Listening: If you catch me at the border, I got visas in my name. If you come around here, I make 'em all day. I get one down in a second if you wait.
What's my problem? I understand everyone talking on the street.
Most of my time in L.A. was spent getting over jet lag, which I'm not entirely convinced that I'm over. I'm still waking up at eight in the morning, which is a rarity for me in the States, and I'm getting all yawny at around three in the afternoon.
Although I didn't check off all of the things on my Los Angeles list, I'm satisfied with what I did, where I ate, and what I saw. I think that Los Angeles isn't a city for someone without a car. Everywhere looks close to each other on a map, but then you realize that the scale of the map is such that one inch is five miles or something dumb like that. And as much as I loved the weather there (when it was near a hundred degrees and bone dry), I don't think that I would ever visit the city again unless I had a friend living there (which I did). I barely ever saw a taxi, and the mass transit didn't look like it really went anywhere of consequence.
As I drove around with Junko, I found out that the shitty areas looked just like the nicer areas, but without the nice architecture. It all looked the same to me. It was all palm trees (not bearing fruit like the ones in Asia), and buildings. Okay, well, now that I'm thinking about it, they didn't look ALL the same. There were buildings built around pools like "Melrose Place" (yes I just referenced a Aaron Spelling show), and there were motels with kitschy signs, but not much popped out at me. My jet lag and my car narcolepsy could be to blame though.
There were a number of memorable things that happened while I was in Los Angeles, besides being the first house guest that my pal Junko has had at her new apartment (which has real spiffy potential). I got to meet Keiko Agena, who played Lane on Gilmore Girls, and who one second looks like Lane, and another second looks like someone in all black and a blue wig, and not at all like the character. It was a thoroughly confusing and befuddling moment for me when I was told that the girl in the blue wig was Keiko after seeing her fifteen minutes earlier in glasses and "normal" street clothes.
I also got to meet Karin Anna Cheung from the movie Better Luck Tomorrow, who I realized looks exactly as she did in the movie, but much more girl-next-door than I anticipated. And while we're on the general topic of being a starphucker, I did see Jane Krakowski from Ally McBeal and 30 Rock in the airport.
Okay, I really wasn't a starphucker, but I was thinking to myself at the time I met/saw each of them, "Hey, I'm meeting/seeing (insert celebrity here). Whoda thought that'd ever happen?" The only thing that would be more entertaining is if I had a kid who had play dates with Angie Harmon's kid.
I did make it out to Disney in Anaheim. Junko got us California resident discount "2fer" tickets where you could go to one park one day and the other park on another day. On our first day at Disney, we went to Disney's California Adventure. I have to say that I had low expectations. My parents had given me negative comments on the left coast Disney parks, and after seeing Hong Kong Disneyland, I thought that it would suck just as bad. Okay, suck is the wrong word. I'm thinking, maybe it wouldn't be as unimpressive.
To be completely honest, I loved Disney's California Adventure, even though I was thwarted by the gods in my effort to ride a ferris wheel. If you didn't know, I love ferris wheels, and it just so happened that the one in California Adventure is currently closed for the moment. It think it might have to do with the new water and light show that they're trying to install in the middle of the park.
But other than the thwarting done by the ferris wheel gods, I had a great time. They had two attractions there that they have at Walt Disney World in Florida. They have the ride called Soarin', which kind of takes you on a hang glider ride over California, and, more importantly, Toy Story Midway Mania. Midway Mania is perhaps the best ride/game that Disney has come up with in a long time. It's a ride where you stop in front of 3D screens and use a gun to play different carnival games like a ring toss, or throwing darts at balloons, or throwing baseballs at plates. It's a ridiculous amount of fun. One time in Florida, I think my family and I played three times in a row at the end of one night. Yeah. It's that much fun.
Aside from those attractions, the roller coaster was good fun. Also, they had Turtle Talk with Crush there as well, which is an attraction where the audience interacts with Crush, the turtle from Finding Nemo. I saw this attraction in Florida, but I think that the crowd was just right when I was in Anaheim. We had a great crowd and Crush was hilarious throughout the whole thing. I thought that Crush was only supposed to interact with the kids sitting up front, but instead he interacted more with the adults. After one woman asked Crush how old he was, he asked her the same question. The cast member host reminded him that it was impolite to ask women their age, and Crush said in a flat, "I know, I know" tone, "I know. It's impolite to aske the dudettes how old they are. I should just assume that they are all twenty-one or twenty-two, sometimes for the second or third time..." It was fantastic.
The parade for Disney's California Adventure is all centered around the Pixar movies. And I had to say that I thought it was a better parade than what they put on at any of the other Disney parks. The only one that I have ever thought was better was the "Tapestry of Nations/Dreams" that ran in Epcot around the year 2000.
Two days later, Junko and I went to the Disneyland park, which is a lot like the Magic Kingdom park in Florida. Much like Hong Kong Disneyland, I was really disappointed with the size of the castle. I realize that they can't all be huge structures, but c'mon! It's an iconic castle. Don't you think that it should be a little bit bigger. Other than that, I was pretty pleased with that park as well. There were many attractions that had the same names as attractions in the Magic Kingdom, but there were many subtle differences (all of which I pointed out to Junko). For example, the Haunted Mansion was same-same, but different. The walk from the stretching room to the "doom buggies" had the two bust sculptures whose gaze follows you as you walk by, which are later in the ride in Florida.
Of the two rides that were brand new to me, the Matterhorn Bobsled roller coaster, and the Indiana Jones Adventure, I have to say that the Matterhorn was disappointing, and the Indiana Jones Adventure exceeded my expectations It was actually a good ride. It was so good that Junko and I went on it twice and I noticed more things in the ride the second time around.
Perhaps the best revelation of the time in Disneyland came when I went to the Enchanted Tiki Room. Ever since they changed the one in the Magic Kingdom to include Iago from Aladdin and Zuzu from The Lion King, I have been bummed out. I used to love the Enchanted Tiki Room as a kid, and the song that went along with it. I mean, how can you not love the chorus, "In the tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki tiki room. In the tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki tiki room, where the birds sing words and the flowers croon, in the tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki tiki room!"
I went into the attraction noticing that it didn't say "Under New Management!" like it does in Florida. I was very excited. I hoped that they hadn't fucked with this one. I hoped that they kept it pure. I hoped that when I went in I wouldn't see Iago or Zuzu. And when I heard them calling for Jose to wake the rest of the birds, I was elated. It was the original, the one from my childhood, the pure Enchanted Tiki Room. It was truly a treat to see that show again, as dumb and as lame and as cheesy as I'm sure a lot of people find it. I loved it as a kid, from the birds to the flowers to the chanting totems.
Disney needs to learn to not fuck with good things. They fucked with Imagination in Epcot (They should have kept the original ride and as creepy as Michael Jackson is, they should have kept the Captain EO 3D movie). The fucked with The Living Seas in Epcot. Granted, they did do good things to Pirates of the Caribbean in both Disneyland and Walt Disney World, there are so many things that have disappeared or have been changed in bad ways.
Another great moment came right after Junko and I entered the park and went through our first attraction (the tour of Sleeping Beauty's castle). Directly to our left as we walked out was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride! Yeah! That's been gone from the Florida park for over a decade. I missed that ride for a long time and I thought that it was gone forever. I thought that it had been retired. To my delight, it was there. So, my trip to Disneyland was like turning the clock back to when I was ten and both Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and the Enchanted Tiki Room existed in a way that I wanted to remember them.
Aside from the Disney and the celebrity moments in Los Angeles, I did other cool stuff. I went to go see a girl that Junko was tutoring play soccer. By play soccer, I mean play soccer on a professional soccer team. It was the Los Angeles Sol against the Bay area's FC Gold Pride. The Sol won with a brilliant goal at the beginning of the second half.
I also went to Santa Monica and hung out in the sunshine. Oh yeah, I had In-n-Out Burger for the first time, which wasn't half bad, but wasn't as epic as I had anticipated.
Now, I'm in New York City. I got back to the east coast three days ago and came down to New York two days ago. I'm in my pal Brian's wedding tomorrow and needed to be here for the rehearsal dinner and to pick up my tux. Luckily, as I was the last person to get measured, and did so from the other end of the country, my tux fit perfectly.
The wedding buzz is all a little bit crazy. It's going to be a big wedding of two hundred and fifty people. Of those people, I know maybe eight of them. Six of them are the groomsmen, and two of them are the bride and groom. I guess you can say ten if you count Brian's sister and her husband, but she didn't remember my name even though we've met about five times. Surprisingly, two of the groomsmen who I thought never liked me, one I know for sure didn't like me, actually communicated with me. It was caught off guard. I went in thinking, "Hey, I'm a groomsman. I'll yuk it up with the three guys that I know and that I like and that like me... or at least I think they like me." But to my surprise, I'm kinda kickin' it with everyone.
****Continued on Day 94****
Well, the wedding is over, and it was a ton of fun. If you didn't know, I was a groomsman. I was last in line, shortest of the bunch, and was paired up with an eleven year old bridesmaid. Yes. Eleven years old. She did think I was hot though. Apparently, Brian's sister went up to her and said, "Hey, at least your partner is hot." to which she responded , "I KNOW!" So I'm at least a hit with eleven year olds. Me and Hannah Montana have it MADE with eleven year olds.
