Brussels
I’m quite looking forward to Brussels. Mainly because they sell a lot of these things. They have a lot of other good food (Asterix in Belgium suddenly makes a lot more sense) and other famous things, but… I’m really there for the pralines!
I’m quite looking forward to Brussels. Mainly because they sell a lot of these things. They have a lot of other good food (Asterix in Belgium suddenly makes a lot more sense) and other famous things, but… I’m really there for the pralines!
In San Fran again. Rainy, but otherwise not so cold.
It’s safe to say that Vegas is a unique place in the world. Las Vegas Boulevard, better known as “The Strip”, is lined with a whole array of hotels and hispanics passing out fistfuls of cards advertising how carnal pleasures are only a phone call away (they continually slap the cards together to make a characteristic “I have sex cards!” sound, presumably so potential clients can still find them when the Vegas footpaths get too crowded).
It’s all flashy on the outside, especially at night when all the neon, blinking coloured lights and video displays are switched on. Lots of themed hotels, such as the Paris, which has a scaled down version of the Eiffel Tower sticking out the top of it and the Luxor which is done up as a black pyramid with a massive lightbulb at its apex shooting out a shaft of light into the sky. Very tacky, but strangely enough, not in a lame sort of way. The fountain display at the Bellagio is quite impressive, being much, much larger than Ocean’s Eleven would lead you to believe.
Whereas the outsides are varied, the insides of all the hotels are numbingly similar – rows and rows of slot machines, tables and tables of roulette, blackjack, 3-card poker, craps and other usual suspects. Lots of shoddy carpet.
Obviously an essential stop for a Trekkie like me, I took the monorail to the Hilton today to see their Star Trek: The Experience attraction. Half price tickets are available at the Tix4Tonight discount booths, which I picked up earlier in the day. STTE basically consists of two “rides” and an exhibit. The exhibit features a very cool timeline of the Trek franchise (recently extensively refurbished due to the heretical insertion of the Enterprise series into Trek canon) along with numerous display cases featuring props which were actually used in the filming of Trek (most humourously, the Mac used in Star Trek IV which Scotty tries to talk to… “Hello, computer!”).
The first ride I went on was a relatively new one called “Borg Invasion”. It was abysmal. It features an insipid movie which you watch with stereoscopic glasses while sitting in an “interactive chair”. It’s essentially a tiltable massage chair with the capacity to occasionally blast moist air into your face to vaguely simulate what’s happening on the movie screen. During the part where you supposedly get injected with Borg nanoprobes, I almost leapt out of my seat after I received an instant anal probe from several massage chair-style rollers which some sadistic designer had decided to strategically place in the seat bottom. I wandered out of the ride somewhat traumatised.
The second ride was “Klingon Encounter”, which although older, was decidedly better. Nonetheless, you still have to put up with actors running around delivering corny dialogue and trying to give an unenthusiastic crowd a Trek “experience” (“remember, the human spirit can never be assimilated!”).
If that was all there was, I would have felt ripped off, even though the ticket price was only $18. However, I paid another $20 to get the “backstage tour”, which is an informal 90-120 minute tour behind the scenes of the $70 million STTE facility. The tour was conducted by a genial guide called Gretchen who had previously worked at Second City, so she made the tour very interesting and humourous, but most importantly, without being the least bit patronising. You get to learn about the mechanics behind the rides, see actors moving between sets in the back corridors, discover how the facility was designed and even get to examine Okudagrams up close (including those in-jokes the Trek crew like to insert onto signage). Along the way, I picked up lots of new pieces of Trek-related trivia which – with my goldfish memory – I’ve unfortunately now seemed to have mostly forgotten (eg, the Bajoran nose piece changed between TNG and DS9 due to practical make-up concerns – the eyebrow ridges in TNG kept coming unglued due to how frequently actors move their eyebrows in making facial expressions).
The backstage tour made the visit quite worthwhile for me in the end – if you go, don’t bother going unless you do the tour as well. However, I would still say that you’d have to be a Trekkie to really get your money’s worth.
Strangely enough, I think I’m still a little jetlagged. Even though I’ve been going to bed at around midnight (give or take a couple hours), my body has been getting me up at 5 or 6am. Then I lie in bed, awake, until I get bored and a more sane hour arrives. This is only annoying because I get pretty tired around dinner time, and it doesn’t help that dusk starts falling before 5pm here.
Anyway, we’ve met up in Vegas with my cousin and uncle. We’re hiring a car this morning and are driving out to the Grand Canyon, staying one night there to catch the sunset and sunrise. Then it’s back to Vegas to see David Copperfield perform, before setting off to the colder climes of Vancouver in time for Christmas Eve!
Merry Christmas everyone! Christmas is such a different experience in the Northern Hemisphere… much better atmosphere. It’s cold outside, but inside it’s cosy, with a nice roaring fireplace and a real pine tree! And Vancouver is really beautiful (when it’s not raining). More later…
One of my relative’s relatives has an empty apartment in Whistler, so I’m up here with my cousins Brian and Steven for two all too short days of skiing. Well, actually I rented a snowboard for the first time and took lessons today. It’s pretty fun, but since I only have one more day here, I’m going to switch back to skis to explore the mountain tomorrow – Blackcomb and Whistler are pretty huge!
From what I gather about British Columbia, it’s all very outdoorsy and picturesque. This part of Canada is really quite beautiful and it helps that this Christmas season is one of the warmest (if not the warmest) on record. Whistler is only two hours’ drive from Vancouver and it makes me wish that Australia had some decent ski fields. But Australia is such an old continent in geological terms so it’s flat as a tack. I guess the flipside is that the sea has had time to grind up the sand to make some really great beaches. Oh well, can’t have it all I guess.
Happy New Year and welcome to 2006! Looking back, a lot of stuff happened in 2005… 2006 is going to be very different, but still exciting!
