So since Saturday turned out to be more of a shopping day, I thought I'd make Sunday I sightseeing day. Early enough I gave up the idea of Lantau and the Buddha again as it would take super long to get there and I'd have to ask strangers to take pictures for me, which i wasn't in the mood for.
I decided then to head to Kowloon and visit the Tin Hau Temple by Yau Ma Tei MTR station. Pretty place but super warm! I mean, it was already a very warm day and inside the small temples there are lots of incenses, really huge ones, all burning in the honor of the gods or for protection of families. And yes, the temple is pretty too. Unfortunately it's not allowed to take pictures inside.
So i looked around, took picture from the outside (didn't really turn out great... the cool stuff is really inside) and decided to head to the Jade Market. Ok ok... it was supposed to be sightseeing day, I know! I planned to go there purely to experience it culturally! See the beautiful stuff and maybe, just maybe practice some negotiation skills.(I was instructed to start always from half the price I'd be given and not give too much in).
And yes, i did buy a few things. All pretty and successfully negotiated! Or at least I hope so...
Next stop was supposed to be Temple Street Market, again for purely cultural reasons. But it was too early and they were still building tents up so I headed down on Nathan Road and surprisingly found yet anothe shopping area, with lots of people and looooooots of stores.
Soon I found out: I was in Mongkok. Or Shopping Heaven, as I like to think of it now. Or Triads main territory as my guidebook informed me. (The Triads are the ancient gangs of China! But my book clarified that it shouldn't be dangerous for foreigners as it's always busy and they don't wanna do any harm to the business in the area, of course).
People I'm telling you, awesome place to go shopping. Lots of stores with real stuff for really good price and market areas with plenty of fakes. So really, stuff for all tastes. Thankfully, I was able to control myself quite well and only bought a few t-shirts and a sandal... and a few small trinkets ;)
And for the sake of my finantial health, I vow to stay away from that place as much as I possibly can. (fingers crossed people!)
Monday, July 12, 2010
Shopping - part 1: Tung Chung/ Lantau
This weekend i decided I wanted to explore Lantau and see the Buddha but then on saturday I woke up too late and it was already 15:30 by the time I made it to Tung Chung (last station for the MTR to Lantau, 1 hour from the place where I live). My guidebook had informed me to make it there early as I'd be bound to get a long waiting for the cable car up to Buddha.
Anyway, the trip wasn't really lost as conviniently there is a outlet mall right out of Tung Chunf station!
I wanted to go there as I needed to buy a pair of new running shoes so I can do some hiking to get to the beautiful beaches around the Islands. And was super excited seeing all the other stores there: fancy brands!
Unfortunately, little over an hour later I was pretty much done shopping.... even though i found some really gorgeous stuff there, most of it was still too pricey for my budget. Especially as I just got here and should be exercising some level of control, right? So i got my running shoes, a beautiful Guess dress (super cheap!) and a t-shirt.
Yeah, that was all.
Took my one-hour MTR back and called it an early night (well, kinda... stayed awake until late chatting online and watching tv)
P.S.: One good things (aside the Guess dress): i learned that the MTR is really really really cheap as it costed me less than 3 euros for a whole hour trip in the subway.
Anyway, the trip wasn't really lost as conviniently there is a outlet mall right out of Tung Chunf station!
I wanted to go there as I needed to buy a pair of new running shoes so I can do some hiking to get to the beautiful beaches around the Islands. And was super excited seeing all the other stores there: fancy brands!
Unfortunately, little over an hour later I was pretty much done shopping.... even though i found some really gorgeous stuff there, most of it was still too pricey for my budget. Especially as I just got here and should be exercising some level of control, right? So i got my running shoes, a beautiful Guess dress (super cheap!) and a t-shirt.
Yeah, that was all.
Took my one-hour MTR back and called it an early night (well, kinda... stayed awake until late chatting online and watching tv)
P.S.: One good things (aside the Guess dress): i learned that the MTR is really really really cheap as it costed me less than 3 euros for a whole hour trip in the subway.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
"The world is an egg" (literal translation from portuguese...sorry)
So for the first time since I had arrived, I went out of Hong Kong Island last night to have dinner and drinks with a work colleague and her girlfriends. We went to Kowloon and picked a bar with a gorgeous view of the Harbour.
