Below are six of my favourite ones.

woo hoo, fist post of the new year!

ps. However, my liver would like to give Hong Kong the good o’l one finger salute. My liver hates Hong Kong.

First, the movie: I Love You Phillip Morris starring Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor. To sum it up, it’s like Catch Me if You Can meets Brookback Mountain. It actually was a pretty decent movie, it got a few laughs out of me and I thought the first half of the movie was pretty smart funny. The second half was a little more dramatic and I’ve got nothing against drama, but it was just a little too dragged out for me. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the movie but its definitely not for everyone. Oh and I didn’t really need to see Jim Carrey naked. Actually, I didn’t really need to see him naked while having anal sex with some dude. We are talking about the same Jim Carrey that was The Mask

I don’t think I can ever look at him the same way ever again…

***

Sunday was the hike to the waterfalls in Ma On Shan. If you recall, I was there last year and I was really looking forward to going again. The turnout was much smaller this time, probably due to the rain the previous night, but the rain actually made the hike up more interesting (difficult?). Also, the last time we were there, I couldn’t muster up the courage to jump off the falls (dubbed “Hero Rock”), and I really regretted it after. So I promised myself that I would jump this time (or if I chickened out again, I would not regret not jumping). After hanging around the bottom for a while and watching a couple of people launch themselves off, I was ready and determined to do it! I made my way up to the top and up there, I started having second thoughts!! For a while my legs were actually shaking and I had to sit down, but…

I did it.

Later that night, I crashed Rob and Benny’s place for pasta dinner and our usual Vodka Sunday gathering. It was a great weekend, and maybe losing part of my childhood was just what I needed. Oh and pasta? Amazing! The sauce  : Mushrooms, peppers, baby corn, tomato sauce, minced pork, red wine and siracha. Who knew?

me: Dude, there was another acid attack today
ColdSoup: Oh did you know..
ColdSoup: … wait, WHAT?
me: Yeah some guy threw acid off a roof into a crowd, again!
ColdSoup: Uhh wow. AGAIN!? I was just gonna tell you about how there was a shooting down the street from me, but … wow.
me: I miss shootings and stabbings. It sure is a whole lot less scary sounding.

So my point is, I’ll try to talk more about the randomness I see here in Hong Kong. Now I know… Hong Kong is not like Japan or Korea where they got some crazy stuff happening every other day, but Hong Kong can be interesting too!! I was down in Causeway Bay yesterday when I saw these huge crowds under this bridge so I went to check it out. Apparently it was a special day for something I only know how to say in Chinese. Its a form of voodoo I guess, and what happens is you write a name on this paper and then the lady will smack it to oblivion with a slipper, set it on fire and … yeah. Kind of crazy if you ask me, but hey, I don’t judge.

Down the street from the bridge, I was in this alleyway market and got stuck there for about 15 minutes because infront of me was this lion dance, and behind me a crowd had formed to watch.

Oh and I got an R2D2 bag from UNIQLO! Their clothes maybe as plain as vanilla ice cream, but I love their paper bags!! And I actually, I <3 clothes from UNIQLO …

And huzzah! for Big Bang Theory season 1 was on sale at HMV. Couldn’t resist ^__^y

Interestingly, all the expats were trackside and when I looked up into the upper stands… lo-and-behold, the serious Asian race junkies (so I’m not completely wrong!) All in all, the night was much more entertaining that I expected (I honestly expected to be bored as heck). Note that I’ve never been to the races in Toronto, but I ought to go for comparison sake next time I’m in town.

I think I totally ruined this shot… me and my stupid peace sign. Sorry

Actually the only time I really like taking photos of people are when they don’t know I’m taking the photo (yes, I realized that came out kinda creepy. Trust me, I’m not creepy … I think.)

Anyway, enjoy the set!

*Yeah it doesn’t add up. The totals include breaks and lunch in-between the stages.

I pulled a much better trail time especially for stages 1-3. Other things I noted was that the weather was slightly cooler than last time (and it was cloudy/raining last time, while sunny this time) but as a trade-off it got darker about 30 minutes earlier resulting in me hiking the last 30 minutes though the forest in the dark. Luckily I had my headlamp packed. If I really do want to attempt a one day powerhike thought Hong Kong trail, it should be within the next month or so. I’m guessing I’ll need about 10 hours to pull the whole thing off? (since I didn’t actually jog any of it, I expect my times to be a little better than the times listed above.)

Originally I was going to tackle the 75km Lantau Trail over two days next weekend, but I don’t think I’m quite prepared for it yet (as of Monday evening my legs are still sore. Not sore enough to stop me from a light jog though). Perhaps I’ll split it over 3 days instead, 2 days next weekend and 1 day the weekend after. We’ll see how I feel (and how far I actually get) after the first day.

I have a few photos, but there was alot of smog over Hong Kong so that kinda sucked. Feel free to check it out anyway.

p.s. Fat Princess is addictively fun, I was kinda surprised I found it on the Asian Playstaion Network.
p.p.s I lost the access card to my condo somewhere along the trail (I think it was when I was rummaging for my headlamp). If someone finds a blue access card with my name on it.. WELL TOO LATE! I already canceled it, since it has money for the gym and swimming pool on the card…

This demonstration, it seems, was kinda of an “anything goes” so there was really no theme or restrictions on what people were there for. That being said, I think 95% of the hate was directed at Donald Tsang.

People everywhere

Even Greenpeace was out to get him (yes it does kinda look like his shirt says “Greenface”)

So we ended up joining the walk up to the Central Government Offices. On the way to the offices we talked to alot of different people about why they were there, and what they were walking for. Maybe it was our Canadianess (it WAS Canada Day), but we walked for democracy and free speech (or so we told ourselves).

But perhaps in the end, perhaps we were just walking to satisfy our curiosity and like this chap here, take some photos.

Photostream from Wednesday here

It started like most other holidays; me waking up a few hours later than I originally planned (to my defense, I was out celebrating Canada’s Day the previous night, but I digress). So originally, Richard and I were to meet up before 8am for the flag raising ceremony in Wan Chai before heading out to a random island for a morning hike. We ended up meeting up for lunch at Central instead.

With a few hours to kill, we headed up to the peak via tram where Richard made a wax hand mold of Spock’s classic Vulcan greeting.

“live long and prosper”

After some wandering and photos, we headed indoors to the plaza to stock up on some liquids before the walk down The Peak.

The appropriately named “Sky Terrace”
unintentionally funny?

On our way down, we passed by The Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens and took a detour inside.

Taking our time to snap a few shots of the caged animals including these interesting photos of two Giant Tortoise having sex. Actually, it more more like rape, as the turtle ontop would give a few thrusts, pause, and then give a few more. During the pauses, the turtle on the bottom would slowly crawl abit before stopping. Then crawling abit more.

Next stop, Hong Kong People Reporter protest/demonstration/march whatever you wanna call it.

edit: seems like Flickr photostream embeds are not working right now. Too lazy to fix so you’ll have to go to the stream directly via the link above.