The trip is going well, although I am suffering from a dramatic sunlight deficiency. Every single day, except for two in Arizona, has been completely overcast, if not raining as well. Contrast this to the 44 degree Sydney bushfire weather. Winter in the northern hemisphere sucks. Quick roundup follows (not many photos sorry, I’m a bit lazy when it comes to posting them!).
Vegas
We took a break from the glitz of Vegas and took a roadtrip to Arizona to check out the Grand Canyon and stopping at the Hoover Dam along the way (which sits across the Nevada-Arizona state border). Warmish weather, beautiful landscapes, good music and a reliable GPS unit made the 11 hour journey a great roadtrip.
The Canyon is much more impressive and larger in real life than appears in photos. The Colorado River winds through the bottom of a canyon comprising many different layers of bedrock, the lowest of which are dated in excess of a billion years old. When the sun peeps over the canyon wall during sunrise, its light strikes certain layers, vibrantly lighting them up in various hues of vermillion and orange and throwing long, sharp shadows across the canyon floor and walls.
Back in Vegas, we saw a performance by David Copperfield, who is pretty much the greatest illusionist alive (if not ever). An absolutely amazing show, the man is a genuine genius. I find it amusing how people try to deconstruct and figure out the trick behind each illusion after the show. Apparently it takes about two years to plan and design each illusion. Trying to figure out how a person at the very top of his trade has done his tricks in the hour after a show would be analogous to attempting to reconstruct the maths behind one of Einstein’s papers after reading only its conclusion. Some of his tricks were: the prediction of lottery numbers chosen by the audience (where the prediction was in a locked box on an audio tape and on a scrap of paper), making a car appear on stage out of nothing and most impressively, “teleporting” to an island in the Philippines (shown via a live video feed). As a presenter, Copperfield is smooooth. I’m pretty sure he could have had any girl in the audience that night, taken or not. One girl would have gone ahead and touched a scorpion after he told her to, had he not stopped her at the last minute…
Random observation:
– We bought a bag of Pork Rinds with an expiry date of December 3005 (packaged December 2005).
Vancouver
True to its reputation, when we arrived in Vancouver it was raining. Despite the weather, it’s easy to see why Vancouver is consistently rated as one of the world’s most livable cities and why it attracts such large quantities of migrants. (Vancouver has a huge Asian population – more than a whopping 30%!) It’s bordered by a decent harbour one one side, and mountains and forests on the other. North Vancouver residents live virtually at the foot of several ski fields. Being in British Columbia, it also lies at the doorstep of a wide variety of ecologies. Lots of outdoor activities here! And it has the added bonus of not being as cold as other Canadian provinces.
Christmas night saw people coming in from Singapore, Paris, Milwaukee, Dallas and of course Sydney. Someone drew up a large 30-person Secret Santa list beforehand, and when the time came to distribute them from around the Christmas tree, it was great fun. I scored a baseball cap and a set of poker chips that I wanted, and finally learnt how to play Texas Hold-em from Wai Ken, who plays poker professionally. I was then soundly trounced in a game with Gerald, Shelley and Wai Ken. There was also mahjong upstairs, snooker downstairs, and the well-used hottub out the back.
Wah Kit, Steven, Rebecca, Brian: Watching the opening of presents
On Boxing Day, the Soos held a lunch at their penthouse with some very schmick views of Vancouver. Then we went for a walk in the woods during the afternoon, trying to visit a Salmon hatchery along the way only to find it had closed five minutes before we had arrived. During the evening, Brian, Steven and I hung out at Gerald’s very nice apartment for the night (heated bathroom floor tiles!). I came third out of seven in poker – getting better, but I should know better than to go “all in” in a head-to-head with a pro!
View from North Vancouver
The Cole family (minus Gerald and Shelley)
Whistler slopes
Random observations:
– North Americans do not understand “How are you going?” or “How’s it going?” as a way of asking “How are you?” (“How are you doing?” on the other hand, is perfectly comprehendable.) It’s interesting noting that the French ça va literally means, “It’s going?”
– Lasik only costs a couple hundred dollars per eye here. That makes it cheaper for Australians to fly to Vancouver to get Lasik done than doing it back home!
Amsterdam
It was actually snowing fairly heavily when we arrived in Amsterdam. There was snow everywhere on the streets. Very pretty to look at, but not very nice to walk through with luggage. I took a wrong turn coming out of the train station so we ended up walking way further than we should have to the hotel. It wasn’t so bad for me as I was lugging my backpack, but my poor parents had to drag their trolley-bags through a thick layer of footpath snow.
Amsterdam is nice enough, but nothing amazing. Maybe it’s because its character is so well known that I was jaded before I even got there. I mean there’s what you expect: tonnes of canals and bridges, the smell of pot wafting out of the ubiquitous coffeeshops, the obligatory red light district visit with women strutting their stuff behind windows underneath UV lights, the long queue into Anne Frank Huis, and Rembrandt’s famous The Night Watch at the excellent Rijksmuseum (the painting is reproduced in a 3D sculpture at Rembrandtplein, so tourists can stand alongside a metal statue of Captain Frans Banning Cocq). The Indonesian food is good here, and I think the Rice Table (rijstaffel) is a Dutch thing which is sort of like a large smorgasboard of Indonesian dishes. Some Indonesian restaurants in Sydney should “import” this idea.
New Year’s Eve fireworks were okay, but the display in Sydney undoubtedly was better (as seen on CNN!). The Dutch also have a habit of tossing really noisy firecrackers and sparklers out onto footpaths – right into the path of passers-by. Pretty annoying.
Random observation:
– Pay TV shows that Australia is only known in this part of the world for fireworks, bushfires and Kerry Packer. (Kerry Packer died?!)
