They took my lighter… Then taunted me with a smoking room

But it’s ok, they had those resistance lighters, the kind that you find in cars, but hardly anyone uses.

So this is being written on my way from Beijing to Tokyo. First an A321 from HK to Beijing. It was enjoyable boarding the A321 the first time, when I went to and from Vietnam. But after that, it just gets old. I love the walkways and now realize how convenient they are.

Anyways, usually you’re allowed to bring one lighter (bic type) on the plane (TSA changed their rules but I guess some countries decided not to). Everything was going fine, but we arrived in PEK, disembark the plane and take the shuttle to the terminal, the usual affair: customs and security. Now again, I was not aware that you aren’t allowed to bring lighters into PEK, they probably made an announcement while I was passed out on the first leg of my journey. I got stopped at the security checkpoint and they did the usual and found that I hadn’t put my wallet or my lighter through the x-ray scanner (via a very thorough pat down)… bad news. The person checking me called over to the other works, showed my lighter and wallet, none of which I could understand because it was all in mandarin. She asked for my boarding pass, so I gave it to her.  At this point I was worried. I had no idea why I was getting checked/stopped, I had an idea it was regarding my lighter, but had no clue to how severe it was. The other guard motions me past security and writes down my flight information/ passport information and hands back my passport and boarding pass. She looks me in the eye and says rather sternly in English “No lighter!” and im like ohhhhhhh snap and instantly feel relieved that I got away with only a warning. However, im  a little sad that they took my lighter. It’s the second casualty of lighters in Asia. My first one that I brought from Boston, a nice Bic lighter, was lost in a taxi on the way back from TST to UST. And now this cheap 711 lighter, which I’ve had about a month to bond with, was confiscated in China. Oh well, such is life.

After the lighter incident, everything went pretty smoothly, found where my gate was and noticed the smoking lounge. How could I resist?! But wait, I don’t have a lighter, I figured there would be some kind of fire starting device inside. Lo and behold, they had the electrical resistance lighters that you find in cars.

I decided to grab a post smoking tea. And got the typical airport-robbery-for-a-drink deal, 22 RMB for an iced tea w/ lemon, I got a free candy bar which makes it a lot better! I actually didn’t realize how little time I had between my flights because as soon as I got my drink they began boarding my flight from PEK to Narita. It was a Boeing 737-800, and we used the walk way instead of shuttles, Praise the Lord.

Now something that I’m only getting used to now, Non-english magazines on “foreign” carriers; most of the plane’s that I’ve been on have had bi-lingual magazines. Not Air China. Their magazines are straight up Chinese. Which is pretty cool, but I’ve flipped through the one on the last flight and it had some seemingly interesting articles. Lucky for me, I found one that had English! And the articles were as interesting as I expected. One was on how people around the world (the US, in this article) are wanting to learn Chinese more and more these days. Before it was because some people were interested, but today’s main motivation to learn Chinese can be attributed to the Chinese economic boom. Either way, I found the article okay. The second article I read was regarding how Chinese Air specially chartered flights to help evacuate Chinese nationals from Libya. Despite the obvious nationalistic tone that the article was written in, it was very touching. More importantly, the pictures clearly expressed the emotions of the passengers on these specially chartered flights. I’ll admit, reading the article and looking at the pictures made me cry. The old cliché about pictures is 100% true; a picture is worth 1000 words. I hope to become a better photographer and be able to take candid pictures of people. I want to be able to convey the emotions of the subjects as effectively as the photojournalist did in the article. Even a few years back, when the first wave of troops were returning from Iraq, I teared up seeing the joy and relief of the soldiers returning to their loved ones. Thinking about it is making me tear up a bit…

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Completely unrelated, it’s a very interesting flying these days. Blame it on ignorance, but I’m used to check-in counter clerks and flight attendants speaking to me in English, but these days, its always in Chinese. I guess I can pass off as a local!

EDIT: I feel like such a foreigner. The flight attendant asked whether I wanted chicken or beef in mandarin. I had a vague understanding of what she said, but still didn’t understand. Had to say sorry, English only : (

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One last thing, never have I thought I was this unprepared to take on the world. This past semester has been completely eye opening.

NAM

What an amazing trip.

I went to Vietnam for 6 days and has been my best trip so far! ( I know I probably say that about all of my trips right after they happened, but this is different). Some back-story here, this trip was planned about a month advance (much more than other trips which are usually booked the week of). Me and my friend also learnt that we very much disliked large groups so we opted to keep it just between the two of us.  However the most planning we ever did was book one night at a hostel and the plane tickets; everything else was being left up to when we landed. That was great idea.