The wedding itself was a lot of fun. Brian picked out some kick ass tuxes and I would be lying if I didn't say that I looked hot. I mean, I was hot, temperature wise, but I was also looking damn good. I was trying to chat up Brian's cousin, Dawn (unfortunate name, but ridiculously good looking girl), but it didn't go so well. One of Brian's fraternity brothers, Kendall, got her to dance a few times, but from what I hear, she just couldn't get him to go away.
Another person that I was a hit with was Brian's aunt (?) Valerie. The totally excellent wedding band played a lot of great, swingable music, and I was looking for someone who could follow. She happened to be the one. She was an amazing follow for someone who hadn't ever lindy hopped or done any sort of swing dancing. We danced for like three or four songs over the course of the night, and they were all really good dances.
One of the funniest parts of the night, for me, was when the incredibly hot wedding singer started to bust into "It Takes Two" by MC Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock. Of course, she only knew the first few lines of it as it was kind of a bridge into another song. But I did a bit of taunting, so they continued the song and I went up and rapped the rest of it. It's so funny, because about ninety percent of the people there had never met me before, and those who had met me before really didn't get the impression that I could bust a rhyme. It was a lot of fun. I think I impressed the hot wedding singer as well.
While I was down in NYC for the wedding, I ended up hanging out with a couple of my favorite people from my Colby days, Rob and Jill. They recently purchased a condo in Hoboken, which was in a really nice neighborhood. It's really close to the main drag without being so close that it would be annoying. It was funny, because I met up with them on the day that they had taken off of work in order to move. I didn't know exactly where they lived in Hoboken, but when I got to the cross streets that they said that they lived on, I just followed the movers into their new condo. Didn't, and still don't know their address.
Anyhow, I'm back in Boston now. Sam arrived back here a few days ago as well. I'm completely unsettled and completely befuddled by my situation. I now have a mere week before I head down to Nantucket, a place, at the current moment, I'm not all that thrilled to be going back to. I have no income, no real responsibilities. I'm trying to get together with friends, but tend to be a bit flaky lately with calling people back or even calling people when I tell them that I'll call them.
Instead of preparing myself for going to Nantucket and cleaning up my life here in Cambridge, I have been volunteering at the Chez. I worked at a charity event, helped cook for some private parties, and cooked some Cuban sandwiches for the Mayfair event that happened this afternoon. I didn't need to do any of this. Marsoir asked me to do the charity event with him (where we kind of got tanked), but other than that, it was all pretty much me saying, "ya need any help?" I think it was good to get me back into the groove of being in a kitchen, but it was also a pretty good distraction from my apparently big case of re-entry depression.
So, I've been kind of in a weird mood lately. I've been up and down. I've been energetic and I've been fatigued. Little things irk me and I can't seem to let go of my time in Asia. I'm constantly annoyed by "Americans" and our "civilization." I'm upset that it costs $4.14 for a quart container of pineapple (which isn't even really full and comes out to be about a half of an average sized pineapple) when I used to get a whole, fresh pineapple, cut and cleaned as I'm asking to purchase it for less than a dollar. I know that people in southeast Asia say dumb things on the street, but here in America, I can understand the vapid things that are being said about this, that, and the other.
I find myself thinking about the consumerism in America a lot. I find that I'm walking by a lot of the stores that I used to go into thinking to myself, "Gee, I really don't need anything." I look at the people on the street with all of their bags of brand name whatchamabobs thinking that they paid five times as much as it would have cost in Bangkok, Saigon or even Hong Kong. There's nothing that tastes as good as it did over there. The buildings are boring. Everything sucks.
I talked to one of my best pals, Frank, while I was in NYC. He said that it seemed like I thought that America was beneath me now. I told him that it wasn't the case. It was just that I have never necessarily felt like I belonged here in America. I don't think status quo. I don't think like the rest of the country, I don't think. Maybe I do, and I just have an ego problem. I think that I just don't fit and that I can't make a difference here in the States. Over in Asia, though I didn't fit either, I think that I could make a difference there. I think that I could do something good that could affect people. I think that I could carve out something good over there, whereas, when I think of life in the States, I'm not so sure. Who knows though?
So I'm just chalking this up to a bit of re-entry depression. I'm hoping that when the sun shines in the States again, and the temperature gets back up into the high eighties and low nineties, I'll feel better about my life and won't be as anxious to escape back to the far east.
Anyhow, I'm sorry about not having posted much since I have gotten back to the States. I will try to keep writing on a regular basis. I'll get back to updating you all on my mundane American life. Maybe things will get exciting. Hopefully they'll get exciting. And for those of you who have a sense of humor, I think that this will be my theme for the summer:
Friday, April 24, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Day 78: Airlock Two
Listening: Without your sweet kiss, my soul is lost, my friend. Now tell me how do I begin again?
What's my problem? Re-entry depression has hit again.
Eventually, I plan on having a big summary entry. You know, a lot of top fives and such. For now, I'm just getting accustomed to the American life being lived around me. I got off the plane at around half past two, two days ago. It took me an hour or so to get my luggage and get through customs. I stated on my custom forms that I had foreign food with me. When they asked, I just said I had candy. I totally forgot that I had a bottle of Thai Red Bull (stronger than the American stuff) for Pies. I also forgot about the Caba seed that I got from my trek in Chiang Mai that has been sitting in my backpack since then. Not really legal to bring foreign seeds into the States... But oh well. The way they were going, I could have probably smuggled in a live tiger... on a leash... with big flashing neon blinking lights that pointed to the tiger saying, "Tiger, motherfuckers!" and it still would have gotten through. All they did was ask me what I did for a living and what kind of food I was bringing in. Don't they know that all chefs are vagabonds? Silly border control, Trix are for kids.
My final days in Hong Kong were a little surreal. I could feel my trip coming to an end, tying me up in ropes and squeezing. I was tired though. My trip was largely spent with me on the run from city to city. Aside from my time in Chiang Mai and Koh Samui, I never spent more than a week anywhere. Even in those two places, I went on treks out of Chiang Mai for three days apiece, and in Koh Samui, I spent four of the days in Koh Tao, really and one day in Koh Phangan. So, I was always on the move. I wasn't like Julia, who just spent three weeks in Nha Trang working as a promoter for Red Apple Bar. Next time... no schedule, and I'm going to work along the way. No commitments for when I'm going home and no timelines. I'll come home when I'm, as they say, goddamn good and ready.
Anyway, Hong Kong was a crazy place. When I was staying in Kowloon, I was in a room a foot wider than a twin bed with a one square meter bathroom that had a sink, a toilet AND a shower, and a square meter that allowed the door to the room to open. That's EXACTLY how big it was. It was tiny. It was so tiny, that it was almost comical. Junko said that it sounds like a Japanese capsule hotel, and it very well might have been, but I think that a capsule hotel would have been a little bit nicer, at least the furnishings.
My time in Hong Kong was spent trying to get the lay of the land, for the most part. I walked around quite a bit, all through Kowloon and on Hong Kong Island as well. For two days, I had Candy and Simon guiding me around. They were so stressed out trying to figure out where to take me. Apparently, they don't go out very much, because everything is so expensive and the crowds are huge.
The first day I met up with them, we started by having dim sum in Times Square near the Causeway Bay station on the MRT. This was unlike any dim sum that I have ever had. There were no carts. There was only a menu. Two days prior when I went to go search out dim sum on my own, Candy texted me and said, "Ummm, I don't think you'll be able to order." I didn't believe her. Apparently, though, nowadays in Hong Kong at least, there are very few places that do the cart thing. It's all order a la carte. This dim sum, though, was something different. It felt much more high end, and the presentation of the dishes were really quite amazing. To top it all off, it was delicious. I think that my favorite thing that I had that morning was the Lo Bak Go, or turnip cake. It was cut into cubes and then fried and topped with this really great spicy sauce. I'm so used to the turnip cake just fried on a griddle and slapped on a plate with some sweet sauce, but, no. This was presented in a puffed basket of some sort. I had no clue what it was made of. I think it was something that could have been presented in a fine dining restaurant as an appetizer.
From there, we walked through Wan Chai, the financial district with all of their crazy buildings, and then to the midlands where Simon wanted me to try these king prawn wontons. Two words: fucking amazing, They were huge too. They were so good that I went back on my second to last night in Asia. They were perfectly seasoned with huge pieces of prawn in them. From there, I was taken to a VERY popular Hong Kong milk tea place, where I had, probably, the best milk tea that I've ever had in my life. I went back there on my second to last night as well.
I was already stuffed at that point. It really made no sense, but I was. I could have totally missed another meal in there, because the food coma from dim sum already had me reeling. I was totally waddling as if I had a food baby. We decided that we needed to walk it off a bit, so we took the ferry back across to Kowloon where we went to a bunch of the night markets.
When you travel in southeast Asia, you find out what the local night markets have. By this, I mean, you see the first five stalls, and it's the same for the rest of the eight blocks of markets. It's all, as they say, " Same same, but different." In Bangkok, you see the same cheesecloth shirts, the same table runners and placemats, the same wine bottle holders, and the same kitschy tees. In Luang Prabang, it was parasols, pants, skirts, scarves, coffee, and, of course, tees. In Hong Kong, it was Chinese dresses, Buddha figurines, Hello Kitty knockoffs, watch knockoffs, and bags. It was all same, same, but different.