It was a great evening. Food was pricey but good, we had cocktails during happy hour (found out that I really like strawberry daikiri... nice and sweet) and chatted a lot. The girls were super easy going and soon it felt like I knew them a long time already. The original plan was actually to stay out longer and hit a club, but by 11 something I was already super tired, the others too so we took a stroll along the Promenade also known as Avenue of the Stars - i took a picture with Jackie Chang's handprints, the only Chinese star I knew...
I wanted to take the Star Ferry back to Hong Kong Island but unfortunately it was already closed. Anyway, I guess it was meant to be as I had quite a surprise when I took the MTR back home:
there I was at Admiralty station, waiting to for connect to Taikoo when I saw this chinese girl and thought she looked familiar. So i looked again and she was too looking intentively at me, I thought perhaps she was from work as I don't really know chinese people from anywhere else. But no, I was wrong; I did know chinese from somewhere else: she was an exchange student in Deggendorf a couple of years ago!!!
Totally crazy and random, wasn't it?! I mean to originally meet in Deggendorf - of all places- and then without even planning, to catch up again in Hong Kong, late at night at the subway station?!?! There are 6 million people in Hong Kong, not counting the thousands of visitors!!
Anyway, she remembered me too...actually better than I did her, as she called me by name and I had to pull the old save-your-number-on-my-mobile trick to get hers... but yeah, so now I can say I know a few more people in Hong Kong as there are a few other chinese exchange students from Deggendorf who also live here. Plus there is also a spanish exchange student who is here doing voluntary work... crazy, isn't it?!! So yeah, I'm meeting them all for drinks tomorrow night. And the world is a real small place. (hence the egg brazilian metaphor!)
P.S.: Unpleasantly met another long-time-not-seen "friend" last night: cockroaches... blargh! They don't show up very often in Germany (i don't think I've ever seen one there) but it seems I'll have to get used to see them around here in Hong Kong...
It was a great evening. Food was pricey but good, we had cocktails during happy hour (found out that I really like strawberry daikiri... nice and sweet) and chatted a lot. The girls were super easy going and soon it felt like I knew them a long time already. The original plan was actually to stay out longer and hit a club, but by 11 something I was already super tired, the others too so we took a stroll along the Promenade also known as Avenue of the Stars - i took a picture with Jackie Chang's handprints, the only Chinese star I knew...
I wanted to take the Star Ferry back to Hong Kong Island but unfortunately it was already closed. Anyway, I guess it was meant to be as I had quite a surprise when I took the MTR back home:
there I was at Admiralty station, waiting to for connect to Taikoo when I saw this chinese girl and thought she looked familiar. So i looked again and she was too looking intentively at me, I thought perhaps she was from work as I don't really know chinese people from anywhere else. But no, I was wrong; I did know chinese from somewhere else: she was an exchange student in Deggendorf a couple of years ago!!!
Totally crazy and random, wasn't it?! I mean to originally meet in Deggendorf - of all places- and then without even planning, to catch up again in Hong Kong, late at night at the subway station?!?! There are 6 million people in Hong Kong, not counting the thousands of visitors!!
Anyway, she remembered me too...actually better than I did her, as she called me by name and I had to pull the old save-your-number-on-my-mobile trick to get hers... but yeah, so now I can say I know a few more people in Hong Kong as there are a few other chinese exchange students from Deggendorf who also live here. Plus there is also a spanish exchange student who is here doing voluntary work... crazy, isn't it?!! So yeah, I'm meeting them all for drinks tomorrow night. And the world is a real small place. (hence the egg brazilian metaphor!)
P.S.: Unpleasantly met another long-time-not-seen "friend" last night: cockroaches... blargh! They don't show up very often in Germany (i don't think I've ever seen one there) but it seems I'll have to get used to see them around here in Hong Kong...
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Food Republic
That's the food court at Cityplaza, the building where the company is located, and it's pretty great!
