Day #16
Funds: $6150ish
Location: SISU Guest House, Shanghai, China
Michael has developed his Comfort Zone
So it's been a little while, huh? It's been pretty busy and I've been making a point of holding onto my cash and my time as both are precious commodities. Since I got to Shanghai, relaxing has been a priority over going out to do touristy-type stuff, it's a really good thing that I've been here before so I've basically done it all before, a second reason that's awesome is I did it all when the $AUS was worth over 6RMB instead of the measly 4 and a bit it dropped to since the market crash - for those of you playing at home, that means last time I paid $AUS600 for my total accomodation here at SISU (Shanghai International Studies University) last time, and at pretty much the same price this time it cost around $AUS900. Fortunately food is still basically cheap enough that I can still eat insane amounts without feeling it too much wallet-wise (belt-wise may be another matter I suppose). I promised to go up the stairs (18 flights) at least twice a day, and right now I have to do both goes in a row in the morning before my shower since it leaves me a huffing sweaty mess - hopefully this cancels out the constant barrage of rice and ice cream and such, maybe I'll even get the added benefit of being less of a heaving sweaty mess in the future if I can keep it up (oh who am I kidding, damn genes, thanks a lot Mum!!!).
My last night in HK was pretty peaceful, sat around helping Debbie and her friend compose poetry for their English class (it had to follow this god-awful format, so restrictive) and had a nice quiet meal. Nice and relaxing.
On the train I met a guy who caught me trying to speak Chinese with the ticket lady, she didn't quite get my accent and was in a hurry so just assumed I was speaking some other crazy language. Eugene introduced himself with the line "I'm quite good at understanding foreigner's Chinese", heheh. He's this Indian dude who spent a year in Taiwan on a program similar to the one I'm about to embark upon, only it was much longer and so his skills are awesome.
Found Shaun (from my Chinese tutorial back home) pretty quickly, turns out we're right next-door to eachother, very cool. He came with friends so we all hung out for a bit, one guy called Seth is a bit fond of his Lonely Planet and has been ticking boxes since day 1. I believe he'll fit it all in, he doesn't seem to get as distracted by Shiny Things as I do. Anyway this guy had us walk from the Guesthouse to Nanjing Road, which I had never done before since trains were always so convenient in the past. I'm glad he did because I had no idea it was so close! (Okay, 30-40minute walk, but still, not exactly like Cranbourne to Melbourne as my memory seemed to think it was.)
People started pouring in on Friday, which was terrible timing considering the fact that this was the day Joy was here in transit to Qingdao, where she's visiting family for a few months. We should have stayed away from the campus because sometimes people I've been looking forward to seeing count as Shiny Things, so I feel like I may have let her down a bit as I did pretty much intend to spend the day doting on her and stuff. She'll be back at the very end of December if all goes according to plan and I really hope to make it up to her then. We were all very excited and I may have gotten a little bit carried away acting as The Guy Who Knows Where Everything is, but I think it was generally appreciated and I don't think I came across too much as a know-it-all. I showed them a couple of my favourite places to eat as well as the local version of a sort of Massive Kmart+Coles-in-one, called Carrefore. Actually I couldn't believe how much I DID remember, it really was as simple as thinking, "Okay, now I need to get my picture taken for a student card" and letting my feet just take me there. I'm very comfortable here and although bits of the scenery have changed a bit, all the important bits are the same. Just walking around for the first few days was incredibly nostalgic, we made so many memories last time and I'm sure we will this time too.
My Chinese has definitely improved, I'm able to communicate a lot better than last time in taxis and restaurants and I seem to be picking up random words I find incredibly useful (eggplant, corn, pineapple sundae, mushroom, etc etc) a lot quicker than before. I hope this is a good sign and that I will do well in this course. The roads still make no sense (especially the drivers on it) but I'm not afraid anymore!
Finally got to see Miranda again, met her at Church and she saved me a seat. My coursework looks a bit full-on so I might not be able to go every week, but I think I'll definitely go a few more times, it's a nice place. She's a sound technician at a bar/restaurant now! It's called Melting Pot and it's actually quite nifty. It was fantastic catching up with her in person and hanging out like old times. (Miranda was my knight-in-shining-armour last time around, she showed me a lot of interesting places, particullarly quite a few Muslim-run restaurants, one of which I impressed my classmates with earlier.)
And of course, class is starting. Every day I'm meeting new people involved in this program, and I'm getting to know people who were previously just faces, not even names in some cases, much better. Everyone here is awesome, really friendly types, and everyone's here for slightly different reasons, there's a wide range of interests and skills and random knowledge just spread out amongst the groups. The fact that I actually knew people before I left this time has been kind of nice, but it seems like there are tons of people who had nothing to do with my Chinese class who I'm connected with through other means as well - like this guy who just walked up to me today and said "You're gonna think I'm really weird, but do you have anything to do with this Buddhist temple in Narre Warren? You probably don't remember me but I came and checked it out with my Mum once." Absolutely nuts.