We walked around for a long time. We started at Tsim Sha Tsui, which is at the bottom tip of Kowloon (actually the stop where my room was located), and walked up past the Mong Kok station, which is three stations away. I think the equivalent for the Bostonians out there would be if I walked from Porter to Kendall on the red line without diverting from the path of the train. It was a long ways. After a long bout of walking and shopping, where we actually bought very little, we ended up having sushi near Mong Kok. It was one of those conveyer belt sushi places, but we were actually in a booth away from the conveyer belt. The sushi was pretty good, and kind of avante garde. I had a seared foie gras sushi with gold leaf. Strangely enough, it only cost the equivalent of five US dollars. It tasted fine. And really, who can say no to duck fat? I also had a silverfish sushi, which is a lot like the salmon roe sushi, but instead of little red beads on top of the cylinder of rice and nori, it was a pile of little white fish with tiny black eyes. It was interesting, and surprisingly good.
By the time we had finished eating, and by eating, I mean for the night, it was ten o'clock. They went home and I went to sleep. Deep sleep. Coma sleep. Food coma sleep. I had done a lot of eating, but I think it was training for that last big night of eating on the town.
The next day, I met Candy and Simon at Central Station, where we went and had breakfast at a Hong Kong version of Denny's. Well, like Denny's as in it's a chain, but not like Denny's as in the food is actually edible. I had some noodles in soup for breakfast. I figured eggs are easy to come by in the States. Noodle soup is less easy to come by. Especially on the island. From there, we went to the Big Buddha out on Lantau Island. It's the biggest outdoor, seated, bronze Buddha in he world, but not the biggest outdoor, biggest seated or biggest bronze Buddha. I found that to be an amusing little factoid from my guidebook.
In order to get to the Buddha, you have to either take a bus, a taxi or the cable car. We opted for the cable car, because it was the most novel of all of the methods. That, and they had just started this thing called the Crystal Cabin, which is a cable car with a glass bottom. That was what we wanted to take. When we got in line, the wait said ninety minutes. Yeesh. Ninety minutes. But we did it. It was ninety minutes to get to the ticket counter. Then, at the ticket counter, we were told that to get a Crystal Cabin, we had to wait another two hours. We opted out. So we took a regular cable car.
The cable car was nice though. After being in the cable car, I actually thought that I would have been pissed if I had gotten the Crystal Cabin knowing what I knew then. The regular cable car gave a fine view, and bubbled out a bit so if you put your forehead against the window, you could look straight down as if there was a glass bottom to the car.
At the top of the cable car, it was like a giant tourist trap all of the way up to the Big Buddha. Since we had been queued up for the past three and a half hours or so, we were hungry. We ended up at a pretty crappy restaurant. It came with mediocre expectations and delivered what would have been considered lower. I had fried rice and it wasn't all that good. I feel like we should have gone to the noodles in soup shop instead. Oh well. Hindsight.
The Big Buddha itself was pretty cool. On the steps up to the Buddha, I took some pictures. I actually took a picture of me making a funny face behind this older woman and Candy was in there doing the typical Asian pose. If you don't know what that is, well, you need to go watch more Asian tourists. I realize it was a bit juvenile, but it was funny at the time. Simon was laughing so hard that he could barely keep the camera still enough to take the shot. I have to say that it's one of the more amusing photos that was taken on my trip.
After we spent more time getting to the Big Buddha than actually AT the Big Buddha, we headed back into town to a crab spot in Causeway Bay. The meal started off pretty slow with some sauteed morning glory, but soon the fireworks began. Razor clams in garlic and black bean sauce made its way to the table. They were perfectly tender and wonderfully flavored. It was the exact way that I love eating clams, but these razor clams were so much more tender and delicious. There was absolutely no rubbery-ness. The razor clams were followed by some snails in a spicy sauce which were good, but were a bit on the rubbery side, as snails can get. However the pinnacle of the night was the typhoon-shelter crab. HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT! I had the best prawns of my life in Bangkok, Thailand, the best Lobster in Nha Trang, Vietnam, and the best crab of my life in Hong Kong and it blew the prawns and the lobster out of the water.
****Continued Day 81****
That night, after I said my goodbyes to Candy and Simon, I headed off to the night market on Temple Street. I planned on buying more trinkets for people, but nothing really struck me. I did, however, end up going to a fortune teller. I know that I don't really believe much in this stuff, but I thought it would be fun to see what an old Chinese man could tell me about my life by looking at my hands and my face.
He started off by telling me that I use my imagination for work, that I deal in ideas so to speak. He said that I'm very good at getting others excited about my ideas and that I'm very good at getting others to do things for me. Then he asked me what I did for work. I told him that I was a chef. He said that that made sense. He then proceeded to tell me how the features of my hand were telling him that I would live a long life, more than ninety years, and that I shouldn't marry until later in life. I asked him what later meant. He said, definitely not in my twenties (good thing I dodged that bullet), and that now would be okay, but it would be better to wait. He said that I will do very well financially for the next twenty years, but that in my fifty-first and fifty-second year, that someone would try to take my wealth. He said that I would do financially well over the next twenty years if I don't gamble, specifically in casinos. He then proceeded to tell me why certain features of my face meant that I would have a good life. For example I have a strong nose, which I guess means that I will be lucky with money. He said things about my chin and my ears which I don't remember so well, but were all very positive things. I was hoping to hear a balance of positive and negative, but it was ninety percent positive. He also told me not to marry anyone born in the year of the rat and that my most compatible friends would be born in the years of the tiger, goat, and dog.
All in all, I'd like to believe that this is all true. The one thing that I was told not to do was gamble, so I think I can handle that without too much trouble. But when I think about wanting to believe the fortune teller, I have Ethan Hawke's voice in my head spouting the line from "Before Sunrise" saying, "Yeah, of course you do, you know. You pay your money, you get to hear something that makes you feel good about yourself. If you want, maybe there's a seedy section of Vienna, we can go buy a hit of crack, you know. Would you like that? Yeah?" Then, I think, it was merely some good entertainment. I mean the reading did last about a half an hour or so.
The next morning, I packed all of my stuff and headed to Hong Kong Disneyland. I took the MRT all of the way there, and on the special Disnelyand Line, the cars are much more plush with velvety benches and bronze statues of Disney characters, not to mentioned the Mickey shaped rings for the people who were standing to hold onto and the Mickey shaped windows. When you get to the Disneyland stop, the train instructs you to have a "magical" day.
Hong Kong Disneyland was altogether a bit disappointing. Everything was much smaller than what they have at Disney World in Florida. Well, if you think about it, a "land" should be a lot smaller than a "world," no? Regardless, I went in with higher expectations and, well, they were not met. I really could have seen EVERYTHING in Disney in less than five hours, given proper conditions and timing. There weren't many things that I was impressed with. I think that the thing that I was the most impressed with was the fact that they gave out individually packaged chopsticks and Chinese soup spoons with all of the meals. I thought that was kind of spiffy. It came in a neat little sealed package too. I'll post a picture later.
The other thing that I thought was really cool was the fact that they dealt very well with the multi-lingual-ness of the clientele. For instance, when you go to the Jungle Cruise, there are three lines, one for Cantonese, one for Mandarin, and one for English speaking "jungle guides." At the Stitch Encounter, there were different times for different languages, one hour for each of the languages. In the Festival of the Lion King show, it was done in English, but there two monkeys who spoke in Cantonese, telling people what was happening. And also in the High School Musical show, there were two people talking in English, and one in Cantonese.
Probably one of the most amusing things that I saw in Hong Kong Disneyland was the Muppet Mobile Lab with Dr. Bunsen & Beaker. Everyone knows them from the Muppets. For the Mobile Lab, they cruise around the park interacting with guests. Now if you can imagine them interacting with guests in English, imagine them doing it in Cantonese. It's perhaps one of the funniest things I have ever seen or heard. I didn't understand a single word that Bunsen said, but I was rollin'. I took a couple of videos that I'll post later.
Finally, the most impressive thing that I saw at Hong Kong Disneyland were the women. Jeezus were some of the girls who worked/danced in the park hot. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I really can't say anymore about it. There were just some attractive girls employed there.
But anyhow, I'm in Los Angeles now. I've been here for the past five days. It's been a bit of an adjustment coming back. Everyone speaks fantastic English, it's a dry heat instead of a humid, muggy heat and... well, those are the only good things I can see about being back in the States now. Everything here costs more. There are no more street vendors, or if there are, they're expensive, or they're selling something that's tortilla based (which I can't eat). I miss the cheap-cheap nature of southeast Asia. To top it all off, I'm still quite lagged. I hope I can shake it off by the time I have to be in Brian's wedding. Well, I'm actually going to go to sleep now. I have to be on a plane tomorrow. Click my heels three times.... Too bad I won't be there for long. I'll write more about Los Angeles in the next few days.
What's my problem? Re-entry depression has hit again.
