The Peak

So, it's day two in Hong Kong and I'm not the tired grumpy mess I thought I'd be. In fact, quite the contrary.

I woke to the dull hum of the air conditioner and a rising sense of urgency.

Being here in Hong Kong hasn't dampen my enthusiasm for the playoffs. Let me just say now that while I'm a die hard Canucks fan, I'm also a hockey fan. So, I'll pretty much watch any playoff hockey game. That being said, Canucks are come first.

The only problem with celebrating hockey here in Hong Kong is the lack of access to it. If you were to surf the numerous sports channel I have access to here in Hong Kong, you'd find soccer, cricket, tennis, golf, car racing as well as many sports you probably won't see in North America such as, squash and table tennis. But, the full array of hockey playoff games there is not. So, I rely on my friend the Internet and my girlfriend's family's Slingbox to get my hockey fix. (A Slingbox device that allows you to stream TV from your home television to pretty much any device that has access to the Internet.)

So after firing up the computer and launching the Slingbox, I sat down to enjoy some mid-morning hockey.

Unfortunately for my girlfriend V, she woke up with a different set of priorities. For V, Saturday morning meant work. On May 5, the school that V teaches at and also went to as a kid, Diocesan Girls' School, will celebrate it's 150th anniversary. And such a milestone demands a celebration befitting of that history.

So, instead of watching hockey with her father and me, V was off to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, where the celebration will be held, to help with the planning. The HKCEC sits facing Victoria Harbour on the waterfront of Wan Chai, one of the busiest districts on Hong Kong Island.

Meanwhile back at home, home being Lam Tin on the eastern side of Kowloon Peninsula, V's dad and I watched the Canucks steamroll their way to victory, in what appeared to be their best performance of the playoffs so far. But, it wasn't as simple as just watching hockey. I was tasked to make sure that V was kept fully apprised of the game. So, with every goal and major event, I was quickly messaging her.

As the clock began to click down and the game ended, it could mean only one thing: lunch. So, V's dad and I head out to the local mall for food. Lunch was simple. A bowl of noodles with some veggies and random bits of meat.

Soon after we got home from lunch, V returned too.

With much of the day surrendered to work, V and I headed out to enjoy the rest of the afternoon. So, we headed out for Victoria Peak. Victoria Peak is a mountain on Hong Kong Island that overlooks the Central district and Victoria Harbour. I've been to the peak a couple of times. But, this time we thought we'd go a different way.

The traditionally touristy way of getting up to the peak is to take the Peak Tram, an inclined rail system. The tram started running in 1888 and today carries both tourists and residents from Central to the Peak through the Mid-Levels district.

But, in the spirit of adventure, we decided to take a different route. So, we headed for the Star Ferry, crossed Victoria Harbour and waited for the 15C that would take us up to the Peak. Now, the adventure isn't in the ferry ride (although that is fun), but in the double-decker bus ride up the side of a mountain on a winding, narrow road. The best part about the ride is sitting in the front seat on the top deck of the bus as the bus hurdles up the mountain at break-neck speed.

After our harrowing journey we reached the top unscathed. It was cold at the top. Very cold. Windy too. So, we disappeared into The Peak Tower for shelter. The Peak Tower is a tourist mall with restaurants, shops and Madame Tussauds wax museum. We decided to have dinner and began the quest for food. Stopping at the second level, we were uninspired by the Chinese and Japanese restaurants, so we headed upstairs. We ended up on the third level at Bubba Gump.

Now, it may seem strange to end up at an American restaurant over 10,000 km from home, but sometimes it's just nice to have something other than Asian food once in a while. The nice thing about Bubba Gump is that it has a spectacular view of Central and the harbour. And going for dinner early meant that we could get a table with a view. V had a Shrimpin' Dippin' Broth, a small steel pot with seemingly endless shrimp in a Louisiana-style broth with rice and french bread for dipping. I had something off of the daily special menu: Lt. Dan's Drunken Shrimp, grilled shrimp, andouille sausage and mashed potatoes.