A couple of days ago, i just took a quick look and bought some dumplings, but didn't really explore all of it. Today I decided it was time to stop having take-away dinner alone in my apartment and have dinner alone at the food court. It was a good chance to go people watching.
To be totally honest, I didn't really see anything super different... well, except for the guy wearing purple pants with a bright pink hawaiian style (flowered) shirt.
But anyway, the Food Republic is worthy of a posting by itself.
So many different types of food: Thai, Korean, Chinese, Japanese... took me some good time to decide what to try today and I'm definetely looking forward to going back and trying some other stuff. The dish I had: Shanghai Style Noodles. And Pan Fried Pork Dumplings. Yeah, I'm a fan of the dumplings.
P.S.: The Thai place across the street from Cityplaza was pretty good today too... Thai Pepper, if I remember it right. Delicous noodles.
P.S.(one more): Second post in a roll about food... becoming quite the food-centric blog. I'll try to bring some more diversity next. I'll explore more of the town during the weekend so I'll have more to tell.
A couple of days ago, i just took a quick look and bought some dumplings, but didn't really explore all of it. Today I decided it was time to stop having take-away dinner alone in my apartment and have dinner alone at the food court. It was a good chance to go people watching.
To be totally honest, I didn't really see anything super different... well, except for the guy wearing purple pants with a bright pink hawaiian style (flowered) shirt.
But anyway, the Food Republic is worthy of a posting by itself.
So many different types of food: Thai, Korean, Chinese, Japanese... took me some good time to decide what to try today and I'm definetely looking forward to going back and trying some other stuff. The dish I had: Shanghai Style Noodles. And Pan Fried Pork Dumplings. Yeah, I'm a fan of the dumplings.
P.S.: The Thai place across the street from Cityplaza was pretty good today too... Thai Pepper, if I remember it right. Delicous noodles.
P.S.(one more): Second post in a roll about food... becoming quite the food-centric blog. I'll try to bring some more diversity next. I'll explore more of the town during the weekend so I'll have more to tell.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Dim Sum
Dear readers,
it is with pleasure that I inform you all that I'm now in Hong Kong and will be staying here for the next 3 months. It's part of my trainee program, so I got a pretty good deal for myself: the company paid for my flights and my accomodation!
So now I'm living in a flat in Hong Kong Island, just a few minutes from the office; there is a supermarket below my building and a shopping mall below the company's office building. Plus, i get cleaning service twice a week!!
Anyway, I arrived on Sunday and so far haven't seen much of town. It's super warm outside and the humidity is absolutely off scale... I thought my hometown in Brazil was hot and humid, but this here is something else! Two minutes outside and my feet were already sweating on my flipflops.... really crazy stuff!
Anyway, i've been planning to start blogging about my Asian adventure, but so far hadn't actually got to it (as usual...) but i thought today I had good enough reason to get started: I had my first Dim Sum lunch!
So basically Dim Sum is a very traditional and usual meal here in Hong Kong, kinda like Tapas for the Spanish people... a group of people orders a bunch of small/medium sized dishes and shares everything. Soups, dumplings, rolls... honestly i don't know the name of half the stuff i ate today, but i assure you it was all delicious! And the most important part and reason for my pride (and posting): I managed to eat my whole lunch with chopsticks!!
So i guess if it wasn't for my curly hair, brownish coloring and general non-asian looks, people would have sure thought i was Chinese ;)
it is with pleasure that I inform you all that I'm now in Hong Kong and will be staying here for the next 3 months. It's part of my trainee program, so I got a pretty good deal for myself: the company paid for my flights and my accomodation!
So now I'm living in a flat in Hong Kong Island, just a few minutes from the office; there is a supermarket below my building and a shopping mall below the company's office building. Plus, i get cleaning service twice a week!!
Anyway, I arrived on Sunday and so far haven't seen much of town. It's super warm outside and the humidity is absolutely off scale... I thought my hometown in Brazil was hot and humid, but this here is something else! Two minutes outside and my feet were already sweating on my flipflops.... really crazy stuff!
