Monthly Archives: October 2012

There is quite a nice gym here at CityU. There are things about it that very much make it seem not like an American gym—way more badminton and table tennis courts than basketball, for example—but that’s fine. It’s got one of those swanky golf simulation rooms, where you can do driving practice in front of a screen that projects a fairway on it, and estimates your drive length once the ball hits the screen. I don’t golf, but that’s high-tech cool. It’s even got a gorgeous outdoor pool:

Nice stuff, right? (Image from CityU)

It also has a fitness room: you know, where the weights and treadmills and stuff are found. I was getting an informal tour of the campus when we first arrived back in September, and I thought Great! This means I don’t have to pay for a membership to a private gym.

I didn’t know about The Class, though. Or the online booking. Continue reading →

Hong Kong has two official languages: Cantonese and English. Some people speak both fluently (in my experience, native Hong Kongers who were educated in the UK or US). Most people speak one fluently and the other to some degree. Some people speak only one, and look blankly at an interlocutor when confronted with the other.

We are in that last group. Continue reading →

A couple of weeks ago Cate and I met up with a friend who was in town for a day and headed out to Stanley, a little town (and tourist attraction) on the southeast side of HK Island. Would you like to see where that is? I will show you through the miracle of embedded maps.

It’s not super easy to get to Stanley via public transportation, but fortunately cabs here are very, very reasonable. We took a cab from Central, a gorgeous 20-minute trip along winding seaside cliffs, and it cost HK$100 (about US$13). Nice. Continue reading →

One of the most clichéd (and true) observations about Hong Kong is that it is a collection of contradictions. Go to the right place and you’ll find wildly expensive mansions within spitting distance of government-subsidized housing. Steps from a so-crowded-it’s-claustrophobic street you’ll find a silent garden with a koi pond. A mom-and-pop Cantonese restaurant is right next door to McDonald’s.

Our neighborhood, Kowloon Tong, exhibits pretty much all of the above, and also features its own “whuh?” characteristics. Continue reading →

So I’ve finally taken the time to upload some videos to YouTube. Whooppee.

First on the docket is this video of the cool back-of-the-seat info/entertainment center that Cathay Pacific provides. As if it weren’t obvious, this is the flight path from Chicago to Hong Kong, one of those nifty “over the top” polar routes. Yeah, I added the dopey airplane sound effect. It beats hearing all of the people around us, chattering as they try to find their seats and settle in.

Observant former Risk-players will note, about 5 seconds in, the appearance of the Kamchatka peninsula. Once you control Asia you get seven bonus armies, people.

Second is a compilation video I took of the Peak Tram. This is, amazingly, among my first forays into iMovie. Note the skillful use of the (default) crossfade transition.

After my long-winded post about HK geography, a number of people asked me where exactly we are relative to famous landmarks. So here is a quick tour, using pilfered screenshots from Google Maps, and some photos we’ve actually taken.

First, here is a HK overview. Click for a bigger version, if you wanna. Shenzhen, at the top, is the mainland China city that borders HK.

Continue reading →