RAIN'S GONE AWAY

by the hk film archive, there's an italian/chinese fusion restaurant that has the cutest desserts everrrr, i had mango sushi and blackcurrant jelly!



yesterday was a clear and beautiful day, so frankie accompanied me to the peak.



but then it got cloudy! two views from the peak, so polar





for dinner i met up with uncle and walter at an old-fashioned restaurant called lian xiang lou (mandarin) in central.



CRAB-BAKED GOODNESS



they served blue girl beer and had a girl dressed in a blue girl outfit (outofamovie-like)! i kept trying to photograph her, but she was so elusive, i ended up asking her to pose.





we had three bottles amongst the three of us, she was surprised i didn't glow! by the third bottle, walter told her that her outfit was quite attractive, he was madd sketch but thankfully he spoke in english so she didn't understand. we went past the mid-level escalators, where wkw filmed parts of chungqing express!!!!!!!!



then i met up with julia and other yalies to hit up a few clubs in lan kwai fong. the night before, julia and i were deadweight on lena (who parties hardcore) since we were underdressed, so we tried to make it up to her last night. lkf is something like a hyperreal expat drunkenland/meatmarket, i'm not a fan of the scene. we went to a few clubs and it was a sociological experience, but i won't be returning any time soon. except maybe for this one club/bar that had a giant birdcage. next weekend we head for the seedy bars of wan chai.

BLAST TO THE PAST

day before yesterday, uncle took me to grandma's apartment in sha tin, which is north of hk, the new territories (close to chinese university!) it's only used when my grandma comes back to hk, last she did so was a year ago when it was renovated.

clock is the oldest thing in the apt but it doesn't work



walls painted pink made me queasy a bit



the apt is on top of a mountain peak, we walked down to get to the hk heritage museum. the area is working class and the housing seems a little less than ideal, but i wouldn't mind having a small stream outside my place



still raining in hk, yesterday i did more reading and then went with carmen (daughter of dad's college classmate who is studying art at sva) to a photo class. met her cousin, i think she has 19 on her mom's side alone. we had dinner and dessert, took an old school tram (double-decked open windows), and went for a drink at 71 bar. carmen and i are most likely going to angorwat/cambodia and bangkok/thailand next week for a week. and then it's work work work, pinky swear.

CONSUMPTION

i finally met julia shing, friend of andrea pien and professed double of priya prisad. we went to rat's alley, lan kwai fong, for thai/vietnamese dinner that would unfortunately later induce vomiting on her part. i planned to go see the pancakes and jeffrey butzer (with toy piano and toy accordion!)/chk out the music scene here, but they had sold out. there seems to be a dearth of good shows here, don't know if i can stand this kind of withdrawl, not when every week there's a fairly decent free show in nyc over the summer. asdhl;ajkdf

the torrents of rain allowed me to take the weekend easy, so there was mostly napping and eating good food with relatives and fam friends. it seems pretty easy to live thrifty here (once you have a place to sleep), but given my habits, i think i'm spending the same kind of money as i would in nyc on everything except food. consumption consumption everywhere! all the time! spent four hours "po"-ing/floating about in the mong kok area for anything cute (as requested by sis audrey) and i wanted to diee. the markets are many and cheap but at the cost of your time/patience/soul.

yesterday we went to a taoist temple in wong tai sin, and a buddhist temple in diamond hill. the latter was nice and peaceful but had cheesy classical music playing throughout the paths the entire time. i don't think mother earth ever intended to have music from swan lake emitted from her trees and rocks.



wispy fishies!

TEA TIME

after lunch at the fringe club, uncle brought me to the visual arts center to see his pottery pieces and then to the hk teaware museum. there was a show of submissions from hong kong artists for a tea set competition. below are my favs:



we studied MUJI, a japanese clothing/stationery/furniture/food store in my contemporary japanese visual culture class and i've gone muji crazy as there are a few branches here. on the way back from shopping, we came across oversized fuzzy white hearts listening to music



wish i had one! like right now

WKW WUZ HERE

he filmed parts of as tears go by at this restaurant in yau ma tei, kowloon. yesterday, uncle, frankie, and i passed by it after seeing a film. the interior has these pretty tile patterns.



uncle and i then met with auntie alisa, my mom's younger sister. we talked for a few hours at a coffee place in times square, a mall at causeway bay (hk island). of all the places to shop, i think i like causeway bay best b/c there's a mix of malls and street stores. some of the streets are really narrow, but the buildings run pretty high up so the space feels small and tall at the same time.

today i had lunch with my mom's cousin? who is head of research at the hk film archive. she was really kind and offered to set up an informal position for me in her department since their intern from england didn't come through. i mentioned my difficulty with cantonese and she said that it was better than she had expected, which i'm going to take as a positive remark. she's giving me a week to figure out potential topics for my research. there are many swimming in my mind, but it's become a matter of really narrowing it down. BEING SELF-DISCIPLINED IS HARD.

