Its Trouble...

Monday, November 14, 2005

Hong Kong Vacation: Shopping and the Traffic Jam 11/13/05

Allie and I got up late, ate breakfast in the hotel room. We headed to the central Exchange at central and took a bus to Stanley Village on the other side of the Hong Kong island. There we visited a street market and got some pretty good deals on stuff. We then visited the Buddist temple as well, and had a lovely lunch on Stanley Street.

On the way back to the hotel, the main route back to the main part of Hong Kong was blocked with a major accident. The delay was reported to be at least two hours, so we got out of the bus and walked for 3/4 hr, mostly downhill, back to the main bus terminal to catch a bus that was heading back to Hong Kong thru the only other route out of the area. Fortunately, Allie had discovered the only bus route that would take us back, though still through thick traffic on narrow mountainous roads and bridges. Traffic everywhere in that area was a mess as people where trying to get out. We where lucky to beat the rush of people to the bus headed out of there. Everyone else was still waiting for the main buses and didn't realized the way was blocked until everyone was started lining up for the only bus heading the other way. Felt a little like survival of the fittest and we got a jump on everyone else. :)

After getting back to the hotel, we had dinner and then visited a nearby Lady's Market. According to Allie, a Lady's Market is any alley or street filled tightly with vendors selling their goods. The walk thru a Lady's Market is usually very cramp and crowed. She added that they are also great places to get a pocket picked. At this Lady's Market I found a great deal on knock-off Polo luggage that was pretty good quality.

Both of us where beat, so we headed back to the hotel and knocked off to sleep quick.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Hong Kong Vacation: The Flight and Arrival 11/10/05 11/11/05

The flight was long. Fortunately, me and one other person had a row of 4 seats to ourselves. Other than the two empty seats next to us, the plane was pretty full. This made for a fairly comfortable time, though I did share my extra seat with another couple with a kid from time to time. The first leg of the flight was 13 hours. I was only able to force about 3 hours of sleep, though I pretty much tried to sleep the whole time. The flight arrived in Taipei 15 minutes early...but the flight to Hong Kong on the second leg was about an hour late.

I had only brought one carry-on bag. When I arrived in Hong Kong, all I had to do was wait in line for visitors and get my passport stamped. Because I didn't have any luggage, I just walked thru the luggage claim area to the Arrival area, called Arrival Area A or sumfin like that. Well, Alice was waiting for me at Arrival Area B. I had noticed that my Treo phone worked in Taipei when I was waiting around bored at that airport, so I tried my Treo at the Hong Kong airport, and it worked. I called her and we found each other pretty quickly. She was prepared with a mass transit card for me and we hit the Express Train to Kowloon, where my hotel is.

I was annoyed that my shades broke somewhere on my trip, so the first thang we did in Kowloon is stop off at one of the many malls while walking to my hotel. My first purchase in Hong Kong was a rather decent pair of Guess shades.

We checked in to the hotel and then headed to Northpoint to visit her uncle and meet up with her mom. Alice, her mom and I later meet up with her mom's friend and had a late lunch.
Later, some cousins, her uncle, mom and us meet up for a late dinner at a good Chinese style restaurant. Of course, here it's not called "Chinese" lol Anyways, I was so lagged that I almost passed out at dinner, so Alice and I headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

I woke up the next morning on Hong Kong time. :)

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Hong Kong

November 10-17, 2005 with Alice Leung visiting Hong Kong, including Repulse Bay, Kowloon and 寶蓮禪寺. This was an awesome trip! (Original post/backup link)

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

How many great loves

How many great loves does one have in a life time. Some say you are lucky to have it once. Maybe each of use are supposed to have that great love and only some of us are unlucky to have missed it. Or maybe it goes unappreciated, of course I guess that's the same as missing it. I don't know how many great loves I'm going to have. I know that each experience is different. Does the uniqueness itself stand as the defining quality? Naw. Does the strength of feeling and level of emotion investment qualify? Again, maybe. I know I've had one relationship that would qualify on that merit. Maybe it's also when you really really get a chance to know a person deeply and understand them and not fault is found regardless of the imperfections that are laid bare. But the only way to know if you have such a relationship is to experience a test that pushes the limits. Is this a defining quality? Perhaps. But many loves fail that test. But does the failure mean the relationship is a failure? I think that it doesn't matter. Losing love helps define it as great in some cases. Sometimes it develops over time. It becomes what it is meant to over time. The test is not a great moment, but the fact that it does last. If all of this is so, then I've been doubly blessed in this life.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

So, like what?

I have to move out. I don't know if I wanna get a small-ass 1 bedroom apartment, or share a house or large condo with someone. I've got awhile to make my decision, but I have some time. I have until like the end of Jan, but I do wanna get sumfin in the works before then. hmm.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Weekend

This last weekend have been pretty busy. I guess it's fitting. My cuzin and I hung out and saw Jarhead on Friday night. It's ok. There's a moral lesson in the movie somewhere, but it was lost to me. It feels like a docudrama with some funny bits. There's good acting and the story was interesting to a degree. However, it seemed to be missing something. Maybe it was made just for U.S. vets. Maybe they see sumfin in it that I'm not.
Anyways, we hung out on Saturday too. We ended up in SF with some friends of hers. There was couple of interesting places we hit up that I might return to. I can't remember the names of either, but I could find them again. :)
Today, I hung out for awhile with Jenn. We had a late lunch, hit up a play for go-cart racing and have a fun time hanging out. Right now, I'm catching up on chores I need to get done before my big Hong Kong trip in a few days. I'm excited.