Balancing a Century

Day 4: Saturday: Party Night

Day 5: Sunday: Trade Show with Nins & Friends

Day 6: Monday: Rest Day... Supposedly

Day 7: Tuesday: Gym Day

Day 8: Wednesday: Typhoon Signal #8

Day 2: Thursday. Getting to Know the Neighborhood

First thing in the morning, Law gave me the basic survival tools: keys to his pad, understandable. The HK guide book and how to read it, invaluable. A local sim card, practical. And, a wonderful piece of technology, The Octupus Card... wow. It's a prepaid cash card that you load with a machine at the train station or at any nearby convenient store. You can use it to get entry to the subway, you can use it to buy groceries, you can use it to get into the public swimming pool, and you can use it on any other establishment that has the octopus card reader. The beauty of its design is that you don't have to get it out of your wallet to use it. You simply wave it near the card reader and Voila! your money has been exchanged for some goods or a service. There's a mini version of the card and you can see school children wave their watches over the card readers to get into the subway. A good way to keep the bullies from getting your kids' lunch money.

So I walked around and walked around some more to get the feel of Causeway Bay. I walked all over Victoria Park and watched shirtless Chinese jog around under their summer sun.

Day 3: Friday, Hectic HK.

Law's cleaning lady was scheduled to come in this morning. I wanted to get out of her hair so I rode the $2 tram to a local market to have a look at prices of fish and vegetables. $4 for broccoli! There was a semi-traditional fan for $5 but I wasn't sold. I bought some cute fresh flowers after observing one local buy the same to see how much it was. There was no price tags like in the other shops and I didn't want to buy something that would rip me off. $21 for a big bunch. The cheapest in the area. Go! After another round around the area, I came upon a gaggle of old chinese folks bickering about something on a sidewalk. I couldn't resist the uzi urge so I tiptoed into the fray. Jade pendants and other stuff. Hmm... $3 on one side, $6 on the other. After half an hour and several calculator tapping exchange of numbers, I ended up with a bunch of small HK$1 tooth-shaped jade pendants to spread out among my good friends back home. That's a far cry from those metallic-looking plastic keychains that never get used. (Bato-bato sa langit, wag na sanang maulit! haha)

This was also the day I learned my first few Cantonese words. Tong hei, foo hei. I'm not sure that's how they're spelled, but that's how they sounded to me. They mean, inhale, exhale. I kinda caught the meaning after two hours of group exercise in one of the 4 Fitness First gyms I have access to with my Philippine membership.  How cool is that! The membership access and not really the Cantonese words.

Later that afternoon, I was still afraid to use my Octopus card so I just used a bill changing machine to change my HK$20 bill into coins. I needed HK$19 for entrance, you need to drop the exact change into the turnstile if you don't have the O card.  So there I was in a big locker room with small lockers that had keys stuck in their respective keyholes and I can't seem to turn them properly to lock the damned thing. So I looked around. Apparently, you needed to put in a $5 coin so you can lock it and take out the key. But, when I did so, I realized I still had some stuff that I needed to stash away. So, that cost me another $5 coin. A semi expensve learning experience when I could have just read the not so convenient signs hiding on the wall somewhere around the room.

The Victoria Park pool has 5 pools. One for lapping and doubles as a platform diving pool (no divers today), one for  springboard diving (a few kids and kids-at-heart having fun jumping into the water), one for women and kids, one for wading I think and one special tiled area that had just about 4-6 inches of chlorinated water... the tampisaw pool. So after 1 slow lap in the main pool, I considered doing a forward pike dive to wow the kids and take the risk of joining them in theiir clueless embarrassment of falling painfully into he water in the wrong position. I decided to take in some 4pm UV rays at the shallow pool with the other sunlovers. Surprisingly, there were about a dozen 20-something guys and only a few older men and fewer kids with their moms. I kept wondering why they weren't at work. It's nice to turn around every few minutes or so to cool the slowly baking skin without drowning yourself. I want one for the garden at home! Sadly, the pool closes at 5pm. Law says, they only clean the pools and open again around 6. But, I didn't wait to find out first hand. We had a dinner party to catch.

It was Christine's birthday. She was Law's college friend who just BOUGHT a new condo unit for around 60 Million Pesos equivalent. She's been here 9 years. It was small but the view was fantastic. We had some wine and pizza and salad and lentil curry and yummy deepfriend shrimps on sticks. After moving her capiz framed mirror around 2 different walls to figure out where best to put it. A few more small talk and we were off to another house party. We took a 45-minute train ride to Lan Tau Island. The Disney gang were there partying complete with lights and sounds. After a few cans of San Miguel (the cheapest beer in HK) I was ready to doze off, the sun was ready to wake up. It was already Saturday.

Day 1: June 18, 2008

When I go on an adventure, I always consider the first step outside our gate to be the start of my trip. My story starts with a tricycle ride. I was feeling anxious and bothered with the trip. I wasn't really sure why. My itchiest inkling suggests that, left with my own resources and without external forces moving me to action, I'm really not someone who'd even consider going to this part of the world.

Getting over that blah, I thought of pizza for lunch with my best friend. I couldn't decide how to go about it. Where to eat and how to get there. So my best friend decided to go to my house and I decided to let him just pick me up so we could eat somewhere accessible to taxis. So we had pizza and pasta and it rained. Hard. The streets got flooded and two lanes became one. Good thing I left the house 5 hours ahead of time. The stress is ten times less when you know you've considered these factors in your trips. The first available cab even accepted my offer of additional 1`00 bucks to the meter. For 500 pesos, I got rescued from the downpour and got to the airport a little more than 3 hours before my flight. I was refreshed with a light nap during the longish cross-city trip.And, the short lines at the check-in counter helped create a good start for this escapade.

8:29pm The Philippine Airline Airbus flight PR310 touched Chinese land. With a respectful smile, I nodded farewell to the OFW-looking lady I was seated with. As with most of the passengers, she was in a semi-hurry to get off the plane. I've always wondered why people have to be in a near-panic to get off public transports like trains, boats and buses. There's always, always a line to get out and get on with their lives. Me, I've come to appreciate the lull moments when you are forced by circumstances to just stay put and do nothing, no longer needing to be patient to wait. I enjoy those minutes, hours or days when I move from here to there and you are limited by the situation to read a book, talk to a stranger or daydream.

I breezed through the airport and met my good friend and host, Law, at the Hong Kong Central train station of the airport express line. He got me into a cab and we drove to my first night out.

Midweek gimmick of gay Pinoys at Volume bar. The Disney performers were there and a bunch of other expats from our beloved Philippines. I got a bottle of Bud for HK$55. Later a two-handed big glass of a sweet thing on tap for HK$65, a better deal. After several handshakes and some small talk, we started dancing where we were and a couple of guys from the Disney group danced on the pole by the DJ booth. After a little more time, I met a lawyer from New York, then a Brit on a backpacking world-tour, and then a French Navy guy. Welcome to Hong Kong! Funny I haven't met a Hongky yet.

Day 2: (coming soon)