Anyway, i've been planning to start blogging about my Asian adventure, but so far hadn't actually got to it (as usual...) but i thought today I had good enough reason to get started: I had my first Dim Sum lunch!
So basically Dim Sum is a very traditional and usual meal here in Hong Kong, kinda like Tapas for the Spanish people... a group of people orders a bunch of small/medium sized dishes and shares everything. Soups, dumplings, rolls... honestly i don't know the name of half the stuff i ate today, but i assure you it was all delicious! And the most important part and reason for my pride (and posting): I managed to eat my whole lunch with chopsticks!!
So i guess if it wasn't for my curly hair, brownish coloring and general non-asian looks, people would have sure thought i was Chinese ;)
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
London!
Little over a month since my last post and I'm finally back.
Last time I posted was just a couple of days before my parents arrived from Brazil to visit me here in Germany. They stayed a few days just walking around Nuremberg and shooping while I worked, but then I took some days off and we headed to London and Amsterdam where we meet a family friend with her grown-up son and my brother with his wife.
So we were 7 and I took the role of guide and translator. Yeah, so not much of vacation time for me.
Anyway, let me share here a few tips incase you plan to make it to London someday:
Last time I posted was just a couple of days before my parents arrived from Brazil to visit me here in Germany. They stayed a few days just walking around Nuremberg and shooping while I worked, but then I took some days off and we headed to London and Amsterdam where we meet a family friend with her grown-up son and my brother with his wife.
So we were 7 and I took the role of guide and translator. Yeah, so not much of vacation time for me.
Anyway, let me share here a few tips incase you plan to make it to London someday:
- A single journey ticket in the public transportation cost 4 pounds (!!!) but you can get a day ticket for 5,60 (or maybe a little bit more depending on the zones you wanna ride within)
- Hop-on/Hop-off sightseeing tours are awesome. Unless you really love going around with a guide book, save the money (guide books are super expensive!) and pay for the tour. In a huge city like London, you can even get a 48 hours-ticket and enjoy it without hurrying. But really, 24 hours should be good enough: take the whole tour at once, just seeing the places (maybe marking on the map the ones you wanna really stop later to see) and listening to whatever the guide tells you about the city and places. Once you've seen it all in passing, you can take your time to see your favorite spots without any hurry. If 24 hours isn't enough to see it all, it doesn't matter cause you've already identified ur favorites and the next day you can buy the public transportation day ticket and easily find the corresponding metro station: it's cheaper than the 48 hours tour and the metro system in London is great! (btw, these tours often offer multi-language audio options)
- If you do the hop-on and off tour thing, make sure to choose one that includes a boat ride to the price (most do!) and enjoy a beautiful ride on the Thames: fancy isn't it?! ;)
- Unless you really dislike this sort of thing, do go to a musical. There are more than 20 musicals playing in London so, plenty of choices... I've seen the Phantom of the Opera my first time there (2006), then Les Miserable (2007) and this time I saw Billy Elliot. Superb. I'm a huge fan of the Billy Elliot movie, having always loved movies with dancing showcased; the musical is simply fantastic!
- Don't miss (at least) a quick walk through the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square. You don't need to be a fan or connoisseur of the arts to enjoy it; there you get a chance to see masterpieces from Monet, van Gogh, Caravaggio, Renoir (to name a few)... all for FREE... yeah, no admission fee! (most museums in London are free like that including the TATE Modern)
So, enough for now... I hope this helps you :)
Next posting: Amsterdam!
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Totally GLEEd!
I've been meaning to write about my love for Glee since the come back of the new season a few weeks ago, but my lazyness, as usual, got the best of me. I've also been recently advised to try to find a focus for my postings, which is a wise piece of advice, but since I've never really managed to find only one thing to keep my focus on at a time for most of my life, I'm having a hard time with it... besides, if there is one thing I do religiously (which kinda relates to focus, I guess) is watching my tv shows, so probably not too bad to write about something I'm familiar about.
Anyway, let me not lose the focus of this post... it's a rainy holiday here in Germany and I just watched episode 18 of Glee. And I can't help but to wish I had some singing talent so I could realistically dream about one day being discovered and becoming a Glee club member myself.