 I cannot stress how important it is to approach traveling as an adventure. Sure you can plan your itinerary so you have very little time to explore and see everything you want. But that just will lead you and your fellow travelers to be stressed. If you travel with no plans, you have absolute freedom to do what you want. Meet people, talk to them, figure out what they have done and where they have been. Travelers are some of the most interesting people out there.

Anyways, the day before we leave I had my heat transfer midterm. I studied my ass off for that, basically engineering here is the same as engineering at umass. Teach yourself from the book and you’ll be fine.  The test itself went pretty well, I felt I was sufficiently prepared and managed to understand 95% of the questions being asked on the test. So when I left the test room I was feeling rather good. Grab a cig, head to my room, nap, pack like a boss. Half a duffle and a backpack taking nothing more than enough clothes, my tripod, my camera (w/ my 35’ and a borrowed old fish-eye lens) and a power adapter. 

The next day we get to the airport and I somehow get all disoriented. Now usually I’m pretty good at getting my bearings and finding where im supposed to go, but I was just off my game; leading to jokes between me and my travel partner who was originally going to rely on me finding out where to go.  

Vietnam airlines is a sick carrier to fly on. On our 2-2.5 hr flight from HKG to SGN, they gave us food which is a definite plus when it comes to flying. You don’t get any of that back in the states. The plane itself was an A321 and we had to take a bus from the gate onto the tarmac where we boarded the plane via stairs. Its been a while since I’ve done that.  When we land, it’s the same deal, disembark the plane and go through immigration. We arranged to be picked up from the airport by the hostel, and for once I was one of those important people that have their names written on a sign with a driver waiting to pick you up.

We get to the hostel check in etc. exchange our money. In under a second, I become a millionaire! Well a multi-millionaire… 1 USD = 21,000 VND at the rate that we were getting. So me and my friend each had 2.1 MILLION Dong.

We get to the room. King sized bed, AC, Fan, TV, window, bathroom w/shower + hot water. Good deal for ~10 USD / night, which is pretty expensive relative to the other hostels in district 1. We leave the hostel in search of food. We find a place and grab Pho for 40k dong. Pretty cheap now that I think about it. After, we wander and find a tea place, get some tea go to the park and chill. Went to the hostel, called it an early night and passed the fuck out.

Having to wake up at 7am to get breakfast and get on a tour bus is something completely foreign to me. anyone that knows me, knows that I am not a morning person. But the breakfast that was provided at our hostel was awesome: Omelet and a fairly big sized baguette. BREAD! I hadn’t had bread in so long, I don’t think buns count, and the bread for things such as sandwiches doesn’t count either. As I said before, we got a small thing of bread on the plane but that was just an appetizer for all the bread that we got in Vietnam.

Tours etc.

-          Cu Chi Tunnels

This place was simply amazing, and it makes you realize why the Vietnam war waged for so long and was so hard for the western countries. The North Vietnamese had a tunnel network that spanned over 250 Km! we were given the opportunity to crouch walk through 50m of some tunnels. By the time I emerged from the other side, I was drenched in sweat and exhausted as hell.

Oh I was also able to shoot an AK-47 and a carbine! It was so cool! I would highly recommend this to anyone visiting Saigon.

-          Me Kong Delta (2 day trip)

We were able to see Vietnam through a different lens. Getting away from the city was just what I needed.  Yeah, they took us to some ridiculously touristy places, but I think I got a good view of what life was like down in southern Vietnam. We opted to do a home-stay instead of staying in the hotel with everyone else.  Seeing the floating market was a unique experience, people gracefully navigating their boats around others.

-          War Remnants Museum

Being able to see a different perspective of the Vietnam war

Ah this post does not do the trip justice at all. Just find me and I can tell you all about it! The things we saw, the people we met. Most definitely the best trip I’ve ever taken.

Friends, Family, Food, Flight

Yeah I know, it’s been a while since I’ve updated this blog… maybe about a month; a crazy month.