Brussels
I really like Brussels. It has character. Its narrow cobblestone streets are sometimes not easy to navigate, but at least there aren’t bicycles zooming around like in Amsterdam. The grand place is impressive. One major tourist photo spot is the Manneken Pis, a famous (but tiny) statue/fountain of a little boy taking a piss. The Belgians cutely dress him in different outfits throughout the year. While Manneken Pis is swarming with tourists, the little known Jeanneken Pis is hidden down the side of a dead-end alley a few hundred metres away. This shows a little girl in a not-so-elegant squatting pose pissing into a pool. Unfortunately, the water was turned off and the statue was behind a locked grille when I visited. I managed to get a photo through the grille, but felt like a pervert doing it.
The food is brilliant. Steaming bowls of moules et frites (mussels and chips, which surprisingly go together quite well), gauffres (thick Belgian waffles, smothered in whipped cream, syrup and whatever else you want on them), and of course, chocolat. Pralines and truffles. I bought over 3 kilos of the stuff today. They also have a lot of good beer here, but I wouldn’t know anything about that :P.
Random observation:
– Although Belgium is roughly split into a Dutch speaking and French speaking populace, its capital is officially bilingual. Most people also speak English too (and I’m sure some do German as well). Nothing like a city full of trilinguals to make you feel really inadequate.
I just have to say that Rome is horrendously expensive compared to when I was here five years ago. That’s what conversion to the Euro does, I suppose… makes everything 60% more expensive for an Aussie. Ouch.
Although I complained about prices in the last post, there is one staple that hasn’t changed in price – ice cream! If you look in the right places, you can pay as little as 1.25 and get three large scoops of excellent ice cream. You can’t even buy one scoop in Sydney for that price.
Caught up with Harold for dinner yesterday who’s on his way up with Tal to Venice. Leaving tomorrow for HK where I can finally dispense with this damn heavy winter jacket. Should hit Gold level on my KrisFlyer account then too! :) Extra 20kg luggage allowance!
Had an absolute blast in HK!! Will try and do a writeup on the plane tomorrow.
Once again Singapore Airlines’ flights have been the nicest to fly on… on the Rome-Singapore flight last week I plodded through Transporter 2, Fantastic Four, Lord of War and The Constant Gardener.
Transporter 2 was fun. Fantastic Four was definitely missable.
I really, really liked Lord of War, definitely recommend watching it when it gets released in the cinemas. It takes a very interesting look into the world of arms-trading, told in an easy-to-watch style which at the same time pulls no punches. The Constant Gardener had a different tone to Lord of War – slower, more serious – but sort of felt the same in that they both delve into the issue that is Africa (an issue that has been quite prominent over the last year), specifically its problems with war and poverty. I’d also recommend this movie.
Following on from a meme featuring on this site and this site, here’s a list of cities and towns I’ve passed through over the last year. Unfortunately, the remainder of 2006 will be significantly less itinerant.
Beijing, China*
Harbin, China
Singapore*
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia*
Genting Highlands, Malaysia†
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Luang Prabang, Laos
Vientiane, Laos
Hanoi, Vietnam
Halong Bay, Vietnam
Hué, Vietnam
Hoi An, Vietnam
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Phnom Penh, Vietnam
Siem Reap, Vietnam
Bangkok, Thailand
Dubai, UAE
Vienna, Austria†
Prague, Czech Republic
Bratislava, Slovakia
Budapest, Hungary
Sighisoara, Romania
Bucharest, Romania
Sofia, Bulgaria*
Athens, Greece
Mykonos, Greece
Thessalonica, Greece†
Washington, DC
New York, NY
Boston, MA
Cambridge, MA†
Montréal, Canada
Québec City, Canada
Toronto, Canada
Niagara Falls, Canada†
Chicago, IL
San Francisco, CA*
Las Vegas, NV*
Grand Canyon, AZ
Vancouver, Canada*
Whistler, Canada
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Brussels, Belgium
Venice, Italy
Florence, Italy
Pisa, Italy†
Rome, Italy
Naples, Italy†
Pompei, Italy†
Hong Kong, China
Macau, China†
Shenzhen, China†
All places had overnight visits, unless marked with †.
* Multiple entries, non-consecutive days.
† Daytrip only.
It’s all over! The last flight to Sydney awaits…
A huuuuge thanks to Eric and Dave! They graciously hosted me, repeatedly came to my rescue (especially linguistically speaking… I really feel like the only monolingual person on the face of this planet currently) and generally showed me a really fun time during my stays in HK and KL respectively. Many thanks also to Jen, Viv and Justin for taking me around. And of course, thanks to my wonderful parents for funding this second sojourn (don’t worry, starting work soon, the sponging off you wil soon stop!).
The last time I tried to write a post on the plane I got sidetracked by the inflight movies, so I guess the full “report” will have to wait till I get home.
Typing this from the lounge thing they have at this airport for frequent flyers… it’s a novel experience for me, but I must say it’s underwhelmingly un-special. Showers are pretty handy I guess, and there’s a free drinks fridge. But otherwise, bleh.
To my surprise, this aircraft has been fitted out with an internet connection. So I am fulfilling a goal to post to Hear Ye! from over 10km in the air. Getting quite a geeky kick out of being able to IM friends while airborne! But that’s not the “thing to do before I die” that this post is really about.
Singapore Airlines has an internet checkin feature where you get to select what seat you want up to 48 hours before flying. So I logged on a couple days ago to snatch my customary window seat for the Singapore-Sydney overnight flight home, when I realise that the schematic which shows the seat layout is a business class schematic (3 sets of 2 seats per row) and I’ve been already allocated 23H. I scanned through economy class and discovered that it was full up, and came to the gleeful realisation that I was the beneficiary of the overbooking practices of airlines – that is, they ran out of seats so they bumped me up to business class. Makes sense – the first few days of Chinese New Year have passed and people are returning home after having visited their families in Asia, so the flights back to Sydney are packed during this time. I had an aisle seat, and there were no other free slots, but as if that mattered – I was flying business class!