Well, I'm a dreamer and often and easily get myself into 'the imaginary world of Pam' (ops...) but even I know that a singer I am not. So don't worry people, I'll restrain myself and only sing in the shower, in my car while driving (cause it's awesome to turn up the volume and have a Mariah moment) and at karaokes... nobody is stopping me from karaoking, don't even try!
Anyway, what an awesome episode!
Totally loved the number by Kurt... damn, that was fabulous! Mercedes and Santana doing 'That boy is mine' was great too and I really like that they are using more and more the dumb blond cheerleader... clueless and predictable, but never fails to make me laugh. But it was the last number with the tetraplegic character that got to me, and yes, I had tears in my eyes by the time it was over.
Good brazilian that I am, even living in Germany, I watch my soap-operas (telenovelas) every day on youtube and especially as it's almost at the end, I don't miss one episode of 'Viver a Vida'. And I totally think they are overdoing the drama with Luciana's character.
Don't take me wrong... I think it's brilliant that the soap brings the topic of handicaps to the Brazilian prime-time and the story they are telling is beautiful and inspiring. I like the characters too and Luciana and Miguel are cutest couple of the show. But is it really necessary to use that gospel-like music everytime the characters are on air?!?! Serious joy killer! I almost feel like fast-forwarding whenever that song plays... the Whitney Houston song is already cheesy enough, but that other one.... let's just say that song managed to totally spoil the scenes on the Monet Garden and with such a beautiful set, this is quite the accomplishment!
But anyway.... see, I lost my focus, this was supposed to be a post about Glee and now it's already super long! So just to finish: if you don't watch Glee, try it! The come back episode with Madonna songs was fabulous... Sue Silvester making her madonna video was so cool! But really one of the shows best moments so far was the football team doing the Beyonce 'Put a ring on it' song... just hilarious!
Sooooooo, get GLEEd you too! And then come and tell me about it :D
Anyway, let me not lose the focus of this post... it's a rainy holiday here in Germany and I just watched episode 18 of Glee. And I can't help but to wish I had some singing talent so I could realistically dream about one day being discovered and becoming a Glee club member myself.
Well, I'm a dreamer and often and easily get myself into 'the imaginary world of Pam' (ops...) but even I know that a singer I am not. So don't worry people, I'll restrain myself and only sing in the shower, in my car while driving (cause it's awesome to turn up the volume and have a Mariah moment) and at karaokes... nobody is stopping me from karaoking, don't even try!
Anyway, what an awesome episode!
Totally loved the number by Kurt... damn, that was fabulous! Mercedes and Santana doing 'That boy is mine' was great too and I really like that they are using more and more the dumb blond cheerleader... clueless and predictable, but never fails to make me laugh. But it was the last number with the tetraplegic character that got to me, and yes, I had tears in my eyes by the time it was over.
Good brazilian that I am, even living in Germany, I watch my soap-operas (telenovelas) every day on youtube and especially as it's almost at the end, I don't miss one episode of 'Viver a Vida'. And I totally think they are overdoing the drama with Luciana's character.
Don't take me wrong... I think it's brilliant that the soap brings the topic of handicaps to the Brazilian prime-time and the story they are telling is beautiful and inspiring. I like the characters too and Luciana and Miguel are cutest couple of the show. But is it really necessary to use that gospel-like music everytime the characters are on air?!?! Serious joy killer! I almost feel like fast-forwarding whenever that song plays... the Whitney Houston song is already cheesy enough, but that other one.... let's just say that song managed to totally spoil the scenes on the Monet Garden and with such a beautiful set, this is quite the accomplishment!
But anyway.... see, I lost my focus, this was supposed to be a post about Glee and now it's already super long! So just to finish: if you don't watch Glee, try it! The come back episode with Madonna songs was fabulous... Sue Silvester making her madonna video was so cool! But really one of the shows best moments so far was the football team doing the Beyonce 'Put a ring on it' song... just hilarious!
Sooooooo, get GLEEd you too! And then come and tell me about it :D
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