready to hit the streets again. This time we wandered through the shopping areas and malls near our hotel. We ended up at the massive Lotte department store with its hefty duty free shop. I tried to find some fun liquor to buy, but didn't succeed. Will did, however, find tiny kimchi crabs to buy for Fun. Yes, they had tiny bite-sized kimchi flavoured crabs! You would pop the whole thing in your mouth and chew it. The shell was very thin and it wasn't hard to eat at all. It was rather nice!

That night he decided to wander around the streets behind our hotel to find some Korean BBQ to eat. I've had KBBQ in Japan. I've had KBBQ in Canada. Now it was time to fulfill my destiny and eat it in Korea. We decided to go to this tiny divey-looking place that had lots of locals in it. As we entered the door, the aroma of grilled meat and smoke assailed us. This was gonna be good!

The staff quickly figured out that we were tourists and basically cooked most of our food for us. We know that we should be cooking our own food at a KBBQ restaurant (that's half the fun!), but we just we went with the flow and let things happen.

Most of the meat we had was grilled pork. We also grilled some slices of potato (oddly, rice was not served), liver (which we also ate raw), and some odd tripe-or-scaley-kind-of-meat. We garnished our food with big whole cloves of garlic and lettuce leaves. All of it was washed down with shoju and lots of kimchi!

Kimchi is fermented cabbage leaves flavoured with chili spice and garlic. I think it might be one of my new favourite foods. Koreas eat it with nearly every meal, and so did I. It's really very fantastic, and healthy, stuff.

Shoju is a rice liquor. It is stronger than sake, but weaker than lao lao. Whereas I can't stand the taste of lao lao, shoju usually has a sweeter flavour (or very little flavour at all), and I enjoy it much more.



After filling ourselves up with our delicious dinner, we walked down the street towards the hotel. Even though we really did have very little sleep the night before, we weren't tired enough for sleep yet. We were determined to give Korea the true Canadian "give'r!" attitude. We found a bar close to our hotel called Flair Bar. Woo!! The bar and its staff suited its name. The (cute!) bar staff wore lots of buttons and pins on their uniforms. After a few drinks and some flirting, we got them to take their pictures with us!



Eventually, though, we ran out of steam and went back to the hotel to sleep. The room only had one bed, so Will and I got to sleep under the same covers.

June 12, 2008

We slept in pretty late in the morning and it took us a while before we were ready to head out. Eventually, though, we got out and made our way to our second palace, Geongbukgeong. Seoul actually has five royal palaces, so there were plenty to choose from. This palace was much larger than the first one we went to. When we got there, we found out that we were able to try on some of the traditional military uniforms used by the Korean guards. They were the same uniforms that we had seen in the changing-of-the-guard ceremony the day before. We had to try them on!



We got to see another changing-of-the-guard ceremony there before entering the temple. After the ceremony, we took a guided tour of the magnificent palace. Wow! It was bigger, in every dimension, then the palace we had seen the day before.



This is a picture of the courtyard where the Emperor would meet all of his military and civil administrators. The stones on the ground are marked with numbers indicating rank. The various administrators would stand by the current rank stone. All the military administrators stood on the Emperor's right side and the civil on the left side, with the most elite ranks closest to the front. Even though the military administrators could approach the Emperor with the same relative distances as the civil administrators, the civil administrators were treated with higher regard due to society's distate for war. Apparently the Chinese had the same ceremony as the Koreans since both cultured adopted the strict hierarchical Confucian system.

The tour lasted for an hour and ended up near the Korean National Folk Museum at the other end of the palace. The museum admission was free, so we explored it and its gardens for a while. The museum told the story of the Korean people. We learned about the Korean's ancient animistic beliefs, saw their history, learned how kimchi is made, and learned about their ancient birth rituals (placenta buried in ground as offerings!). In return, we attacked their model villages with savage elbow drops.



What did that poor model village ever do to us? Nothing. It was just there.... and I was bored. The truth finally comes out, and it hurts.

We continued to make asses of ourselves around the museum for a while. When we ran low on energy, we stopped at the vending machines to buy soft drinks. I bought a can of "Confidence Vitamin Supply." The can claimed to that "Confidence is a drink supplying vitamins. As drinking a confidence feel good from the sweety fruits flavor and the refreshing coolness contained in it." That's a fine example of engrish! After drinking our soft drinks we tried to balance the cans on our heads. The other people in the area thought we were very odd (they were probably right).

After the museum we started to walk back to the metro station and took a long ride across the city to the big COEX shopping mall. We had dinner from the food court. We enjoyed some bibimbap in stone bowls. Bibimbap is a really fun meal, especially when you get the hot stone bowls, assuming you don't touch the bowl itself (burny, ouch!). The bowl contains steamed rice topped with various vegetables (and optionally, meat). The big stone bowl is usually served hot. As long as you don't disturb the rice on the bottom of the bowl very much, it will caramelize and become crispy by the time you reach it. The trick is to pour in the spicy stuff and mix the toppings with the rice without disturbing the rice on the bottom very much,



After dinner we kept walking around the mall. We found a Nintendo and Character Goods Gift store that we spent a lot of time in. Will was nearing the end of his trip so he picked up a few souvenirs and gifts for people at home. I didn't buy much there since many of the gifts were way too "cute". I did, however, pick up a cell phone strap that was shaped like a computer keyboard key and had the following printed on it:

yeah
(*'-^*)v

Can you see the winking person doing a finger 'v'? I like it!

After walking for many hours we went back to the hotel to drink shoju. We ended up talking with Justin Lee on webcam for a long time. We were drunk and made Justin laugh so hard that he had to move into a boardroom in his office so his coworkers wouldn't hear him laugh so much. It was awesome.

June 13, 2008

We started off the day by walking to the nearby Seoul Cartoon Museum. Both Will and I are big fans of cartoons, especially Japanese anime. A lot of anime is actually outsourced to Korea to be animated, so we felt that the Korean museum might be relevant. The museum had cool sculptures out front that afforded many excellent photographic opportunities. However, the museum itself was very boring. Not even a gift shop!



After the museum, we took the metro to Dongdaemun Market to shop for clothes. The market visit was a flop. We took a few wrong turns and didn't find the places of the market we wanted. It sprawled out over many city blocks, so getting lost was a big deal. The market was organized by sections. We found an entire alley, several city blocks long, that sold only shoes. The place was massive. We then found an entire four level shopping mall filled entirely with women's clothes.

After walking for a long time we needed to stop for lunch, near the women's clothes mall was another mall that claimed to have food in the basement and men's clothes on the fourth floor (all the intermediate floors were filled with women's clothes only). We took the escalator down to the basement and hoped to see food. Instead, we saw many shops selling women's clothes. Augh! We walked through the whole floor until we heard the clinking of cutlery and finally found about six shops selling food. I had bibimbap and Will had bulgogi beef.

Re-energized, we took the elevator to the fourth floor to look at the men's clothes. When we got there, we found about eight stalls selling men's t-shirts, but no staff to sell them. The section for men's clothes took up very little space on the floor. The rest of the floor was "unisex" clothes or women's clothes. Augh!

The market sucked, so we left.