My course is pretty intense (hence the name "Shanghai Intensive Summer Program"), but I think it's not too bad. I need to study as hard as I said I would, and I'll be fine. I also put my hand up to be class rep, which is a bit of responsibility but it won't be so bad because two girls in my class also volunteered and one of them drew with me in the votes, so we agreed to share the role. I figure I can make myself useful if only because I have been here before and all that (so has Claire, my co-rep, she was here last year). In addition to that I've started composing the new piece I'm going to play for the talent show this year, I think it's going to be a lot better than last time since I've developed a few new interesting techniques, but maybe I should stop talking like that in case I raise everyone's expectations too high, haha, and I'm going to keep an eye on all the labels of any "water" I drink beforehand so I can be completely sober this time around (last time as many of you already know I inadvertantly consumed a large mouthful of a totally clear and infinitely foul liquid known as bai jiu just a half hour before going on stage).
The room Dylan and I are sharing has already become horribly filthy. This is primarily a result of our joint compassionate nature and the fact that Dylan stashed all the booze in our minibar, so everyone keeps popping in from time to time for some reason. The maids hated Dylan last time, I believe they may hate me this time too. For reasons too idiotic yet mundane for me to be bothered getting into, there is salt and a deck of cards just spread out all over the carpet =[
So yeah, I think I'll have plenty to keep me occupied over the next 6 weeks! Dunno how many photos are gonna make it up, but I think I'll try to get back into the habit.
Mmm ... yeah that should probably do it for the moment =P
(So you guys know, the red circle is Hong Kong)
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
On Hasaam of the World!!!
Day #7
Funds: $7250ish
Location: All Over The Shop, Hong Kong
Michael is up way too late!
Ahhh what to write? Well, I've had my train ticket to Shanghai since the second day, I'm leaving Tuesday 18th, may have mentioned that already ... thanks to the fact that I can get up in the morning here and catch people online in the afternoon, I've sort of dumped lots of random feelings about this place on whoever was available at the time, or whoever asked the right 'trigger' question to set me off on a rant about how the roads here make no sense sometimes and perfect sense like I never dreamed of at others, or how even the traffic is polite despite being packed and pushy, or the impossible-to-figure-out code-switching situation (language-swapping), or any one of the many other delightful little paradoxes I've observed in the past 7 days. Fortunately I've been taking as many photos as will fit in the camera most days so I'm sure anyone who's been interested has a rough idea of what I've been up to. A couple days have seen me just get up in the morning, and leave with a vague idea of where I was gonna go, and then stumble around completely at random soaking in as much as my scattered little mind could take for several hours, and since a lot of this involves stairs and hills I pretty much collapse when it's over. Most of these sessions have been followed up with a bit more of a focused trip led by either Debbie or Matt & Nico. Matt is the guy who gave Debbie my details before she came to Australia last year, by a happy little coincidence it turned out he arrived here to see his girlfriend Nico a couple days ago. He's also vegetarian, so knew a nifty little place in one of the buildings (of course I would never have thought to look if I were alone =P) we could go and order literally anything off the menu, which is of course a rare treat no matter what country I'm in ^^ Most of the time, unfortunately, I don't seem to remember the names of the places I go to since I just don't personally find them distinctive enough. I'm pretty sure that's just because I'm still not used to all the crazy stimuli! Besides, it's important to remember that distinctive =/= awesome all the time. Usually it's been not too far from my lil cupboard, TST (Tsim Sha Tsui) is supposed to be 'in the middle of everything' so there you go.
As the Day #6 photos pretty much say, me and Chun Hin caught up and went to see the Tian Tan Buddha yesterday, which was cool. And here we can see that this statue of Buddha is actually so large that it can be seen from satellite images ^^ It's not too far from the airport, but of course you can see exactly where it fits in by zooming out. You can only get there by chairlift or a pretty massive hike, kinda like to think I wouldn't have minded the hike, but definitely wouldn't have been up to it considering all the other walking I've been doing lately.
This was the closest the map'd let me zoom. But that's where the awesome beach is. More on that from today's photos =]
I'm sleepy ... so I think this'll be relatively brief. Things I learned about Hong Kong so far:
Funds: $7250ish
Location: All Over The Shop, Hong Kong
Michael is up way too late!
Ahhh what to write? Well, I've had my train ticket to Shanghai since the second day, I'm leaving Tuesday 18th, may have mentioned that already ... thanks to the fact that I can get up in the morning here and catch people online in the afternoon, I've sort of dumped lots of random feelings about this place on whoever was available at the time, or whoever asked the right 'trigger' question to set me off on a rant about how the roads here make no sense sometimes and perfect sense like I never dreamed of at others, or how even the traffic is polite despite being packed and pushy, or the impossible-to-figure-out code-switching situation (language-swapping), or any one of the many other delightful little paradoxes I've observed in the past 7 days. Fortunately I've been taking as many photos as will fit in the camera most days so I'm sure anyone who's been interested has a rough idea of what I've been up to. A couple days have seen me just get up in the morning, and leave with a vague idea of where I was gonna go, and then stumble around completely at random soaking in as much as my scattered little mind could take for several hours, and since a lot of this involves stairs and hills I pretty much collapse when it's over. Most of these sessions have been followed up with a bit more of a focused trip led by either Debbie or Matt & Nico. Matt is the guy who gave Debbie my details before she came to Australia last year, by a happy little coincidence it turned out he arrived here to see his girlfriend Nico a couple days ago. He's also vegetarian, so knew a nifty little place in one of the buildings (of course I would never have thought to look if I were alone =P) we could go and order literally anything off the menu, which is of course a rare treat no matter what country I'm in ^^ Most of the time, unfortunately, I don't seem to remember the names of the places I go to since I just don't personally find them distinctive enough. I'm pretty sure that's just because I'm still not used to all the crazy stimuli! Besides, it's important to remember that distinctive =/= awesome all the time. Usually it's been not too far from my lil cupboard, TST (Tsim Sha Tsui) is supposed to be 'in the middle of everything' so there you go.
