Back, Post-Hong Kong, in the middle of my job and thesis

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Before I start, I was just SO inspired by this guy's blog: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/aspiringnomad/ check it out - he and his wife and now their new baby, have been everywhere and seen everything. Its incredible.

Soooo let's see, its not been HORRIBLY long - just...over a month. 😊 Since Berlin, which was a great trip again, this time with Dzl so it was fun to go around to all the cafes with him, and check out a few new ones that Mads had found with his friend there. We went out on a couple all-nighters which was great, and considering the trip was only Friday-Monday we actually managed to see and do quite a bit and still relax a little. 😊

The job I interviewed for...I got! I'm now the Demo Manager and Marketing Communications girl for TAT (website here: tat.se). Its an interesting job, mainly because they haven't had someone in this position before. So I'm making it up as I go along, and thanks to the epiphany I had last night... I am going to combine my thesis with the making-it-up part, as a study in how to create a system combining designers/developers/managers and customers into the creation of demos. Hopefully that'll be concrete enough for a thesis - I'm talking to my adviser today.

Now interestingly, I've placed this blog entry in Hong Kong. Why? Well because I just came back from a 9 day trip there. It was crazy and great, mainly crazy. Mads and I went there for a conference - Design and Emotion 2008 to present our Ladies and Mens Room Mixup project. The entire trip was fantastic, and oddly, familiar. Having spent so much time in Scandinavia, it was actually comforting to get back to chinese food, night markets, and asian characters on everything....very Richmond (BC, Canada).

We started out our trip with a loooong journey and upon arriving in Hong Kong were blasted by humid weather and heat, its been 10 degrees in Copenhagen and so to suddenly be in 25 degree humid weather was a bit shocking, even though I had read it would be that warm. We noticed first the mountains and high rises (again, very Vancouver) but they simply don't exist in Skane... so that was cool to see. We spent the first night exploring the Kowloon area, where our hostel was. Our hostel was interesting. You walk into an area that looks suspiciously like the downtown east side, into a very seedy building with security guards for the elevators, whose primary job in life is to tell you when to walk into the elevator, in case it wasn't clear. We got upstairs, paid our very low rate ($500 for 8 nights) and were guided through a maze of sweatshops, broke down buildings, walls spattered with all sorts of...material and finally were guided to a door that led to marble floors and oak paneled walls. I mean, how bizarre. It was a huge change from the outside. Our room was as expected, tiny, but definitely perfect for what we needed it for, sleeping. Two tiny beds, a bit on the short side, separated by about 60 centimetres, a desk, and a bathroom doubling as a shower. There was even a TV where I managed to find ridiculous shows on herb cultivation in China's hillsides. We went out the first night to explore, and found a great pirate-themed restaurant with the best food we had for the entire trip. (Soft shelled crab with spices, clam chowder, and some kind of curry). We then went in search of fun - it was Saturday night after all. We found after a long search, and many questionable places (for instance, the highly recommended "Ned's (Nelly?) last stand" - apparently a jazz bar but actually filled with old well fed white folk and country music. Don't go there. We did however, find a number of places that looked like office buildings or shopping centres. You went in, took the elevator, and every floor opened to a new club. We checked out a few of these, accidentally landed ourselves in a private karaoke room once, and at an escort club another time, and found that without reservations, it was very difficult to get in. However, we ended up having fun, meeting a ton of people - all who suspiciously called themselves "Maggie" - seriously, like 6 girls, all named "Maggie"? Please. Choose a different English name. 😊. The night was fun though and we got to know at least some parts of Kownloon really well.

We spent the next few days exploring the area, endless shopping, seriously ENDLESS. If something wasn't a store, then they made an effort to at least sell something anyways. There were people in alleys, on the street, in every nook and cranny trying to sell you something. It was crazy. Every building had a mall, I'm not kidding. Every mall, like established mall, was spectacular and huge, and polished. The night market went on for ages, but had nearly the exact same stuff as the one in Richmond, though let me tell you, the haggling skills come in handy here. Everything I got, I got at least half the listed price, if not more taken off.