We took the metro to an island in the Han river. We wanted to see the river and the National Assembly building. When we got there, we saw a bicycle rental shop. The island was a great place for biking and the weather was fantastic, so we went for it. We biked for an hour. I biked fast. Will tried to keep up.

I was amused by the number of bikers there who looked so hardcore. They had proper biking jerseys, spandex tights, flashy helmets, facemasks, goggles, little backpacks with water leads and really good bikes. There were lots of bikers dressed just like that. However, very few of them biked fast or looked serious. Almost all of them were on leisurely afternoon rides. I left most of these poseurs in my DUST!

Here's a picture of Will trying his best to look hardcore. This is actually the second attempt. He was smiling too much the first time for me to consider him "hardcore." I guess he was enjoying the bike ride too much. I completely understand! I love biking!



After an hour of biking, it was time for a beer break. We bought a couple cans from vendor and sat under a tree on the grass. I had a can of Cass (which I bought because it had the same name as my high school). Will had a can of Max. Yes, Korean beer names are lame.

Cass and Max weren't that great. Cass claimed to have "Ultimate refreshment with fizzy and crisp taste." Don't believe everything you read on the labels of consumer products in Asia, mmkay?

The mediocrity of the beers inspired me to take the following picture. By covering up the 'C' in Cass, I was able to create "FRESH ASSMAX PRIME". Hilarious!



Another Korean beer that we tried was Hite. Hite was all right. We could drink it in the day or the night.

That night was to be our most fantastic meal in Korea. To date, it's my most expensive single meal on this trip at 60,000 won (CA$60). We went to a traditional Korean restaurant to get a meal fancier than just bibimbap! The meal consisted of at least twenty separate dishes and a bottle of Korean wine. The finest parts of the meal were the abalone, crabs, fish, clams, soup, and several kinds of kimchi (though there was much more food than just that). We got to eat the tiny bite-sized crabs again, though this time they were soy and garlic flavoured, not kimchi flavoured. We also got to eat whole crabs, too. It was my first time eat crab meat right out of the crab. It was a messy meal, but so very very tasty.



Each of those crabs in the photo is about 5 cm long.

After dinner that night we met up with my cousin's, Aleks, friends, Katie and Sarah. They were teaching English in Seoul. They were really fun to hang out with. We hung out at a restaurant and a pub in the Itaemon district. We didn't drink that much. After getting kicked out of the pub, we ended up standing on the street and chatting for at least an hour. Katie and Sarah were really tired and went home at 3 AM. Usually when they go out to Itaemon (the area with lots of bars and foreign restaurants), they stay out until the sun comes up. Oh well. Will and I had to fly back to Hong Kong the next day, so staying up until sunrise probably wasn't the best idea!

June 14, 2008

Oh man, we were tired. We didn't get to bed until 4 the night before and we didn't have time to sleep in the morning after. We hurriedly ate our complimentary hotel breakfast and made our way to the metro station for the long ride to Olympic Park. The ride took longer than it should have since we made a few mistakes getting there. The Seoul Metro was, in general, pretty easy to navigate, but there was this one section where the line branched that tripped us up a few times. Augh! Will wasn't feeling well (he has a tough time in any sort of vehicle while hung over, even a little), and had a rough ride. Poor Will.

We got there eventually. We had to walk through pretty quickly since time was running out for us. The park was really cool. Seoul was the host of the 1988 Summer Olympic Games, and the park contained several of the facilities used in the games. We watched people play basketball and took pictures of some of the sport facilities there. I wanted to see the cyclists in the velodrome, but it didn't work out. The Olympic facility had been converted into a GAMBLING ESTABLISHMENT. I tried to take photos, but security guards stopped me. We entered the velodrome but couldn't find the entrance to the inside where we could see bikers. Meanwhile, we could see security guards following us. I just wanted to see cyclists in an Olympic facility! I was really pissed off. I hate security for stupid reasons.

We walked out of the sad excuse for a velodrome and into the adjacent sculpture park. We saw lots of cool artwork in a pretty wooden setting. We kept walking past the remains of an ancient earth fortress (it looked just like a big hill), past a river and to the Olympic Peace Plaza. The plaza was really cool. There was a huge semicircle with the flags of all the nations that participated in the 1988 Summer Olympics. There were many flags from nations that no longer exist and it was fun to try and find them.



The plaza also contained the huge Olympic Peace Gate. This massive structure loomed over the whole area and was covered with colourful artwork.



After capturing a few photos of the the Olympic Peace Flame (can you detect a theme?), we took the metro back to the hotel to get our bags and catch a bus back to the airport. Our sightseeing trip to Korea was over.

We were given exit row seats on the flight back to Hong Kong. Korean Airlines is awesome. They fed us one more meal of bibimbap to remind us of our good times in Korea before we touched down.

The stuffy Hong Kong weather greeted us like an old bad friend. Bye bye sun. Hello rain and humidity.

New Photos Posted: Macau

Howdy hi! I've posted some photos from my very very rainy daytrip to Macau with Will Chau. Will and I didn't let the rain stop us from taking these pictures, so you shouldn't let the nice indoor weather where you are stop you from looking at them!



--
Rob Sz
Cairns, Australia

The Hong Kong Social Network: Meeting Old Friends and Making New Friends

Announcement: My return flight to Canada has been rebooked (hopefully for the last time). It's official. I will be returning to Toronto on September 3! Are you excited? I think I am, but I'm not sure yet.

June 5, 2008

Today Will and I were going to do some sightseeing and take care of some business.

First, the sightseeing! After a morning of sloth, we descended from the relative tranquility of Midlevels Hong Kong to hectic, hot, and humid Central. We met up with Will's host mother, Fun, at IFC Mall. While Will was working in Shenzen (in Mainland China, very close to the border with Hong Kong, Will was living with some family friends: Fun and Andy. The commute from Hong Kong Island where his sister lived to Shenzen would take over an hour and a half. Fun and Andy lived closer to the border (but still in Hong Kong), so the commute was much more convenient for him (though he still had to cross the border each day).

Fun no longer has full-time employment, but spends her days wired into her cell phone doing odd jobs for many people. She is the ultimate "go-to person" and knows Hong Kong extremely well. People call her all the time with advice about places to go. She is extremely organized and keeps track of many different people's responsibilities and activities in her head. She called Will very often to remind him to do this or do that. She really was Will's host mom!

Will and Fun had been planning a side-trip for Will and I. I put input in once and a while, but Fun did almost all of the legwork. She has connections all over Hong Kong and hooked us up with a travel agency that would hook us up with a really cheap flight and hotel package for Seoul. Today was the day that Will, Fun, and I went to the travel agency in TST (in Kowloon, directly across the harbour from Hong Kong Island) to pay for our trip and pick up our tickets. We ended up paying about HK$3500 (about CA$460) for a four day/three day night stay in Seoul, including flights on Air Korea. For what we got, I feel it was a really good deal.

While we were waiting for the travel agency to prepare our tickets, the three of us roamed around Kowloon. Normally, we would have taken the MTR train under the harbour to get there, but today we rode the world famous Star Ferry across the harbour. I don't know why the Star Ferry is so famous... it just is. We snapped these great photos of the Hong Kong skyline from Kowloon.

