itchy feet.

"Thailand here I come!" Sentences like these hardly ever evolve from my mouth but today enthusiasm prevails. Even packing was a pleasure because of my new backpack. It was perfectly hungry for the goods I assembled it with. Now it looks ridiculously huge, regarding the time of 10 nights I will stay in Thailand.

This is just a small note to let the fans of this blog (me, myself and I) know that there probably won't be updates until the date of my return to Hong Kong which is Tuesday the 11th of March. Easy to remember because of my birthday 3 days later =)

Thus, baaibaai and take care,

The author.

nuffin big....

Do you know how it feels when you haven't listened to a song for a long time, asking yourself why? the feeling that fills you with joy, understanding and freedom? Amazingly, I only just experienced it now in a completely crammed MTR, listening to Social Distortion - Dear Lover. It's sooo nice, I wanna hear the same song twice...

Just came back from Mong Kok where I bought my new backpack and one of these small sleeping bags. Luckily, I met a hiking instructor in the shop who told me exactly what to buy and what not to. "Don't go for the expensive ones...Good quality but also the same materials as the cheaper ones. Go for this one." he handed me a dark blue back pack from a brand I've never heard before and said: "I will get this one and it's only half the price and even better than the big makes." Thus, I got it and went home, happy about the fact of having spent less money and at the same time purchased a good back pack. Cheers, Mr. Instructor.

Now, there's a certain priority on a presentation on Tiananmen Square on June 4th 1989 and the question whether it is desirable for Hong Kong citizens to downplay this part of Chinese history, the Chinese government is still denying. I never was aware of the brutality and the vast atrocities the military caused in this night but already a little glance at a Youtube video made me think about the lack of humanity and the thoughts that might have gone through politicians minds, that I will hopefully never understand. I will start working on this now and my work will hopefully result in something reasonable and not too biased. Laters!

the executioner.

Backyard of the Congee place

Jojo (bold guy) and Emma

Summertime and the living's easy...

Typical Hong Kongnese Alley

Some people do not share my enthusiasm towards Uni...


The Uni days are getting more relaxed and I have absolutely no clue why that is the case. for some reason the urgency of being lazy became redundant and this school makes me want to do work. Yes, it's still me, Christoph. I shall exhaust the libraries' resources until there won't be any book unread anymore ;)

I had Congee today which is best described as porridge with beef. Emma despised it so much, she left to get Sashimi from one of the closer Sushi stores. "This reminds me of the stuff I had to eat in the Kindergarten." This fact makes me understand everything.

Handed in my first essay today and am satisfied with the work I've done so far. Now there's only the presentation on HK Politics to come. And then...You guessed right! Thailand here we come. Today, Jojo, Louise and I found out that flying from Bangkok to Krabi is incredibly cheap which resulted in the decision not to take the train due to one saved day and less complications.

I will prepare the dinner tonite...gotta be creative, because I don't have too much stuff to do so. I won't go out tonite I reckon. got some beverage and Jojo is keen on saying "FINISH HIM!" (imagine the early Mortal Combat games for Super Nintendo and the intonation when you could rip the spine out of your opposite).

The only true reason I am writing today is because all of you are - of course - incredibly curious whether I did well in my Cantonese test. The answer is: Medium. In German this is called Vorführeffekt by means of well prepared but terrible in performance. Alright then, the kitchen's calling!

Endless it seems, endless it is.

cantonesian...?

This was weird. Hearing myself reading out a passage of our Cantonese book as part of our examination. I mean really weird. If I listen to it, I cannot even understand myself without calling in the translation from the book. Should do though. The matter I am more concerned about is the self-presentation in this exotic language. 100 words does indeed not sound that much but becomes twice as much considering the correct pronunciation of every word... Victory shall yet be mine and I will dance on the ashes of what used to be Cantonese after I am finished with my presentation. I always believed I was good in studying languages but now they even take away this last illusion of mine. Ah well, since I am an optimistic person I consider this fact still to be true, since this feeling only arose here. Hence, I am only bad with Asian languages, but still good with European ones...yes, yes and yes I know that they shall become more and more redundant within the next years but in fact I will by then be ready for Chinese in terms of having learned every single of the 11 European languages what will make up for my incompetence for Chinese.

Enough...I need to do this monologue before it's too late.
Accordingly, néih hóu and baaibaai.
Sincerely yours, ROY!

depletion.