Midterms here are no different from the ones that I had back at UMass, except for the fact that 3 out of 4 of them were in the form of MCQ. And me being me, I just can not do MCQ to save my life. also the fact that the concept of homework only exists in my heat transfer class doesn’t help me psychologically at all. Speaking of which, I have my heat transfer midterm on this coming Wednesday and I’ve just about had to teach myself how to do everything (as usual). I still don’t know what’s going on in that class. Oh well, just going to have to wing it. HK society is most definitely my favorite class, I just wish it was not on a Monday/Friday schedule, I’ve had to miss so many, resulting in my subpar performance on the midterm. And I’ve calculated it out, im going to miss 5 out of the next 13 classes ( well 4, since I missed one last week). I picked up a voice recorder in manila, so helpfully the other exchanges will be willing to help me out; it’s a win-win for them, I get the recording, they get the recording, everyone is happy! But enough about school; let’s talk about adventures.

Where to begin…

Domestic adventures: these mostly are composed of food adventures, a couple of friends and I will often leave campus in the search for food, most notably American/Mexican/donuts. Shit that is hard to find, and so far, we’ve had shit luck looking for those things. We have, however, stumbled upon some pretty awesome restaurants including Japanese, Korean, hot pot, Chinese, Mediterranean. The food is obviously more expensive than food from the LG’s but SO much better that to complain about the premium would be preposterous. Since im writing this on my flight back to HKG from MNL, and I can’t check my previous posts, I’m operating on the assumption that my last entry was from my last flight from MNL to HKG (shit that IS a good month ago).

For my birthday, I looked up places that we could smoke shisha, it was between Habibi’s lounge and Sahara Mezz Bar. Both got glowing reviews on open rice, but Sahara was a tad less expensive and I opted for that. The bar is located in Soho, near LKF in Central. Upon later observation, Soho seems to be the “rich man’s” LKF. With classy bars and relatively expensive restaurants, not to mention their clientele must be almost twice our age! When we arrive, we were immediately seated (I had made a reservation) and made our orders. My friends and I were impressed the with the place, it had stellar background music, the host was nice as hell and the place had a really low key atmosphere (definite plus). I was starving by the time my food arrived, I chose the lamb with beef sausage, I don’t remember the name, but it was def worth the 120HKD price tag associated with it. Oh yeah, my friends also got me a cake, pretty small but we were all able to share and have a piece of it :) . After dinner, a few of us hung around for some hookah. And at 100HKD a hookah, how could you go wrong? After talking with the host, he moved us to the private lounge upstairs where another patron was celebrating his birthday. We exchanged congratulations, he gave me a piece of his cake and it was awesome. To make things even better, the hookah was the best I’ve had in a while (sorry nyle, better than some of yours). I believe we had strawberry mint, it pulled superbly well! I bought my first “legal” beer, Stella. Two hours later, they were closing the upstairs lounge and we were relocated to the main room again ( it was only open for dinner when we were eating, so no hookah). As we were paying, they gave us free shots, perfect way to end my 21st without having to go crazy.

There’s so much that’s happened in the past month, its hard to recall what went down, a little disappointing, but im thankful that I photo-documented the majority of the adventures.

International adventures…

Last weekend I went to Taiwan! Now that I think of it, I have a fair amount of Taiwanese friends, and from hanging out with them enough, you get the sense that Taiwan is completely different than mainland, and from observations, I can agree with this statement, however not fully. The “asian” culture is obvious but their mannerisms seem to be different than the ones I’ve seen in Hong Kong. They’re friendly people and I t was a blast. I went with 9 other exchange students but they all left a day earlier than I to go attend a Far East Movement show at Luxy in Taipei, sadly, I had a midterm, thus unable to attend. On my way from HKG I realized I loved flying by myself (more on that later). After getting a little lost in the airport, I bought a SIM card and made my way to Taipei. I got off at some random spot and used the free MRT card that I was given when I checked in back at HKG (it had 50NT preloaded on it). My friends were at the flower expo and were in line to go see the main exhibition. When I called they said they were already inside and that there was a huge line into the main show so I opted to stay outside and explore. It was a good decision. There was a lot to see outside including tons of flowers and some museum exhibits. After we met up, we hit up the hot springs and as you could expect, they were pretty hot. It was mainly the older population that went to the one we went to, but it didn’t matter, we were living it up in Taiwan. Next on our list was the ShiLin night market. It was amazing, out of the few night markets that I’ve seen in my life, this one has got to be the best. There were games (mostly of the carnival type, but you could actually win…), a superb selection of food, and of course shit to buy. We all decided to check out the Taipei 101, we had a hunch it would be closed, and it was. But we explored and found where babe 18 was. We returned to the hostel.