I love planes and flying long-haul flights (that, and liking the humid South-east Asian weather are two of my idiosyncracies most people baulk at), so when departure day arrives, I’m all excited. Finally, I get to travel in business class which I haven’t done since I was about 8 and back then they didn’t have fully reclining beds. Furthermore, I get to use for the first time my newly acquired Gold Krisflyer status (20kg extra luggage, fast check-in in the Gold queue, luggage is unloaded first from the plane so wait times at the baggage carousel are minimised, access to Star Alliance lounges and I get to board the plane first to avoid the rush for overhead luggage).
I arrive at KLIA check-in with only a 20kg backpack (it only holds so much stuff) and the lady tells me that there is another passenger bound for Sydney with a 14kg suitcase which he hasn’t been able to check-in because he was already way over his limit. “Would you mind checking-in his luggage on your allowance, sir?” she asks. Of course I don’t mind – everytime my mum goes back to Singapore we run into the same problem so it’s nice to be able to return the favour. She completes the check-in process and hands me my boarding pass, which I see in shock, is printed on an economy class template.
“Sorry, I should have mentioned this before, but could I get a window seat?”
“Hmm… sorry, this is a very full flight, I can’t move you.”
“Oh,” I stammer, “that’s um… okay. Could I check what class the seat is in?”
She gives me a funny look, and after a bit of tapping on the computer says, “it’s in economy class. It’s a 747, so it’s a bigger plane. You’re on the upper deck where economy class starts in row 22.”
I look at her in disbelief – since when did the upper deck of a 747 have economy class seats? I am shattered, and feel somewhat depressed on the first KL-Singapore flight.
I drop by the Star Alliance lounge when I get to Singapore airport, but it’s nothing special. By the time I arrive at the gate, a huge queue has already formed leading to the metal detectors and security checkpoint. I’m moping at this point, and when the gate staff inspect my boarding pass and say, “One moment sir, we are going to have to pull you aside for a moment,” all I could think was, “What now?!” Was I on some Interpol watchlist? Were they going to take me into a room and strip search me?
I’m standing off to the side for a few minutes when one of the staff bounds up to me and says with a smile, “Here’s your new boarding pass with a new seat!” With a start, I realise it’s for seat 3F, handwritten on a Raffles Class boarding pass. That really made my day. But wait, there’s more…
When I board the plane, a stewardess leads me to my seat. She leads me to the left, then down the aisle towards the nose of the plane. Ten seconds later, I realise I am walking in First Class.
First. Fucking. Class. It has to be a mistake. Any moment now the stewardess is going to realise it and turn me around. But no, she ushers me into a seat that’s bigger than my apartment’s sofa. That’s it, any moment now, someone is going to arrive and demand to know what I’m doing in their seat. But no, the aircraft doors are shut and I am still sitting in the first class cabin with three other passengers who actually look like they belong there. Any moment now, the stewardess is going to denounce my boarding pass is a forgery and declare I am an imposter. But no, she instead offers me a beverage. The plane takes off.
Since I was a kid I’ve always dreamed of flying in first, so much so that I put it on the “things to do before I die” (another idiosyncracy). Because the costs for travelling in anything but economy are outrageously obscene, I figured I had to win the lottery or rob a bank or similar to be able to fulfil it. So now I’m like a kid in the candy store. Here are some observations about first class so far… since I’ll probably never be flying it again in my life:
I am so excited I can’t sleep. I wonder if they bumped me all the way up because I helped the guy out at check-in? That’s the only reason I can think of upgrading me instead of pushing a business class passenger up…
Just had to post again for the sake of it. I’m much too thrilled about this internet-in-the-sky concept. I just realised I am going to have to get some sleep, just to try out this bed thing.
HONG KONG
For me, there are two types of travelling. One involves waking up early, strapping on a backpack and spending the day walking around town from attraction to attraction with a map in one hand and a camera in the other. The other type involves waking up late, carrying nothing, and spending the day eating, shopping or chilling out. You know how people come back from a holiday and say they need a “holiday after the holiday”? Well, that’s what Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur were for me – three weeks to relax after being frozen alive in Europe.
Saturday
When I touched down around noon, Eric came by to pick me up from the airport. We made a short detour and drove past the entrance to the new Disneyland Hong Kong. Although operational, the theme park still has two phases of construction to be completed over the next few years. It seemed pretty quiet, actually.
Hong Kong, the most densely populated (or perhaps second most densely populated) region in the world, is anything but quiet. Everywhere people cram into gigantic high-rise apartment complexes and the streets are continually swarming with people. As such, there’s no concept of a rural/urban divide in Hong Kong at all hours of the night. Nonetheless, Eric’s three storey house sort of near Yuen Long, in the New Territories, is pretty much as close to rural status as the former British colony will allow. There are still multi-storey buildings everywhere, but there is at least much more greenery and a bit of agriculture around. Most of all, it’s strangely peaceful. Apart from the occasional hoon trying to do his best Takumi Fujiwara impersonation up the road at night, it’s silent.
It only takes 45 minutes to get into the CBD on HK island via a bus, KCR (light rail) and MTR (subway), which by Sydney standards is reasonable. However, for the more urbanised locals, that’s an eternity. In the sticks it may have been, but I liked it there.