Eventually, I plan on having a big summary entry. You know, a lot of top fives and such. For now, I'm just getting accustomed to the American life being lived around me. I got off the plane at around half past two, two days ago. It took me an hour or so to get my luggage and get through customs. I stated on my custom forms that I had foreign food with me. When they asked, I just said I had candy. I totally forgot that I had a bottle of Thai Red Bull (stronger than the American stuff) for Pies. I also forgot about the Caba seed that I got from my trek in Chiang Mai that has been sitting in my backpack since then. Not really legal to bring foreign seeds into the States... But oh well. The way they were going, I could have probably smuggled in a live tiger... on a leash... with big flashing neon blinking lights that pointed to the tiger saying, "Tiger, motherfuckers!" and it still would have gotten through. All they did was ask me what I did for a living and what kind of food I was bringing in. Don't they know that all chefs are vagabonds? Silly border control, Trix are for kids.
My final days in Hong Kong were a little surreal. I could feel my trip coming to an end, tying me up in ropes and squeezing. I was tired though. My trip was largely spent with me on the run from city to city. Aside from my time in Chiang Mai and Koh Samui, I never spent more than a week anywhere. Even in those two places, I went on treks out of Chiang Mai for three days apiece, and in Koh Samui, I spent four of the days in Koh Tao, really and one day in Koh Phangan. So, I was always on the move. I wasn't like Julia, who just spent three weeks in Nha Trang working as a promoter for Red Apple Bar. Next time... no schedule, and I'm going to work along the way. No commitments for when I'm going home and no timelines. I'll come home when I'm, as they say, goddamn good and ready.
Anyway, Hong Kong was a crazy place. When I was staying in Kowloon, I was in a room a foot wider than a twin bed with a one square meter bathroom that had a sink, a toilet AND a shower, and a square meter that allowed the door to the room to open. That's EXACTLY how big it was. It was tiny. It was so tiny, that it was almost comical. Junko said that it sounds like a Japanese capsule hotel, and it very well might have been, but I think that a capsule hotel would have been a little bit nicer, at least the furnishings.
My time in Hong Kong was spent trying to get the lay of the land, for the most part. I walked around quite a bit, all through Kowloon and on Hong Kong Island as well. For two days, I had Candy and Simon guiding me around. They were so stressed out trying to figure out where to take me. Apparently, they don't go out very much, because everything is so expensive and the crowds are huge.
The first day I met up with them, we started by having dim sum in Times Square near the Causeway Bay station on the MRT. This was unlike any dim sum that I have ever had. There were no carts. There was only a menu. Two days prior when I went to go search out dim sum on my own, Candy texted me and said, "Ummm, I don't think you'll be able to order." I didn't believe her. Apparently, though, nowadays in Hong Kong at least, there are very few places that do the cart thing. It's all order a la carte. This dim sum, though, was something different. It felt much more high end, and the presentation of the dishes were really quite amazing. To top it all off, it was delicious. I think that my favorite thing that I had that morning was the Lo Bak Go, or turnip cake. It was cut into cubes and then fried and topped with this really great spicy sauce. I'm so used to the turnip cake just fried on a griddle and slapped on a plate with some sweet sauce, but, no. This was presented in a puffed basket of some sort. I had no clue what it was made of. I think it was something that could have been presented in a fine dining restaurant as an appetizer.
From there, we walked through Wan Chai, the financial district with all of their crazy buildings, and then to the midlands where Simon wanted me to try these king prawn wontons. Two words: fucking amazing, They were huge too. They were so good that I went back on my second to last night in Asia. They were perfectly seasoned with huge pieces of prawn in them. From there, I was taken to a VERY popular Hong Kong milk tea place, where I had, probably, the best milk tea that I've ever had in my life. I went back there on my second to last night as well.
I was already stuffed at that point. It really made no sense, but I was. I could have totally missed another meal in there, because the food coma from dim sum already had me reeling. I was totally waddling as if I had a food baby. We decided that we needed to walk it off a bit, so we took the ferry back across to Kowloon where we went to a bunch of the night markets.
When you travel in southeast Asia, you find out what the local night markets have. By this, I mean, you see the first five stalls, and it's the same for the rest of the eight blocks of markets. It's all, as they say, " Same same, but different." In Bangkok, you see the same cheesecloth shirts, the same table runners and placemats, the same wine bottle holders, and the same kitschy tees. In Luang Prabang, it was parasols, pants, skirts, scarves, coffee, and, of course, tees. In Hong Kong, it was Chinese dresses, Buddha figurines, Hello Kitty knockoffs, watch knockoffs, and bags. It was all same, same, but different.
We walked around for a long time. We started at Tsim Sha Tsui, which is at the bottom tip of Kowloon (actually the stop where my room was located), and walked up past the Mong Kok station, which is three stations away. I think the equivalent for the Bostonians out there would be if I walked from Porter to Kendall on the red line without diverting from the path of the train. It was a long ways. After a long bout of walking and shopping, where we actually bought very little, we ended up having sushi near Mong Kok. It was one of those conveyer belt sushi places, but we were actually in a booth away from the conveyer belt. The sushi was pretty good, and kind of avante garde. I had a seared foie gras sushi with gold leaf. Strangely enough, it only cost the equivalent of five US dollars. It tasted fine. And really, who can say no to duck fat? I also had a silverfish sushi, which is a lot like the salmon roe sushi, but instead of little red beads on top of the cylinder of rice and nori, it was a pile of little white fish with tiny black eyes. It was interesting, and surprisingly good.
By the time we had finished eating, and by eating, I mean for the night, it was ten o'clock. They went home and I went to sleep. Deep sleep. Coma sleep. Food coma sleep. I had done a lot of eating, but I think it was training for that last big night of eating on the town.
The next day, I met Candy and Simon at Central Station, where we went and had breakfast at a Hong Kong version of Denny's. Well, like Denny's as in it's a chain, but not like Denny's as in the food is actually edible. I had some noodles in soup for breakfast. I figured eggs are easy to come by in the States. Noodle soup is less easy to come by. Especially on the island. From there, we went to the Big Buddha out on Lantau Island. It's the biggest outdoor, seated, bronze Buddha in he world, but not the biggest outdoor, biggest seated or biggest bronze Buddha. I found that to be an amusing little factoid from my guidebook.
In order to get to the Buddha, you have to either take a bus, a taxi or the cable car. We opted for the cable car, because it was the most novel of all of the methods. That, and they had just started this thing called the Crystal Cabin, which is a cable car with a glass bottom. That was what we wanted to take. When we got in line, the wait said ninety minutes. Yeesh. Ninety minutes. But we did it. It was ninety minutes to get to the ticket counter. Then, at the ticket counter, we were told that to get a Crystal Cabin, we had to wait another two hours. We opted out. So we took a regular cable car.
The cable car was nice though. After being in the cable car, I actually thought that I would have been pissed if I had gotten the Crystal Cabin knowing what I knew then. The regular cable car gave a fine view, and bubbled out a bit so if you put your forehead against the window, you could look straight down as if there was a glass bottom to the car.
At the top of the cable car, it was like a giant tourist trap all of the way up to the Big Buddha. Since we had been queued up for the past three and a half hours or so, we were hungry. We ended up at a pretty crappy restaurant. It came with mediocre expectations and delivered what would have been considered lower. I had fried rice and it wasn't all that good. I feel like we should have gone to the noodles in soup shop instead. Oh well. Hindsight.
The Big Buddha itself was pretty cool. On the steps up to the Buddha, I took some pictures. I actually took a picture of me making a funny face behind this older woman and Candy was in there doing the typical Asian pose. If you don't know what that is, well, you need to go watch more Asian tourists. I realize it was a bit juvenile, but it was funny at the time. Simon was laughing so hard that he could barely keep the camera still enough to take the shot. I have to say that it's one of the more amusing photos that was taken on my trip.
After we spent more time getting to the Big Buddha than actually AT the Big Buddha, we headed back into town to a crab spot in Causeway Bay. The meal started off pretty slow with some sauteed morning glory, but soon the fireworks began. Razor clams in garlic and black bean sauce made its way to the table. They were perfectly tender and wonderfully flavored. It was the exact way that I love eating clams, but these razor clams were so much more tender and delicious. There was absolutely no rubbery-ness. The razor clams were followed by some snails in a spicy sauce which were good, but were a bit on the rubbery side, as snails can get. However the pinnacle of the night was the typhoon-shelter crab. HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT! I had the best prawns of my life in Bangkok, Thailand, the best Lobster in Nha Trang, Vietnam, and the best crab of my life in Hong Kong and it blew the prawns and the lobster out of the water.
****Continued Day 81****
That night, after I said my goodbyes to Candy and Simon, I headed off to the night market on Temple Street. I planned on buying more trinkets for people, but nothing really struck me. I did, however, end up going to a fortune teller. I know that I don't really believe much in this stuff, but I thought it would be fun to see what an old Chinese man could tell me about my life by looking at my hands and my face.
