We tried to get back to Golden Bauhinia Square in time to see the daily flag raising ceremony, but when we got there the Hong Kong and People's Republic of China flags were already at the tops of their flagpoles. So, we looked at the flags and the statue in the daylight and went inside the Convention Centre to see the lobby and escalators featured in New Police Story.
Then we went to Délifrance for breakfast and had "Cheese Omelette & Ham Steak, served with Baguette", which also happened to come with a sliced tomato. While we were having that and a cappuccino, they were playing random French music, and at one point they played Charles Trenet's La Mer (featured in Mr. Bean's Holiday). After we finished eating, we came back to the hotel to get ready for the day.
Our first stop of the day was to the auction place for Bob to pick up his painting (which, after all, was the impetus for this whole trip). We took a taxi back to the hotel to drop it off, and the taxi driver seemed to have trouble finding it because we went in circles for a while (I guess the roads here are even confusing for the professional drivers).
Then we went to Tung Chung to visit the big Buddha statue on Lantau Island at Ngong Ping. Before heading out to the statue, we had lunch at the Citygate Outlets mall at a food court called Food Republic, which had counters serving food of lots of different Asian styles: Shanghainese, Szechuan, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Indian, and more. We had curry chicken from the Indian place.
After lunch we took the Ngong Ping 360 cable car over to see the statue. When we got there, we discovered that there was going to be a kung fu demonstration by Shaolin monks in the little fake touristy village at that end of the cable car line. It was a disappointingly short demonstration (no actual sparring), but still neat to see. Then we went over to see the Big Buddha.
As promised, it was really big. And there were lots of stairs to climb to get to it. Lots of stairs. It probably seemed like even more due to all the pollution in the air. Through the trees we saw a steeple or turret or something; when I asked Bob what it was (since he'd been there before), he said it was (and I quote) "some kind of Buddhist thing". He later clarified that it was the roof of a stupa.
The we walked the Wisdom Path, and saw the Heart Sutra carved in logs mounted vertically (I suppose as a way of taunting them into recalling their previous existence as actual trees). We started hiking a trail which would've eventually taken us to the Shek Pik Reservoir, but we had to turn around to get back to the cable car before it stopped running.
Back in Tung Chung, we walked along the waterfront and back to the mall. Being an outlet mall, it had a lot of discount clothing stores but no record store, so we didn't buy anything. At dinner time we walked across the plaza to Pizza Hut, where we ordered a pitcher of Pepsi. It was so nice not to have to so carefully ration my consumption of my beverage. In fact, it was almost a struggle to drink it all.
Then we went back to the mall for a little bit before riding the MTR back to our hotel. We were both exhausted from all the hiking around the mountains of Lantau, and slept on the subway; fortunately we had to ride that line from one end to the other, so there wasn't a danger of missing our stop.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Bob and Jamie's Adventures in Hong Kong, Day 3
This morning again started out with very low visibility, but it mostly cleared up during the day. Our first stop was Wellington Street so Bob could have a photo op next to the street sign (he grew up in Wellington, FL). Then we strolled through the open air markets on Gage Street and Graham Street, which will be featured in The Dark Knight.
Next we walked to the famous Luk Yu Tea House on Stanley Street and ate dim sum (it only took us three days to have a meal of Chinese food in China). I mostly stuck to the very tasty steamed barbecue pork buns, because almost everything else on the menu had shrimp in it. The waiter was a bit overbearing (he pretty much forced us to order some other dishes which I didn't really want; fortunately Bob likes the taste of shrimp) but that didn't keep it from being a really pleasant experience.
Oh yeah, and the waiter also refilled our tea every time he noticed we had taken a sip (the cup could still be half full and he'd fill it back up; I guess he's a pessimist). That's right! We finally found a restaurant in Hong Kong which offers free refills on the drinks! I was very excited about that. So, our experience at the tea house was much better than our experience at the Cuban restaurant. It seems that Hong Kong is better at Cantonese food than it is at Cuban food; go figure.
Next stop, Lan Kwai Fong: a street which is a popular hangout for expatriates. After seeing what was there (bars, mostly), we walked over to Jardine House to catch the bus. We took a double decker bus to HKU, which was kind of a harrowing experience. Bus and taxi drivers in Hong Kong seem to have no problem with careening down hills, turning corners at full speed, and playing chicken with pedestrians and oncoming vehicles.
Anyway, we arrived at Hong Kong University without incident, and got to admire the nice architecture of its main building. It has some neat-o columns and courtyards with goldfish in a fountain. Then we walked over to the art museum (our principle reason for going to the university) which has an exhibit on Nestorian crosses dating from the 13th century. We also got to see an exhibit of photographs taken in central Asia by Sir Aurel Stein, including some from Kashgar, which Bob had visited several years ago.
The museum also had a really neat collection of photographs documenting how Hong Kong has changed over the past hundred years or so, as the shore line has been artificially extended and more and more skyscrapers built. It turns out that once upon a time, the buildings weren't all covered by garish neon lights.