The flight from Rome to HK crosses seven timezones. The way to get over this jet lag is to not sleep on the plane and stay awake so there’s no problems with getting to sleep when it’s the proper time to at your destination. Unfortunately, despite a brief afternoon nap, I was crashing badly by the time dinner came. For dinner, I went out with Eric and some old HK school friends of his to an area bristling with seafood restaurants. Displayed at the front of each restaurant were banks of glass aquariums which gumbooted waitstaff scuttled over in order to scoop out fresh, wriggling, seafood. Touts were out in full force, thrusting menus at us and screaming out daily specials and other incentives in Cantonese (it’s a language that’s really well suited for shouting, and combined with the typical Cantonese culture of being direct and somewhat abrupt, explains why Cantonese restaurants are always so noisy). After we had run the gauntlet once, we decided to go back to one of the first restaurants we had passed. We were sufficiently traumatised that a small debate took place about whether or not we should circle right around the block instead of just turning around to avoid being accosted again. Only HK$240 (AUD/HKD = 5.8) bought lobster, crab, scallops, sea snails, fish, prawns and these things which looked similar to Balmain bugs but with a spiky shell.
Sunday
The next day, Vivian joined Eric and I for a trip to Macau, only one hour away by ferry. There are no casinos in HK and many Hong Kongers use it as a gambling getaway (sort of like how Genting Highlands is to Kuala Lumpur). Grabbing a hearty breakfast of macaroni, eggs and spam(!), we hopped on to the ferry. Eric described Macau to me as, “Hong Kong in the 70s,” which makes me wonder what the Portuguese did differently to the British in administering their respective colonies.
We spent the morning wandering around the streets. Signs are still marked in the peculiar combination of Chinese and Portuguese and remnants of Western influence show up in the form of colonial-style buildings and churches – now all World Heritage listed. “Hong Kong in the 70s,” was a very apt description of Macau. Lots of high-rise buildings, but just lacking that modern sheen and polish. The prevalence of casinos turn parts of Macau into a budget version of Las Vegas.
We walked up a street lined with snack stores. Vendors stood outside with trays of almond cookies and ba gua to sample. By the time we had walked up and back, we had successfully gorged ourselves full on these freebies. This posed a problem, if only because it was now lunchtime. We ate at a Portuguese restaurant and had a dessert which was called, when literally translated, “saw dust cake” (or similar). I was assured that the light brown bits on the cake were not actually dead tree, but biscuit crumbs.
Then we hit the casinos. Eric brought us to one holding a rather dodgy promotion. In exchange for surrendering some of our personal details (name, address, passport number and so on), we got to play two games. The first was a scissors, paper, rock one (we entered our choices into a computer). If we won that, we would be allowed to play the second game. But only after they took an electronic copy of our identification (in my case, a passport) and, most strangely, a photograph of our hand. Viv and I never made it past the first game.
Eric had won both games on a previous visit and proudly carried the mugshot they had taken of his hand in his wallet. Unfortunately, on that previous visit, he was wearing a pair of badly ripped jeans, including one sizable hole in its backside. Before Eric could claim his prize, a Cantonese-speaking Indian security guard had sighted his gross dress code violation and yelled, “What the hell? I can see your underwear!” He grabbed Eric roughly by the arm and tossed him out on to the road.
Today, fashion wasn’t an issue, although something about Eric must have said, “I am in desperate need of money” because while we were watching a Blackjack table (keeping a distance as the minimum bet on all the Blackjack tables was at least HK$200!), a loanshark slithered up to Eric and started soliciting. After Eric had made it clear he wasn’t in need of money, the loanshark continued (in Cantonese), “Oh, if you want to yai yai, I can also arrange that for you.”
The literal translation for yai yai is “being naughty”. I learnt a new Cantonese phrase that day.
Monday
Monday saw Eric commence a two week internship at a city law firm. Being his first job in an office environment, he was visibly nervous about things. Nonetheless, we had arranged to meet up with him, along with various other friends from UNSW for lunch. After enjoying a nice sleep-in, I walked downstairs.
Eric’s grandfather was there eating lunch and watching TV. An amazing man of 95 years, he lives on the house’s top floor so he was obviously still very mobile. Unfortunately for me, he only spoke Cantonese.
My family is Cantonese. My mum speaks Cantonese (among other dialects), my dad speaks Cantonese. Two of my grandparents don’t speak English. All of my aunts and uncles speak Cantonese. But I can’t. I attribute it to growing up in rural Sydney, but whatever the reason, it was proving to be quite a liability. Through a steadfast refusal to speak Cantonese when I was young, I learnt how to listen to it through pure osmosis, but have major trouble stringing together a sentence when speaking. Even then, my Chinese is mangled by a thick gwei lo accent. Yes, I’m a true banana.
Anyway, I said good morning to Eric’s grandpa. The following exchange took place entirely in Cantonese:
“Are you going out?” he asked me.
“Yes, I’m going out,” I replied.
“Are you going out to eat?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, do you know how to speak Chinese?”
“No I don’t.”
He sort of grunted and said, “Well how are you going to [something I didn’t understand] if you don’t know how to speak Chinese?”
“Err…”
“Wait till I finish lunch, and then I’ll help you.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
Not having a key, he let me out of the front gate. I assumed he was going to lead me to the bus stop, but when he turned the other way, I realised he was actually taking me out to lunch and stopped him.
“Uh, sorry, I need to take the bus.”
“Huh?” he replied sharply.
“Uh… take the bar-see,” I clarified.
“Oh! bar-see!” he paused, thinking. “But you don’t need to take a bus to have lunch.”
At this point, I needed to convey that I needed to take a bus to the city to meet Eric for lunch. The problem was, I didn’t know the words for “city”, “meet”, nor “lunch” (I told you my Cantonese was bad). So all I could do was keep repeating, “Eric” and “need to take a bus”, while gesticulating in the general direction of the city. He patiently listened to me but we weren’t getting anywhere.
“You want to see Eric? But Eric is working!”