He started off by telling me that I use my imagination for work, that I deal in ideas so to speak. He said that I'm very good at getting others excited about my ideas and that I'm very good at getting others to do things for me. Then he asked me what I did for work. I told him that I was a chef. He said that that made sense. He then proceeded to tell me how the features of my hand were telling him that I would live a long life, more than ninety years, and that I shouldn't marry until later in life. I asked him what later meant. He said, definitely not in my twenties (good thing I dodged that bullet), and that now would be okay, but it would be better to wait. He said that I will do very well financially for the next twenty years, but that in my fifty-first and fifty-second year, that someone would try to take my wealth. He said that I would do financially well over the next twenty years if I don't gamble, specifically in casinos. He then proceeded to tell me why certain features of my face meant that I would have a good life. For example I have a strong nose, which I guess means that I will be lucky with money. He said things about my chin and my ears which I don't remember so well, but were all very positive things. I was hoping to hear a balance of positive and negative, but it was ninety percent positive. He also told me not to marry anyone born in the year of the rat and that my most compatible friends would be born in the years of the tiger, goat, and dog.
All in all, I'd like to believe that this is all true. The one thing that I was told not to do was gamble, so I think I can handle that without too much trouble. But when I think about wanting to believe the fortune teller, I have Ethan Hawke's voice in my head spouting the line from "Before Sunrise" saying, "Yeah, of course you do, you know. You pay your money, you get to hear something that makes you feel good about yourself. If you want, maybe there's a seedy section of Vienna, we can go buy a hit of crack, you know. Would you like that? Yeah?" Then, I think, it was merely some good entertainment. I mean the reading did last about a half an hour or so.
The next morning, I packed all of my stuff and headed to Hong Kong Disneyland. I took the MRT all of the way there, and on the special Disnelyand Line, the cars are much more plush with velvety benches and bronze statues of Disney characters, not to mentioned the Mickey shaped rings for the people who were standing to hold onto and the Mickey shaped windows. When you get to the Disneyland stop, the train instructs you to have a "magical" day.
Hong Kong Disneyland was altogether a bit disappointing. Everything was much smaller than what they have at Disney World in Florida. Well, if you think about it, a "land" should be a lot smaller than a "world," no? Regardless, I went in with higher expectations and, well, they were not met. I really could have seen EVERYTHING in Disney in less than five hours, given proper conditions and timing. There weren't many things that I was impressed with. I think that the thing that I was the most impressed with was the fact that they gave out individually packaged chopsticks and Chinese soup spoons with all of the meals. I thought that was kind of spiffy. It came in a neat little sealed package too. I'll post a picture later.
The other thing that I thought was really cool was the fact that they dealt very well with the multi-lingual-ness of the clientele. For instance, when you go to the Jungle Cruise, there are three lines, one for Cantonese, one for Mandarin, and one for English speaking "jungle guides." At the Stitch Encounter, there were different times for different languages, one hour for each of the languages. In the Festival of the Lion King show, it was done in English, but there two monkeys who spoke in Cantonese, telling people what was happening. And also in the High School Musical show, there were two people talking in English, and one in Cantonese.
Probably one of the most amusing things that I saw in Hong Kong Disneyland was the Muppet Mobile Lab with Dr. Bunsen & Beaker. Everyone knows them from the Muppets. For the Mobile Lab, they cruise around the park interacting with guests. Now if you can imagine them interacting with guests in English, imagine them doing it in Cantonese. It's perhaps one of the funniest things I have ever seen or heard. I didn't understand a single word that Bunsen said, but I was rollin'. I took a couple of videos that I'll post later.
Finally, the most impressive thing that I saw at Hong Kong Disneyland were the women. Jeezus were some of the girls who worked/danced in the park hot. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I really can't say anymore about it. There were just some attractive girls employed there.
But anyhow, I'm in Los Angeles now. I've been here for the past five days. It's been a bit of an adjustment coming back. Everyone speaks fantastic English, it's a dry heat instead of a humid, muggy heat and... well, those are the only good things I can see about being back in the States now. Everything here costs more. There are no more street vendors, or if there are, they're expensive, or they're selling something that's tortilla based (which I can't eat). I miss the cheap-cheap nature of southeast Asia. To top it all off, I'm still quite lagged. I hope I can shake it off by the time I have to be in Brian's wedding. Well, I'm actually going to go to sleep now. I have to be on a plane tomorrow. Click my heels three times.... Too bad I won't be there for long. I'll write more about Los Angeles in the next few days.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Day 74: What Has Two Thumbs And Is A Big Fucking Pig?
Listening: Well, if you are what you eat, in my case, I'll be sweet so come and get some. I'm so over it.
What's my problem? I could get used to this.
This guy!
I'm back on the MRT, on my way back to Disney. Since my last post at around five o'clock, I have had a bowl of noodles with king prawn wontons and beef, a Hong Kong style milk tea, some takoyaki, an assortment of tastes from a high end Asian grocery store in the basement of the Sogo department store, and some dried vegetable and pork chop congee. In my bag, I have a sakura mochi, which I intended to eat on my trip back to the hotel until I realized that I'm not allowed to eat anything on the MRT, and a Beard Papa sakura cream puff, which I intended on eating back in the room. I have a cinnamon bun and a coffee cake for breakfast tomorrow as well. Yeah. I'm a pig. I guess I'm just getting my fill before I head back to the States. Fucking America. Why can't we do food right? Well, we can do some food right, and even better than the original countries could, but we're getting the shit end of the stick when it comes to Asian foods. Can't I just get 'round the world delivery?
What's my problem? I could get used to this.
This guy!
I'm back on the MRT, on my way back to Disney. Since my last post at around five o'clock, I have had a bowl of noodles with king prawn wontons and beef, a Hong Kong style milk tea, some takoyaki, an assortment of tastes from a high end Asian grocery store in the basement of the Sogo department store, and some dried vegetable and pork chop congee. In my bag, I have a sakura mochi, which I intended to eat on my trip back to the hotel until I realized that I'm not allowed to eat anything on the MRT, and a Beard Papa sakura cream puff, which I intended on eating back in the room. I have a cinnamon bun and a coffee cake for breakfast tomorrow as well. Yeah. I'm a pig. I guess I'm just getting my fill before I head back to the States. Fucking America. Why can't we do food right? Well, we can do some food right, and even better than the original countries could, but we're getting the shit end of the stick when it comes to Asian foods. Can't I just get 'round the world delivery?
Day 74: Kinda Short For A Stormtrooper
Listening: But it's not forever. But it's just tonight. Oh, we're still the greatest.
What's my problem? I have one full day left in Asia.
So, I've been busy the past two days. I've been hanging out with Candy and Simon. I have found out a very important thing about Hong Kong. There are two things to do here. Eat and shop. There are very few cultural places to go see, not that I made a huge effort. I'll save it for the next time. But, the three of us ate our faces off. The first day we hung out, it was dim sum, wontons, milk tea, and sushi. I feel like there was more in there than I'm remembering. Yesterday, it was noodles, fried rice, typhoon-shelter crab, razorclams, snails, morning glory, and some Chinese coffee milk dessert. Yeah. There was a lot of eating.
I'm at the MRT Station blogging, because I haven't had time or a place to blog over the past two days. I'm back in Hong Kong after checking into the Disneyland Hotel just to get some more quality food before I head back to the States. I checked out the park for a few hours and saw a few shows. The funny thing about Hong Kong Disneyland is that everything seems shorter. The castle is DEFINTITELY shorter than any other Disney castle that I've seen. I'll have to look closer tomorrow.
Anyhow, I have to go. My 15 minutes of webtime is almost up. Next post may be from the airport. Who knows?
What's my problem? I have one full day left in Asia.
So, I've been busy the past two days. I've been hanging out with Candy and Simon. I have found out a very important thing about Hong Kong. There are two things to do here. Eat and shop. There are very few cultural places to go see, not that I made a huge effort. I'll save it for the next time. But, the three of us ate our faces off. The first day we hung out, it was dim sum, wontons, milk tea, and sushi. I feel like there was more in there than I'm remembering. Yesterday, it was noodles, fried rice, typhoon-shelter crab, razorclams, snails, morning glory, and some Chinese coffee milk dessert. Yeah. There was a lot of eating.
I'm at the MRT Station blogging, because I haven't had time or a place to blog over the past two days. I'm back in Hong Kong after checking into the Disneyland Hotel just to get some more quality food before I head back to the States. I checked out the park for a few hours and saw a few shows. The funny thing about Hong Kong Disneyland is that everything seems shorter. The castle is DEFINTITELY shorter than any other Disney castle that I've seen. I'll have to look closer tomorrow.
Anyhow, I have to go. My 15 minutes of webtime is almost up. Next post may be from the airport. Who knows?
Friday, April 10, 2009
Day 71: I Was Tripled Up At A Hundred Dollar Minimum Blackjack Table
Listening: Drown me in the crimson sky and Utopian disease. The chaos of heavens die and will fall into the seas.
What's my problem? I could have left well enough alone.
Today was my first foray into Macau and into the world of gambling. I set my alarm for half six, so that I could catch the first ferry and really spend my time checking out the town. My alarm went off at the right time, but I decided to keep sleeping. I ended up getting up around half seven, being out the door at eight, and it was half eight by the time i got to the ferry docks.
I knew that being a public holiday, it would be crowded. Candy warned me. When I got to the ferry, the next economy class ticket would put me on the ferry at a quarter past eleven, putting me in Macau at a quarter past noon. Hmm. A little later than I would have liked, seeing as the last ferry back to Kowloon was at ten thirty. I could buy a deluxe class ticket on the nine o'clock for about a hundred Hong Kong dollars more ($14.28), so I opted for that. It came with a free drink and a big bowl of crappy ramen.
