Posts tagged with "travel"

HK Fullscreen, Revisited

I have a tick­et booked to Hong Kong at the end of November. I’ll be stay­ing there for a lit­tle under a month, dur­ing the Christmas sea­son when the entire island looks as if it’s one big orna­ment from the sky, a giant float­ing dec­o­ra­tion. The best weath­er of the year is in December, when the tem­per­a­tures drop to a rea­son­able warmth and one can actu­al­ly walk around with a coat on.

I’ll be try­ing to learn the sub­way sys­tem for the first few days so that I can get around on my own. I’m going alone so I’ll prob­a­bly be liv­ing with my uncle most of the time, and stay­ing at my grand­moth­er’s on the week­ends. I’ll be going home first and stay­ing there for a few days, then fly­ing to Hong Kong, then fly­ing back and stay­ing home for New Years. I’ll meet up with Ken the day before I depart from Hong Kong, since he’s fly­ing up from Ohio.

I can’t wait to get back to the busy mar­kets, taste the Chinese food, browse the end­less shops. I want to ask my grand­moth­er so much, and cel­e­brate Christmas with her. I wish there was some­thing I could give her that she could keep, sim­i­lar to the jade neck­lace she gave me that I’ve almost nev­er tak­en off ever since I received it. There’s an almost inef­fa­ble feel­ing that’s con­jured up in my mind when I think of the mod­ern sky­scrap­ers, the crowds of peo­ple, the very eth­nic faces. Some of my best mem­o­ries are from being in Hong Kong dur­ing Christmas, when there’s an almost mys­tic feel­ing in the air and every­one is in good spir­its.

I’ve been want­i­ng a vaca­tion, from both the good and bad in my life, for so long. Just to get away from absolute­ly every­thing going on right now would be ben­e­fi­cial, almost like a self-imposed exile. I’d be able to dis­tance myself from things and gain some per­spec­tive, some­thing I usu­al­ly believe I’m able to do until some­thing dras­tic hap­pens that changes the way I view things.

I’m not real­ly sure what to expect from my vis­it, although I think that I’ll be changed ever sub­tly, maybe sub­con­scious­ly. One can rarely walk away from such things with­out being affect­ed in some way, per­haps both Tina and Em would agree. I just don’t know how this may change me. I don’t have any ques­tions. I’m not look­ing for answers.

I’m just wait­ing to find out.

The Trip Home, Candellas, Amateur Astronomy, Etc.

The trip home was alright, watch­ing Men In Black 2 (not a very good movie at all) and tak­ing under five and a half hours. I like the fact that I can pur­chase a bus tick­et at any time, and not have to wor­ry about book­ing and reser­va­tions. I’ve always liked the idea that I have the free­dom to pick up and go when­ev­er I please. Of course, this only works when I have a guar­an­teed place to stay at the des­ti­na­tion.

My Candela’s came in last week. They are quite nice, although they look rather cheap dur­ing the day­time when they’re off. They give off a decent ambi­ent light when oth­er (more pri­ma­ry) lights are on, but are good at set­ting a mood when they’re the only things illu­mi­nat­ing a room. It’s a has­sle to always let them burn out to pro­long bat­tery life, since that means that I’m usu­al­ly going to bed with them on, and for some­one who wakes up from the first slit of sun­light pierc­ing the room, it can be an annoy­ing thing.

I found a great astron­o­my book for Darren, cov­er­ing every­thing from the small­est detail in pur­chas­ing a tele­scope, to the pat­terns the plan­ets make in their orbits. Astronomy is some­thing that I’ve always found to be mys­te­ri­ous­ly inter­est­ing, a seduc­tive past-time I’d be afraid to be con­sumed by. A few peo­ple I’ve talked to have felt the same way, although some with an even more severe emo­tion. I would have tak­en up such a hob­by as soon as I had the means to, if the area I live in was­n’t so unbe­liev­ably light pol­lut­ed. It’s as if the may­or wants to keep the lights in the city bright enough to have a con­stant day­time. I’m fair­ly sure that I’ll buy a decent tele­scope even­tu­al­ly, once I’ve set­tled down in a con­do and have a career.

I can’t wait to get back to my plea­sure box and begin fool­ing around with Movable Type. I just hope that my host can pro­vide enough flex­i­bil­i­ty for it to work.

When I got home, a stack of red envelopes and wrapped box­es were wait­ing for me. My pre­ma­ture exit at Christmas left gifts unopened and mon­ey unclaimed, quite a wel­come sur­prise. I got anoth­er $50 gift cer­tifi­cate for Futureshop, which will most like­ly be going towards Vice City as soon as it comes out. I haven’t played a very absorb­ing game in a while, the last ones being GTA3 or Neverwinter Nights, but my favourite is still prob­a­bly Half-Life. And with Half-Life 2 slat­ed for a fall release, well, I find myself becom­ing unhealth­ily excit­ed.

I’ll be split­ting a box of Onslaught with Darren today.

Getting Dark, AFI, Etc.

It’s get­ting dark here, but the light has­n’t com­plete­ly left the day yet. The sky wax­es grey with the set­ting of the sun, and a gen­tle rain is mak­ing the pave­ment shine with the yel­low glow of the street lamps. The smell con­sumes me, and I’m back walk­ing the streets on an unrec­ol­lect­ed gloomy day.

I final­ly fin­ished off my hon­ours project, so I can rest a bit eas­i­er now. The one report is worth two cours­es itself. It end­ed up being around 22 pages, which isn’t too bad. The only thing that remains is my geo essay, and I only have about a half page left to write. I went to lunch with Aaron and Wheaties to cel­e­brate a com­plet­ed course at the Elephant and Castle. A great wait­ress served us, and offered a vari­a­tion on the Strongbow I was hav­ing, which was the addi­tion of some lime cor­dial, or some black cur­rant juice. We all got to try both with the Strongbow, and it was decid­ed that the lime was the bet­ter of the two. The remain­ing black cur­rant juice went into the beer, and Aaron told me that it was tasty.

200 more wins to an arch­mage icon.

I’ve been lis­ten­ing to the lat­est AFI album late­ly, and even though I did­n’t much care for it at first, I’m com­plete­ly addict­ed now. There’s some­thing about the har­monies in the vocals that make their sound so unique. I’m not quite used to Davey Havok’s voice though, as he sounds like a child to me. Quite uncon­ven­tion­al Currently, my favorite song is This Celluloid Dream.

A trip to the Dominican Republic may be work­ing out for the first week­end of May. Since it’s the begin­ning of the off-sea­son, the cost of the entire trip, drinks and meals includ­ed along with res­i­dence at a four-star hotel, will be around $900 for a week. Apparently this includes scu­ba div­ing, horse­back rid­ing, jet ski­ing, and a beach-side view. Currently, only Aaron, Cristina and I are com­plete­ly com­mit­ted to going, but we need an even num­ber of peo­ple so we’re try­ing to find one more per­son.

Artfag is cur­rent­ly a red­head. Ummmm…yah.

Jonathan tells me that the full-time job seems promis­ing, but he’s not mak­ing any guar­an­tees. It would main­ly con­sist of going around the city to var­i­ous com­mer­cial cus­tomers and trou­bleshoot­ing com­put­er prob­lems. The pay will start at around $15 which is not too bad, but not great for a grad­u­ate. He says that I’ll also need a car to be able to get to the loca­tions that need ser­vice, some­thing that I’ll con­sid­er more if I’m actu­al­ly able to get the job. He tells me that it’s a good foot-in-the-door for web pro­gram­ming posi­tions in the future. I am very grate­ful, and I’m not get­ting hopes up.