As the Day #6 photos pretty much say, me and Chun Hin caught up and went to see the Tian Tan Buddha yesterday, which was cool. And here we can see that this statue of Buddha is actually so large that it can be seen from satellite images ^^ It's not too far from the airport, but of course you can see exactly where it fits in by zooming out. You can only get there by chairlift or a pretty massive hike, kinda like to think I wouldn't have minded the hike, but definitely wouldn't have been up to it considering all the other walking I've been doing lately.
This was the closest the map'd let me zoom. But that's where the awesome beach is. More on that from today's photos =]
I'm sleepy ... so I think this'll be relatively brief. Things I learned about Hong Kong so far:
- Connex sucks. MTR (their equivelant) does not. Public transport in general mops the floor with us. I've never had to wait more than 4 minutes for any train here, and today was the longest I ever had to wait for a bus - slightly under 20, because we just missed the one before it.
- The Octopus Card kicks arse, although I have no idea why they called it that. We were supposed to have something similar last year in Melbourne but it never happened. Basically you load it up with prepaid cash and then you never have to buy a ticket, just swipe your nifty lil card as you walk through and it calculates the cheapest possible fare at the end of your trip! You can also use it at Macca's and 7/11 and a zillion other shops. So the fact my wallet can't carry coins isn't such a big deal here, hehe.
- 7/11 doesn't rip you off here, usually their products are quite good value. Some supermarkets still do, some quite badly.
- There are tons of one-way roads, so many that there are some total intersections where every pedestrian light on every corner turns green at once. That's nuts.
- There are arrows on the road telling people crossing the street which way to look. They look very much like the arrows in Australia telling cars which direction to drive in. As such, certain foreigners who may or may not keep blogs keep looking in the complete opposite direction.
- People in Hong Kong speak Cantonese as a first language. Many have English (or a slightly altered version of it) as a second language, so that's pretty handy for tourists from an English-speaking country. Unless it turns out they actually speak Mandarin as a second language instead (which can happen for a bunch of reasons). There's really no way of knowing until you try both, so it's convenient if you come from an English-speaking country where you studied Mandarin. Of course, turns out there's quite a few who only speak their mother tongue, which is fair enough. It just takes a whole bunch of awkward lines of conversation to establish which is true for every individual you wish to interact with.
- Having both the internet and a tv in my bedroom keeps me from sleeping at a reasonable hour despite my physically knackered body begging for it. Goodnight =P
Friday, November 14, 2008
Pure Concentrated Hassam - And Lots of it!!!
Days #2-4
Funds: $7400ish
Location:
Osaka Guesthouse, Chungking Mansions, Nathan Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Michael is aching considerably all over. In mostly good ways.
Oh FYI guys some of you probably know this already but for the some of you who don't, the maps on my blog aren't pictures, they're linked to the multimap website, which means you can zoom in/out and move around them and stuff, thought that might be handy to know considering how close and far away the frames I use are. Have a fiddle, Mum and Dad. [And if I never utter that phrase again it'll be far too soon!]
Guess I'll start from the start again. Had an excellent plane ride this time round, I was at the back with nobody next to or behind me, so I reclined both my seats and lay down to sleep most of the time hehehe. Once off the airplane and outta customs, I had a pretty straightforward plan based on a handful of numbers and names I'd either memorised or written down such as street names, 'reasonable' room rates, bus routes and Debbie's mobile number - the last of which would do me no good until I got a SIM. She told me before I left to ring her at 12:30 cos her classes finished then. At the time I'd figured well what with showing up at 6 surely I'll have a place by then easy!
Heh. We all know what happens when Mykal says stuff like that, right?
So I go to an ATM only to discover that the $AUS500 hasn't gone through to my international Travelex account thingy yet. Fortunately I'd put nearly $AUS60 through over the weeks leading up to this just to make sure it all worked. Unfortunately I couldn't touch all of it, because HK ATMs only give $HK100 notes as their smallest bit of paper and my total only JUST fell short of $HK300. I vaguely remembered at this point that I'd decided to settle for no less than $HK150 a night (although given the still-declining exchange rate I thought realistically I shouldn't go higher than $HK120), and, having blown $HK30ish on a bus ticket to Tsim Sha Tsui, the place where the infamous Chungking and Mirador Mansions are located, promptly shat myself. Oh well, guess I could survive without food for a day ...
Then I took some nice photos of scenery and such and that was very soothing, then I remembered that I still had $AUS40 in cash in my little belt pocket thingy from my very last paper round haha, and the emergency Chinese RMB I have stashed in my bag that I got from Tian on my bday. So as long as my money was coming in the next day (which it ultimately did), I'd be okay. Hooray for my elaborate network of backup plans!!!
I think to get the full effect of what I accomplished with my accomodation, you really do need to check out a site like hostels.com or whatever and look up any available dorms in Hong Kong. About 75% of them are in either Mirador Mansion or Chung King Mansion, which are pretty much half a block apart. What they're famous for is being quite affordable in an extreme-to-the-max sort of you-REALLY-get-what-you-paid-for-if-you-didn't-get-ripped-off kinda way. Read some of the backpacker's reviews, it sounds horrible. But I'd resigned myself to the idea that I would be sharing my room with strangers, which begged the question of how I was gonna hide all my stuff.