It was a nice easy ride that was over before I realized that it started and I was in the ferry terminal in Macau at ten on the dot. The first thing I did there was go to visitor information. I found a couple of really crappy maps that were way too big for Macau being a seemingly small place. I asked about John Legend tickets too. He was playing at the Venetian tonight, and if I planned on staying overnight there or if I had won tons of money, I would have gone to see him.
I tried to get my return ticket to Kowloon, which I should have bought in the first place in Kowloon, but I was a moron. Their computer was down so they couldn't ticket me, which kind of worried me, but I pushed on.
At that point, I had no clue how far distances in Macau really were. As I walked out the doors, there were people handing out special offers from casinos, and there were free shuttles to the casinos. I looked at a bunch of the offers and looked at the locales of the casinos, and decided that the Wynn had the best location and the best offer. They were offering 100HKD ($14.28) in free player's credit on your player's card. The catch was that you could only access it unless you put up your own actual stake as well.
So, I walk into the Wynn. In the lobby of the casino, there is a rotunda. In the ceiling of this pretty sizable rotunda, there's a big brass relief sculpture of all of the different Chinese zodiac animals. And as I'm getting my player's card from the desk, all of a sudden the lights in the rotunda dim, music plays loudly, and then there's smoke. The brass dome on the floor directly below the brass relief sculpture in the rotunda starts to open and a giant brass dragon rises and breathes smoke everywhere. This happens every half hour. I was totally caught off guard.
I figured that since I was already in the Wynn, I would check out the casino. I put up a stake of twenty HKD (just under $3) so I could access the hundred HKD that I had on my player's card and played some slots. Let me just say that the slot machines today confuse the fuck out of me. There are too many buttons and spinny things. There are WAY too many variables. I lost a bunch of my stake and my bonus money before I found a single set of machines that only had three spinny things (which were video like every other one) and actually had an arm to pull on to spin them. It was a one HKD slot machine, which was the second most expensive ones that I had seen there. But I kept playing and playing until all of my free bonus credit was gone, but my original stake of twenty HKD turned into forty HKD. I thought it was a good time to cash out of my slots money, so I did.
From there, I looked around and checked out the poker room and some of the high stakes tables. Most of the games being played were Baccarat, Bai So (a dice game), and Carribean Stud. I found two roulette tables, two craps tables and a little bit of blackjack here and there.
On the boat, I decided that I could afford to bet and lose 500HKD ($71.43). So I strolled up to the blackjack table with a cool five hundie HKD in my hot little fist. I have never, ever wished that my brother was with me this much in my life. It was my first time in a casino and I was intimidated.
I was lucky to have sat down at the table that I sat down at. There were two Japanese guys, a Cantonese guy, a Cantonese woman and me. Once we got rolling, we were all having a good time. The reason I sat down there was because the table was almost full, and it was the lowest minimum bet, being a hundred HKD. I knew that the more cards I saw, the better chance I would have as far as being able to guess whether the upcoming card would more likely be a higher card or a lower card. I tried to do the things that my brother talked about when he talked about counting cards, but I couldn't keep the count in my head. All I did was generally guess how many high cards and how many low cards I had seen in the recent past.
I fully expected to be standing up in five hands, off to see the rest of Macau guilt free and unabashed. I sat down at around eleven. I didn't get up until four. I was only playing the minimum bet, but I kept winning for the most part. Or, at least I wasn't losing. My five hundie became a cool thou. Once that happened, the original five hundie went in my pocket so I was only playing with my winnings. I just kept playing and playing with my winnings. When that five hundie became another cool thou, again, five hundie went in my pocket. I put and extra hundred in my pocket so that I could bring the chip to my brother. At half three, I told everyone at the table that I would play until the five hundie I had on the table was gone, but when four rolled around and I was at five fifty, I decided that I needed to see some of the town. So, I bounced and cashed out the sixteen hundred and fifty Hong Kong Dollars minus a hundred dollar and a twenty five dollar chip.
So, with it being four o'clock, it limited where I could go. I ended up going to see the Museum of Wine and the Grand Prix Museum, which were conveniently located in the same building. The Museum of Wine was interesting. It was mainly focused on Portuguese wines and the history of winemaking in general. I got a taste of a Portuguese red that wasn't half bad. It would be a nice table wine.
The Grand Prix Museum was pretty cool too. There were a number of vintage cars and motorcycles that had all raced in the Macau Grand Prix. It told the stories of some legendary racers and some racing pioneers. I had no clue that Filipinos were such good racers.
From there, I kicked it over to Fisherman's Wharf. It's not like the Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. It's like a ghetto, cheesy version of EPCOT without all of the great educational information. It was actually quite amusing. Part of it looked like Tang Dynasty China, then right next to it was a big mountain of some sort, then Egyptian pyramids and an Aladdin themed area, a place that looked like the Roman Colluseum, something that looked turn of the century Europe, and I think there may have been a couple of other themes. It was funny though. There were a couple of amusement attractions, some shopping and some restaurants.
By the time I got through there, I was famished, so I headed to the Sands to get some food. The Sands wasn't nearly as nice as the Wynn. They did have a stage with girls doing a kind of hip hop show though. I got a player's card there, so I could get ten percent off of dinner. I ended up eating some Shanghai soup dumplings, rice in soup with duck leg, and a milk tea all while reading my new book, Slumdog Millionaire.
By the time dinner was over, it was half seven. I decided that I didn't actually want to play at all at the Sands. I just couldn't be bothered to learn where everything was at that point. I had my ferry at ten, and I figured that I should give myself at least a half hour to get onto the ferry. So, I went back to the Wynn and bought five hundie more of chips.
Those chips were gone in a hurry. I sat down around eight, and by a quarter past, I was down to fifty HKD. Minimum bet was a hundred, so I couldn't really play. I could have played Roulette, Craps, or Bai So, but I didn't really just want to throw the money away. Instead I walked around the casino for an hour watching other people play. I tended to watch the hot chicks play. I also had kind of a crush on one of the pit bosses. She just had something about her. When I got tired of oogling the gamers, I stepped outside onto the entrance steps of the casino and watched the ridiculously hot hookers trying to pick up their Johns across the street. It was fifteen minutes of quality entertainment seeing the reactions of the men and seeing if they would even stop to chat. These girls were hot though. One was, as I call it, burning magnesium. So hot that you can't look directly at it without burning your retnas.
I got on the shuttle bus from the Wynn to the ferry docks at a quarter past nine and was through customs and on the boat by ten to ten. An hour of sleepily listening to my iPod, and now I'm back in Kowloon. I'm gonna try to sleep early tonight (oops... it's twenty to one). Tomorrow, I'm supposed to meet up with Candy and Simon. I'm psyched. Oh... One quick thing... Here's a breakdown of my finances for today.
Expenditures
$254 - First class ferry to Macau
$20 - Admission to two museums
$88 - Dinner after 10% discount
$450 - Gambling
$155 - Economy seat on ferry to Kowloon
----------------------------------------
$957 total
Gains
$20 - Slots
$1050 - Blackjack
-----------------
$1070 total
Non-Monetary Gains
1 Coke
1 Beer
3 Waters
The Net
$1070
-$957
-----
$113 + 1 Coke, 1 Beer & 3 Waters.
I think that's a pretty good net expenditure for a day on vacation. I think that my brother would be proud of me for winning like I did, and my dad would be proud of me for stopping when I stopped. It was good day today. I wish I got to see more of Macau though... and maybe John Legend too.
What's my problem? I could have left well enough alone.
Today was my first foray into Macau and into the world of gambling. I set my alarm for half six, so that I could catch the first ferry and really spend my time checking out the town. My alarm went off at the right time, but I decided to keep sleeping. I ended up getting up around half seven, being out the door at eight, and it was half eight by the time i got to the ferry docks.
I knew that being a public holiday, it would be crowded. Candy warned me. When I got to the ferry, the next economy class ticket would put me on the ferry at a quarter past eleven, putting me in Macau at a quarter past noon. Hmm. A little later than I would have liked, seeing as the last ferry back to Kowloon was at ten thirty. I could buy a deluxe class ticket on the nine o'clock for about a hundred Hong Kong dollars more ($14.28), so I opted for that. It came with a free drink and a big bowl of crappy ramen.
It was a nice easy ride that was over before I realized that it started and I was in the ferry terminal in Macau at ten on the dot. The first thing I did there was go to visitor information. I found a couple of really crappy maps that were way too big for Macau being a seemingly small place. I asked about John Legend tickets too. He was playing at the Venetian tonight, and if I planned on staying overnight there or if I had won tons of money, I would have gone to see him.
I tried to get my return ticket to Kowloon, which I should have bought in the first place in Kowloon, but I was a moron. Their computer was down so they couldn't ticket me, which kind of worried me, but I pushed on.
At that point, I had no clue how far distances in Macau really were. As I walked out the doors, there were people handing out special offers from casinos, and there were free shuttles to the casinos. I looked at a bunch of the offers and looked at the locales of the casinos, and decided that the Wynn had the best location and the best offer. They were offering 100HKD ($14.28) in free player's credit on your player's card. The catch was that you could only access it unless you put up your own actual stake as well.