After we had finished seeing the museum, we took the bus back to Admiralty and rode the MTR to Mong Kok, the most densely populated place on Earth. Not surprisingly, the streets were pretty crowded. We walked through Ladies' Market (where you can buy things like clothes and jewelry) and Goldfish Market (where you can buy aquaria and fish and of course dogs) on Tung Choi Street, and then on to Langham Place, a big deconstructivist shopping mall with crazy slanted walls that's 15 stories tall.
I got a couple more Jackie Chan movies at CD Warehouse, and then we ate at the MOS Burger, a Japanese chain which invented the Teriyaki burger in 1973. Bob had one of those, and it had far too much mayo, like the ones we had at BK the other day; I had a MOS Cheeseburger, which was a cheeseburger with a big tomato slice and what tasted like sloppy joe mix. I paid extra for a large drink, since we were back in the realm of no free refills. We went back upstairs to the 80M Bus Model Shop so that Bob could get a model Cathay Pacific 747-400 with Pratt & Whitney engines, fulfilling a lifelong goal of having a toy model airplane.
At this point we remembered that we wanted to do the Star Ferry Harbour Tour tonight, so we took the MTR back to Tsim Sha Tsui. Since we had time, we went to the Harbour City mall to check out Hong Kong Records (the other major record store which we had not been to yet). I didn't find anything (all the interesting DVDs were Region 3), but Bob found a Zhang Ziyi movie and I think a Jackie Chan movie. It was almost time for the tour, so we made our way to the ticket booth at the dock, only to discover that they stopped selling tickets ten minutes before the tour is to depart. Blast!
There was going to be another tour leaving an hour later, so we decided to try for that one, resolving to return to the dock sooner this time. In the mean time, we went back to the mall and went to a Starbuck's inside of the LCX department store, which is itself like a mall, with restaurants inside of it (including a California Pizza Kitchen) and separate cash registers at each name brand's apparently autonomous area. While we consumed our beverages, we watched a cruise ship put to sea (Ocean Terminal is both a section of the mall and an actual pier). Then it was back to the Star Ferry dock for the tour.
This time we arrived in time to purchase tickets, and so we spent the next hour cruising around Victoria Harbour. We had vouchers for free refreshments (for having a coupon and presenting our boarding passes from our Cathay Pacific flight), so we got banana bread and canned Nescafé; we saved these for after the cruise so that we could stay outside admiring the view rather than have to sit at a table in the cabin. Back in Tsim Sha Tsui, we partook of our bread and fake coffee on a promenade in front of the Clock Tower and Cultural Centre. Then we took the Star Ferry back to Wan Chai.
Rather than head straight for the hotel, we took the scenic route around the harbor side of the Convention Centre, stopping to see the big statue in Golden Bauhinia Square, a gift to HK from the PRC on the occasion of the handover. Bob predicted that there would be mainlanders there taking pictures of it (the gaudy statue is apparently a source of national pride for them), and he was right. There were four or five Chinese women posing and taking each other's pictures with it.
I waited for them to move and got a picture of the statue, and then we continued around to the west side of the Convention Centre, admiring the view of Admiralty and Central. Then we came back to the hotel. And then I wrote this. And just now I wrote that last sentence. Next I wrote the sentence preceding this one. Finally, I decided that after writing one more sentence I would stop and go to sleep.
Next we walked to the famous Luk Yu Tea House on Stanley Street and ate dim sum (it only took us three days to have a meal of Chinese food in China). I mostly stuck to the very tasty steamed barbecue pork buns, because almost everything else on the menu had shrimp in it. The waiter was a bit overbearing (he pretty much forced us to order some other dishes which I didn't really want; fortunately Bob likes the taste of shrimp) but that didn't keep it from being a really pleasant experience.
Oh yeah, and the waiter also refilled our tea every time he noticed we had taken a sip (the cup could still be half full and he'd fill it back up; I guess he's a pessimist). That's right! We finally found a restaurant in Hong Kong which offers free refills on the drinks! I was very excited about that. So, our experience at the tea house was much better than our experience at the Cuban restaurant. It seems that Hong Kong is better at Cantonese food than it is at Cuban food; go figure.
Next stop, Lan Kwai Fong: a street which is a popular hangout for expatriates. After seeing what was there (bars, mostly), we walked over to Jardine House to catch the bus. We took a double decker bus to HKU, which was kind of a harrowing experience. Bus and taxi drivers in Hong Kong seem to have no problem with careening down hills, turning corners at full speed, and playing chicken with pedestrians and oncoming vehicles.
Anyway, we arrived at Hong Kong University without incident, and got to admire the nice architecture of its main building. It has some neat-o columns and courtyards with goldfish in a fountain. Then we walked over to the art museum (our principle reason for going to the university) which has an exhibit on Nestorian crosses dating from the 13th century. We also got to see an exhibit of photographs taken in central Asia by Sir Aurel Stein, including some from Kashgar, which Bob had visited several years ago.