Spent nearly 2 hours walking down the stairs from Mirador Mansion, checking with every place that looked like they had rooms what they charged and offered, and each one was pretty much a rip-off. After reading online and chatting with Bobbi a few nights before I left I was under the impression I could bargain a price down, but I'm not the best at that anyway, and besides that:
Anyway she wanted $HK200/night for this single room, and it looked sort of like one I'd actually seen on some guy's blog online who paid $100, so I thought I'd tell her that hehe. Suddenly she dropped the price to $HK130, and pretty much said that she didn't wanna stuff around, that was the lowest she'd go and I could take it or leave it. At first I thought, "oooh so close maybe I can get it to my happy $HK120!" but then I saw that they had an internet cable that would work in my laptop - every single other place had insisted only Wifi was possible, and mines too old and can't hack wifi for some reason. Also the net would be free, compared to me having to pay about 3 or 4 bucks an hour if I was lucky. Factoring this in, I considered myself very lucky. Later, other people assured me that this is a very good deal. Shall I give you a guided tour? =P
Seriously, that's it, behind me is the door to get out =P In theory I could shower while I go to the toilet, how efficient!!! Aaaaand all my stuff is under the bed. The lady even changes my sheets and replaces the toilet paper every day, I know that sounds like nothing to some of you but compared to what I heard about this place that's nuts!
Sorry to dump all of this on you all at once, I've been far too tired recently to type all this up into bite-sized portions. I imagine I'll be less rushed in Shanghai considering I'll have heaps more time but bear with me while I'm here, yeah? So I was thinking maybe you could like, go have a cup of tea, or do whatever else it was you had planned, and then you can come back and read the rest whenever you feel ready. No pressure =]
***
Oh, I'm glad you could make it back! Yeah so if you've been following my photos you know I really haven't stopped moving since I got here. As soon as I'd booked the place, I used the shower and immediately bought a SIM, called Debbie, arranged to meet her somewhere, then hung out until midnight. Pretty stupid really considering how much sleep I needed but hey I haven't seen Debbie for about 14 months and who knows when we'll catch up again? She's got a bunch of international friends from uni so over the night I hung out with an Austrian a French guy and a Canadian, all awesome, and all with awesome accents. I saw a bit of a night market (but had no room left in my camera to do anything about it) and went to a couple little restaurants for lunch and dinner (and dinner the next day). Eating out is pretty much my only option, and I've been having curry for breakfast! Yay!!! The next day, Debbie had class so I went exploring myself, got lost, didn't get the nap I planned to have, then went to some arcades with Debbie and her friends. I estimate half the machines were bishi-bashi mini-games. Those of you who know bishi-bashi know that this is awesome. One might even say ... neat.
Yeah, so the exploring. It's crazy here. Basically I just get lost and take photos until it's getting late and find the nearest train station to get me home. The way it works is just looking in any direction here is like tugging at a thread on a shirt or whatever, only each tug brings out at least 3 other threads, each of which you wanna tug until finally you've completely mutilated your shirt into a ball of yarn. For example:
Yesterday, I got up and thought, 'hey maybe I'll go to Resistance Bay and check that out', so I got on the train to Central (which is on the actual Hong Kong island) where I was supposed to swap to a bus. Then I was distracted by a sign for some shops, then I got distracted by a sign for this ferry which I thought might be fun to have a look at, only I never got there because I'd found something else which excited me just as much, until finally I had walked to the top-left corner of the island (completely the OPPOSITE direction I'd originally intended to head) and checked out a temple that had just popped out from nowhere. And I had no way to get back by foot because I'd turned that many corners based on shiny things that I'd lost all sense of direction. Landmarks didn't help because my brain can only hold so much information and every time I walk back up the same street I see so many new things I hadn't noticed before, so I forget all the other stuff I'd tried to remember when I'd first been there and then I would swear under oath that I'd never actually been there before. Since they're always building building building around here I can't imagine ever knowing the same amount of area as I do in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne in any amount of time. So those of you who heard I wanted to put a whole day aside to try and make it around the circumference of HK island, or at least go from one end to the other, sorry to disappoint. It's not that I couldn't cover the distance, it's that I just can't focus enough around here to walk a straight line without stopping to gawp at stuff. Gawp, I'm such a tourist.
I think this pretty much puts it into perspective:
Debbie's hongkie friend KK was the first local not to laugh when she heard I was staying at Chung King Mansions, and I commented on that - "Do you live very far away? It seemed like everybody knew about that place!" she goes: "yes, I'm pretty far away. It takes at least 10 minutes from here." There was no trace of irony there, either. The density of this place is just insane. They just pack so much more per square metre. I would definitely need more than a week just to get used to it, so I'm glad I don't have anything important to actually do here.
Oh and FYI I bought my train ticket to Shanghai, conducted the whole conversation in Mandarin, proud of myself =P And it only cost $AUS100! Hooray! Speaking of Mandarin, there's a whole language situation here that I haven't totally figured out yet but more on that in the next entry, you're probably all sick of me by now hehe
Funds: $7400ish
Location:
Osaka Guesthouse, Chungking Mansions, Nathan Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Michael is aching considerably all over. In mostly good ways.
