Day 2: Ah hindsight, how we love you
Photo Selection with interspersed commentary
Went to sleep around 2300 and ended up waking up around 0330. Why? Not a clue, that’s like evening/night time back home. Clearly the rapid change between eating and sleeping while flying over confused the body thoroughly. Anyway, I gave up trying to invite sleep back and read a chapter from Mere Christianity about charity. Main takeaway from the first read through is that charity is not just giving alms. That might be the most obvious external tell but there’s more to it. As is often the case with this book, I’ll need to reread the chapter to fully understand and remember it. After that I worked on the blog till like 9ish. After a brief breakfast of a couple of those chocolate crepes that you buy in packs of 10 for cheap back home. I had bought them intending to snack during the travelling but when I was awake the flight attendants were either serving food or I was stubbornly waiting for them to. I decided to walk down to the Hong Kong Train Station to get myself a ‘On-Loan Adult Octopus Card’ (no, I didn’t manage to say that without stuttering at the customer service desk).
After successfully getting the card and topping it up using cash (actually used an ATM for the first time yesterday, which was a little thing that made me happy). I realised I could have easily done that all yesterday as I literally walk past the desk when I was wandering lost through the building.
I decided to intentionally go walk a bit through the shopping center that occupies the 3 top floors of the 7 floor train station where I had yesterday wandered about lost in. I had stepped off the train and was looking for exit E2 as advised by my phone. But then became very lost and disorientated as the phone didn’t know where I was in the building or which floor, and I most certainly didn’t. Not having a fixed destination and not lugging a big suitcase makes making sense of a building so much easier.
During my strolling about I discovered the best way to explore a new area if you don’t have somewhere specific to be: you simply follow where the people are flowing. This is what then led me to the harbour.
Using the newly acquired technique I slowly made my way back to the flat. This is when I remembered something I had learned during my trip to Spain with a friend. A problem of getting up late and then going out in a hot country is the sun is perfectly positioned to minimise shadows. I haven’t mentioned this either yet, but the humidity likes to hover around 85%. So 26C will feel like an oppressive 31C (this was fact checked). I begin to see why people find umbrellas a useful invention and even commonly tolerate carrying them around here. A proper jacket is not something I want to wear here and so I’d probably get soaked but will see if my mind changes on this.
Imagine an outside market, where people are selling lots of quick (to make and eat) food, varieties of trendy (read incredibly sweet or well marketed) drinks and other knick-knacks that are ‘cute’ and either barely functional or highly functional as a paperweight. But now shift it inside and convince it that it’s actually a modern, clean, open plan shopping mall (don’t actually give it the funds though) while giving it a dream about airport shops. And you end up with the Central Markets, complete with bored employees sitting on their phones. Jokes aside, it is a very nice place if you have some spare money and you want to buy something nice.
Just a classic, had to take a picture to prove that they still use them
Typical Taxi in this area, turns out the taxi’s colour indicates which area they cover. Free Wi-Fi is very common, all stations and shopping malls have it as well as lots of other common buildings.
And this is the lovely Maureen and I at a ramen (japanese?) restaurant. You might be wondering how I don’t even know what exactly the type of restaurant I’m in. 2 things. One, there are so many little restaurants everywhere. Wherever this is space and someone has the motivation and means something pops up. Some are actually tiny with just a narrow kitchen and are open to the street (no, I don’t have a picture, sorry), while some are like a normal small restaurant from Scotland. Two, I’m selectively observant. I saw tasty food pictures in the window and stop paying attention.
Delightful, left me very full. The gyozas were nicely crunchy on the one side, a nice change from the ones I’ve had in scotland where they usually only boil them.
Now, this part I was debating on mentioning. Yesterday I had dragged my suitcase all the way up the hill. For context, I was so out of breath that when a nice local, elderly man started a little conversation with me on the way up (if I’m comeback from overseas, where I’m studying, what I’m studying, etc.), I couldn’t speak and had to pause for a couple seconds between every short sentence. Well, the locals are actually very aware of how steep the hill is and have installed outdoor escalators that go all the way up. Yup, I could have just stood still in the right spot at the bottom and ended up on the right street level at the top. I’m telling you the skill of following the local crowd can lead to some wonderful discoveries.
Really nice and reminded me of Glasgow’s murals.
Some(what) disjointed thoughts
Walking around was so nice and interesting, I liked seeing the big and small differences.
The average pace people move at with random bursts from people. overall slower than I’m used to, especially in the markets/malls (yes I used that word, it just fits better).
They also seem to put more significance to the little green and red men than people in Scotland (kinda wasn’t expecting that one).
Today I called with a friend from Australia (currently in Brazil which makes the time difference more annoying), Mom & Dad and then also with my brother. At first I explained everything in detail, but then with every call I felt like I said less, as if I was skipping or simplifying stuff. But then the call with my brother was still 40 mins and mostly me talking, so maybe I’m imagining things. However, this did make me reflect about the purpose of this blog. I originally decided to do it for a couple reasons. A fair amount of friends and family said they wanted to keep in touch and I didn’t see myself properly keeping so many people up to date through a traditional synchronous means. What if I had a way for people to keep up to date in a low effort, asynchronous way. Then, when we called and spoke I wouldn’t need to explain that much and talk about deeper and more interesting things. Another reason is I thought I could self host the blog on my server I’m experimenting with, sounds like a cool little project that actually has a purpose so I might even stick with it. Lastly, I’ve always wanted to keep a diary or journal, but only ever did one entry after the initial motivation. This way I’d have a really strong motivation and I would be way less likely to forget (happened nearly every time). So ultimately, it’s because I’m kinda lazy and it sounds fun (and I’m ignoring thinking about how much time I’ve actually put into this). I just got to make sure it stays as a little fun project and I still actually do the real talking with friends and family. So yes, I absolutely, am up for calls to talk more, just need to figure out when :)
(some people joked I could make a youtube channel and do vlogs, but that sounded like more effort to me at the time. At the moment, I’m not so sure, but I really enjoy this. The process of writing the posts, coding the website, and making it knowing friends will read it and find some fun in it).
Technical ramblings
I had thought about adding comments but it’s a lot of work initially and then I’ve gotta maintain and moderate it. I’d have to redo a large part of the framework of the website. It’s like having a pedal go-cart that’s fun and functional and then deciding to add a 4 cylinder ICE. Not only does the frame and other components need redesigned but now there’s design decisions to make like do I need an inline, v-type or a boxer. Otherwise the results are gonna be quite funky. Decision made, not happening for now. The week looks kinda busy with uni orientation and moving it to dorms (yup, that’s gonna be interesting).
Do you prefer the commentary and some thoughts in between the photos or rather everything text-wise at the end? (I think a poll would be a great way to answer this, but that seems like a lot work and so not happening just yet. Sounds fun though, so maybe I’ll add support for that later…)