after dinner i went to my first library in hk!!! at central. it closes at NINE PM. and is kinda hideous. i tried reading for a bit but i kept being distracted by people. i thought that with all the places to see, all the people to observe, i would forget that i was away from friends and alone, but it's only made me more lonely because there's no one to share it all with. the more i think about how much i'd like to meet someone like me, the more i doubt people's interest in different things. i don't like feeling this. it just makes me feel sad. also it's strange to feel other without looking other. also i have never felt so voluptuous in my life. I MISS HAVING FRIENDS :c

IN THE COMPANY OF OLD MEN

last sunday afternoon, we walked around the "old" and "new" parts of wan chai. uncle bought a phone for me so the risk of me becoming completely lost in the maze that is hong kong is slightly less threatening. we took a ferry ride across causeway bay to tsim sha tsui, walked around YET ANOTHER MALL before seeing a play at the hk cultural center. the play was three acts, each an interpretation of what cao yu (considered father of chinese spoken drama) had written long past. the director was there and at the end of it, had asked WALTER what he thought of it. walter is a 74-year old white man who wears a fishing vest to carry his pills around. he can be kind, and occasionally interesting, but he likes talking about the WEATHER and often does so very slowly. he has lived in hong kong for 30 years but does not speak a word of cantonese and still gets stations that sound alike confused. yet the fact that he is a white male undoubtedly allows him to be respected in a way that often makes my stomach sick because it's so undeserved. but he's nice to me and pays for lots so it's ok? let it pass?

after the play we walked by the water for some time. air's been unusually clear/unpolluted these days so i'm told and we got to see a clear view of the skyline and moon. my fav is the bank of china designed by i.m. pei (it's the triangular one). many of the buildings are phallic, and there's one building, the jardine, called building of the 10,000 assholes or something like that. also. there are cocks all over the apartment because walter is the year of the rooster (the thought just slipped out). here's a photo of the skyline taken from inside the cultural center!



yesterday was my longest day here. uncle and i went to apply for a hk identity card, since i have the right to residency cuz my father was born here. i walked to central afterwards and wandered for quite some time, during which i discovered that hong kong is of many levels (from underground subway to above ground walkways), with areas that make the place feel like an encapsulated metropolis. i tried ordering lunch at this chinese fast food chain, but they didn't understand english and i had to point at what i wanted. characters in hong kong are written in traditional chinese (i know simplified), so i can't really read or speak in mandarin here. i speak cantonese but only enough to get by with everyday conversation. uncle says that it's quite popular here for people to just insert english words when they can't think of the cantonese, but i feel like i'm constantly switching among three channels. i was slightly embarrassed at the cafe because the woman who was taking orders kept staring at me when i tried to explain i wanted while frantically tugging the sleeve of the employee next to her.

central is the financial district, so it was v. v. corporate. in the photo below you can see a reflection of the jardine and its assholes!



i continued walking east and came across areas that had streets on an incline with markets. i really like the red lamps that light them. a bit of a contrast from central.



then i met my uncle's friend, frankie, who i ADORE. he is v. agreeable, and has such a sharp way of seeing things. he took me around the flower, bird, and fish markets in mong kok, which is in kowloon across hk island. he's such an angel.



in mong kok are many many markets and old apartment buildings,



but also new hotels and malls. this one had super high escalators of death.



today will come tomorrow.

kbye!

(note: i was interrupted from writing this entry by walter talking about the weather AGAIN)

BRIGHT CITY LIGHTS EXCITE

the plane ride to hong kong took a total of seventeen some hours. on my flight from chicago, i sat next to a kindly woman who was a vietnam refugee and had lived in hong kong for about five years before moving to florida. a ridic tim allen movie called "wild hogs" was shown involving bikers. i got close to finishing blink by malcolm gladwell, which was really interesting at first but got repetitive towards the end. the last two hours before arriving to the island were unbearable, as i had the window seat and little opportunity to stretch my legs and walk around. sitting for that amount of time left my ass in quite some pain.

from the airport to hong kong, i took the airport express. it was v. fast and modern. the landscapes passed were stunning and had a mix of greenery, mountains, and supertall apartment complexes, bladerunner kept coming to mind. next to all the modern infrastructures, there's a gritty feeling to the apartment buildings. uncle alan picked me up from the station in central, hk. he and walter live in heng fa chuen, which is in the eastern part of hk. they have a duplex with a roof garden/balcony that overlooks the narrowest part of the lei yue mun channel. on the kowloon side (opposite the channel) are fishing villages and on our side are some old military defense facilities.



their apartment is covered with all kinds of trinkets amassed from their travels. they cleared a room for me, it's tiny but cute!



first night in hk! taken at 2am