So, I walk into the Wynn. In the lobby of the casino, there is a rotunda. In the ceiling of this pretty sizable rotunda, there's a big brass relief sculpture of all of the different Chinese zodiac animals. And as I'm getting my player's card from the desk, all of a sudden the lights in the rotunda dim, music plays loudly, and then there's smoke. The brass dome on the floor directly below the brass relief sculpture in the rotunda starts to open and a giant brass dragon rises and breathes smoke everywhere. This happens every half hour. I was totally caught off guard.
I figured that since I was already in the Wynn, I would check out the casino. I put up a stake of twenty HKD (just under $3) so I could access the hundred HKD that I had on my player's card and played some slots. Let me just say that the slot machines today confuse the fuck out of me. There are too many buttons and spinny things. There are WAY too many variables. I lost a bunch of my stake and my bonus money before I found a single set of machines that only had three spinny things (which were video like every other one) and actually had an arm to pull on to spin them. It was a one HKD slot machine, which was the second most expensive ones that I had seen there. But I kept playing and playing until all of my free bonus credit was gone, but my original stake of twenty HKD turned into forty HKD. I thought it was a good time to cash out of my slots money, so I did.
From there, I looked around and checked out the poker room and some of the high stakes tables. Most of the games being played were Baccarat, Bai So (a dice game), and Carribean Stud. I found two roulette tables, two craps tables and a little bit of blackjack here and there.
On the boat, I decided that I could afford to bet and lose 500HKD ($71.43). So I strolled up to the blackjack table with a cool five hundie HKD in my hot little fist. I have never, ever wished that my brother was with me this much in my life. It was my first time in a casino and I was intimidated.
I was lucky to have sat down at the table that I sat down at. There were two Japanese guys, a Cantonese guy, a Cantonese woman and me. Once we got rolling, we were all having a good time. The reason I sat down there was because the table was almost full, and it was the lowest minimum bet, being a hundred HKD. I knew that the more cards I saw, the better chance I would have as far as being able to guess whether the upcoming card would more likely be a higher card or a lower card. I tried to do the things that my brother talked about when he talked about counting cards, but I couldn't keep the count in my head. All I did was generally guess how many high cards and how many low cards I had seen in the recent past.
I fully expected to be standing up in five hands, off to see the rest of Macau guilt free and unabashed. I sat down at around eleven. I didn't get up until four. I was only playing the minimum bet, but I kept winning for the most part. Or, at least I wasn't losing. My five hundie became a cool thou. Once that happened, the original five hundie went in my pocket so I was only playing with my winnings. I just kept playing and playing with my winnings. When that five hundie became another cool thou, again, five hundie went in my pocket. I put and extra hundred in my pocket so that I could bring the chip to my brother. At half three, I told everyone at the table that I would play until the five hundie I had on the table was gone, but when four rolled around and I was at five fifty, I decided that I needed to see some of the town. So, I bounced and cashed out the sixteen hundred and fifty Hong Kong Dollars minus a hundred dollar and a twenty five dollar chip.
So, with it being four o'clock, it limited where I could go. I ended up going to see the Museum of Wine and the Grand Prix Museum, which were conveniently located in the same building. The Museum of Wine was interesting. It was mainly focused on Portuguese wines and the history of winemaking in general. I got a taste of a Portuguese red that wasn't half bad. It would be a nice table wine.
The Grand Prix Museum was pretty cool too. There were a number of vintage cars and motorcycles that had all raced in the Macau Grand Prix. It told the stories of some legendary racers and some racing pioneers. I had no clue that Filipinos were such good racers.
From there, I kicked it over to Fisherman's Wharf. It's not like the Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. It's like a ghetto, cheesy version of EPCOT without all of the great educational information. It was actually quite amusing. Part of it looked like Tang Dynasty China, then right next to it was a big mountain of some sort, then Egyptian pyramids and an Aladdin themed area, a place that looked like the Roman Colluseum, something that looked turn of the century Europe, and I think there may have been a couple of other themes. It was funny though. There were a couple of amusement attractions, some shopping and some restaurants.
By the time I got through there, I was famished, so I headed to the Sands to get some food. The Sands wasn't nearly as nice as the Wynn. They did have a stage with girls doing a kind of hip hop show though. I got a player's card there, so I could get ten percent off of dinner. I ended up eating some Shanghai soup dumplings, rice in soup with duck leg, and a milk tea all while reading my new book, Slumdog Millionaire.
By the time dinner was over, it was half seven. I decided that I didn't actually want to play at all at the Sands. I just couldn't be bothered to learn where everything was at that point. I had my ferry at ten, and I figured that I should give myself at least a half hour to get onto the ferry. So, I went back to the Wynn and bought five hundie more of chips.
Those chips were gone in a hurry. I sat down around eight, and by a quarter past, I was down to fifty HKD. Minimum bet was a hundred, so I couldn't really play. I could have played Roulette, Craps, or Bai So, but I didn't really just want to throw the money away. Instead I walked around the casino for an hour watching other people play. I tended to watch the hot chicks play. I also had kind of a crush on one of the pit bosses. She just had something about her. When I got tired of oogling the gamers, I stepped outside onto the entrance steps of the casino and watched the ridiculously hot hookers trying to pick up their Johns across the street. It was fifteen minutes of quality entertainment seeing the reactions of the men and seeing if they would even stop to chat. These girls were hot though. One was, as I call it, burning magnesium. So hot that you can't look directly at it without burning your retnas.
I got on the shuttle bus from the Wynn to the ferry docks at a quarter past nine and was through customs and on the boat by ten to ten. An hour of sleepily listening to my iPod, and now I'm back in Kowloon. I'm gonna try to sleep early tonight (oops... it's twenty to one). Tomorrow, I'm supposed to meet up with Candy and Simon. I'm psyched. Oh... One quick thing... Here's a breakdown of my finances for today.
Expenditures
$254 - First class ferry to Macau
$20 - Admission to two museums
$88 - Dinner after 10% discount
$450 - Gambling
$155 - Economy seat on ferry to Kowloon
----------------------------------------
$957 total
Gains
$20 - Slots
$1050 - Blackjack
-----------------
$1070 total
Non-Monetary Gains
1 Coke
1 Beer
3 Waters
The Net
$1070
-$957
-----
$113 + 1 Coke, 1 Beer & 3 Waters.
I think that's a pretty good net expenditure for a day on vacation. I think that my brother would be proud of me for winning like I did, and my dad would be proud of me for stopping when I stopped. It was good day today. I wish I got to see more of Macau though... and maybe John Legend too.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Day 70: One Red Paperclip
Listening: Got no deeds to do, no promises to keep. I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep. Let the morning time drop all its petals on me. Life, I love you. All is groovy.
What's my problem? Queen's Pier has been demolished.
It's seven in the evening here in Hong Kong. I've been in the same place for the past three and a half hours, curled into an easy chair at Pacific Coffee Company in The Peak Tower at Victoria Peak staring out the window over the skyline of Hong Kong reading Kyle Macdonald's One Red Paperclip.
The rest of the day, I wandered around Hong Kong Island, not really finding what I wanted to find. I yearned to just sort of chill out, but I felt like I had to keep on moving.
I heard of a junk ship that I could get on for free from my Fodor's which kind of struck my fancy. It took off from Queen's Pier at three and five o'clock according to my Fodor's, and would take me back to Kowloon which is where my room is. When I read this, I was in a Shanghaiese restaurant in Times Square eating soup dumplings and "hot pockets" as my pal Jon calls them. Originally, I was looking for the best dim sum in Hong Kong Island, but I found out that it was too far from the subway to walk to, so I scrapped it.
Anyhow, I was psyched to go on this junk ship until I got to Queen's Pier. Well, until I got to what was Queen's Pier, an endless construction site. I ended up going to the Star Ferry ticketing place, because that's where you could catch the junk on the other side. They hadn't even heard of this junk ship. By teh way, this junk ship is called "Duk Ling." I laughed.
So, I decided to head to the closest Tourist Information Center, which happened to be at The Peak Piazza, between The Peak Tower and The Peak Gallery on Victoria Peak. I didn't know that the said Peak stuff was actually on the Peak itself. I thought that it was at the base where the funicular brought you up to the peak. I was wrong.
I figure that since I was there anyways, I'd go up and check it out. And when I got here, I found out that the Duk Ling was now sailing out of Pier 9 and you needed advanced reservations. BASTARDS! Oh well. So I went back into the tower and briefly entertained the idea of going to the top where you had to pay twenty HKD ($3) to get there. I opted out. Instead, I felt like I needed to have a coffee fix, which was when I permanently affixed my ass to the bright red velvet armchair and read One Red Paperclip.
I started the book two days ago, but didn't read it one of those days (yesterday, obviously). Now, I'm a mere twenty pages from the end and I am absolutely loving it. The book makes me so happy. When I get home, I'm going to give this book to my best friend, Carlos, because I think he needs to read it. I'm not only going to give him this book, but I'm going to give him this copy of this book.
I have found that I like giving and receiving read books. The books are loved. I think I really realized that I liked reading and giving read books when I got Chloe's copy of Eat, Pray, Love. It really tuned me into it. And it also made it important that I didn't just leave it on a hostel bookshelf. I needed to pass it onto someone, so that they would read it, and maybe pass it on. That's why I handed it off to Clover before she left Bangkok for Australia.