“Yes, I know that… but… uh, take bus… Eric… uh… uh…”
After a few more repetitions of this (and steadily feeling more useless as time past), Eric’s grandpa tried to help and offered perhaps the only two words in English he knew: “Eat! Food!” he said, motioning he hand towards his mouth.
I looked down at my watch. It was noon. If I didn’t get the message through to him, I’d be late. Finally, I blurted out, “Eric! One o’clock!”
A light dawned. “OH!” he said. He led me to the bus stop, asked if I was okay to pay the fare, and went home. He was amazingly sharp for someone of that age.
I got into Central and somehow bumped into Kit among the throng of suits. Kit was now working his butt off for an investment bank and we arranged to meet for lunch the next day. (“Hm, no dinner is not good any day this week.” “Work commitments?” “Yeah.”)
Lunch was at a Japanese restaurant, and when I walked in, the place was awash with businesspeople. Whoever had organised the lunch had rounded up a bunch of law students on vacation internships. Everyone was dressed in suits. Being decidedly underdressed, it was a little intimidating, but luckily Jason was there – fresh from exchange in Toronto, on holidays, and suit-free.
Only a few hours into his first day, Eric was already feeling a little stressed after work. Unlike Sydney, lunch hour is standardised and inflexible in HK. It’s taken from 1-2pm. I arranged to meet Eric after work at 6. By 1.55pm, the restaurant had abruptly emptied, leaving just a relaxed me and Jason to finish off our tea. Jennifer (also suit-free) arrived and joined us until the restaurant closed an hour later.
That afternoon, Jen took us around the CBD. We started at the newly built IFC (International Finance Centre) Tower 2. As we strolled among the expensive brand-name boutiques and eateries, Jen, having worked at several large law firms both in HK and Sydney, filled us in on the work culture in HK.
Solicitors make around 50% more than their Sydney counterparts at a much lower tax rate. However, it sounded like that’s where the benefits ended. It’s three years before a graduate becomes a solicitor, unlike the six or so months required in Sydney. Long hours come standard, and with local firms having an official 5.5 day work week (Saturdays are half-days), “long hours” really means long. Internally, firms tend to be much more hierarchical. Whereas Australian partners are quite approachable, HK partners tend to take a closed door, hands off, figure-it-out-for-yourself, “don’t bother me unless it’s really important” attitude. Even once a student has received a vacation placements, the placement experience itself is competitive, with firms setting a variety of assessment tasks for interns to complete. Jen related how she had to give a simulated pitch to an investment bank client (a role which happened to be “acted out” by the firm’s head partner) in order to become their globally preferred legal adviser. Another task involved producing an analysis of all the issues pertaining to fending off a hostile takeover. Not quite your 9-6pm deal that Sydney firms provide. In fact, interns tend to put in 12 hour days there.
Jason and I became increasingly disconcerted as we moved through the shops in Central. All screamed extreme wealth (an A$35,000 mobile phone, anyone?) and after seeing several Pradas, LVs, etc, I declared that though every other city in the world only has one Tiffany store, HK seemed to have about ten. Sydney has one. Even New York has one. What was HK doing with so many? (It turns out that actually several cities have several stores: London has 4, Seoul has 5, HK has 6, but Tokyo has around 9.) That’s a materialistic culture for you.
When we had had enough, we stopped by Lan Kwai Fong for a bowl of sour grapefruit mango sago soup (the Chinese name is a little more elegant). Eric SMSed me at 5pm: “solicitor gave me work, meet you at 8 instead”. Jen chuckled knowingly, “I told you 6 was optimistic!”
For dessert that night, Eric took us to a shop called “Australia Dairy Co”, which as far as I could tell, had no connection with Australia whatsoever. When we arrived, the place was swarming with people and there were no spare seats. We didn’t have to wait long though. A waiter lead us through the labyryinth of bodies and to a table where a couple were enjoying their tea. The waiter scribbled out a bill, chucked it on the table and within 30 seconds the couple was kicked out and we took their place.
We’d barely sat down when another waiter came to take our order and plopped three glasses of tea on our table. We considered the menu while the waiter looked increasingly agitated, although once he realised Eric was explaining the menu to us in English, he looked more bemused than anything. “When it gets busier, I can order something on this menu and have it arrive before the next person has put in their order,” Eric commented while I wondered how it could possibly get any busier. “This is real Hong Kong service.”
I ended up ordering a french toast, which is a thick piece of french toast filled with peanut butter, drenched in butter and drizzled in as much honey as you want. Unfortunately for Eric, work had noticeably taken its toll on him. He’d lost his appetite, taken on an uncharacteristically subdued demeanour, and was seriously doubting his place in an office environment. “It’s so quiet! No one talks there!” he lamented.
Tuesday
Kit mysteriously failed to contact me and was not answering his phone, so I had lunch with Eric instead while Jen took me out for shopping around Causeway Bay. I’m really not a shopper – especially if I’m not looking for anything in particular – and the sales people in Hong Kong scare me. They’re really in your face, always hovering over you, always inquiring whether you need another colour, or more help, or if you’re ready to buy. So, we ended up having an extended afternoon tea until Eric finally got off work. We went to Sha Tin for dinner (pigeons!).
By this time, Eric was a broken man. Everyone knew it. Everytime someone mentioned work, he’d glumly grimace, sigh softly, shake his head and look down. The quietness, the isolation and the lack of sunlight he was experiencing was hell on earth for him. And it only took 48 hours.
Luckily his appetite had partially returned and we went out to dessert at… some place next to a big stormwater drain. I think it was in Yuen long. I don’t know. Anyway, we’re working our way through a large fruit salad when Kit called at 11.
“Uh… mate… I’m so sorry, I totally forgot about lunch! I only just got your message!”
“Busy day at work huh?”
“Yeah um… actually –” his voice turned sheepish at this point, “I’m still at work.”
“Oh, that’s rough. How about lunch tomorrow then?”