The museum also had a really neat collection of photographs documenting how Hong Kong has changed over the past hundred years or so, as the shore line has been artificially extended and more and more skyscrapers built. It turns out that once upon a time, the buildings weren't all covered by garish neon lights.
After we had finished seeing the museum, we took the bus back to Admiralty and rode the MTR to Mong Kok, the most densely populated place on Earth. Not surprisingly, the streets were pretty crowded. We walked through Ladies' Market (where you can buy things like clothes and jewelry) and Goldfish Market (where you can buy aquaria and fish and of course dogs) on Tung Choi Street, and then on to Langham Place, a big deconstructivist shopping mall with crazy slanted walls that's 15 stories tall.
I got a couple more Jackie Chan movies at CD Warehouse, and then we ate at the MOS Burger, a Japanese chain which invented the Teriyaki burger in 1973. Bob had one of those, and it had far too much mayo, like the ones we had at BK the other day; I had a MOS Cheeseburger, which was a cheeseburger with a big tomato slice and what tasted like sloppy joe mix. I paid extra for a large drink, since we were back in the realm of no free refills. We went back upstairs to the 80M Bus Model Shop so that Bob could get a model Cathay Pacific 747-400 with Pratt & Whitney engines, fulfilling a lifelong goal of having a toy model airplane.
At this point we remembered that we wanted to do the Star Ferry Harbour Tour tonight, so we took the MTR back to Tsim Sha Tsui. Since we had time, we went to the Harbour City mall to check out Hong Kong Records (the other major record store which we had not been to yet). I didn't find anything (all the interesting DVDs were Region 3), but Bob found a Zhang Ziyi movie and I think a Jackie Chan movie. It was almost time for the tour, so we made our way to the ticket booth at the dock, only to discover that they stopped selling tickets ten minutes before the tour is to depart. Blast!
There was going to be another tour leaving an hour later, so we decided to try for that one, resolving to return to the dock sooner this time. In the mean time, we went back to the mall and went to a Starbuck's inside of the LCX department store, which is itself like a mall, with restaurants inside of it (including a California Pizza Kitchen) and separate cash registers at each name brand's apparently autonomous area. While we consumed our beverages, we watched a cruise ship put to sea (Ocean Terminal is both a section of the mall and an actual pier). Then it was back to the Star Ferry dock for the tour.
This time we arrived in time to purchase tickets, and so we spent the next hour cruising around Victoria Harbour. We had vouchers for free refreshments (for having a coupon and presenting our boarding passes from our Cathay Pacific flight), so we got banana bread and canned Nescafé; we saved these for after the cruise so that we could stay outside admiring the view rather than have to sit at a table in the cabin. Back in Tsim Sha Tsui, we partook of our bread and fake coffee on a promenade in front of the Clock Tower and Cultural Centre. Then we took the Star Ferry back to Wan Chai.
Rather than head straight for the hotel, we took the scenic route around the harbor side of the Convention Centre, stopping to see the big statue in Golden Bauhinia Square, a gift to HK from the PRC on the occasion of the handover. Bob predicted that there would be mainlanders there taking pictures of it (the gaudy statue is apparently a source of national pride for them), and he was right. There were four or five Chinese women posing and taking each other's pictures with it.
I waited for them to move and got a picture of the statue, and then we continued around to the west side of the Convention Centre, admiring the view of Admiralty and Central. Then we came back to the hotel. And then I wrote this. And just now I wrote that last sentence. Next I wrote the sentence preceding this one. Finally, I decided that after writing one more sentence I would stop and go to sleep.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Bob and Jamie's Adventures in Hong Kong, Day 2
This morning it was smoggy and had a forecast of rain, so we weren't inspired to do as much as yesterday (which was a beautiful day). In particular, if we'd gone to The Peak today, we wouldn't have been able to see all that much. Fortunately, we didn't end up experiencing anything more than the slightest drizzle late in the evening, but I took my umbrella with me today just in case.
First we went back to the Havana Cuban restaurant in SoHo to have lunch. We really wanted to try their Cuban sandwiches, but all they were serving (other than appetizers) was a set lunch. So we chose to have the set lunch.
The set lunch consisted of a choice between tomato soup with sour cream or a weird cole slaw with apples and nuts for the appetizer; creamy chicken with rice and mixed vegetables, or steak with some weird sauce, or some kind of pork dish (I think) for the main course; a chocolate crème brûlée for dessert; and iced tea or soda to drink. My memory is fuzzy on the main courses because Bob and I both chose the chicken as being the most Cuban-sounding from the menu.
For the appetizer, Bob chose the soup and I chose the cole slaw (because I generally choose the non-soup option). Despite the really strange description and ingredients, it didn't taste bad; it mostly tasted like cabbage and carrots in some kind of mustardy sauce. I didn't taste any apple at all, and the almonds (or whatever they were) were mostly hidden by the flavor of the sauce. Bob finished his soup, so I would imagine he found it to be palatable. Either way, neither appetizer was particularly Cuban.