Oh FYI guys some of you probably know this already but for the some of you who don't, the maps on my blog aren't pictures, they're linked to the multimap website, which means you can zoom in/out and move around them and stuff, thought that might be handy to know considering how close and far away the frames I use are. Have a fiddle, Mum and Dad. [And if I never utter that phrase again it'll be far too soon!]
Guess I'll start from the start again. Had an excellent plane ride this time round, I was at the back with nobody next to or behind me, so I reclined both my seats and lay down to sleep most of the time hehehe. Once off the airplane and outta customs, I had a pretty straightforward plan based on a handful of numbers and names I'd either memorised or written down such as street names, 'reasonable' room rates, bus routes and Debbie's mobile number - the last of which would do me no good until I got a SIM. She told me before I left to ring her at 12:30 cos her classes finished then. At the time I'd figured well what with showing up at 6 surely I'll have a place by then easy!
Heh. We all know what happens when Mykal says stuff like that, right?
So I go to an ATM only to discover that the $AUS500 hasn't gone through to my international Travelex account thingy yet. Fortunately I'd put nearly $AUS60 through over the weeks leading up to this just to make sure it all worked. Unfortunately I couldn't touch all of it, because HK ATMs only give $HK100 notes as their smallest bit of paper and my total only JUST fell short of $HK300. I vaguely remembered at this point that I'd decided to settle for no less than $HK150 a night (although given the still-declining exchange rate I thought realistically I shouldn't go higher than $HK120), and, having blown $HK30ish on a bus ticket to Tsim Sha Tsui, the place where the infamous Chungking and Mirador Mansions are located, promptly shat myself. Oh well, guess I could survive without food for a day ...
Then I took some nice photos of scenery and such and that was very soothing, then I remembered that I still had $AUS40 in cash in my little belt pocket thingy from my very last paper round haha, and the emergency Chinese RMB I have stashed in my bag that I got from Tian on my bday. So as long as my money was coming in the next day (which it ultimately did), I'd be okay. Hooray for my elaborate network of backup plans!!!
I think to get the full effect of what I accomplished with my accomodation, you really do need to check out a site like hostels.com or whatever and look up any available dorms in Hong Kong. About 75% of them are in either Mirador Mansion or Chung King Mansion, which are pretty much half a block apart. What they're famous for is being quite affordable in an extreme-to-the-max sort of you-REALLY-get-what-you-paid-for-if-you-didn't-get-ripped-off kinda way. Read some of the backpacker's reviews, it sounds horrible. But I'd resigned myself to the idea that I would be sharing my room with strangers, which begged the question of how I was gonna hide all my stuff.
Spent nearly 2 hours walking down the stairs from Mirador Mansion, checking with every place that looked like they had rooms what they charged and offered, and each one was pretty much a rip-off. After reading online and chatting with Bobbi a few nights before I left I was under the impression I could bargain a price down, but I'm not the best at that anyway, and besides that:
- The people at the top know that they're the first people you're gonna see, and know that if you're doing the top-down thing, you're probably just trying to figure out what you can get away with and therefore don't KNOW anything, so they don't let you get away with anything and charge as much as they like.
- People below the people at the top can SEE you as you walk around in a circle before the next flight of stairs (the building is like a square with the middle cut out, and you can see all the way down), so they know you haven't found a place yet and that you're getting ripped off, so they think they can rip you off too.
- Because of this, nobody bought my completely made-up story that I was looking to beat $HK120/night at this other place I'd found.
Anyway she wanted $HK200/night for this single room, and it looked sort of like one I'd actually seen on some guy's blog online who paid $100, so I thought I'd tell her that hehe. Suddenly she dropped the price to $HK130, and pretty much said that she didn't wanna stuff around, that was the lowest she'd go and I could take it or leave it. At first I thought, "oooh so close maybe I can get it to my happy $HK120!" but then I saw that they had an internet cable that would work in my laptop - every single other place had insisted only Wifi was possible, and mines too old and can't hack wifi for some reason. Also the net would be free, compared to me having to pay about 3 or 4 bucks an hour if I was lucky. Factoring this in, I considered myself very lucky. Later, other people assured me that this is a very good deal. Shall I give you a guided tour? =P
Seriously, that's it, behind me is the door to get out =P In theory I could shower while I go to the toilet, how efficient!!! Aaaaand all my stuff is under the bed. The lady even changes my sheets and replaces the toilet paper every day, I know that sounds like nothing to some of you but compared to what I heard about this place that's nuts!
Sorry to dump all of this on you all at once, I've been far too tired recently to type all this up into bite-sized portions. I imagine I'll be less rushed in Shanghai considering I'll have heaps more time but bear with me while I'm here, yeah? So I was thinking maybe you could like, go have a cup of tea, or do whatever else it was you had planned, and then you can come back and read the rest whenever you feel ready. No pressure =]
***
Oh, I'm glad you could make it back! Yeah so if you've been following my photos you know I really haven't stopped moving since I got here. As soon as I'd booked the place, I used the shower and immediately bought a SIM, called Debbie, arranged to meet her somewhere, then hung out until midnight. Pretty stupid really considering how much sleep I needed but hey I haven't seen Debbie for about 14 months and who knows when we'll catch up again? She's got a bunch of international friends from uni so over the night I hung out with an Austrian a French guy and a Canadian, all awesome, and all with awesome accents. I saw a bit of a night market (but had no room left in my camera to do anything about it) and went to a couple little restaurants for lunch and dinner (and dinner the next day). Eating out is pretty much my only option, and I've been having curry for breakfast! Yay!!! The next day, Debbie had class so I went exploring myself, got lost, didn't get the nap I planned to have, then went to some arcades with Debbie and her friends. I estimate half the machines were bishi-bashi mini-games. Those of you who know bishi-bashi know that this is awesome. One might even say ... neat.
