It may sound odd, but one thing I appreciate about being me is I know how to amuse myself when I'm alone.
On Saturday I joined a free 2-hour architectural tour round Central, organised by volunteer architects. The English tour was fully booked so I opted for the Mandarin one, but I ended up being the only person in that tour. The strange thing is the architect leading the Mandarin tour realised I was reasonably conversant in Cantonese, so he did the tour in Cantonese instead. It was much better than the English tour as he could chat with me rather than conduct a one-sided lecture.
We strode round looking at buildings, and talked about: the use of bamboo poles in Hong Kong construction; the idea of increasing human traffic through Hong Kong buildings by connecting them via bridges as opposed to other countries' concept of open spaces between buildings (and it's the building owners who paid for these bridges, not the government!); and the more liberal government regulations which forbade building owners from chasing away the public who loiter under the buildings on weekends (namely the foreign maids.. Causeway Bay is the haven for Indonesian maids while the Filipinos gather in Central). I went up the Bank of China building designed by I M Pei (the sharp angled building which looks like a blade) and compared that with the HSBC building (built like a suspension bridge so there are no columns within the middle of it, so one could actually see through the entire building).
After the architectural tour, I took a ferry to Cheung Chau (the island where the cartoon pig McDull went to look for his teacher and learnt to eh, snatch buns) and walked round the place. It was like Hong Kong way back in the 70's, and a refreshing change from the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong now.
To round off the day, I went to an indie concert on the far side of Kowloon too. The opening act was a Hong Kong indie rock band called Oliver (who sang in English), and the main act was a Taiwanese indie rock band called Echo (who sang in Mandarin). Both lead singers were guys who wore white shirts, narrow ties and jeans, and the music was surprisingly better than I expected. I'm definitely going for more of these.
Oh, and I also stumbled onto my favourite cafe in Hong Kong. It's within walking distance of my service apartment, and it's filled with cats owned by the cafe owner. Basically cats will roam the cafe and climb into your lap or onto your table imperiously, and allow you to stroke them if you're lucky. I was lucky. :)
Still not met with Steamboy (he works on Saturday too) but I've met the gorgeous lawyer girl again for tea and dinner. She's starting work this Wednesday though, and after that I'm afraid she'll be too snowed under to meet. Oh well, there's a price to working in this country.
And it's Monday again.
On Saturday I joined a free 2-hour architectural tour round Central, organised by volunteer architects. The English tour was fully booked so I opted for the Mandarin one, but I ended up being the only person in that tour. The strange thing is the architect leading the Mandarin tour realised I was reasonably conversant in Cantonese, so he did the tour in Cantonese instead. It was much better than the English tour as he could chat with me rather than conduct a one-sided lecture.
We strode round looking at buildings, and talked about: the use of bamboo poles in Hong Kong construction; the idea of increasing human traffic through Hong Kong buildings by connecting them via bridges as opposed to other countries' concept of open spaces between buildings (and it's the building owners who paid for these bridges, not the government!); and the more liberal government regulations which forbade building owners from chasing away the public who loiter under the buildings on weekends (namely the foreign maids.. Causeway Bay is the haven for Indonesian maids while the Filipinos gather in Central). I went up the Bank of China building designed by I M Pei (the sharp angled building which looks like a blade) and compared that with the HSBC building (built like a suspension bridge so there are no columns within the middle of it, so one could actually see through the entire building).
After the architectural tour, I took a ferry to Cheung Chau (the island where the cartoon pig McDull went to look for his teacher and learnt to eh, snatch buns) and walked round the place. It was like Hong Kong way back in the 70's, and a refreshing change from the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong now.
To round off the day, I went to an indie concert on the far side of Kowloon too. The opening act was a Hong Kong indie rock band called Oliver (who sang in English), and the main act was a Taiwanese indie rock band called Echo (who sang in Mandarin). Both lead singers were guys who wore white shirts, narrow ties and jeans, and the music was surprisingly better than I expected. I'm definitely going for more of these.
Oh, and I also stumbled onto my favourite cafe in Hong Kong. It's within walking distance of my service apartment, and it's filled with cats owned by the cafe owner. Basically cats will roam the cafe and climb into your lap or onto your table imperiously, and allow you to stroke them if you're lucky. I was lucky. :)
Still not met with Steamboy (he works on Saturday too) but I've met the gorgeous lawyer girl again for tea and dinner. She's starting work this Wednesday though, and after that I'm afraid she'll be too snowed under to meet. Oh well, there's a price to working in this country.
And it's Monday again.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home