The really tall building behind us is IFC. IFC Mall (which I keep mentioning) and Hong Kong station are located at the bottom of that tower, which I believe is the tallest in Hong Kong.

Everyone and their cousin knows that the Summer Olympics this year are in Beijing, China. Since Hong Kong is in China, too (even though there is a border with passport controls between them), there was Olympic propaganda plastered everywhere in the city. Did you know that Hong Kong is the site of the equestrian events of the Summer Olympics this year? You'd only have to be in Hong Kong about five minute to find out! I walked past the Olympic Countdown Clock in Hong Kong Station nearly every day. Part of the pre-Olympic propaganda was the five mascots. Some of them looked like pandas, the others look like crazed Asian dolls. None of them were cute. These mascots were designed by committee, and that committee's chief operating detective was to creep me out and haunts my dreams. In Kowloon we found some inflatable versions of the mascots.

Not cute. Scary. *shiver*

Unsurprisingly, it soon started to rain on us, so we hid in the Kong Kong Space Museum. I thought it would be cool, but it kinda sucked. Fun said that she had gone to the Museum shortly after it opened the first time about thirty years ago. It seemed that few of the displays had ever been updated in that time. There was mention of the recent Chinese manned space program and the International Space Station, but that was it. Many of the demonstrations were broken, except for the moon-gravity simulator. Will Chau was too tall to use it, but I was within specified parameters so I got to try it out. There were some harnesses and straps that were fastened close to some of my sensitive areas and they pinched me... down there.

It may not be clear from this really bad picture, but I'm in some pain here.

At least the entrance fee was cheap (HK$10, or CA$1.30).

I also bought an awesome t-shirt at UNIQLO! It was a Ranma 1/2 shirt. You know Ranma 1/2, right? Aren't you caught up with your late 1980's Japanese animes? I would consider the shirt to be cheap at HK$100 (CA$13). Fun assured us that the T-shirts at UNIQLO were high quality. The next day, I bought another awesome t-shirt at another UNIQLO branch. The other shirt had a picture of a MOS Burger (Japanese burger chain) and read "Nature's Finest. That's why it is delicious!" Hilarious!

Fun also helped us raid the vegetable market for raw ingredients for dinner that night. I decided to make pad thai in Serene's puny kitchen. It was my first time making pad thai since my cooking class in Chiang Mai, Thailand. There were a few complications along the way, but Will and I agreed that the dish turned out really well! I ended up making too much of it, and we were able to have leftovers the next day! Yippee! Who wants me to make pad thai for them when I get back to Canada in September?

June 6, 2008

What did Serene's flat look like? We spent a lot of time hanging out there, so I feel justified showing you a picture of the place.

Will and I slept on that space between the couch and the TV. I had to leave my stuff piled up on the shelf beside window. Of course, I had to leave everything packed in my bags otherwise the cats would do unspeakable things to them.

Today was a shopping day. We met Fun at Sha Tin far out in Kowloon. Sha Tin consisted of three large shopping malls all connected together. We spent many hours roaming around, sometimes backtracking over the same sections as Fun showed us from store to store looking for cheap deals. Shopping is not very fun for me, though. I don't really get a whole lot of enjoyment running around malls for hours back home. When I don't have the money or baggage space to support shopping, then its even less interesting. Particularly frustrating for me was the mobs of other shoppers in the mall. Many of the Asian shoppers didn't seem to understand the advanced Western concepts of "personal space" or "walking in a straight line."

I bought my second Hong Kong t-shirt here. I needed to buy shoes. Fun took us to many stores. I decided what kind of shoes that I wanted to buy, but decided to postpone my purchase until I could revisit the cheaper stores in Mung Kok. After many hours of walking, Fun and Will detected my frustration and tiredness (and crabbiness, too) and we stopped for a tea and cake break. My tea was cold, but filled with exotic Chinese flavours that I really enjoyed. I forgot what its called, though. Will had a jelly made from turtle shells. I had a taste of it. It was very tasty. However, I don't think I approve of eating something made from turtles. The cakes were from a supposedly famous bakery. The pastry was buttery and flakey and the filling was made from a mild wintergreen mixture. It wasn't overpoweringly sweet like many Asian sweets typically are, and I greatly enjoyed it. When Fun saw how much I enjoyed it, she ordered me a second one. She really is nice, isn't she?

To be honest, I don't remember what we did that night. It must not have been very interesting since I didn't take any pictures of it. I'll have to assume that Will and I returned to the flat to drink beer, listen to music, and watch anime. Some things never change!

June 7, 2008

Will and I were supposed to go to Macau today. However, it was not to be. while I attempted to sleep that morning, lightning flashed in the sky, thunder boomed, and the rain poured. And it poured. AND IT POURED! The weather report on the TV (which we almost never watched) showed a black cloud. There are three levels of rain warnings in Hong Kong: amber, red, and black. When the rain cloud on TV is black, then many of the public transit services are suspended and its best to stay indoors. In fact, later we learned that the rains that day were the worst rains ever recorded in Hong Kong. There were land slides in Lantau Island (where Will and I saw the Big Buddha and climbed a mountain a few days before) and on parts of Hong Kong Island (not close to where we were though). We were supposed to meet Mike Micacchi in Macau today, but we had no choice but to postpone the trip.

By the afternoon, the weather cleared up somewhat so Serene took Will and I went for my first Hong Kong dim sum at a restaurant in Causeway Bay (on Hong Kong Island). So yummy!

Will told me that dim sum literally means "afternoon tea" in Cantonese. The meal consists of many dishes in small bite-sized portions eaten while enjoying kettles of Chinese tea.

Serene asked us how hungry we are and what I was willing to eat. Will and I said we were pretty hungry and we'd eat basically anything. Given that information, she ordered a mountain of food. She ate only a very small portion. Will and I had our work cut out for ourselves. We feasted on vegetable dumpings, barbecue pork dumplings, steamed buns, omelettey-like things, soup-filled dumplings (so many dumplings!), and dough-rolls doused in a soy-based sauce. Sorry, I don't know the Chinese names for any of the items except for the barbecue pork dumplings: cha siu bau. I love them so much!

Unfortunately, Serene ordered too much food and Will and I couldn't finish it all. For shame.

After dim sum, Serene went to her yoga class while Will and I tooked an MTR train under the harbour to Kowloon. Christine (the German girl I met in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) had arrived in Hong Kong that day from Macau! We met up with her and showed her around Kowloon for a while and made plans to meet up again tomorrow morning to see the dragonboat races.

Will and I were supposed to meet up with Serene, Fun, and Andy (Andy was Fun's husband) that night to go to a fancy seafood restaurant in Kowloon. However, Andy ended up having to work late so Will, Christine, and I went back to Soho (located between Central and Midlevels) for drinks to kill time. It was happy hour, and we enjoyed several Asahi Super Dry beers.

After a while, Fun called us and surprised us with some fun news! Even though Andy was working late, we could meet him at his office at one of the higher floors (the 65th floor, I think) in IFC. Since it was night time, we were treated to amazing views of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.



We ended up waiting for Andy for a long time. Long enough, in fact, that it was no longer worthwhile to go to fancypants seafood restaurant, which required a length drive into Kowloon. Instead, we all went for hot pot in Causeway Bay (much closer than Kowloon!)