Yeah, so the exploring. It's crazy here. Basically I just get lost and take photos until it's getting late and find the nearest train station to get me home. The way it works is just looking in any direction here is like tugging at a thread on a shirt or whatever, only each tug brings out at least 3 other threads, each of which you wanna tug until finally you've completely mutilated your shirt into a ball of yarn. For example:
Yesterday, I got up and thought, 'hey maybe I'll go to Resistance Bay and check that out', so I got on the train to Central (which is on the actual Hong Kong island) where I was supposed to swap to a bus. Then I was distracted by a sign for some shops, then I got distracted by a sign for this ferry which I thought might be fun to have a look at, only I never got there because I'd found something else which excited me just as much, until finally I had walked to the top-left corner of the island (completely the OPPOSITE direction I'd originally intended to head) and checked out a temple that had just popped out from nowhere. And I had no way to get back by foot because I'd turned that many corners based on shiny things that I'd lost all sense of direction. Landmarks didn't help because my brain can only hold so much information and every time I walk back up the same street I see so many new things I hadn't noticed before, so I forget all the other stuff I'd tried to remember when I'd first been there and then I would swear under oath that I'd never actually been there before. Since they're always building building building around here I can't imagine ever knowing the same amount of area as I do in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne in any amount of time. So those of you who heard I wanted to put a whole day aside to try and make it around the circumference of HK island, or at least go from one end to the other, sorry to disappoint. It's not that I couldn't cover the distance, it's that I just can't focus enough around here to walk a straight line without stopping to gawp at stuff. Gawp, I'm such a tourist.
I think this pretty much puts it into perspective:
Debbie's hongkie friend KK was the first local not to laugh when she heard I was staying at Chung King Mansions, and I commented on that - "Do you live very far away? It seemed like everybody knew about that place!" she goes: "yes, I'm pretty far away. It takes at least 10 minutes from here." There was no trace of irony there, either. The density of this place is just insane. They just pack so much more per square metre. I would definitely need more than a week just to get used to it, so I'm glad I don't have anything important to actually do here.
Oh and FYI I bought my train ticket to Shanghai, conducted the whole conversation in Mandarin, proud of myself =P And it only cost $AUS100! Hooray! Speaking of Mandarin, there's a whole language situation here that I haven't totally figured out yet but more on that in the next entry, you're probably all sick of me by now hehe
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Kiwi Hasaam Gets His Groove Back
Okay, so I figure the only way to do this is to split things into two chunks, since so much happened these last couple days I can barely keep track of it all ...
Day #1 (a bit later)
Funds: Like, $7985? =P
Location:
A Tiny Slither of Auckland, New Zealand
Mykal wishes he could dance like them kids
Oh man so where to begin ummmm well customs was a bitch. Thanks to my 21st I've accumulated so much random bling that it's a massive pain in the butt taking it all off and then on again hehehe. But turns out my ankle weights contain something that sets off metal detectors. Who'da thunk it, right? They're made of foam spongey stuff!!! When he asked me if i had a knee replacement cos the alarm was being set off by my legs, I snapped em off and the reaction was an immediate "Oh you've GOT to be kidding me!!!" Sorta awkward, really XD
On the plane next to me was a guy who was afraid of flying, and these kids squealing high-pitched most of the way but I watched Hancock and decided that even though it's basically what should be two movies paced out a bit better slapped together, Will Smith does the character so well I couldn't care less cos it's pretty much awesome.
Once I was actually there, I was totally blown away by just how much everyone I bumped into matched the stereotypes. (Well I didn't see any sheep but oh well). Based on 5 hours just wandering around (in case you're wondering the red circle on the map above is how far I got from the airport, I think, before I thought it best to turn around and not miss my plane) I've decided that kiwis are the most awesomely laid back people ever. I'm pretty much the reigning expert on all things New Zealand now. Yep.
I swear to God that in the first conversation I had I got the words "bro" and "choice" said to me. Actually basically every male there says "bro" no matter what, I believe. I wanted to high five this guy for it but opted not to on the grounds that I wasn't sure if it was culturally insensitive, or at least it would have required far too much explaining. The accents here are AWESOME. I've never been to a country where they all speak English too, it felt weird being the one with the 'accent'.
I did have fush and chups for dinner. It wasn't on purpose though, it was seriously the only open non-grocery shop foodery still open (ok besides Maccas but who the hell travels this far for MacDonald's???). There was this gorgeous girl in the shop with her aunty or something and they had a conversation something like:
"So dud ewe wroit a litta tew Sinta? Wots Sinta gonna guve ewe fer Chrustmus?"
"Bubbles ind uh Eastah Iig!!!"
AWWWWW hahaha.
Also over less than 5 ks I saw five different ovals with people playing rugby on it. This place is Malcolm heaven =P. Also caught some kids learning what looked to me like a sort of tribal dance, while others were learning what sounded to me like traditional awesome tribal drumming. Kickarse.