While waiting for dinner, V entertained herself by watching the people outside have their clothes tossed around by the strong winds and fail to get near the guard rails to get a better view.

We dragged out dinner purposefully so that we could see the view after sunset. At night, the Hong Kong skyline lights up in brilliant colours. It's actually the first time I've seen the city lights from The Peak. It's definitely worth seeing.

And with our meal over, our adventure came to an end.

Back in the HKSAR (Hong Kong Special Administrative Region)

I'm not entirely sure how I'm suppose to feel after almost 20 hours of travel.

Hungry?

Yes.

Sleepy?

A little.

Overall though, I'm feeling pretty good.

This time instead of flying direct, I had a stop over in Taipei.

The Taipei International Airport is a nice airport. Unfortunately, there's not much to do at 6 a.m. aside from shopping. None of the good food places were open yet. Oh well, maybe I'll get my Taiwan food fix on my way back.

I got to sit in the upper deck of the plane, which isn't really that much different than the regular passenger deck, there's just less people up there. In fact, I spent the major leg of my travel with no seatmates. I had the entire bank of seats to myself.

While the peace and quiet was nice, the bench isn't exactly the most comfortable place to stretch out for a snooze. Still, getting a whole bunch of sleep does make the trip go faster.

The other nice thing about long flights is that I get to catch up on all of the movies that I've missed in the past eight or nine months. Avatar was okay. It seemed to be longer than it needed to be, but all-in-all I enjoyed it. Sherlock Holmes was a fantastic movie. Probably one of the better movies I've seen in a while.

So, that was the majority of my travel today, some sleeping and some movie watching.
Oh and then there was a lot of standing in customs, security and immigration lines.

The only other thing that was sort of neat was that one of the flight attendants on my flight from Vancouver to Taipei was in all of the airline's video ads. It was like having a celebrity serving me food.

Anyways, I'm here in Hong Kong now. It's about 24 degrees Celsius and a little humid. Don't really plan on doing too much else today. Might go for a walk or something, but nothing too intense.

Hopefully, after hockey tomorrow morning I'll have enough energy to get out and do something interesting. But, more likely I'll be super jet lagged and grumpy.

Wow Langara students, that was a pretty dick thing to do

A J-school friend of mine recently asked me why I chose to go to the school I did and not one of the other ones that I got accepted to. Today, I'm glad I didn't go to Langara College.

My multimedia class was tasked with photographing the Olympic torch relay today.

We were split into different groups and sent off on our merry way.

My group split up along the last leg of the relay in South Vancouver.

I took the area near 49th Avenue and Oak Street, ending up at Langara College.

I showed up early to see what was happening at the campus, take in some of the festivities and stake out my spot for photo taking.

After picking out my spot, I took the opportunity to chat with some of the people around me.

One of the people that I talked with was an older lady named Lucille.

She told me about how her son was recently in Haiti helping with the relief effort.

Anyways, we waited patiently for the torch relay to reach Langara and then finally, the Coca-Cola and RBC party buses showed up heralding the imminent arrival of the torch.

As the torch approached, traffic caught along 49th Avenue heading east when the torch made its way towards Langara was stopped.

Unfortunately, that traffic blocked the view of some of the people on the campus side of the street.

Suddenly, a bunch of Langara students decided that they were going to cross the street to get a better view.

More accurately, they thought they would cross the street and take the view of people who had been waiting across the street from them for about an hour or so.

Before I could wade through the crowd, that had suddenly appeared in front of me, the RCMP came along and forced the crowd back as the torch bearer was quickly approaching.

In the confusion not only did I lose my spot, but I got shuffled back near the back of the crowd.

To my disgust, the Langara students had pushed Lucille to the back of the crowd too.

She voiced her opinion that what they had done was unfair, but her comments fell on deaf ears.

I did my best to get my obligatory photo of the torch bearer, but to no avail.

And while, I am extremely disappointed that I didn't get a chance to see the torch bearer, I felt even worse that Lucille lost her prime viewing spot to a bunch of selfish jerks.