The next day we explored some temples and hit up more night markets then hit up babe 18. 600NT for all you could drink until closing (sweet deal if I actually drank a lot). Once the club closed we hit up a karaoke place where I immediately PTFO’d (blame it on the alcohol), but hey, I managed to wake up for the last 3 songs. When we left, it was already 630 and the sun was almost done rising. It was a good day. The rest of our time in Taiwan was spent exploring, more markets, changing of the guard, the grand hotel, Taipei 101. All in all, I’d call this a great trip, despite it being composed of 10 people.
Oh yeah, EVA Air is awesome, good food, cute stewardesses, and ton’s of leg room
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As alluded above, I’m on a flight from MNL on HKG. Flying on on PAL, which is surprisingly better than Cebu Pacific. Last time I was on PAL was a little more than 3 years ago on my way to and from Bangkok. Back then the crew wasn’t too friendly. But now they’ve improved quite a lot, the food is spectacular and there is ton’s of leg room!

It’s my grandma’s birthday later this week, and seeing as I’ll be in Vietnam next weekend, I wanted to wish her a happy birthday. I guess I came on pretty good weekend, it was also my cousin’s graduation from University. But this was a pretty bitter sweet trip, I realized on my way over that it will most likely be my last one for a while… and I tried to soak in as much of manila as I could. When my grandma learned I was there to wish her a happy birthday, her smile just lit up the room. Writing about this makes me miss her, my aunts, my uncles, and my cousins. I do hope I can see them soon, especially my grandmother.
A lot of the other exchange students have family and friends visiting them in Hong Kong, but I have family only 90 minutes away by flight. I consider myself extremely lucky for the opportunity that I have. Its nice being able to escape the hectic life of being a student abroad and just have a relaxing weekend with family.

/sappy stuff

On a brighter note, I was craving donuts before I left HKG, and searched the airport for a place that sold any, and to my disappointment, there were none. As soon as I got in the car with my cousin outside NAIA, I saw a DD and she said just to get krispe kreme. Most satisfying donut ever.

On an even more disconnected note, I realized how happy flying makes me. I couldn’t help but smile to myself as PR310 from MNL to HKG took off. It seems to be a common theme in all of my flights. Flying makes me ridiculously happy. Flying alone makes me able to feel happy without feeling like a goon, its slightly embarrassing how happy I am. Four things off the top of my head, in no particular order, that make me happy: family, friends, flying, and food.

Until next time, remember to live for the adventures.

2.6-2.20

So its been over two weeks since my last update… my bad, I guess I’m really bad with this whole blogging thing.
At the time of writing this, im approximately 40,000 feet in the air, on the way back to Hong Kong after a quick weekend in Manila to pick up my 2nd luggage from my family’s house. Despite being horribly sick, it was really nice seeing them. I’m not quite sure where I’d be without my family. I saw my dad again, one last time before he heads back to Boston. Terminal 3 in NAIA is quite nice, fast check-in and even a smoking lounge! Oh how I wish Boston had one of those… on this plane there are a considerable amount of little kids, people find them annoying, but I know where the little kids are coming from. I used to be one of them, excited and all to fly. To see a city from the air, all lit up. It’s quite a sight to see.
Friday marked the end of the 2nd academic week, out of 14. Time is flying by way too fast. I booked my flight to Taipei yesterday, but it feels like I’ll be flying out almost every weekend. Places that I’m probably going to visit: Taiwan, Japan, Beijing, Cebu, Palawan, Vietnam, and Manila. overall it is going to be pretty pricey to fly out and get a quick taste of all of these cities/countries. But that’s one of the main reasons of me studying in Hong Kong. I mean for less than 200 USD you can fly out to a bunch of close cities. Last summer I paid about 150 USD to fly out to San Antonio, Texas for 5 days. Hopefully this upcoming summer/fall/winter I can do the same and fly out.
One thing that I’ve noticed about the students here, they love to talk when the teacher is talking. It’s probably the most surprising thing about the student body. Its remarkable how wrong stereotypes can be; the stereotype here being that Asians are quiet and just bury themselves into books. And yet that is completely off. Yes, they do study hard, but don’t seem to be too respectful of the teachers. One caveat: if the teacher happens to be white, they’re quiet as hell. Another thing worth mentioning is that the student organizations here are a huge part of their student life. in comparison to what I know, from UMass, UMass students/orgs don’t have shit on these guys/gals. Every weekday these past two weeks, you can hear the chants (read: war-cries) of multiple groups going all at once from a pretty good distance. So far my assessment would almost classify these groups as the asian equivalent to American Greek life. you pay a yearly due, and participate in the events they offer. However, don’t expect to be partying three nights a week. These kids seem to still hold to the non-party stereotypes.
As I mentioned earlier, I was pretty sick this week. It didn’t get too bad until Wednesday night. I decided to go to Sushi-One, where every day after 2200 all sushi dishes are 50% off with a 100 HKD minimum. So in other words, you can get about 30 USD worth of sushi for about 15. But to be honest, you’re probably getting about 50 USD’s worth of fish. Getting back on topic, I was pretty sick, and quite possibly two inches from death or something. I was running a fever, my body ached all over. But definitely worth it; we didn’t get back onto campus until about 2am. The next day I went to the clinic, got one of those sweet face masks. I waited about an hour to see a doctor, she asked me a few questions, then prescribed me about six different medicines… all free via the school (sweet healthcare system here).