I'd say to the fush and chups ind beck was about 9ks, based on signs telling me how far away to airport was. Not bad, if I keep this up I HAVE to lose to belly, right???
Oh and the shower at the airport. I seem to remember mentioning that in a photo caption somewhere ... anyway after the long walk I was a little sweaty and all so you can imagine how excited I was when I saw that you can have a free shower at nz airport! Of course, they didn't have towels. Cue Mum's "I told you so" - of course, mine wasn't in my carry-bag. So what's a guy to do? I did pretty much the only thing I could do: stole about a zillion hand paper towels from the toilet and took them with me! It worked, why wouldn't it have worked??? It's called IMPROVISATION and clearly I'm gonna have to learn to get real good at it real fast or I'm stuffed (wait til I do my Day#2 entry and you hear all about my money situation XD).
I'm aware that this is quite a choppy entry, I'm clearly still reeling from excitement, so again I apologise to you all. I just have one final New Zealand anecdote, Debbie found it hilarious anyway when I told her.
So I get on the last elevator before that last lounge that you sit around in and wait til they tell you to board (how embarrassing that I can't think of what you call it) and a little old lady and a girl probably my age hops on too. Then the doors close and we all just stand there. Eventually the girl says "I think we have to push the button" and the lady's like "yes, good idea" and we all have an awkward chuckle. The little old lady goes to wait for some other flight on the same floor and me and this girl are there a bit early so I said, "Ah, looks like we got the plane all to ourselves!" and she turns around and goes, "oh? you're going to hong kong too?" "Yep!" I said. Then I yawned, took a long stretch as I sat down, and woke up about 15 seconds later to find the girl sitting a little way aways from me fiddling with her phone in a sort of disgruntled manner. So there you go. That's pretty much how all my social interactions go, quite smoothly until I lose concentration. Joy, you clearly have nothing to fear with me being so far away XD
Day #1 (a bit later)
Funds: Like, $7985? =P
Location:
A Tiny Slither of Auckland, New Zealand
Mykal wishes he could dance like them kids
Oh man so where to begin ummmm well customs was a bitch. Thanks to my 21st I've accumulated so much random bling that it's a massive pain in the butt taking it all off and then on again hehehe. But turns out my ankle weights contain something that sets off metal detectors. Who'da thunk it, right? They're made of foam spongey stuff!!! When he asked me if i had a knee replacement cos the alarm was being set off by my legs, I snapped em off and the reaction was an immediate "Oh you've GOT to be kidding me!!!" Sorta awkward, really XD
On the plane next to me was a guy who was afraid of flying, and these kids squealing high-pitched most of the way but I watched Hancock and decided that even though it's basically what should be two movies paced out a bit better slapped together, Will Smith does the character so well I couldn't care less cos it's pretty much awesome.
Once I was actually there, I was totally blown away by just how much everyone I bumped into matched the stereotypes. (Well I didn't see any sheep but oh well). Based on 5 hours just wandering around (in case you're wondering the red circle on the map above is how far I got from the airport, I think, before I thought it best to turn around and not miss my plane) I've decided that kiwis are the most awesomely laid back people ever. I'm pretty much the reigning expert on all things New Zealand now. Yep.
I swear to God that in the first conversation I had I got the words "bro" and "choice" said to me. Actually basically every male there says "bro" no matter what, I believe. I wanted to high five this guy for it but opted not to on the grounds that I wasn't sure if it was culturally insensitive, or at least it would have required far too much explaining. The accents here are AWESOME. I've never been to a country where they all speak English too, it felt weird being the one with the 'accent'.
I did have fush and chups for dinner. It wasn't on purpose though, it was seriously the only open non-grocery shop foodery still open (ok besides Maccas but who the hell travels this far for MacDonald's???). There was this gorgeous girl in the shop with her aunty or something and they had a conversation something like:
"So dud ewe wroit a litta tew Sinta? Wots Sinta gonna guve ewe fer Chrustmus?"
"Bubbles ind uh Eastah Iig!!!"
AWWWWW hahaha.
Also over less than 5 ks I saw five different ovals with people playing rugby on it. This place is Malcolm heaven =P. Also caught some kids learning what looked to me like a sort of tribal dance, while others were learning what sounded to me like traditional awesome tribal drumming. Kickarse.
I'd say to the fush and chups ind beck was about 9ks, based on signs telling me how far away to airport was. Not bad, if I keep this up I HAVE to lose to belly, right???
Oh and the shower at the airport. I seem to remember mentioning that in a photo caption somewhere ... anyway after the long walk I was a little sweaty and all so you can imagine how excited I was when I saw that you can have a free shower at nz airport! Of course, they didn't have towels. Cue Mum's "I told you so" - of course, mine wasn't in my carry-bag. So what's a guy to do? I did pretty much the only thing I could do: stole about a zillion hand paper towels from the toilet and took them with me! It worked, why wouldn't it have worked??? It's called IMPROVISATION and clearly I'm gonna have to learn to get real good at it real fast or I'm stuffed (wait til I do my Day#2 entry and you hear all about my money situation XD).
I'm aware that this is quite a choppy entry, I'm clearly still reeling from excitement, so again I apologise to you all. I just have one final New Zealand anecdote, Debbie found it hilarious anyway when I told her.
