This post got a bit delayed - sorry. Things aren't quite so bad on the work front, and it looks like I'll be here for at least a bit longer - which is good, because HK is still a lot of fun
The holidays came, the holidays went. For the record, I'm still looking for work, although the clock has pretty much run out on that, and it looks like I'll probably be leaving Hong Kong soon. Annoyingly, I am still waiting to hear from a few people, and the last applications I submitted were only a few days ago - but without any significant positive response from anyone it's starting to become clear that there's no point waiting around for something which just isn't going to happen. Anyway, the holidays...
Last year, I was back in the UK over Christmas and New Year. This year, that wasn't going to happen - mainly for cost and time reasons - I only got back here in October, so to be heading over to the UK again less than 3 months later seemed a bit soon and a bit expensive. It's pretty normal for expats in a more stable situation to head 'home' for the holidays, however, so the people left here were either those who are settled enough that this is 'home', or various odds and sods who didn't travel for some reason. Also, recently, I've met some locals, who are, of course, already 'home'.
What's Christmas? Nothing to do with Jesus for me, naturally, but in the UK, and in some good loyal outposts of the Empire like Hong Kong it's a 2-day public holiday, followed by another day off a week or so later for New Year. In the UK, most non-retail businesses are running at most a skeleton service for the last week of December - in HK, things are a bit different, partly because of the different distribution of public/general holidays and paid holiday time, and partly because Chinese New Year, a couple of months later, is really the big holiday of the year. On the other hand, Hong Kong is a party town, and three public holidays in a week is a pretty good excuse for a party...
So... Christmas Eve, I went to a hotpot dinner. Not a particularly complicated way of eating - sit around a table, pot of boiling water in the middle, dump random bits of food - meat, veg, seafood - in the water, let it cook, eat it. Except, of course, that not wanting to eat non-kosher food - or eat from a pot which is being used to cook non-kosher food - makes it harder than it should be... We ended up getting a split pot with a wall down the middle and doing veg and fish in one side and meat and seafood in the other - and then, because my friends were worried there wasn't enough food for me, we ordered some salmon sashimi. There was some worry that the sashimi might not be quite as fresh as one might want, given that it wasn't a sushi place, so into the pot it went... boiled salmon is, of course, delicious, but you don't normally boil it yourself at the table. After dinner, we wandered down to Tsim Sha Tsui, went to an Irish pub to see in midnight, then over to Knutsford Terrace for a while, before heading home at about 3:30am, on the MTR (tube, underground, metro), which ran all night on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve!
On Monday, Christmas Day, I ended up organising a picnic on the beach. Almost all of my social life here in Hong Kong has come directly or indirectly from the community on one particular website, GeoExpat, and a few weeks ago, a couple of different discussions started about doing something at Christmas - getting together at someone's place, booking a meal somewhere, going to a beach, even booking a junk boat. Unfortunately, nobody seemed willing or able to volunteer their place, it was getting a bit late to book things, and there was worry over doing something outside, because of the weather - so by the 21st, no plans had been made. I decided, since it looked like the weather was going to be up to it, to call a very simple plan - meet on a beach, or at the bus stop leading to the beach, at a particular time, everybody to bring their own food, and just share the food and company. With one or two adjustments to the plan, that's exactly what happened - over 30 people turned up, which was excellent, one pair who, as far as I know, didn't know each other beforehand, arranged to buy and bring an entire roast turkey, people brought meat, veggie stuff, beer and champagne, and we had a truly interesting and varied group of people and food. Quite a few of the people who came along were new in town - which is why they were at a loose end on Christmas Day - and I hope it gave them a good impression of both Hong Kong and GeoExpat... we even had at least one couple, from France, who were just tourists in town for a few days, but who were made to feel welcome. We were very lucky with the weather, which was about as good as we could possibly have expected - it was clear, sunny and warm, enough that a couple of us got a bit pink on faces, a couple of people took their shirts off, and all the Chinese women stayed wrapped up for fear of tanning...
Later in the afternoon, we jumped on some buses and went to Stanley, down the coast - took a stroll down the waterfront, then ended up in Pacific Coffee (the major local competitor to Starbucks) where we colonised the library for a while. And then, because that wasn't enough, 6 of up met up later that night at a brand-new cinema to see Casino Royale at a 12:20am showing on the 26th :-)
Tuesday 26th was a quiet day, finished off by dinner with a friend in TST in the evening, during which there was a major earthquake off Taiwan which, strangely, meant most of Asia fell off the international telecoms network about 16 hours later. Internet service from Hong Kong to the rest of the world is still pretty patchy - there are various hacks to improve things, but it's going to take a while before things are back to normal. Sitting on the ground floor of a building, eating pizza, we didn't notice anything, but it was felt all over Hong Kong.
Wednesday 27th was another quiet day, with... a non-quiet night. A place called The Place in Kennedy Town was celebrating their gaining an alcohol license by running a free, open bar for a few hours, so I jumped on the bus to the other side of Hong Kong to meet some people there. I had... a couple of drinks, then for some strange reason a few of us went up to Mongkok for karaoke... The rest of the night is somewhat blurry, but may have involved Hotel California, Candle in the Wind, and some Beatles music...
Thursday was very quiet - had a Curry-in-a-Hurry by myself in Causeway Bay for dinner, and that's about it.
Friday, ended up going to the cinema to see a slightly odd Chinese film called "Curse of the Golden Flower" - with sex (incest, no less), drugs, lots of violence, some beautiful sets, costumes designed to make every man in the theatre pant and every woman either jealous or grimace in pain, and even ninjas, it should be a winner, but in the end, I'd call it... odd. We then went off to a local bar/restaurant for some food and beer - not a late night.
Saturday night, stayed in and watched a couple of films...
Sunday night, New Year's Eve... went to a party at someone's place up at Clearwater Bay. It was a nice night - we did the actual new year countdown on the beach down the hill from the flat, but, well, I had rather too much to drink, and when the decision was made to head into town for dancing, I went along, but had to drop out part-way there and head home. We actually changed at my local MTR station, but I thought I was going to be okay, even after having made friends with the, thankfully, metal and bin-lined rubbish facilities on the station platform - a couple of stations down the line, I changed my mind, crossed over the platform and came home. A random stranger on one of the platforms gave me a pack of tissues, and I was sober enough in my head to buy some water to drink from 7-11 in North Point, but I was out of it.
Monday was also pretty much a blur - wasn't too ill, but wasn't exactly going to be running a marathon... And Tuesday night was a low-key pub quiz. Today is Wednesday, and I really need about a week of early nights :-)