whole first season over the next 3 days.Apparently a few people are reading this so I figured I would throw up some more pictures for reference where possible. The one next to the right here is of the pool area discussed in the previous post and most likely to come a reoccurring setting throughout this blog.
So starting from after the fist night of pool (Tuesday) than... woke up the next day in rough shape, I didn't remember to buy a Gatorade or water on my way back the night before and eating some ibuprofen also slipped my mind. But sucking it up is something we all do so I climbed in the shower, all be in later than usual, and walked to whole 10 seconds from my building to my desk. The day until lunch was somewhat a drag, I have discovered that the system of eating here, a Lazy Susan with tons of food to be picked at as wanted, tends to leave you unsure how much you have eaten. This being said I went into the previous night of drinking without as much as I thought in my stomach. After a decent meal I was back on my feet. We were tasked with going to the airport in the afternoon to pick up an employee from the US that was coming over for a few months. This was our first solo trip into HK, albeit for only an hour to the airport and back, but solo none the less. We were a little nervous after being given such directions as, "look for the both and tell the HK airport and then give them 130 Yaun and they will give you a sticker to find you on the other side of immigration," but none the less that is exactly what happened. The trip executed with little issue and therefore little to say about it. We made it back without an issue and packed it in early for the night, still being somewhat physically drained from the previous nights activities.
The next day we were tasked to bring customer to the SEG electronics market, the biggest electronics market in the world. The customer was looking for a wireless bridge for a Blue-Ray player, similar to one used for xbox360. He ended up buy some cheapo wireless router instead insisting it would work the same, knowing the customer is always right mentality applied I tried a little to save him from this mistake but ended up failing. Sidetrack into a little nerdiness here, you can technically use a router instead of a bridg
e, but it requires a hacked firmware specific to you router (Linksys is most commonly hacked download-able firmware available) and a cheep Chinese router won't work at all. The trip wasn't a total waste though, I bought a $15 mini remote controller helicopter that kicked ass until I flew it out the window and and the wind caught it, it crashed and broke, I am going to attempt to fix it though and will give an update if i succeed. (Picture is the inside of the SEG electronics market, it's in one of the tallest buildings in the world btw).On Friday we were once again tasked with an airport pickup trip. Routine by this point you might think, but no, I managed to forget my passport and had to return with the car to the plant and leave Sam alone at the border to HK to fend for himself. No matter though, I came back and was greeted by two co-workers with beers and food at the affectionately named "little hat noodle place." As the name may imply the proprietor of the shop always dawns a little hat(maybe a religious thing?), and their main choice of food is the hand pulled noodles that get stretched and thrown into the pot about 10 feet from where you are eating. It was decided we would play some pool and then head off to a club for the night. Pool went the standard way, a crowd of maybe 50 forming when Austin decided to throw some cash down on a game, cash in this case being roughly $15usd. We hit the club/disco around 9:30 a little too sober for the scene. It wasn't packed yet by any means, but the techno was blaring and the lights going off like some sort of 90's era rave. Being far more well off than the average Chinese person in the area we got a VIP type treatment, table lined with beers and drinks, platters of fruit, essentially anything you could really want at a club was at our disposal for a fraction of the US price, a very small fraction at that. Far more interesting was the dancing though, simply put it is people standing and doing a shuffle movement, like the arm movement of the twist with minimal to no leg movement. Not quite what I was used to, but I guess that's the style here. I became more inebriated as the night bore on and chose not to conform to the local custom of shuffling and instead, I am sure, gave some young Asians quite a ridiculous show. I was not alone though, by this time Sam had returned from the airport and Austins antics were not going unnoticed. We were by all practical means being "typical Americans." We grabbed some dim-sum with a large group of Chinese people who barely spoke English around 2am before calling it a night.
The rest of the weekend was a complete waste. We had destroyed ourselves by coupling exhaustion and drinking the night before and all hid in our rooms for the next two days only venturing out to grab some dumplings when food became of dire importance every 12 hours or so. Sunday night, after another 12 hours of starvation, I had gathered the strength to head into town to eat and get some snacks from Wal-Mart. And in a move that just screams of the US me and Sam choose to get some McDonalds before shopping. In my defense, when Chinese food is all you eat for a week at a time you hit the weekend dreaming of a burger or a slice of pizza, steamed veggies and and wok cooked meat are great, but 5 days straight leaves something to be desired. We got two Big Mac meals for under $7usd, a steal by US standards, and the cheese, even heavily processed, was still nice in a country where cheese is somewhat nonexistent. We headed to Wal-Mart and grabbed a lot of nuts (pistachio, almond, and cashew) along with some random Chinese snacks (ie. seaweed). At this point I want to say this is like no Wal-Mart in the US, you have a self serve meat department with slabs just thrown on ground up ice for you to pick through, you can buy you live frogs to eat right next to the fish tank you can scoop your own out of, and if you looking for home cleaning supplies you have 8 rows on the first floor to skim through, o yea, and it's two stories. Groceries in hand we grabbed the bus home and called it a night.
Work was nothing of importance on Monday, and due to a miss-communication we ended up going a little late to the English class Sam and I have decided to lend our hand to. It ended by 6:45pm though and we went and met up with Danielle and Austin at the pool area. We played till about midnight while soaking in some suds. Danielle left early as the public squat toilet restrooms weren't quite up to her standard, they weren't up to any US standard really, but as a guy it's easier to just make do obviously. Austin started playing for cash again at about ten and about a half hour later I took the time to count the crowd that had formed around his table, over 80. It was about 3 deep in every direction and grabbing his lighter to pop a beer meant ignoring common decency and just pushing people out of the way, a perfectly accepted maneuver in China apparently.
Tuesday Sam and I revisited Wal-Mart with Danielle. This time we grabbed large backpacks for our upcoming Chinese New Year break trip (I won't say where yet as not to spoil it) and a basketball. Danielle also got bedding to try to improve the wooden slab that is passed of as a bed and I grabbed chocolate covered Oreos which I have discovered to be just as good here as in the states.
Finally, today, Wednesday January 27, 2010. Best lunch since I've been here, and top 3 in Austin's 4+ months. Egg rolls, fried chicken wings, tofu in beef sauce, the list goes on...it rocked. Grabbed dinner and the "little hat noodle place" and then played a little basketball with Sam. A light day and night overall, but it let me write this post so I guess I got something done.
Hope everyone is enjoying reading this stuff, I kinda wish I had done something similar for Denmark, but then again the debauchery may have been too much and it is a bit of work. If you think I should add a comments box just tell me on Facebook, I don't see it being needed but I figure I may be able to answer questions better here than there if anyone feels like asking some.
NEIL! It's Sara from Denmark. This is actually quite interesting...Keep blogging...and umm..Kulor bar, Hacienda, and Tuborgs did not allow for blogging in Denmark.
ReplyDeleteHugs from LA