Next up was the main course. The rice was regular no-flavor-added Chinese-style steamed white rice, and the mixed vegetables consisted of peas, carrots, and corn. The creamy chicken ended up being cream of mushroom soup with chunks of chicken in it. Hurray. :-/ I picked out most of the big pieces of chicken, careful to avoid the hateful mushrooms infesting my dish, and I couldn't help but ponder how non-Cuban this meal was.
Last came the dessert: Kahlúa Chocolate Crème Brûlée. This was by far the best part of the meal (Bob went so far as to say that it was "quite good, although not Cuban"). It kind of just tasted like chocolate, with a texture between that of mousse and pudding. On the top of the puddingy part there was a layer of hard solidified something, which made my teeth stick together when I chewed on it; I must penalize it for that. On the other hand, it came with pieces of strawberry on the side (blueberries, too, which I left alone), so overall I would say that I liked it.
All in all, the food was okay, but the portions were small (kind of like at the Taco Bell in Demolition Man) and it was definitely Not Cuban. There was nary a bean to be found.
After lunch, we went downhill to Hollywood Road and walked along it toward Sheung Wan. We stopped in at the Man Mo Temple, which is a famous tourist attraction that happens to be a place of worship administered by a hospital (which strikes me as backwards).
It's a neat looking building which predates Britain's possession of Hong Kong. Inside there are lots and lots of burning incense coils hanging from the ceiling which constantly drop ashes onto the floor (or the heads of people walking underneath) and fill the room with a thick aromatic smoke. There are also idols to the gods Man and Mo (Literature and War), to whom visitors had left such offerings as a bowl of oranges or a half-eaten bag of peanuts. After we left the temple we descended Ladder Street and made our way to the Sheung Wan subway stop.
We took the MTR to Admiralty and visited Elim Christian Bookstore in the Lippo Centre. Here I got the typical souvenir of Hong Kong, a Korean-English New Testament. Bob found a Chinese-English hymnal and a Greek-Chinese-English New Testament. With our backpacks laden with wares, we decided to stop back at the hotel to unload, lest they get rained on later in the day (and to save our backs from unnecessary suffering).
After resting in our hotel room for a bit, Bob and I went back to Sheung Wan for dinner. We intended to go to a local Chinese fast food restaurant called MX, but they were closed so we went to Pizza Hut instead. Pizza Hut in Hong Kong is more upscale than it is in America, and much more inventive with its pizza offerings; it's a lot like California Pizza Kitchen. About half of the pizzas are made with thousand island dressing instead of tomato sauce. With that in mind Bob and I ordered a regular old pan pizza with pepperoni and green peppers (and tomato sauce). It was quite good, even though once again we couldn't get free refills of our Pepsi. Next time we should order a pitcher rather than individual glasses.
After dinner, we rode the metro to Kowloon Station and visited Elements, a new shopping mall. As usual, the different shops keep different hours, so when the HMV closed the ice skating rink was still open. Elements seemed like a really nice mall, but it was nearly devoid of people due to its out-of-the-way location in west Kowloon.
When we left the mall, we tried to walk over to the harbor (on the other side of a group of condos and the construction site of what will be the new tallest building in Hong Kong), but we were thwarted by cops. First we tried to walk between one condo and the construction site, and a cop came up to us and said that the area was closed.
Then we tried to circumnavigate the group of condos, but the ways were gated. There was a delivery access road leading behind one, but we spotted a cop sitting in a chair who surely would have blocked us if we'd started to walk toward him. So, other than fleeting glances, we didn't get to enjoy much of the view from west Kowloon.
Feeling slightly dejected, we rode the MTR back to the hotel, where we performed our American Coke vs. Hong Kong Coke taste test. American Coke, of course, uses high fructose corn syrup in place of Hong Kong's table sugar. I found the American Coke to be slightly less sweet and more acidic than its Hong Kong counterpart, but the differences weren't nearly as noticeable as the ones between the Kit Kats. They were more subtle and it was hard to figure out what exactly was different about one from the other. I left both bottles unfinished, so there will surely be a second round of experimentation later. Bob was there, too.
First we went back to the Havana Cuban restaurant in SoHo to have lunch. We really wanted to try their Cuban sandwiches, but all they were serving (other than appetizers) was a set lunch. So we chose to have the set lunch.
The set lunch consisted of a choice between tomato soup with sour cream or a weird cole slaw with apples and nuts for the appetizer; creamy chicken with rice and mixed vegetables, or steak with some weird sauce, or some kind of pork dish (I think) for the main course; a chocolate crème brûlée for dessert; and iced tea or soda to drink. My memory is fuzzy on the main courses because Bob and I both chose the chicken as being the most Cuban-sounding from the menu.
For the appetizer, Bob chose the soup and I chose the cole slaw (because I generally choose the non-soup option). Despite the really strange description and ingredients, it didn't taste bad; it mostly tasted like cabbage and carrots in some kind of mustardy sauce. I didn't taste any apple at all, and the almonds (or whatever they were) were mostly hidden by the flavor of the sauce. Bob finished his soup, so I would imagine he found it to be palatable. Either way, neither appetizer was particularly Cuban.