“Actually, something big has come up, I can’t do lunch this week either.”
“O… kay.”
“Tell you what, I can do coffee.”
“But I’m guessing you can’t guarantee that.”
“No.”
Jen was grinning again. “What did you expect? He’s an i-banker! Working in Hong Kong! That’s what you get for working in Hong Kong!” she said when I put the phone down.
Eric grimaced, sighed, shook his head and looked down.
Wednesday
The next day, I had Yum Cha at lunch with Viv. Eric dropped by, but could only stay 15 minutes before he had to rush off. Jen took me around shopping again, but we ended up eating again instead.
We met up with Jason, Jess, Yorkie and a couple of their friends for dinner. Dinner was organised for 6. By some miracle all the lawyers finished work on time (except Eric, who via a distressed SMS wrote, “Don’t know when I finish. Assume I’m not coming. Eat first”).
Later that night, I decided to go to Felix, atop the Peninsular Hotel. I had tried to venture in three years ago, but was rejected by a hefty New Year’s Eve cover charge. This time was better and we eventually made it into the toilets.
It was worth the trip. One wall of the restrooms is entirely made of glass, behind which the expanse of Kowloon sparkled. Three individual urinals behind a translucent plastic curtain faced out. So there we were, Jason, Eric and I, pissing over Hong Kong, gazes firmly fixed out the window.
“This is just so wrong.”
“Yeah, SO wrong.”
“So very wrong.”
There were two bathroom attendants manning the sink. When I went to use the sink, one held out his hands, palms up, as if he was presenting the sink as a gift to me. His, uh, hand action must have tripped off some automatic sensor because the water started flowing. As I saw other people use the sink, I started sniggering… it was all too ridiculous for me.
Thursday
I followed Jen and her aunt to Shenzhen on Thursday. Although Shenzhen, through its Special Economic Zone status (which entitles foreigners to a Shenzhen-only discounted HK$150 visa), has developed rapidly, it is still unmistakably mainland Chinese. The squad of men squatting beside the street gutter give it away. And of course the drab mainland concrete architecture.
Shenzhen operates in some sort of anarchy zone for intellectual property violators. They copy everything. The new Shenzhen MTR system has a logo which is exactly the same as Hong Kong’s, except for an extra line. Like HK, there’s a Causeway Bay district (despite the absense of any bay). And one of the most blatant ripoffs was a “Ukarmani Limited” store. Guess what its merchandise looked like. Shenzhen is the place, therefore, to go for knock off handbags, knock off electronics (“iPob”?!), knock off clothes, knock off software and knock off DVDs. Counterfeits bags actually come in different grades of quality (from AAA and AA+, down to C or lower) and are priced accordingly. Bring a local if you don’t want to get ripped off.
Shenzhen is also a great place for massages. One place offered three hours for HK$90, or one hour for HK$48. We could only stay for an hour. I have never had a massage where I’ve actually been able to communicate with the massuer/masseuse due to language difficulties. But my suspicions were confirmed that they do make fun of me to other masseuses while they’re rubbing away. But it was gooood. So good, in fact, that I accidentally fell asleep.
Back in Hong Kong, the final dinner was in Yuen Long for Hong Kong’s culinary pièce de résistance: pig oil rice. Get some rice, some soy sauce, and some pig lard. Mix. Eat. Delicious. Really. (Incidentally the restaurant is owned by a chap that, unsurprisingly, has a waistline like Officer Plod from Noddy.)
Eric drove us to Sai Gong for dessert to a place which was divided into four seating areas: smoking and durian, non-smoking and durian, smoking and non-durian, and non-smoking and non-durian. After some debate, we ended up in the non-smoking and durian section. Durian is that foul smelling and foul tasting material that passes for an edible fruit. Jason and Viv love it. Eric and I hate it.
Somewhere along the line the night turned late and judgments became impaired and a challenge was put before Eric and me to eat half a Durian Pancake (a fresh chunk of deathfruit embedded in cream and a durian flavoured wrapper). It was not pretty.
Still reeling from the durian mingling with the pig oil in my stomach, we set off to find a good view of HK that we didn’t have to pay for. As conversion turned to swapping ghost stories (much to Viv’s dismay), we arrived at the foot of “Flying Goose Mountain”. Turning off the main road and up a winding, single-laned path, we set off up the mountain.
Within minutes, a thick mist had suddenly rolled in and Eric was reduced to a slow crawl. Visibility was 5 metres at most. Eric mentioned that although he had never been to the mountain before, we should lock our doors as he heardthere might be illegal immigrants from China living on the mountainside who might not take kindly to our intrusion at this hour. Things were starting to get a little unnerving. The road was too narrow to turn around so we had no choice but to forge onwards. Finally the mist got so thick that Eric had to keep an eye on the rockface to our right to figure out where the road was. Since the headlights were reflecting straight back off the mist, Jason suggested that switching off the lights would make things better, and suddenly the car plunged into darkness.
“Yeah, I think this is better,” Eric agreed.
From the back seat, Viv and I could only see an inky blackness. “No no no! Turn it back on!”
After about a half hour of crawling up the mountain, we finally reached a lookout, but no one wanted to get out of the car. So we drove onwards and back down the mountain. After another eternity, we emerged back onto a main thoroughfare and approached a traffic light.
“Guys? The brakes aren’t working.”
“Yeah Eric, pull the other one.”
“No, no! I’m serious!”
He pumped the brakes, but surely enough the car continued to slide forward. There was a burning smell coming from somewhere that was growing steadily stronger. Luckily, the handbrakes were still operational, and we pulled over to give the car a chance to cool down. HK was really the last place I expected to get lost on a mountain.
KUALA LUMPUR
Car troubles greeted me in KL as well. I arrived in KL Sentral at night. Dave and Justin once again picked me up.