My god, what a day. That's all I say before. It was a nice stroll through town with a couple of nice people, namely Lucy & Manuel. My sister hooked me up with them to show them around town, which I did. Thus, I picked them up at the Harbor Plaza, North Point, a hotel situated 3 MTR-stations from Causeway Bay, so pretty much in the middle of nowhere. After having missed the opportunity of taking the MTR station just on the opposite side of the street, we finally made it to North Point from where we set our direction to Jordan on the peninsula to have dim sum. Arriving at Shamrock Seafood Restaurant, Nathan Road, I quickly introduced them to the habit of washing your dishes before using them and eventually ordered the delicacies. I was afraid that they might not like it but amazingly (especially) Manuel held his spoon ready for ladling some "quality sauce". After the meal we made our way down to the lady market where Manuel evinced his desire to have some good coffee, telling me of the amount of coffee he normally drank which quickly convinced me to find a Starbucks, an idea I always welcome anyway. We arrived at Landhall Place, a mall in Mong Kok where we had coffee and the obligatory burger at McDonald's. Since there is not much cultural heritage in Hing Kong but only skyscrapers and all that stuff we decided to go to a park in the North of the city where the government rebuilt historical sights and a temple. We soaked up the Buddhist atmosphere and went on to go back to HK island. As we were already pretty much exhausted from wandering around all day, we decided to take the MTR all the way instead of hopping on one of the minibuses. Arriving back on the motherisland, I obliged myself to the burden to show them Soho, the bar-restaurant area. Doing so, I also felt obliged to invite both of them to have one of the fabulous egg tarts, since Manuel had basically payed me all day for my presence with coffee, food and beer. Then we found ourselves in a street market, watching an eel chopped in half (as to be seen in the video) struggling for the last bits of his life in a Styrofoam surrounding. Partly shocked, we went on to nicer things such as discovering local's art by visiting one of the Homeless shops, where I bought myself a really nice card holder, whereas Lucy tried desperately to fit herself into a T-shirt which was unfortunately too large for her. The motive was cool though, I must admit. Finally we made our way to Staunton's, where we had a strongly deserved Pint before really, truly and "yes, I mean it", went on to Shake 'Em Buns, my favorite burger place in HK. Debbie did not only do Dallas but also Lucie's and Manuel's culinary senses and both of them were suddenly surrounded by sounds of pleasure. The story could end here but I will not forget telling you guys about the After Death Sauce (pic of Lucy holding the bottle with the skeleton...). We (Manuel & I) were very brave in tasting this truly hot sauce and were quite proud of ourselves handling the spiciness like real men. Until Manuel put his finger into his eye. Neither eye drops nor napkins or anything could safe him now, so he had to feel the pure wrath of the sauce! Eventually, he managed to accept his fate by wailing underneath the table which was still very man-like ;) After this amazingly Chinese meal, I headed back to my windy house on the hill. That's all for today. You stay classy, San Diego.

smoking moron.

I was just thinking about mass media in the whole world, reading an article, when my thoughts got distracted by annoying cough from outside. I was quite afraid by the human stupidity I became a witness of. Smoking a cigarette, this moron did obviously not realize that smoking was bad for your lungs. I immediately tried to capture him on tape and succeeded even though only a slight cough was burned into my memory card. see for yourselves what smoking does to you ;)

teardrops goodbye.

Finally there's something at the end of the long crying. Rain has come and left, the cold days are packing and leaving and I can finally enjoy my newly gained experience of staying in, enjoying exciting creations from cuisines all over the world (mostly Asian, American and Australian). Our small community lately enjoyed more and more guests due to mouth-to-mouth propaganda. Cooks are pirates, that is sure.

Today I was supposed to play with the University Rugby team but the suffering from last week when we played the "pigs" goes on and my shoulder appears to be quite instable. Thus, I shall stay in today and cure my wounds ;) Have to do some schoolwork anyway, therefore not the worst thing to happen to me.

My daily life does not differ that much but I recently discovered that I can indeed work during the day whereas I always kept on telling myself this was not possible due to too much light during the day. Not true. I've been making travel plans with Jojo and Louise for our upcoming trip to Thailand. For the people who are interested I will draw a fictive line which you can follow on a map.

After arriving in Bangkok and having stayed there for a night, we will leave by train to go to Railay beach to do some rock climbing and chilling, drinking cheap beer and lying in one of the lovely bungalows. The plan continues with the visit of Ko Phi-Phi (spot of The Beach) which, according to lonely planet is the most beautiful place on the planet but no secret anymore. After having soaked up the atmosphere for a couple of days (and of course nights) we will move on to Ko Pan-Ngan to join one of the legendary parties. Unfortunately there won't be a full-moon-party in the time we will populate the island but I will make that up in the summer. After this supposedly marvelous island we will make our way back to Bangkok to fly back to HK where we will arrive on the 11th of March. Hopefully.