I realized that for a collector such as myself, it's hard to let go of objects. I figure if I like the book enough, I'll buy myself another copy and I'll read it again. I'll probably do that with both of the two afore-mentioned books.
But that's how I've chosen to spend my afternoon in Hong Kong, I realize that it's like my little airlock before I hit the States, just like L.A. will be an airlock before I reach home. I love being on vacation and traveling, because I can do what the fuck I want, when I want. Even read a book in a cafe for three and a half hours.
What's my problem? Queen's Pier has been demolished.
It's seven in the evening here in Hong Kong. I've been in the same place for the past three and a half hours, curled into an easy chair at Pacific Coffee Company in The Peak Tower at Victoria Peak staring out the window over the skyline of Hong Kong reading Kyle Macdonald's One Red Paperclip.
The rest of the day, I wandered around Hong Kong Island, not really finding what I wanted to find. I yearned to just sort of chill out, but I felt like I had to keep on moving.
I heard of a junk ship that I could get on for free from my Fodor's which kind of struck my fancy. It took off from Queen's Pier at three and five o'clock according to my Fodor's, and would take me back to Kowloon which is where my room is. When I read this, I was in a Shanghaiese restaurant in Times Square eating soup dumplings and "hot pockets" as my pal Jon calls them. Originally, I was looking for the best dim sum in Hong Kong Island, but I found out that it was too far from the subway to walk to, so I scrapped it.
Anyhow, I was psyched to go on this junk ship until I got to Queen's Pier. Well, until I got to what was Queen's Pier, an endless construction site. I ended up going to the Star Ferry ticketing place, because that's where you could catch the junk on the other side. They hadn't even heard of this junk ship. By teh way, this junk ship is called "Duk Ling." I laughed.
So, I decided to head to the closest Tourist Information Center, which happened to be at The Peak Piazza, between The Peak Tower and The Peak Gallery on Victoria Peak. I didn't know that the said Peak stuff was actually on the Peak itself. I thought that it was at the base where the funicular brought you up to the peak. I was wrong.
I figure that since I was there anyways, I'd go up and check it out. And when I got here, I found out that the Duk Ling was now sailing out of Pier 9 and you needed advanced reservations. BASTARDS! Oh well. So I went back into the tower and briefly entertained the idea of going to the top where you had to pay twenty HKD ($3) to get there. I opted out. Instead, I felt like I needed to have a coffee fix, which was when I permanently affixed my ass to the bright red velvet armchair and read One Red Paperclip.
I started the book two days ago, but didn't read it one of those days (yesterday, obviously). Now, I'm a mere twenty pages from the end and I am absolutely loving it. The book makes me so happy. When I get home, I'm going to give this book to my best friend, Carlos, because I think he needs to read it. I'm not only going to give him this book, but I'm going to give him this copy of this book.
I have found that I like giving and receiving read books. The books are loved. I think I really realized that I liked reading and giving read books when I got Chloe's copy of Eat, Pray, Love. It really tuned me into it. And it also made it important that I didn't just leave it on a hostel bookshelf. I needed to pass it onto someone, so that they would read it, and maybe pass it on. That's why I handed it off to Clover before she left Bangkok for Australia.
I realized that for a collector such as myself, it's hard to let go of objects. I figure if I like the book enough, I'll buy myself another copy and I'll read it again. I'll probably do that with both of the two afore-mentioned books.
But that's how I've chosen to spend my afternoon in Hong Kong, I realize that it's like my little airlock before I hit the States, just like L.A. will be an airlock before I reach home. I love being on vacation and traveling, because I can do what the fuck I want, when I want. Even read a book in a cafe for three and a half hours.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Day 70: You Wan Massa? You Wan Boom-Boom?
Listening: You're way too beautiful girl. That's why it will never work. You had me suicidal, suicidal when you say it's over.
What's my problem? I really WOULD like a massage, but I don't think they're REALLY offering.
It's like stepping out of the airport into a Wong Kar Wai film. The streets are crowded by faceless people rushing or meandering. There is a persistent flickering glow of neon everywhere, and it makes the city a character in and of itself. You can feel the metropolitan-ness of Hong Kong after five seconds of waiting to cross the streets, and can feel the seediness after walking a few blocks off of the main drags. In a lot of ways it's very different from all of the cities that I have been in throughout southeast Asia, however in some ways it's very much the same. As they say, it's "same-same, but different."
Maybe it's an Asian thing. Prior to last night I had chalked it up to being a southeast Asian thing. In every country, on every day at least once, I would hear in a hushed voice from a tuk-tuk driver or a guy on the street, "You wan massa? You wan boom-boom? Lady! You wan nice lady? Very pretty lady for massa!" In Laos, it was also followed with, "You wan opium?" And in Vietnam and Cambodia it was followed by, "You wan smoke? You wan skunk? Mara-juana?" But generally it was just the "massa," the "boom-boom" and the "lady" that was on offer.
I expected it to stop once I got to Hong Kong. It's not a third or second world country. It's not even a developing nation or an emerging market. The nation is already developed and the market emerged a long time ago. I'm just thoroughly surprised that the touts are just as frequent and just as obvious as they were in Bangkok. The only difference is that they don't grab your arm. Well, the guys hawking the tailors do, but those aren't the hawkers I'm talking about. Somehow I expected it to be different. Not so much.
Anyhow, last night, I went to the Avenue of Stars, where they honor all of the big Hong Kong movie people. There's a really kick ass statue of Bruce Lee. It's life size. If I had a statue garden, and if I could afford it, it would be the centerpiece.
Every night at eight o'clock, on Hong Kong Island, there is the Symphony of Lights. You can see and hear it from the Avenue of Stars, as it's actually the best place to see the show. It's a laser and light show set to music, where the buildings will light up in different patterns and it's pretty entertaining. It's got nothing on EPCOT's Illuminations, but it's entertaining.
I ended up meeting a British girl, Emily, while watching the show. She's been on the go for the past week, and will head to southeast Asia tomorrow. She's really only planning to be in each country for a week, so I had to drop some knowledge on her. She's either going to feel like she hasn't seen anything on her travels, or she'll be traveling so much that half of her weeks will be spent in transit. She was nice. I might have dinner with her if she e-mails me tonight.
Today, I think I'm going to explore Hong Kong Island after getting some dim sum. Tomorrow, I'm off to Macau for the day. I figure I'll play a hand or two of blackjack, just to say that I did it. Man,I'm hungry. I guess that means it's time for dumplin's.
What's my problem? I really WOULD like a massage, but I don't think they're REALLY offering.
It's like stepping out of the airport into a Wong Kar Wai film. The streets are crowded by faceless people rushing or meandering. There is a persistent flickering glow of neon everywhere, and it makes the city a character in and of itself. You can feel the metropolitan-ness of Hong Kong after five seconds of waiting to cross the streets, and can feel the seediness after walking a few blocks off of the main drags. In a lot of ways it's very different from all of the cities that I have been in throughout southeast Asia, however in some ways it's very much the same. As they say, it's "same-same, but different."
Maybe it's an Asian thing. Prior to last night I had chalked it up to being a southeast Asian thing. In every country, on every day at least once, I would hear in a hushed voice from a tuk-tuk driver or a guy on the street, "You wan massa? You wan boom-boom? Lady! You wan nice lady? Very pretty lady for massa!" In Laos, it was also followed with, "You wan opium?" And in Vietnam and Cambodia it was followed by, "You wan smoke? You wan skunk? Mara-juana?" But generally it was just the "massa," the "boom-boom" and the "lady" that was on offer.
I expected it to stop once I got to Hong Kong. It's not a third or second world country. It's not even a developing nation or an emerging market. The nation is already developed and the market emerged a long time ago. I'm just thoroughly surprised that the touts are just as frequent and just as obvious as they were in Bangkok. The only difference is that they don't grab your arm. Well, the guys hawking the tailors do, but those aren't the hawkers I'm talking about. Somehow I expected it to be different. Not so much.
Anyhow, last night, I went to the Avenue of Stars, where they honor all of the big Hong Kong movie people. There's a really kick ass statue of Bruce Lee. It's life size. If I had a statue garden, and if I could afford it, it would be the centerpiece.
Every night at eight o'clock, on Hong Kong Island, there is the Symphony of Lights. You can see and hear it from the Avenue of Stars, as it's actually the best place to see the show. It's a laser and light show set to music, where the buildings will light up in different patterns and it's pretty entertaining. It's got nothing on EPCOT's Illuminations, but it's entertaining.
I ended up meeting a British girl, Emily, while watching the show. She's been on the go for the past week, and will head to southeast Asia tomorrow. She's really only planning to be in each country for a week, so I had to drop some knowledge on her. She's either going to feel like she hasn't seen anything on her travels, or she'll be traveling so much that half of her weeks will be spent in transit. She was nice. I might have dinner with her if she e-mails me tonight.
Today, I think I'm going to explore Hong Kong Island after getting some dim sum. Tomorrow, I'm off to Macau for the day. I figure I'll play a hand or two of blackjack, just to say that I did it. Man,I'm hungry. I guess that means it's time for dumplin's.
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