Having thought about what happened outside Langara today, I'm glad that I'm leaving Vancouver during the Olympics.

Sure, I'm going to Hong Kong during Chinese New Year, where there are going to be more people than in Vancouver and where the people are, well, ruder than people are here.

But, I expect that kind of rudeness and selfishness there. Not here.

If this is how Vancouverites are going to act for the Olympics, I'd rather be anywhere but here.

I'm honoured

It's a double entendre. It seems that Kwantlen has place me on the Dean's Honour Roll for my academic achievements for last semester. It's just kinda cool is all.

The Runner

My first article for the Runner has been published. They also used one of my photos for another story.

That's good news?

Created by Oatmeal

When J-School learning isn't enough

J-School has taught me many things and I'm thinking the same is true of my J-School com padres.

For instance, today Hayley learned that her ability to speak is only hampered by her inability to think before she does it.

Brian learned that he has the ability to arouse women, simply by reading the newspaper to them.

Josh learned that he takes the simple act of sitting down for granted.

Kyle learned that people do in fact follow him on Twitter.

Matt learned that he's a racist and that not everyone who has Chinese ancestry was born in China.

Some of us were born outside of China.

Like me.

I was born here, in Canada.

Translink WTF!?

Let me start off by saying that I'm a big fan of public transit.

Despite the cost, I think the Canada Line and the Olympic Line are necessary for our city to grow.

But, that being said, I was about 30 seconds from giving up on transit this morning and hopping into my car.

Now, I honestly don't mind waiting for the bus.

Sure, it sucks watching your bus speed away, as you sprint in vein towards where it use to be, but if that's the worst thing that happens to me in the course of the day, I'm probably not doing too bad.

So, this of course happened to me this morning, but seeing as I take the express bus to get to the Canada Line, I figured I wouldn't have to wait too long.

During the morning rush the bus usually comes along every five minutes or so, as advertised.

Although, today I would not be so fortunate.

The first bus that sped past my bus stop was "Sorry, Not In Service."

The next bus, which was "In Service", sped past the stop because it was crammed full of people and unable to stop and pick up anyone from the increasingly growing line of transit commuters waiting at the bus stop.

For the next ten minutes, I waited in the cold, watching and hoping that the growing backlog of people at other bus stops that preceded mine wouldn't cause another bus to pass by our humble bus stop without picking anyone up.

At the 12 minute mark I began to give up on my bus ever arriving.

I gave the bus two minutes to show before I got into my car and drove myself to school.

The bus came before the two minutes were up, about three-quarters full.

So, having missed my bus, it took about 20 minutes for the next one to show up.

Standing near the rear doors, staring out the window, watching the city whiz by, I couldn't help but wonder that if this is how transit deals with a regular morning rush-hour situation, what will it be like when road closures for the Olympics force people who don't normally take the bus, to have to take the bus?

How will transit cope with the increase of riders when the world comes to Vancouver for the Olympics?

After my extended wait for the bus this morning, I'm thinking it will handle all of this rather poorly.

I'm not too sure if I will be riding the bus too often in the weeks to come.

If getting around the city by bus wasn't already hard enough, the Olympics is going to make things harder for sure.

Considering the inconsiderate

I'm not sure if people are becoming stupider or simply more inconsiderate. Take for example the woman at Lansdowne Station this morning.

Now, I'm sure that there is a vocation somewhere out there where the ability to walk slowly down a staircase while reading a novel and balancing a drink tray with two Tim Horton's coffee cups in it and rocking out on your iPod all at the same time, will make you an insane amount of money.

But perhaps you could refrain doing any of that during rush hour when your mad skills block a train load of people trying to get down the stairs, to go off to school or their jobs or whatever.

As a writer, I think your dedication to the written word is admirable. But seriously, please don't read and walk down stairs at the same time, let alone do it slowly while carrying a drink tray loaded with coffees and listening to your iPod, totally oblivious to the world around you.

Jerk.