Next up was the main course. The rice was regular no-flavor-added Chinese-style steamed white rice, and the mixed vegetables consisted of peas, carrots, and corn. The creamy chicken ended up being cream of mushroom soup with chunks of chicken in it. Hurray. :-/ I picked out most of the big pieces of chicken, careful to avoid the hateful mushrooms infesting my dish, and I couldn't help but ponder how non-Cuban this meal was.
Last came the dessert: Kahlúa Chocolate Crème Brûlée. This was by far the best part of the meal (Bob went so far as to say that it was "quite good, although not Cuban"). It kind of just tasted like chocolate, with a texture between that of mousse and pudding. On the top of the puddingy part there was a layer of hard solidified something, which made my teeth stick together when I chewed on it; I must penalize it for that. On the other hand, it came with pieces of strawberry on the side (blueberries, too, which I left alone), so overall I would say that I liked it.
All in all, the food was okay, but the portions were small (kind of like at the Taco Bell in Demolition Man) and it was definitely Not Cuban. There was nary a bean to be found.
After lunch, we went downhill to Hollywood Road and walked along it toward Sheung Wan. We stopped in at the Man Mo Temple, which is a famous tourist attraction that happens to be a place of worship administered by a hospital (which strikes me as backwards).
It's a neat looking building which predates Britain's possession of Hong Kong. Inside there are lots and lots of burning incense coils hanging from the ceiling which constantly drop ashes onto the floor (or the heads of people walking underneath) and fill the room with a thick aromatic smoke. There are also idols to the gods Man and Mo (Literature and War), to whom visitors had left such offerings as a bowl of oranges or a half-eaten bag of peanuts. After we left the temple we descended Ladder Street and made our way to the Sheung Wan subway stop.
We took the MTR to Admiralty and visited Elim Christian Bookstore in the Lippo Centre. Here I got the typical souvenir of Hong Kong, a Korean-English New Testament. Bob found a Chinese-English hymnal and a Greek-Chinese-English New Testament. With our backpacks laden with wares, we decided to stop back at the hotel to unload, lest they get rained on later in the day (and to save our backs from unnecessary suffering).
After resting in our hotel room for a bit, Bob and I went back to Sheung Wan for dinner. We intended to go to a local Chinese fast food restaurant called MX, but they were closed so we went to Pizza Hut instead. Pizza Hut in Hong Kong is more upscale than it is in America, and much more inventive with its pizza offerings; it's a lot like California Pizza Kitchen. About half of the pizzas are made with thousand island dressing instead of tomato sauce. With that in mind Bob and I ordered a regular old pan pizza with pepperoni and green peppers (and tomato sauce). It was quite good, even though once again we couldn't get free refills of our Pepsi. Next time we should order a pitcher rather than individual glasses.
After dinner, we rode the metro to Kowloon Station and visited Elements, a new shopping mall. As usual, the different shops keep different hours, so when the HMV closed the ice skating rink was still open. Elements seemed like a really nice mall, but it was nearly devoid of people due to its out-of-the-way location in west Kowloon.
When we left the mall, we tried to walk over to the harbor (on the other side of a group of condos and the construction site of what will be the new tallest building in Hong Kong), but we were thwarted by cops. First we tried to walk between one condo and the construction site, and a cop came up to us and said that the area was closed.
Then we tried to circumnavigate the group of condos, but the ways were gated. There was a delivery access road leading behind one, but we spotted a cop sitting in a chair who surely would have blocked us if we'd started to walk toward him. So, other than fleeting glances, we didn't get to enjoy much of the view from west Kowloon.
Feeling slightly dejected, we rode the MTR back to the hotel, where we performed our American Coke vs. Hong Kong Coke taste test. American Coke, of course, uses high fructose corn syrup in place of Hong Kong's table sugar. I found the American Coke to be slightly less sweet and more acidic than its Hong Kong counterpart, but the differences weren't nearly as noticeable as the ones between the Kit Kats. They were more subtle and it was hard to figure out what exactly was different about one from the other. I left both bottles unfinished, so there will surely be a second round of experimentation later. Bob was there, too.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Bob and Jamie's Adventures in Hong Kong, Day 1
First we went to an ATM in Causeway Bay, which actually had money, as opposed to the one we tried before, which was in Wan Chai.
Then we went to the world famous Times Square, which is actually a big shopping mall, despite what Dick Clark wants you to believe.
We tried to find the Pizza Hut on Sharp Street East (we saw a billboard), but when we actually got to Sharp Street East, there was no Pizza Hut to be found. With heavy hearts, we wandered around aimlessly until we encountered a KFC and had dark meat chicken in our spicy chicken sandwiches (they're big on dark meat here). We also had seasoned waffle fries, which were really good. But no free refills on the Pepsi. :-( And no Mountain Dew. :-(
Still thirsty, we stopped by an incredibly tiny Circle-K the size of a newsstand and got replacement beverages, and walked to HMV: The Music & Movie Master.