I had hot pot before in Japan in Toronto, but those were Japanese style hot pots (called shabu shabu in Japanese). In Hong Kong style hot pot, we had choices of many dozens of ingredients that we could cook in our own cauldrons of boiling water. That night, I had:

* several kinds of fish balls (not really that great)
* funny textured tofu (really super!)
* regular tofu (almost as good!)
* udon noodles (pretty good!)
* goose intestine (very interesting)
* winter melon (not much flavour)
* orange pumpkin (one of my favourites!)
* corn-on-the-cob (we have better in Ontario)
* apple (super soggy after sitting in the cauldron too long)
* several kinds of mushroom (shimeji are some of my favourites!)
* chinese green vegetables (you don't make friends with salad)
* salmon skin (crispy like potato chips!)

I ate as much as I could, then I stopped. Christine and Serene seemed to stop around the same time as I did. Will, Fun, and Andy kept eating for a VERY LONG TIME. They kept throwing more and more meat into their pot and kept eating more and more. They kept passing more stuff for Christine and I to try, too. Here's Andy enthusiastically passing us some odd tubular fish pieces:



At the end, we squeezed squid-flavoured batter into our pots to make more noodles. It was fun!



The dinner was one of my favourite Hong Kong experiences. Anyone want to go for hot pot in Toronto?

June 8, 2008

Will and I woke up very early this morning -- before 7 AM! We usually woke up around or after 9 AM, so this was quite a feat. What would rouse us from our slumber (which wasn't easy, considering how much we ate the night before)? Right! We were going to see the dragonboat races! You have been reading along, right?

We met Christine in IFC Mall and caught a bus to Stanley Bay, which was on the far opposite end of Hong Kong Island, on the south side. When we got there, we discovered many, many people on the streets and on the beach. Our first stop, though, was the Pacific Coffee shop for breakfast and caffeine. We're only human, after all!

We tried to get there early to see the opening races, but we had no chance. We got there around 8:30 AM, but the first races were around 7 AM. Ooops. We still got to see many races, though. Most of the teams seemed to consist of employees from the various financial companies in Hong Kong. I didn't know that Hong Kong had so many financial companies! Banks! Insurance! Investments! Everything! There was a lot of team spirit on the beach that day, but we were just there to watch... and take pictures!



I'm not sure if dragonboat races originated in Hong Kong, since I've seen them before in Waterloo and Toronto. However, given the number of races and people I saw, it was clear that it was a very popular sport in Hong Kong!

There were many good photo opportunities that day. Some people lent us their Viking helmets (how nice!):



We stayed there for a long time. When the crowds on the beach became too much for us, we moved to the less crowded pier to sit down and watch. When the races themselves became too boring for us, we walked through the extremely touristy Stanley Market nearby. Christine and I tried to peer pressure Will into buying a cool t-shirt, but he wouldn't go for it. There was nothing that I wanted to buy there, though.

Eventually we wanted lunch, so we took the bus to Aberdeen (also on the south side of Hong Kong Island) since Christine also wanted to see the junks, sampans, and floating restaurants there. Surprisingly, all of the normal tourist stuff at Aberdeen was closed that day because they were hosting dragonboat races there, too! These races seemed to consist mostly of Chinese people, and not the foreigners that seemed to provide the bulk of the participants of the Financial Company Dragonboat Olympics in Stanley. The boats were also much longer!



Christine wanted her first Hong Kong dim sum so we found a dim sum restaurant nearby. This time we ordered a more reasonable amount of food, and managed to finish all of it.

From Aberdeen, we returned to Central. We stopped to watch a jazz trio band in IFC Mall before sitting around outside trying to figure out what to do. We decided to walk to the City Super grocery store in IFC Mall to buy snacks. City Super is a super market that stocks a lot of imported food items. Consequently, its rather expensive. Will and I only shopped there when we needed something that our local Wellcome and Park 'N' Shop stores didn't stock. City Super was close to where we were, though, and had fun stuff, so that's where we went.

When we got there, Christine nearly jumped out of her skin at the selection of cheese they had. It's true that they had a huge cheese selection, but it didn't interest me so much since I recently had all of my cheese cravings well satisfied in Bali. I didn't realize that Christine was an even more enthusiastic cheese connoisseur than I was. She had also just flown in from poorer countries in Southeast Asia where you couldn't find fancy European cheeses. She blew the bank and bought like four kinds of nice cheese, hommous, crackers, and wine. Christine and I both picked up some chocolate, too. We took our haul up to the flat to enjoy. Christine prepared a fancy cheese plate for us:



Hum... I don't remember what we did after that. I know Christine didn't end up staying very much longer. We made plans to meet up again the next day. Other than that, I have to assume that Will and I went back to our default activities of listening to music, drinking beer, watching anime, and playing Nintendo DS Lite! I had finished Puzzle Quest a few days previous and I had started a game of Magical Starsign. The new game wasn't as addictive as Puzzle Quest, so I didn't play it to obsessively. Will, however, was playing a new game called The World Ends With You. He played it A LOT. I'm excited for when I finish my current games so I can start it too, since it looks good.

June 9, 2008

Today was Monday, and it was a holiday in Hong Kong! Taking advantage of their day off, one of Will's uncles invited us for dim sum far out in Kowloon. The name of the restaurant was Happiness Cuisine and it was in a mall called Science Park. These names amused me.

Yes, this was my third dim sum day in a row. I'm not complaining. So good! Of the three dim sums, it was the nicest restaurant and had the best food. It really was happiness cuisine!

Will's uncle picked us up near the University station on the MTR. The diners consisted of me, Will, his uncle, aunt, and two cousins: a boy and a girl. Both of the cousins were kids. The boy was probably about ten years old and spent the whole meal playing games on his cell phone with earphones in his ears. I don't think I heard him say more than a few words. The girl was probably about five years old and was super cute. Will played with her the whole meal.



Being the white guy at the meal, Will's uncle and aunt seemed very concerned about me. They seemed concerned that I couldn't use chop sticks. No worries, there, I'm awesome with the sticks! I had mad stick skillz! They seemed concerned about what I could eat. I told them I'd eat almost anything. They still gave me a small English-language menu so I could check off stuff that I could eat. I checked off a bunch of tasty things from the menu and let them order the rest.

After the meal we took a bus back to Hong Kong Island. The bus didn't drop us off near Central, so we decided to ride one of the classic trams the rest of the way. While waiting for a tram we bought some Cokes from a street vendor and sat down in a park to drink them. In the five minutes we sat in the park, Will got like three mosquito bites. This wasn't the first time Will was molested by insects. He got bit by them all the time. I didn't get bit one time in Hong Kong, though. I don't know why; I didn't use bugspray. Will wasn't the first person I've traveled with that was considered particularly delicious by bugs. Alex was also frequently bitten. I have no explanation.

Today was the one afternoon where the weather seemed good enough to go to Victoria Peak (the highest point on Hong Kong Island), so we rushed back to Central to catch a bus to The Peak. As we climbed higher and higher the peak, we saw more and more clouds roll in from the sea. We were getting very nervous. We wanted to go to the Peak to get amazing views of the city, but the clouds would spoil them! Did the Hong Kong weather know no mercy?