“Okay dude, we’re going clubbing! But first…”
“But first what?”
“But first, I need to fix up my car… radiator is having issues.”
“Job!”
KL was even a lazier experience than HK. Slept late, woke up for lunch. Went to Zouk. Won at pool. Got my revenge on Justin in snooker. Lost to Dave. Mixed results with DotA and Three Corridors. Still hate volleyball. Was made to feel linguistically inadequate. (Ni hee! Ngai mm hee!) Ate lots and lots of mamak food. Ate more Ramly burgers than is healthy. Wikipedia says:
“Despite its popularity among Singaporeans, the Ramly Burger is banned in Singapore … However, several stalls have smuggled the burger, albeit illegally, into the country. In particular, Ramly Burger stalls are rampant in pasar malams, which are harder to track due to their itinerant nature. Some have expressed health concerns over the Ramly burger, due to the liberal amounts of condiments typically lathered on the burger.”
I brought over some American mustard from San Fran and we added mustard to the burger. It’s good shit!
The main event in KL was Chinese New Year. I haven’t had a CNY in Asia since I was little. In Australia, celebrations are fairly subdued. Normally we have a reunion dinner together with any relatives we have in Sydney.
CNY is a public holiday in Malaysia and it’s traditional for people to make their way back to their family hometowns for it. Since most people working KL came from other parts of Malaysia, KL itself is extremely quiet during it – the roads are empty, the shops are closed. CNY falls either on the second or third new moon after the winter solstice (when the nights are the longest in a year).
We went out to see Fearless on CNY eve. Jet Li’s last movie, I observed.
“Choi! It’s not! It’s only his last martial arts movie!” Dave chided.
“And when was the last time Jet Li acted in a non-martial arts movie?” I said without skipping a beat.
“Oh yeah lah… you’re right. Shit. It’s his last movie.”
Too bad the movie was dubbed into Cantonese with Chinese, Malay and English subtitles (which only appeared for 90% of the dialogue). Otherwise, it was a decent watch.
Nighttime was quiet, just the “reunion dinner”. The TV was broadcasting a lot of Chinese variety shows (just like they like to hold in France, it seems).
The tradition for the first day (out of fifteen) of CNY is to go visiting relatives, in order of the eldest and then working downwards from there. I tagged along with Dave’s family (and picked up a whole stash of those wonderful red packets along the way).
They say that Malaysia’s three main ethnic groups are each linked to a different vice: gambling, sex and alcohol. Chinese are undoubtedly gambling crazy, and barely half a day has passed before mahjong sets and decks of cards are brought out to convert respectable houses into instant illicit gambling dens. Ironically, it is actually all illegal, but naturally no one gives a toss. Justin told me how a few years ago, a friend had set up a virtual casino in his house – almost ten tables, including a real dai sai table. The house (dealer) was literally the house!
Dave’s sister, mum, aunt and grandmother (the “gambling granny”) seemed to have a set up a permanent (Chinese) poker game downstairs, and the numerous times I played I came away burnt. (Something about that saying, “Age and treachery will overcome youth and skill”?)
Over the next three days, we pretty much did nothing but gamble. Hours and hours of it. Mostly Texas Hold’em and some variant of Blackjack. We made rounds at four other houses. At Douglas’ house, someone set up a large game of 21. We were playing RM10/20 hands. After losing a chunk of my red packet money, I decided to sit things out and watch the “big boys” game (ie, parents) of texas hold’em. The men were going crazy on it. The blinds were only RM5/10. One hand in particular escalated rapidly.
“Ok lah, what’s your bet?”
“Yee baht!” ($200)
“Wahhhh lun eh… ok, ok, seong chair! Seong chair!” (literally, “get into the car!” as in “I’ll get on board”)
“Call, and I raise you another 200.” (flicking through a large wad of fifties)
Everyone went in and stayed in. By the time the river came, there was over RM2000 on the table. (Which to be honest, probably wasn’t that much money to them.)
At Jason’s house, Justin, Douglas and I were joined by this crazy girl who would bet every hand, and often raise to the limit. Most of the time it was a bluff, but since I was already down by quite a lot, I just couldn’t follow (and was too scared to go all-in). I kept getting bad cards and in the end I got blinded out of the game. Meanwhile Dave was suffering on a 3-deck blackjack game where Eugene, the dealer had made off with over RM600 of other people’s money by the end of the night (despite having to pay 2 to 1 on a blackjack). Incidentally, it turns out he was the son of one of Malaysia’s top 10 richest men, so I guess some people are just born to be lucky with money.
Contrary to Dave, Justin had been on a two and a half day winning streak. He put it down to wearing his “lucky clothes” – a special t-shirt, pants, and underwear. The day I left KL, he declared that he would be wearing those clothes for the rest of CNY. This posed some obvious sanitary concerns which his girlfriend took particular offence at several days later.
5/02/2006 3:18:15 PM Justin: well, someone, shirley told me to get them changed or not she wont come near me
5/02/2006 3:18:20 PM Justin: so i changed the shirt
5/02/2006 3:18:26 PM Justin: and i lost all my winnings
5/02/2006 3:18:36 PM Justin: and i’ve retired from gambling ever since
5/02/2006 3:21:03 PM Stu: HAHAHAHHA
5/02/2006 3:21:19 PM Stu: washed all the luck away
5/02/2006 3:21:23 PM Stu: evil woman
5/02/2006 3:21:34 PM Justin: aih
5/02/2006 3:21:40 PM Justin: all they think about is themselves
5/02/2006 3:21:40 PM Justin: jhahaha
5/02/2006 3:21:41 PM Justin: oh well
5/02/2006 3:22:00 PM Justin: my winning streak ended
I am still convinced that the person who has the motivation to open a late night mamak stall in Sydney will be very lucky with money.