They really are the music master, at least, because I found there (after years of no search results in America) the soundtrack to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Hurray! Now I can listen to The Reaper Rap whenever I want. Legally.
I also picked up a copy of the HK version of Infernal Affairs, which, unlike its American counterpart, doesn't have Random Scantily-Clad Asian Chick on the cover. Instead, the cover has a scene that's actually in the movie and relevant to the plot.
After the record store, we went to Victoria Park, which is like Boston Public Garden but with more concrete. We happened upon a trilingual talking vending machine, which tried to get me to buy a can of Coke in a nice but staticy British accent. Instead I got a bottle of water from the mute machine to the right.
Then we made our way to the reflexology path, which is a sidewalk with lots of pointy rocks that you're supposed to walk on without shoes. It really did make my back feel better for a few minutes, but that might just have been because my feet were complaining more.
Following a brief unfruitful search for the statue of Queen Victoria, we decided to take advantage of the good weather and took the MTR to Central and then the Peak Tram to The Peak. After enjoying the scenery for a good while (I'll show some pictures later), we visited the second of Hong Kong's four Burger Kings (the second for us to visit; I don't know in which order they were established). Once again, there was too much mayo on my burger.
When it was time to leave, we saw the really long line for the tram and chose to go back down the mountain via minibus instead. The minibus only takes 16 people, and Bob was actually #17, but thankfully the driver didn't make him get off. We careened down the mountain at a good 50kph (the minibus had a big LCD speedometer above the driver's head) and got off back in Central.
We rode the escalator up to SoHo and found (but didn't patronize) a Cuban restaurant called Havana. We went back to the MTR station and traveled to Kowloon Tong and visited the Festival Walk mall. Unfortunately, the HK Records was closed already (each store closes whenever it wants), so instead we went to the Page One bookstore. The we rode the MTR back to Hong Kong Island. We stopped at 7-Eleven and purchased Kit Kats and Cokes for our taste test experiments, and came back to the hotel.
Back at the hotel, we compared American Hershey's Kit Kat (which we had brought with us) to Hong Kong Nestle's Kit Kat. The HK one had "cocoa butter replacer" instead of cocoa butter, and the American one had more milk. The American one had a strong taste of Hershey's milk chocolate with the crunchiness of the wafers. The Hong Kong version, meanwhile, had a more chocolaty but less intense flavor, such that I was able to distinguish the taste of the wafer along with the chocolate. It would be interesting to taste a Kit Kat which had real cocoa butter like the American version but otherwise followed the Hong Kong ingredients. Perhaps that's what I'd find in the UK.
Tomorrow we'll compare American and Hong Kong varieties of Coca Cola.
Then we went to the world famous Times Square, which is actually a big shopping mall, despite what Dick Clark wants you to believe.
We tried to find the Pizza Hut on Sharp Street East (we saw a billboard), but when we actually got to Sharp Street East, there was no Pizza Hut to be found. With heavy hearts, we wandered around aimlessly until we encountered a KFC and had dark meat chicken in our spicy chicken sandwiches (they're big on dark meat here). We also had seasoned waffle fries, which were really good. But no free refills on the Pepsi. :-( And no Mountain Dew. :-(
Still thirsty, we stopped by an incredibly tiny Circle-K the size of a newsstand and got replacement beverages, and walked to HMV: The Music & Movie Master.
They really are the music master, at least, because I found there (after years of no search results in America) the soundtrack to Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Hurray! Now I can listen to The Reaper Rap whenever I want. Legally.
I also picked up a copy of the HK version of Infernal Affairs, which, unlike its American counterpart, doesn't have Random Scantily-Clad Asian Chick on the cover. Instead, the cover has a scene that's actually in the movie and relevant to the plot.
After the record store, we went to Victoria Park, which is like Boston Public Garden but with more concrete. We happened upon a trilingual talking vending machine, which tried to get me to buy a can of Coke in a nice but staticy British accent. Instead I got a bottle of water from the mute machine to the right.
Then we made our way to the reflexology path, which is a sidewalk with lots of pointy rocks that you're supposed to walk on without shoes. It really did make my back feel better for a few minutes, but that might just have been because my feet were complaining more.
Following a brief unfruitful search for the statue of Queen Victoria, we decided to take advantage of the good weather and took the MTR to Central and then the Peak Tram to The Peak. After enjoying the scenery for a good while (I'll show some pictures later), we visited the second of Hong Kong's four Burger Kings (the second for us to visit; I don't know in which order they were established). Once again, there was too much mayo on my burger.
When it was time to leave, we saw the really long line for the tram and chose to go back down the mountain via minibus instead. The minibus only takes 16 people, and Bob was actually #17, but thankfully the driver didn't make him get off. We careened down the mountain at a good 50kph (the minibus had a big LCD speedometer above the driver's head) and got off back in Central.
We rode the escalator up to SoHo and found (but didn't patronize) a Cuban restaurant called Havana. We went back to the MTR station and traveled to Kowloon Tong and visited the Festival Walk mall. Unfortunately, the HK Records was closed already (each store closes whenever it wants), so instead we went to the Page One bookstore. The we rode the MTR back to Hong Kong Island. We stopped at 7-Eleven and purchased Kit Kats and Cokes for our taste test experiments, and came back to the hotel.