When we got there, we still managed to snap a few good photos. There was a tower at the peak. For a small fee (charged to Octopod, of course!) we were able to go to the roof. I think it was worth it!



More and more clouds continued to roll in, so we didn't stay for that long.

On our way out, we passed by the wax museum at the base of the tower. We saw the most amazing thing there... a wax replica of the famous Bruce Lee! Lots of people swarmed around it to get their photos with the wax master himself... including us!



That night would be a special one! Will, Christine, and I met up with Alex Weaver (the girl I traveled in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia with) and her two friends, Alex and Courtney, in Kowloon. Alex was at the end of her trip. In a few days she was flying back to Canada! She recently found out that she was accepted to law school in Windsor, Ontario, so she had lots to look forward to back in Canada.

I had asked Will a few days ago if Hong Kong had a Little India. Little Indias in places like Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Penang had provided me with really cheap (and tasty) meals before. Since everyone wanted cheap food, I felt that Little India was the place to go. However, Will didn't know of any Little India neighbourhoods in Hong Kong. His Lonely Planet, however, did list a couple places in Kowloon that were really cheap and would let you bring in your own beers. So, with stashed Strongbows (AKA "Apple Juice") in hand, we all went to Kowloon to find cheapie Indian food.

To be honest, I think we did find Little India that night. However, it was all in one big building. It had all the things I've seen in other Little Indias before: saris for sale, cheapo DVDs of Bollywood movies, Hindi techno music blaring from tinny speakers, sweets for sale from stalls, and touts trying to find patrons for their restaurants. All of this was found in one building on Nathan Road in Kowloon!

We had a hard time choosing which place to eat at and no one was making any decisions, so I took charge and let one of the touts on the ground floor direct us to his place. Sometimes you have to "go with the flow" and let things happen that way. We ended up going to this divey place on one of the upper floors. It turned out fine! The food was cheap and delicious. Our Strongbows were warm by then, alas.

We sat around for a long time. It was fun to hang out with Alex again. It was hard to believe that it had been over five weeks since we went separate directions from Siem Reap in Cambodia. We got to talk about all the places we've been since then.

Amy and Courtney (both from Cambridge, Ontario) were teaching English in Guangzhou, China and they told us some crazy stories about life in Mainland China. Although Hong Kong is quite civilized, life in Mainland China is much more erratic. Aggresive drivers and bizarre foods are just the pick of the litter. Before China, Amy and Courtney were teaching English in Japan at Nova. Will and I had heard about Nova and how they went bankrupt last year. The bankruptcy was mired in heaping piles of scandals and controversy. Teachers weren't being paid for months. Given that most of the teachers were foreigners living in Japan on meagre budgets, it was a pretty big deal. Amy and Courtney said that they eventually got some of their lost pay back. They weren't able to stay in Japan any longer though, and went to China instead.

After dinner, more drinks, and lots of chatting, it was late and time to get back. Our group as having fun in Hong Kong and would have loved to get together more, but Will and I were leaving Hong Kong the next day. It was finally time to go to Korea. We were so excited!

New Photos Posted: Hong Kong

Howdy hi! I've posted new photos from my visit to Hong Kong. Enjoys!



--
Rob Sz
Melbourne, AU

Enter the Dragon: Welcome to Hong Kong

June 2, 2008

The flight to Hong Kong was quite uneventful. I landed at the airport fairly late in the evening. Clearing immigration and getting my bags went off without a hitch. I changed some money and caught the Airport Express train to the city centre. The train ride was quite short (only 24 minutes) but rather expensive (about CA$30). Oh well. At least it dropped me off very close to my destination: Hong Kong Station. As I alighted from the train and exited the station I met my excellent friend, Will Chau, who was waiting for me!

I was so happy! It had been months since I saw any of my Ontario friends. Will Chau is one of my best friends (not that I'm ranking them, or anything) and seeing him in Hong Kong was simply fantastic. He had just finished his final internship for teacher's college in Shenzen (just across the border from Hong Kong in Mainland China) and was now staying at his sister's (Serene Chau) condo near the Hong Kong city centre. I was going to stay there, too, for my time in Hong Kong!

We were hungry so we went to get my first Chinese food in China! We went to a congee (rice porridge) restaurant in the nearby IFC Mall. I felt awkward bringing my big backpack into a restaurant with lots of well dressed and affluent Hong Kong locals, especially since I was only wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Oh well, I think I should be pretty used to being "out of place" by now.

After dinner, we walked from Hong Kong station to Serene's condo. It took us about half an hour to cover the distance. This walk was different from most walks, though. Hong Kong Island is a mountainous one. Even though the city centre is located beside the harbour at sea level, the terrain rapidly rises behind it. Much of the city is built on the slopes of several peaks. In particular, the nearest peak was the highest one, Victoria Peak. To aid people living higher up the peak (and there are many of them!) there are a series of escalators and pathways leading over city streets and up the mountain side. Serene lived at the end of the very highest escalator, on Conduit Road. As I traveled up the escalators and pathways, we passed above Soho, an area of many international restaurants and bars. Soho is an area more frequented by foreigners than the local Chinese people, but more about Soho later.

When we got home, I met Serene and saw her condo. Will Chau had warned me that it was small. He was right! There was a tiny cramped kitchen, a tiny cramped bathroom, a small bedroom, and a cozy living room. Will Chau and I would be sleeping on the floor in the living room. It was like a sleepover pajama party every night!

June 3, 2008

Serene left for work around 9 AM, which is about the same time that Will Chau and I woke up. I feel that I slept decently well, but there were two complications... two furry complications.

I'm not sure why, but Serene has two cats. I wouldn't think it was a good idea to have two cats in a tiny Hong Kong flat, especially when the owner often works long hours, goes out for dinner frequently, and usually comes home rather late. Oh well, I'm not here to judge.

The cats own the apartment, though. They sleep through most of the day, but are quite active at night. They love knocking things off of tables or shelves. They enjoy going through the catdoor from the bedroom into the living room often. The catdoor makes a loud banging noise when they go through it. Best of all, the cats like the jump on us when we sleep! They don't do these things during the day... mostly only when we try to sleep at night. Augh. I tried to limit my complaining, though. It was very generous of Serene to let me stay at her flat for like two weeks at no cost!

Will and I had breakfast and went out to explore the city. I wore my contact lenses that day. I haven't worn them since then, though. After walking around in air conditioned buildings for many hours, I think my eyes got very dry and the contact lenses were getting very irritating. I decided that, even though the contact lenses were pretty cool, I would generally stick to my glasses. I'd save the lenses for special occasions like snorkeling or other activities where glasses would get in the way.

Anyways, we roamed the long way down from Conduit Road to the city centre. We stopped off at a small zoo and botanical gardens. From the gardens, we were treated to great views of the city skyline.

Yeah, Hong Kong has a lot of skyscrapers... but more about that later!