So I get on the last elevator before that last lounge that you sit around in and wait til they tell you to board (how embarrassing that I can't think of what you call it) and a little old lady and a girl probably my age hops on too. Then the doors close and we all just stand there. Eventually the girl says "I think we have to push the button" and the lady's like "yes, good idea" and we all have an awkward chuckle. The little old lady goes to wait for some other flight on the same floor and me and this girl are there a bit early so I said, "Ah, looks like we got the plane all to ourselves!" and she turns around and goes, "oh? you're going to hong kong too?" "Yep!" I said. Then I yawned, took a long stretch as I sat down, and woke up about 15 seconds later to find the girl sitting a little way aways from me fiddling with her phone in a sort of disgruntled manner. So there you go. That's pretty much how all my social interactions go, quite smoothly until I lose concentration. Joy, you clearly have nothing to fear with me being so far away XD
New Photos
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=69212&l=48ab3&id=637056881
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=69221&l=13e78&id=637056881
Ok so hopefully I can be bothered typing stuff up tomorrow before more stuff happens and I fall behind ... or maybe this won't cover every waking moment of my life, who knows? =P
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=69221&l=13e78&id=637056881
Ok so hopefully I can be bothered typing stuff up tomorrow before more stuff happens and I fall behind ... or maybe this won't cover every waking moment of my life, who knows? =P
Sunday, November 9, 2008
A Fresh Hassam, A New Beginning
Day #1
Current Funds: Roughly $8000
Present Location:
Mum and Dad's, Cranbourne, Australia
Mykal is: vaguely concerned what essential thing it is that he hasn't packed/prepared for yet. Oh well, guess I'll have to wait for that critical moment to find out ^^
So I got some plans. Yup. If you've found this blog then I imagine you've got a vague idea of them, or at least you know I have them.
I have packed my Awesome Backpacker's Backpack™ already, and it only just occurred to me to go on a nostalgic rampage taking photos of this house, but I spose it doesn't matter greatly as I AM coming back. At some stage I will post a photo/rant about just how awesome that backpack is, but not now. Too sleepy. Promised myself I'd post a Day #0 blog but I missed the boat thanks to MSN so this'll have to do.
So, yes, the plans. Well basically they're not too complicated by my standards, ahah. I think I'll just bullet point the basic outline for the moment because I know I've said this whole thing enough times that surely some of you are bored silly of it, but it might be fun to later look at what I thought would happen once I know what actually did go down.
Hmm, this entry felt a little bit dry. Oh well, at least now we're all on the same page. Things will probably get pretty exciting pretty soon. I should sleep. Plane leaves at 11:35am! (Woah, only 9.5 hours!)
Current Funds: Roughly $8000
Present Location:
Mum and Dad's, Cranbourne, Australia
Mykal is: vaguely concerned what essential thing it is that he hasn't packed/prepared for yet. Oh well, guess I'll have to wait for that critical moment to find out ^^
So I got some plans. Yup. If you've found this blog then I imagine you've got a vague idea of them, or at least you know I have them.
I have packed my Awesome Backpacker's Backpack™ already, and it only just occurred to me to go on a nostalgic rampage taking photos of this house, but I spose it doesn't matter greatly as I AM coming back. At some stage I will post a photo/rant about just how awesome that backpack is, but not now. Too sleepy. Promised myself I'd post a Day #0 blog but I missed the boat thanks to MSN so this'll have to do.So, yes, the plans. Well basically they're not too complicated by my standards, ahah. I think I'll just bullet point the basic outline for the moment because I know I've said this whole thing enough times that surely some of you are bored silly of it, but it might be fun to later look at what I thought would happen once I know what actually did go down.
- Auckland, New Zealand: 7 hours. Not originally part of the plan, I'm just there in transit for long enough that I think I should go for a wander and take in the famous serenity before I get slammed by the insanity that I imagine will be Hong Kong. Bet I get mugged here, cos of irony and all that.
- All over the shop, Hong Kong: 8 days. Just cos I can, and cos I'll get to catch up with Debbie [that'd be the Honky chick who pretty much arrived on my doorstep last year and stayed in my Clayton house through August] and because it's on my list. 8 days doesn't feel like it'll be enough, but I can always come back another time. Besides, Cantonese is way too hard to learn ^^ [there are more than 7 tonal variations on any given syllable that can effect any word's meaning!!! What kind of person would DO that?!]
- Shanghai, China: 7 weeks. Completing my degree over 6 weeks, studying Mandarin. 100-odd fellow Monash students in the one hotel/uni dorm. It was nuts last time, although I understand the year I went before was unusually rowdy and insane. Me and Dylan will have to see what we can do about maintaining a general level of insanity if that's true I guess. Oh and I'm just kidding, Nanas, if it turns out Mum/Dad relays this =P I can't wait to see Miranda!
- Qingdao, China: 3 weeks. This is where Joy is from. She's going to be in China roughly the same time as me, isn't that neat? And thus a crazy-long distance relationship can be delayed for some time, and when my course is done I can spend the rest of my January hanging with her in her 老家 (hometown), that'll be neat.
- Honshu, Japan: 4 weeks. This is where everything starts to get hazy. It's February, can you blame me? Shannon from work will meet me in Osaka early on, and all we know right now is there are several places we wanna check out and we'll finish in Tokyo cos that's where her plane leaves.
Hmm, this entry felt a little bit dry. Oh well, at least now we're all on the same page. Things will probably get pretty exciting pretty soon. I should sleep. Plane leaves at 11:35am! (Woah, only 9.5 hours!)
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