Back at the hotel, we compared American Hershey's Kit Kat (which we had brought with us) to Hong Kong Nestle's Kit Kat. The HK one had "cocoa butter replacer" instead of cocoa butter, and the American one had more milk. The American one had a strong taste of Hershey's milk chocolate with the crunchiness of the wafers. The Hong Kong version, meanwhile, had a more chocolaty but less intense flavor, such that I was able to distinguish the taste of the wafer along with the chocolate. It would be interesting to taste a Kit Kat which had real cocoa butter like the American version but otherwise followed the Hong Kong ingredients. Perhaps that's what I'd find in the UK.
Tomorrow we'll compare American and Hong Kong varieties of Coca Cola.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Bob and Jamie's Adventures in Hong Kong, Day 0
Saturday, 8:00AM EDT:
Saturday, 10:35AM EDT:
Saturday, 4:07PM EDT:
Saturday, 7:46PM EDT:
Sunday, 2:00PM HKT (Sunday, 2:00AM EDT):
Monday, 12:00AM HKT (Sunday, 12:00PM EDT):
There's a Balducci's in Terminal 7 of JFK! And, just like the one in Alexandria, the food is good but costs far more than it should. My English muffin breakfast sandwich (egg, cheese, and bacon) and Snapple green tea cost $10.
Saturday, 10:35AM EDT:
This plane (a Cathay Pacific Boeing 777) has regular American-style AC outlets at every seat! If only there were a little more legroom.
Saturday, 4:07PM EDT:
We just passed over Greenland(!) Who would've thought that Greenland, of all places, was on the way from New York to Hong Kong? Clearly, Mercator Projection maps have heavily skewed my perception of Earth geometry and geography.
I'm glad my children will grow up in a world with tools like Google Earth. Dead tree globes are, of course, also great (I especially like the ones with brown oceans... that old skool age of exploration style); I had one (with blue oceans... don't worry, Mom, I liked it ;-)). But with the spindle running through the poles holding it in place on the stand, it's still difficult to get a good feel for what Earth looks like from arbitrary orientations.
Actually, my first computer way back in 1995 (a Macintosh Performa 637CD - 68k power!) came with a 3D atlas CD-ROM from Electronic Arts (IIRC it was cleverly titled "EA 3D Atlas") which was very much a progenitor of Google Earth. In fact, it had some things GE doesn't have, like maps showing political borders or rainfall statistics rather than satellite imagery (it had that too, though not to the level where I could zoom in and see my back yard).
But its downfall for me was that it was slower than Google Earth on dialup - probably a consequence of running it on a computer with no FPU and only 1MB of VRAM. So, I never devoted the requisite hours to discovering that a Great Circle connecting New York to Hong Kong passes over Greenland.
My loss.
Saturday, 7:46PM EDT:
We're flying south over northern Russia now, pretty much due north of Chengdu, China. We came over a peninsula which sticks up into the Arctic Ocean. Noril'sk is to starboard, Jakutsk is (further) to port. Krasnojarsk is coming up on the right, and Chita will be on the left. This plane tracker in the TVs is pretty cool. 6:14 to go.
Sunday, 2:00PM HKT (Sunday, 2:00AM EDT):
We're there!
Monday, 12:00AM HKT (Sunday, 12:00PM EDT):
After getting our luggage and going through Customs, we went to one of the four Burger Kings in Hong Kong (three of which are in the airport). I had a teriyaki burger, which tasted really… different. It had too much mayonnaise, I thought.
Then we took the Airport Express (which is an amazingly silent-running train… they should teach the MBTA about track and train maintenance) to our hotel. After checking in and verifying that there were two beds in the room, we marveled at the view of the harbor as well as the gigantic neon advertisement for ING which is about 25 feet away from our window on the roof of the (shorter) building next door.
We left the hotel at about 5:45PM HKT and took the tram to Central and made our way to St. John's Cathedral (an Anglican church) where we participated in choral Evensong with The Cornell University Chorus and Glee Club. Their performance was very good, but Bob and I were both really tired and jet-lagged from our flight so we didn't really get a whole lot out of the service spiritually. Sorry, Jesus. The first hymn was "Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia", and it was just like the Mr. Bean sketch: as we were trying to find it in the hymnal, I didn't know the words so I just kind of hummed along (so did the guy next to me) until they got to the part where they sing the word "alleluia". It's not the same hymn that Rowan tries to sing, but it's very similar.
After the church service we took the ferry across the harbor to Kowloon. We walked along the waterfront and saw the Avenue of the Stars, which is Hong Kong's answer to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. We found stars for Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, John Woo, and Chow Yun Fat (among others). Then we decided to stop at the ATM, but it was temporarily out of cash. :-( So, I don't have much money right now. Hopefully we'll find one tomorrow (today, as I post this) that's more accommodating. Anyway, then we came back to the hotel.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
A MacBook Pro Full of… Not Much, Yet
This is my first post using my spiffy new MacBook Pro. It's got a 2.6 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 4 GB RAM, and a 200 GB hard drive - quite the improvement over my aging PowerBook G4 (800 MHz G4, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB disk) which I've had for almost 5.5 years.