When we got to the city centre (usually just called "Central") I bought my Octopus card at the MTR station. The Octopus is awesome! It's a card that holds money which you can use to buy rides on the city's mass transit system (the "MTR"). With one swipe of the card, you could buy rides on trams, trains, and buses. Many business (like 7-11, bakeries, and other restaurants) accept the Octopus as a method of payment. The Octopus is much more convenient than cash and helps make cash obsolete. Almost everyone in Hong Kong has an Octopus, and some people have many of them. The best thing about the Octopus you won't waste extra money you put onto it because you can return it and get the extra money back.

I quickly decided, though, that although the name "Octopus" was pretty cool, I had to jazz it up a bit. I quickly starting calling my Octopus "my Octopod." When my Octopod was running low on money, I would say, "I need to put cashmoneys on my Octopod." Only Will Chau would understand my crazy sayings, of course (he's been subjected to them for years). Confusing the locals was part of the fun.

We took the MTR underneath the harbour to the mainland part of Hong Kong. Right across the harbour from Hong Kong Island was Kowloon -- a massive shopping and business area. Kowloon, and in particular, the areas around Tsim Sha Tsui (also called "TST") and Nathan Road, looked to me what "Chinatowns" look like in other cities: lots of small shops with roasted meats hanging in the windows, street food, big signs with Chinese characters on them, and sidewalks jam packed with shoppers. This Chinatown was especially large, though. But that makes sense, since this was really China! Kowloon definitely looked different from central Hong Kong though. The parts of the city close to where Serene lives is much more Westernized: skyscrapers, international restaurants, grocery stores, and condo towers.

Will Chau, who had spent a month working in Shenzen (in Mainland China) remarked on many of the differences between the Mainland and Hong Kong. He always complained about how dirty Shenzen is, how loud and pushy people are, how often they spit on the sidewalk, among other things. After traveling through Thailand, I sort of expected Hong Kong to be the same way, and I was bracing myself for a two-week stay in a place where everyone loves to spit in public. I was happy to discover that Hong Kong isn't that way at all. Hong Kong is much more Westernized (maybe some would say "civilized"?) then most of Southeast Asia or Mainland China. Spitting in public is illegal and people don't do it. People don't push to get on the MTR either. Even with the heat and humidity, Hong Kong was a breath of fresh air.

Heat! Humidity! Oh yes! Hong Kong as both of those in abundance. The weather in Hong Kong was not great. I think it rained every single day I was there. Some days it rained very hard (more on that later). Some days it drizzled all day long. When it wasn't raining, the sky was often gray and overcast. I only saw the blue sky a few times there.

When we got to Kowloon, we both wandered around for hours. We visited the temple on Temple Street (all of the streets had English names), then walked up Nathan Road to the shopping areas of Mung Kok. Will said we could buy anything here. I didn't buy anything, but looked at shoes. They were pretty cheap!

After walking for hours, we stopped for street food. We had some takoyaki (Japanese-style octopus tentacles deep fried in balls of batter with barbecue sauce and seaweed), and an assortment of squid tentacles and fish balls in oily spicy sauce. They were tasty, but a bit too heavy since they were deep fried. Sadly, almost all of the street food was deep fried, which was a big turn-off for me. I relished my days in Thailand when you could find fresh fruit everywhere or get pad thai from street vendors.

We ate our snacks in a concrete park and watched the locals play badminton. There was this one topless old man who thought he was a hot shot and made lots of trick shots. He'd return the birdie by jumping in the air, or swatting at it while facing backwards.

We continued walking for a while after that, but it soon started to rain very very hard and we made our way back home. On the way through Central and Soho, it was raining so hard that we could see the raindrops boiling and evaporating as they landed on hot lights built into the raised walkways in the city.

That night, we both sat around the flat. We had picked up stuff for dinner from the Park 'N' Shop grocery store beside one of the escalators from the city. We drank sake (the same "One Cup" sake that Will and I enjoyed in Japan), drank beer, ate dumplings and steamed broccoli. In the interest of saving money (Hong Kong was not an inexpensive city), we frequented the Park 'N' Shop (and its neighbour grocery store, the Wellcome), to pick up food and drinks. We ate out very rarely, and drank in bars even less. Thankfully, Will's friend, Fun (more about Fun later), had many contacts and obtained a few cases of FREE BEER for us. Will even got to choose which beers to get! Thankfully, Will has very similar beer taste to mine and picked up a case of Erdinger Hefeweisse (a delicious light-coloured wheat beer from Bavaria) and Erdinger Dunkelweisse (an even tastier dark-coloured wheat beer from Bavaria)). He didn't have much to choose from, though. His third choice was a case of Strongbow. The Strongbow was labeled as being 5% alcohol, but it seemed so weak to me that I thought it was just apple juice!

We stayed up late continuing to drink the beer, playing San Juan (a fun German card game that I was carrying with me), and plotting our exploits for the next day. Our plans for the next day were ambitious, indeed!

June 4, 2008

What was our plan for today? We were going to climb a mountain!

We started by taking the MTR to its farthest stop at Tung Chung and grabbing a cable car. I thought the cable car would take us to the top of a mountain. It did, but I was surprised to find out that it then went back down that mountain and deposited us out on the other side. Will Chau did not really enjoy the cable car ride very much. He's deathly afraid of heights (those words are his own).

The view from the cable car was really nice. At the start we could see the towers of the small town of Tung Chung and the airport. The cable car actually took us out over the water, too. As we got farther up the mountain, we passed through the clouds and over alpine trails. I looked in wonder at the trails and mountaintops. I wanted to go hiking! Will Chau instead cringed when the cable car passed the towers. It was going to be a long day!

At the top of the mountain we ate our packed lunch of peanut butter and banana sandwiches (one of our most common meals in Hong Kong) and donned our cheap HK$10 ponchos (CA$1.25). Oh yeah, it was raining. Surprise, surprise. There was a really touristy set up near the cable car station, but we walked past that crap and went to the somewhat-less-touristy-but-more-awesome Big Buddha statue. It was pretty big!

After the Big Buddha we started the real hike. It took us about two hours to reach the summit of Lantau Peak. The top of the mountain was obscured with mist and fog (though it wasn't raining very much). Will was pretty afraid most of the time. I tried to tell him to feed off my own confidence and bravery to get him through it. He still had a rough time, though. Since we couldn't really see the top, we had a hard time knowing how much further we had to go! There was a couple times that we thought we reached the top, did a high five, and then found, to our disappointment, that we still had to slog up higher. The path was steep and rocky. After lots of rest breaks, though, we finally did it! We conquered Lantau Peak!

Will Chau had climbed his first mountain! What a sense of accomplishment! What a boost to the self esteem! Yippee! Though, of course, for me, it was like the fourth mountain I had climbed on this trip. Ahem!

We climbed down the mountain on the other side and caught a bus back to Tung Chung station. All told, it took us like four hours to climb up and back down the peak. It took long enough that we were getting worried about sunset!

So, eventually we made it back to Central. We had picked out our restaurant for that night. I was all hot and bothered to get to this Russian/Ukrainian restaurant in Soho. The place had a really cozy atmosphere; there was a copy of the prayer "Our Father" in Ukrainian on the wall and a fireplace in the corner. The vodka selection was really impressive, but the food wasn't that great, to be honest. I had vareniki (like pierogie with meat) and borscht. Will had cabbage rolls. He was disappointed by them. I promised to hook him up with some of my mom's cabbage rolls when I got back to Canada in September. *hint hint* Mom are you reading this?