I was getting better, but then I stopped taking the meds… (mostly because I wanted to go out Thursday night before my flight). But hey, first thing that I’m going to do when I get back to my room is start my antibiotics lol.
Speaking of going out, Lan Kwai Fong (LKF) [I probably spelt that wrong…] is off the hook. Located near the train Central, and located on Hong Kong island itself, its where everyone goes to blow off steam. Multiple bars and clubs are open on the front letting a free flow of people in and out. My personal favorite, and almost every other university student’s, is a place unofficially named Club 7. Club 7 is special, cheap drinks, access to cigs and food; hundreds of locations around Hong Kong. You may have guessed it already, but Club 7 is 7-11. Drinks can be as cheap as 10 HKD, compared to the average of 70 HKD for a beer at a club or bar. It’s the starting place of every night out for us students.
One thing that I need to do more of is take pictures, whether they’re ipod pictures or pictures with my D40. Getting off of campus is just a struggle, we’re about 20 min bus ride to the closest MTR station.
Also, got my China entry Visa, it’s pretty sweet, looks so much better than the Hong Kong Student visa. I get two entries into mainland china, but it cost 1,100 HKD (~150 USD). I need to make them worth it, planning on Shenzhen and Beijing.
Anyways, that’s all I can think of that’s happened these past two weeks. Hopefully I can update soon again.

1.25.11-2.5.11

so clearly this whole blogging thing is a fail, i guess ill try to write something maybe once a week...

long story short, ive been having a an amazing time, meeting awesome people, and going awesome places
-went to macau, lost a fair amount of cash
-multiple bars/clubs in LKF
-lantau island
-CNY parade/fireworks

i really wish i had been keeping up with this daily, but my days and nighs seem to have already combined into one memory instead of separate days. i tried to updated my finances today to see how much money i have / been spending, and i cant remember for shit where the past three days have gone....
anyways, happy chinese new years to you all

no picture today :(

Mon 1.24.11

Spent today up in Plaridel, up at my aunt’s hospital. We were going to go tour a dragon fruit plantation but my dad got sick and we had to postpone it. But its ok, I’ll get around to it someday, I actually did want to see it. Later that night we went to bocaue to my dad’s old house. I believe his old yaya, adela, made us dinner. She made quite possibly the best kare-kare that I’ve had ever.

Sun 1.23.11

Stayed with my dad and aunt last night at my aunt’s apartment near manila bay. Pretty sweet place aside from the lack of wifi… we went on a day trip to my aunt, uncle, and father’s condo in Pico de Loro, Batangas. It was about a 2.5 hr trip on the way there but holy shit, Filipino drivers are crazy. Even though I was sitting in the back, I was basically scared shitless. Im not exactly sure how to describe what was going through my head while riding in the truck… but it made me value the organization of the American highway system. The condo itself was pretty bare, they had been slowly been moving things into it. But the country club that was on the premises was nice. Multiple pools, a beach, and patio areas to chill at. Not to mention the food there was pretty good. Kare-kare is the best, no way any other food can beat it out.
On the way back home there was so much traffic heading back to manila, it probably took us four hours. But we stopped on the way back in tagaytay to buy some fruit, some random guy was walking up and down the sidewalk trying to sell knives. He had a pretty nice balisong but I didn’t want to bother bringing that with me everywhere. My dad on the other hand bought two knives from him. the packaging said they were made in the USA and I guess I found it a bit ironic that they were supposedly returning to the country they were produced in. ( they were probably made in china, and not made of stainless steel).