Alas, I will no longer be able to run OS 9 applications (not that I did that very often). I will also miss having Univers Condensed Oblique keycaps. At least my command keys still have Apple logos on them.
Anyway, so far I've installed Emacs.app, Tunnelblick, and ext2fsx, as well as Ubuntu 7.10 on a 10 GB partition… and that's about it. Oh! And a texinfo version of SICP, complete with ASCII art figures.
For backing up with Time Machine, I got a 1 TB LaCie Big Disk Extreme+ (I liked the name). It came formatted as HFS+ and it lets me use my shiny new FireWire 800 port.
Hurray for new toys. :-)
Alas, I will no longer be able to run OS 9 applications (not that I did that very often). I will also miss having Univers Condensed Oblique keycaps. At least my command keys still have Apple logos on them.
Anyway, so far I've installed Emacs.app, Tunnelblick, and ext2fsx, as well as Ubuntu 7.10 on a 10 GB partition… and that's about it. Oh! And a texinfo version of SICP, complete with ASCII art figures.
For backing up with Time Machine, I got a 1 TB LaCie Big Disk Extreme+ (I liked the name). It came formatted as HFS+ and it lets me use my shiny new FireWire 800 port.
Hurray for new toys. :-)
Monday, November 19, 2007
Because Polling Is Evil
Is this thing still here? Wow. Anyway, I like my job. I get to play with robots, and I have opportunities to learn a lot of new things (most of the tasks assigned to me are things I've never done before). Last week I learned how to write a daemon.
I had been asked to write a Linux program which would sample force-torque data from an ADC and then send it to another computer (via TCP). Doing the bare minimum didn't take all that long, once I stopped trying to use the buggy DAQ driver from the vendor (I won't name names, but it's a national company known for making various types of instruments) and went with libcomedi instead; but after I got it working with the functionality I'd been asked for, I decided to scrap that and do it the right way instead. (The original design had me doing things like transmitting floating point numbers as ASCII character strings and taking sample readings in response to polling from the client rather than at a steady frequency. Polling!)
In the process of making the deliverable awesomer, I decided it would be a good opportunity to work on my Unix system programming skills (which don't get exercised much when I'm doing Java stuff). So, first I read about getopt_long and had it parse command line arguments to (for instance) set the server port number and data collection frequency. Then after thinking about it some more, I decided that my server should act like a real server and have a name ending in "d", so I set to work daemonizing it (this came in handy). I redirected I/O to /dev/null, I replaced the verbose-mode printfs with calls to syslog, I gave it a .conf file which lives in /etc, and I gave it an init script so that my daemon would get launched automatically when the machine enters runlevel 2 (the kubuntu default). Oh, and a lockfile so that only one instance will run at a time. And I added the "d" to the end of its name. I'm quite happy with the result, and my project supervisor said, "You are the biggest geek I know. And that's saying something. Good work."
Of course, the guys I did this work for? The first thing they asked me to do was stop the daemon so they could run their slow buggy collect-data-and-save-to-a-file, regulate-collection-frequency-with-usleep program based loosely on the old version of mine. Oh well.
I had been asked to write a Linux program which would sample force-torque data from an ADC and then send it to another computer (via TCP). Doing the bare minimum didn't take all that long, once I stopped trying to use the buggy DAQ driver from the vendor (I won't name names, but it's a national company known for making various types of instruments) and went with libcomedi instead; but after I got it working with the functionality I'd been asked for, I decided to scrap that and do it the right way instead. (The original design had me doing things like transmitting floating point numbers as ASCII character strings and taking sample readings in response to polling from the client rather than at a steady frequency. Polling!)
In the process of making the deliverable awesomer, I decided it would be a good opportunity to work on my Unix system programming skills (which don't get exercised much when I'm doing Java stuff). So, first I read about getopt_long and had it parse command line arguments to (for instance) set the server port number and data collection frequency. Then after thinking about it some more, I decided that my server should act like a real server and have a name ending in "d", so I set to work daemonizing it (this came in handy). I redirected I/O to /dev/null, I replaced the verbose-mode printfs with calls to syslog, I gave it a .conf file which lives in /etc, and I gave it an init script so that my daemon would get launched automatically when the machine enters runlevel 2 (the kubuntu default). Oh, and a lockfile so that only one instance will run at a time. And I added the "d" to the end of its name. I'm quite happy with the result, and my project supervisor said, "You are the biggest geek I know. And that's saying something. Good work."
Of course, the guys I did this work for? The first thing they asked me to do was stop the daemon so they could run their slow buggy collect-data-and-save-to-a-file, regulate-collection-frequency-with-usleep program based loosely on the old version of mine. Oh well.
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