--

Okay, that wraps up June 4. I've been working on this particular post for a few days now, so I'm going to put it up now. I know I'm way behind, but its getting challenging to keep up to date. Keep up the encouraging words people! It's your feedback that keeps up my motivation to work on this thing!

--

Rob Sz, Melbourne, AU

The Ex-Pat Lifestyle: Singapore

May 28, 2008

The flight from Bali to Singapore was only a couple of hours long, but was delayed by an hour. I can see that one thing that Valuair does not value is punctuality.

I didn't get out of the airport until 2 AM. I had to get to my friend, Scott Faber's, condo. By that hour, the city's public transit had shut down and my only option to get there was to take a SG$38 (CA$29) taxi ride across the whole city. It was a long way. The taxi driver spoke excellent English (many people in Singapore do!) and told me a lot about the city on the way.

I got to Scott's doorstep at 3 AM. I knocked on his door. No answer. I rang the doorbell. No answer. I returned to the security guard and used the phone to call Scott. No answer.

Since it was so late and public transit wasn't running, I didn't really have anywhere to go. I assumed that Scott had forgot that I was coming and had gone to bed and was oblivious to the knocking on the door and the ringing phone. His condo was on the second floor and there was only one other condo on that floor. It was pretty isolated, and I don't think anyone was going to bother me, so I laid down on the hard tiled floor in front of Scott's doorstep and tried to sleep. I used my hoodie as a pillow. I felt like a homeless person.

I did sleep a bit, but the hard ground made my back hurt. By about 7 AM, I tried knocking again but there was still no answer. By that point I was thirsty and had to pee, so I got my stuff together and started to walk to a nearby coffee shop. On the way, Scott ran out and caught up with me. He finally heard my knocking and came out to find me. He apologized; he thought I was coming the next night. Doh. My assumption was correct.

Scott showed me to his guest bedroom with mattress on the floor. What luxury! At least, compared to sleeping on the ground outside!

We chatted for a bit. He introduced me to his girlfriend, Suhara. She was from Kuala Lumpur and was working in Singapore, too, just like Scott. After a while they had to leave for work. I went to bed and slept for a few hours.

I didn't do much else that day. I slept and used his computer for hours. I missed my own computer, so being able to sit on one for hours and hours without getting charged by the minute was nice.

That night the three of us went out for dinner at a Kashmiri restaurant near Singapore's Little India area. The food was delicious and Scott and Suhara were fun to hang out with. Even though there was a bit of a rough start, I was going to enjoy my stay in Singapore.

May 29, 2008

Today turned out to be my own sightseeing day in Singapore. I intended to do more sightseeing, but it didn't end up happening. Oh well, no big deal. Sightseeing is a lot of work anyways.

While Scott and Suhara were at work I went out into the city to explore. Their condo was located far out in the city, about a 40 minute ride on the MRT train. I got off at City Hall station and started to wander. I found myself in a large, ultramodern, and rich city. I was surrounded by shopping malls and skyscrapers. I wasn't in Laos, anymore.

I walked into the nearest mall, the Suntec store, and roamed around a while. They had a big Carrefour department store there and picked up muesli and soy milk for breakfasts. Even though Scott and Suhara said I could eat anything I wanted from their house, I didn't want to be that much of a mooch (they didn't have a whole lot to eat anyways -- their fridge mostly had wine and beer in it, heh heh).

I continued to roam around the waterfront, through parks, over busy arterial roads, and past shops and hoards of office workers in suits. The weather was HOT and HUMID. Singapore is only 137 km north of the equator, and you could feel it. The sun was burning down on you from nearly directly overhead. No wonder all the trains, stores, and homes were fiercely cooled by air conditioners!

I took a small break at the cheesy, but nicely located Merlion Statue by the waterfront.


After the waterfront, I walked under and over some bridges into the colonial district and walked among pretty old buildings.


It didn't even look like I was in ASIA anymore either!

I didn't roam around the colonial district for very long. Even though there was a cool museum that I thought about going to (the Asian Civilizations Museum), I scurried out of there and headed towards the Funan IT Mall: six levels of electronics shops: cameras, cell phones, video games, computers, anything! I stopped to have lunch to fuel up before shopping. While sitting in the food court I chatted with this guy from Singapore about computers. He was looking for a laptop. He thought about getting a MacBook but heard that Leopard (the OS) wasn't very stable. I told him that I was using it for months and it was great. He said he was relieved then ran off eagerly to buy a MacBook.

I wanted a new camera. I had done some research and decided that the camera I wanted was the new Canon Powershot G9. It looked pretty good -- definitely better than the camera I had now. It was not a proper SLR but it was as manual as a compact can get. It showed up as US$450 on Amazon.com. Rumour had it that electronics in Singapore were pretty cheap. I searched up and down that IT Mall, but I couldn't find anything that could match the price on Amazon. Bastards. Searching for that camera gave me time to think, though. My current camera WAS still pretty good, and I don't think that I would get rid of it after getting a new camera, since both cameras fill different roles. The added cost and weight of getting a second camera was in direct conflict with my mantra of traveling light and cheap. Even though I still kept checking out the cost of this camera in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Seoul in the upcoming weeks, I held my ground and didn't get the camera. I'd check the prices again when I was in California in August.

After the IT Mall I hit the streets again. I walked up a few blocks past at least a dozen shopping malls until I reached the Arab neighbourhood: Kampang Glam. The star attraction here was the stately Sultan Mosque:




The neighbourhood was filled with fabric stores, tacky souvenir shops, Middle-Eastern themed restaurants, and carpet stores. I spotted a Turkish restaurant and had myself a Turkish coffee. I think Turkish coffee is one of the best kinds of coffee you can get. I was very sad the day that the Balkan Bistro restaurant closed down in Toronto and shut off my supply of Turkish Coffee. I was happy to find some in Singapore.



I walked around a bit more. It was a nice neighbourhood to explore. On my way to my next neighbourhood (Little India) I passed by another mosque (The Malabar Mosque). The mosque was pretty, but not as quite so pretty as the Sultan Mosque. I have to assume that since it was less pretty, they must have had problems with people falling asleep during prayers. I spotted this sign inside the mosque:


From the Malabar Mosque, I wandered my way into Little India. I explored a Hindu temple, another mosque, the bazaar. After Little India, I had been walking for hours, so I headed back to the Condo to chill. I hung out there for a few hours before heading back into town to meet Scott, Suhara, and their friends at The Hindu Bar in Little India.

The Hindu Bar was... interesting. When I got there, the place was mostly empty (being that it was only about 9 PM on a weekday night), except for Scott, Suhara, and about five of their friends. They were drinking a bottle of whisky, which you could mix with Coke or Green Tea (which was surprisingly tasty). However, the drinks weren't what separated the Hindu Bar from other bars I've been to. The entertainment of the bar was a live band playing Indian music (very similar to the music played at the wedding in Bali) and prostitutes dancing on the stage. At least Scott said they were prostitutes. Scott is good at bull shitting, but Suhara implied that Scott was telling the truth here. I believed him. If the girls were real dancers, then they would probably have been better dancers. Instead, some of them were sullen, and some were energetic. Some of them were old, and some of them weren't. They weren't naked or anything -- they wore very nice saris.

