hk day 4

Woke up to the beautiful view of the bay area from my uncle’s place. Thus begins day 4 of our HK holiday.

View from the window. Could see the junkboats going about their business and meandering around the breakwaters. :

HK day 3

As Cheryl and Erwin couldn’t join us for breakfast this morning, the both of us headed down to take some pictures and have our own breakfast. We had to check out at around 12 so we had a bit of time to just explore the little shopping mall that our hotel was located at.

hk day 2

Woke up to the cold air of the city. Took a couple of pictures of the view from Panda Hotel. Really beautiful. Here begins day 2 of our HK journeys.

HK day 1

So here begins day one of our HK trip, in Changi Airport. As I said before, HK is a city of juxtaposition, a place where the colonial old meets the capitalist new, its architecture and city planning showing the somewhat incomplete transition between the two. For a city person like myself, I enjoyed taking in the sights and sounds of the city, but I’ll probably think twice before actually staying or working there. At the end of the 5 days, my head was spinning from the intensity of the place.

See the rest of our adventures after the jump.

aftermath and recovery – really not that snazzy

Just like how Stella is now nursing a bad throat infection of sorts, I’m now feeling the effects of my body trying to recover from the bad air in hk plus all the activity. Slept like a pig in the afternoon, and woke up feeling a little giddy. Probably need more fruits and exercise.

back from the land of juxtaposition

After 5 days of crazy shopping and walking for tens of kilometers, I’m finally back in sunny (and irritatingly humid) Singapore. While really bushed, I had a great trip, and managed to get in some great buys. What’s most wonderful was just exploring a foreign country with the girlfriend, stopping by and eating random food, and just soaking in the atmosphere of the city. Cheryl and Erwin made great travelling partners as well, with the goofing around in MTRs and after hours drinking sessions in the hotel room.

More updates and some pictures when I’ve fully rested.

to the land of juxtaposition

Off to hk for a week with the girlfriend, loris and echew. Be back soon.

Kultural Kritic

I was attempting to take a nap at home, but the silence was simply deafening. unable to sleep, I decided to head down for a swim and then lie by the poolside for a bit of close eye. The sounds of my surroundings somehow calmed me – the splash of the pool, the sounds of the grass cutter’s blade, the occasional birdcall. I was soaking it in.

Over the past few years some part of me has gone to sleep. I used to call it the ’street side’ of me, but when I think about it now, I really don’t know what to call it. I just know its there, somewhat forgotten but still there, just like how Stella longs for Hawaii sometimes.

And maybe that’s how I should begin then. My heart longs for the street. ‘Street’, in inverted commas. I don’t know when it all begin, but I’ve always had a intense fascination for human behavior. More specifically, I have an intense fascination for how human beings interact with other human beings in their physicial settings. This does explain somewhat my original interest in psychology (which I discovered wasn’t exactly about that) and sociology. It also somewhat explains my secret dream of being an urban photographer. Not everyone has a choice of where he/she gets to live, and since most of the world has more or less experienced some form of modernization, most of the world is also somewhat urban in one degree or another. It is with this idea that my interest for the urban landscape begins. As we grow up and live in constantly evolving forests of glass, concrete and machinery, we find ways of appropriating these elements into our lives, to make it more habitable for ourselves. Maybe this includes putting your mark along the subway walls, dressing to blend in with the current fashion trends and even regulating one’s behavior to suit that of the city, all these are signs of one’s constant involvement with the urban landscape. The various permutations of these then form what I would like to call the ’soul of the street’. It is this aspect  that I am deeply interested in. Human behavior in urban settings. Not humans. I don’t really give a damn about people. I don’t even like them. I’m just interested in  what they do. When I first started blogging, one of the sub titles for my blog was ‘finding the obvious in the random’. What I really meant was that  sometimes there is beauty in some of the things that  people find as simple and mundane.

However, over time, this side of me has slowly disappeared. Ideas for posts having to do with inspiration from observing people stopped coming as well. I thought that it was just a dry spell, but new posts just never really came. Then today I realised that it’s just because I don’t observe anymore. I walk on the streets and I don’t think about anything. I just get from one place to another. I don’t hang out at public places that much, and that goes without saying that you don’t get to observe and think about stuff as much as before.

It’s contradictory as I am partly a homebody, and partly someone who likes the street. I don’t know if its mutually exclusive, although staying at home does mean that you aren’t out in the streets. Then again, I’m always contradictory, so what’s new? Can’t always have your cake and eat it. I’m not mourning the loss of this side of me, nor am I regretting that this is gone. It’s just change and I have since adjusted in accordance to that. Ask me to walk the streets now and people watch and I might end up bored instead. That’s just how change is, isn’t it? You write about something you used to like and people say ‘why don’t you do it now?” but it’s just not the same anymore.

That being said, just closing my eyes today and just soaking in the sounds of my surroundings made me think about all that I’ve said here, and that I should just write it down just to signify that I used my brain for something useful today. I’m looking forward to Hongkong with the girlfriend and friends, mainly because I’ve been feeling really cooped up here and we’ve been rarring to go for another holiday in a cold country by ourselves since Korea. Now perhaps another reason would be that Hong Kong would be a second starting point for some self discovery and to soak in the sights and sounds of the soul of the street once again.

I don’t think this was all I wanted to say, but that’s something for another day.

Merry Xmas one and all

As Stella recovers from her runny nose and flu, I seem to have caught something instead. Feeling slightly numbed and a little feverish right now. And to think that I was just joking with her that the best way to lose weight is probably to follow Cheryl’s tactic of sleeping for 12 hours straight and skipping lunch altogether. Be careful what you wish for on Christmas, I say.

This Christmas has been quite different. Firstly, there’s none of the family gathering/bbq that I have every year. Most of it was spent watching dramas with my mom, which is something that I rarely do, and I appreciate the chance. Stella’s iMac came up with a hardware problem couple of days back, and today we brought the poor thing to Funan for repairs (seriously, Apple should have some home collection system. I wouldn’t mind paying a bit for the convenience) after lunch. Tomorrow’s a gaming session, so something fun for Stella and I to round off the week. Come next Friday, and I will be on a plane to HK.

So all that said and done, it’s been a not very usual but good Christmas period this year. Wishing a very Merry Christmas to all out there reading this, and may you have a wonderful year ahead.

Recieved a 10 dollar PI voucher in the mail. Maybe I’ll pick up a boardgame or something soon. Trying to save my money for HK.

We finished our StanChart 10k race

We even got medals to remember it by. I’m really thankful that I managed to complete the race, even though those little training sessions that I had never reached even 5km. Definitely part of the mental training also came from Stella egging me on with egg sandwiches this morning. haha. No, jokes aside, she has been telling me to do my best the whole week, and I’m just glad that I didn’t walk too much, even though it got pretty hellish around the 7+ km mark. Thanks nilly =) Those who say that anything after 8km is pure mental are right. I can’t even begin to imagine how Cheryl the Loris managed to complete the 42km even by walking. Crazy shit.

And I finally introduced Stella to the world of Moleskine Diaries. Got her a lined, softcover notebook so that she will have something nice to pen her thoughts and scribbles into wherever she goes.

Also bought a Jack Spade sling from Wooonderland. Love it for its technical design. Ironic thing is that I’ve always wanted a large bag to throw all my shit into, but somehow i ended up with something small this time. Oh wells. I guess I can do with one more extra bag. Shall not buy any more in HK =X