Scott's friends were fun, too. Most of them were Scott's coworkers at the RIM office in Singapore, and most of them were Canadian. Apparently these guys came to the Hindu Bar pretty often. They got together to drink very often, even if it wasn't at The Hindu Bar. They were a rowdy group and very representative of what my travel book said about the ex-pat community in Singapore. Even though they represent a very small fraction of the population of Singapore, they drink and party a lot and make more noise than the other groups of people in Singapore. They guys were living the life... and there I was at The Hindu Bar living it with them.

So we drank a lot of whisky that night and took the taxi back home pretty late. Scott and Suhara used taxis much more often then I would have normally used -- but they were working there, and I wasn't. I guess it was the norm in Singapore -- especially for the boisterous ex-pat community!

May 30, 2008

It was my original intent to continue my sightseeing expedition of Singapore today. I wanted to walk around Chinatown and meet up with Suhara in the city centre for lunch. However, my head was hurting a bit in the morning (darn whisky!) so I chilled in the morning while I waited for Suhara to email me from work and let me know that her schedule was clear for lunch.

Suhara was only at work for an hour before coming home. They whisky last night had really messed her up and she wasn't feeling well. She told her boss that she was hung over and left to "work from home." When she got home, she went to bed and slept for like four hours. I decided to do the sightseeing another day and wait for her to wake up so we could have lunch later. On my trip, I value social interaction more than sightseeing, so this decision was sound.

When she woke up, she called Scott and found out where he was. Apparently Scott had also left work early. He went bowling at lunch time with some of his buddies, but was totally embarrassed by the mad skillz of the local kids and went to a patio bar for lunch. Suhara and I met up there for lunch and draft San Miguel beer (though Suhara wasn't up for the drinking!). While we were sitting around we made plans to go to the beach the next day for a picnic. Scott also tried offering me a job at his RIM office in Singapore. He interviewed me right there by asking me ridiculous questions like "Do you know what HTTP stands for?" Since, of course, I know what means, I was qualified to work for RIM in Singapore. I turned down the job offer though (though part of me though Scott was bullshitting again, since he does it so much), I wasn't done traveling yet, and definitely not ready to take on full time employment again! The offer was tempting though. The work would be VERY EASY, I would be paid well, and Singapore was pretty cool to work in.

After the patio, we picked up food for dinner at a fancypants Italian deli and took the taxi home. We didn't do anything much else the rest of the day and night. We walked TV (Scott downloads a lot of shows), movies, and drank a bit more.

May 31, 2008

It was Saturday! Scott and Suhara both had the day off and the day started slowly. We sat around for hours watching TV. We wanted to go to the beach but it was raining. It actually rained a lot in Singapore. Except for the (very lucky, in hindsight) day that I went sightseeing, it rained every day in Singapore. Sometimes you would hear thunder building up in the distance for hours before a torrent of rain would descend on the city. The rain usually cleared up after a few hours, but the skies were often overcast the gloomy anyways. So it was on Saturday. It dumped buckets on us for most of the morning. By the beginning of the afternoon it was starting to clear up so we got ready for the beach.

Christine, from Kuala Lumpur, was also in Singapore that day. We had emailed each other to see if we could meet up at the beach. She had made other plans that day, though. We figured out that we would also both be in Hong Kong at the same time and made plans to meet up there.

Scott, Suhara, and I headed towards the beach (in a taxi, of course) on Sentosa Island. The island seemed to have been dedicated to recreational uses; beaches, zoos, and amusement parks. The taxi dropped us off at a nice, but clearly artificial, beach. The water didn't look very clean, especially considering the huge number of oil tankers, barges, and container ships I could see in the harbour only a few kilometers away!


Yeah, those blobs on the horizon are ugly ships, not tropical islands.

Even though it wasn't the nicest beach I've seen, it was fun to be there with Scott and Suhara. We set up a blanket, pulled out beers, potato chips, music, sat down, and hung out.


Our hanging-out was literally being overshadowed by something dark and gloomy: more rainclouds. While we drank out beer, we watched more clouds descend on our position. As soon as we felt the pitter patter of rain, we retreated to underneath a nearby umbrella to wait out the rain. The beach had lots of umbrellas like ours. I guess the committee that designed the beach took Singapore's frequent rainstorms into account. That was nice of them.

After the beach, we taxied out of there to a restaurant in Chinatown. Believe it or not, we went to an American-style BBQ restaurant. We ate steaks, tender pulled pork, smashed potatoes, corn on the cobs, and coleslaw while sipping on more beer. I know that I normally try to favour local foods on my trips, but Singapore doesn't really have local foods of its own, since the island is a fusion of many cultures. The BBQ was yet another foray into the expat lifestyle of Singapore.

June 1, 2008

Today was my last full day in Singapore. I don't think we did much of ANYTHING today. Except for a short trip to the local grocery store at the train station, we spent the whole day in the flat watching TV and movies. Suhara made us a delicious dinner. It was a day even lazier than my offical Day of Sloth in Cambodia with Alex Weaver. I guess it was another part of the expat lifestyle!

So what did I think of the expat lifestyle in the end? From the local Singaporean's point-of-view, it was probably overly boisterous and flashy. Although most of the expats were Westerners, most of the locals were Chinese business and office people (though there were a lot of Malaysians and Indians as well). Riding around in taxis all the time, going to bars (especially ones where prostitutes did all the dancing), eating at nice restaurants, and taking off from work to go bowling or lay down from being hung over was apparently the normal routine for Scott, Suhara, and their friends. To be honest, it wasn't that different from my life at home. I went out to eat a lot, went to bars (though we don't seem to have bars with prostitutes dancing to Indian music -- at least none that I know of).

For my last night in Singapore, we had a special treat. I had wanted to watch the new Indiana Jones movie when I was in Kuala Lumpur, but it didn't open until after I left the city. Scott and Suhara were up for seeing it, so that night we did! Yippee! We took the train (it was really close, so we didn't feel the need to use the taxi) to the Woodlands Shopping Mall (which was completely PACKED with people), took the elevator up to the cinema and watched the movie. One thing I found interesting about the cinema was that they had assigned seating. Unlike cinemas at home, you chose your seat at the time you purchased your ticket. The cinema in Kuala Lumpur where I watched Iron Man also had assigned seating. I guess it's an Asian thing.

I enjoyed the movie, though it wasn't as good as any of the original Indiana Jones movies. There's no way it could have been though. The original movies were movies from my childhood and had huge nostalgia value for me. The new movie had the same look and feel as the originals (it was definitely an Indiana Jones movie), but just felt somewhat weaker. Indy's sidekick, Mutt, just wasn't as cool as Shortround or Sean Connery. But even Shortround's shoes were large ones to fill!

June 2, 2008

My time in Singapore was at an end. I had a few hours to kill in the morning before heading out to the airport. I was very very excited! That night I would be in Hong Kong with my buddy Will Chau! For weeks (even months!) I had been telling people I met about my excitement to visit Will Chau in Hong Kong. It was finally time!!!!!!

To be continued... in Hong Kong!

--
Rob Szumlakowski
Hong Kong