We explored Hong Kong island, finding some neat areas in SOHO, and their 'china town' - just blocks away from their land of Gucci and Prada stores. Quite a contrast. The ferry from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island was about 30 cents, as compared to the metro which was something like two dollars. So really no complaints there - oh yes, and the fun - taxis...are $2 anywhere in the city. $2!!! To Island hop it is $13. Its amazing.

We spent the next three days at the conference which was fantastic, amazing speakers, fantastic keynotes, our presentation was on the first day in the big stage/auditorium and went really well - so well in fact that we ended up winning Best Presentation Award out of 93 presenters. 😊 It was a great feeling. The conference took us to Jumbo Kingdom, a huge floating restaurant that was very elaborated decorated and could have easily been in coal harbour, as it looked EXACTLY the same, mountains, high rises, expensive yachts. I remember telling Mads he didn't have to visit Vancouver any longer since he was seeing it all right there. :P The dinner was fantastic, very much like a Chinese wedding, and we even had one guy at the table fighting to eat the fish eye, to prove a point that he wasn't a frightened white man....or something like that. They had performers and at the conference even had a lion dance for us. It was great.

We went out on the last day of the conference with some of the people there and it was great, we went to an area called Wan Chai - which was ridiculous. It was an entire street dedicated to sleazy bars with Asian prostitutes and fat white men. We ended up meeting at an IRISH pub - in Hong Kong - what the heck, but it was a good place to get things started and we eventually moved across the street to a 2-4-1 cocktails place. We ended up back in Kowloon at 7am, finding one last open bar and then headed home.

The next day I went to check out a temple, and of course, right beside the temple was a shopping mall, how typical. It was amazing to be there though... the temple, not the shopping mall. It was filled with gardens and a pond, and then there was this huge beautiful SILENT Buddhist temple. The only noises were bells and gongs and some chanting. It was exactly what I needed since in Hong Kong, it is constant noise, noise, smells, and endless people everywhere, constantly. I wandered through the gardens, thoroughly appreciating every moment of silence and got some gorgeous pictures of the place. So many people were quietly working, tending to the gardens, the ponds, the structures, they blended into the scenery but were definitely there, all part of the experience. I went back to the hostel, very relaxed and ready to meet up with some friends to go see the Peak.

I had met Rebecca in Copenhagen. We were both at the airport, I was waiting to go back to Lund and she had loads of luggage and was asking me where Lund was. I traveled with her there, and we added each other on Facebook but didn't talk much as we were both busy with school. However, and Thank You Facebook, she saw that I was in Hong Kong, and contacted me, she lives in Hong Kong and had just been in Lund for a semester so she asked if we could meet, which of course was perfect, since we were hoping to get an insider's view. We went with another Danish friend, Jakob, and Rebecca and her friend, to see the Peak, which was a spectacular view of Hong Kong Island. After that we went to lan kwai fong, the trendy district. We first went to a bar serving two for one mojitos - how could we not???- and then eventually to a huge night club that had a dome for a roof, in the mall of Gucci and Prada, etc, and there was an open bar...and then I woke up on Saturday. That's all you're getting of that story. We danced. 😊

Saturday we made one last trip to the night market, and I picked up my 'tailor made suit' - people in the streets in Hong Kong offer you three things. "Watch? Replica Watch?" "Massage" (pronounced, Mass-age-ee) and "Madam, a suit, tailor made? Fine fabric!!!" Well after ignoring this endless harassment (we even considered buying water guns to make them back off - there's hundreds of them, everywhere) I finally went to check out a suit maker and actually had a good experience having a suit custom made for me. Jacket, Trousers, two blouses, all really nice fabric and designed for me (not from a pattern), for $300 Cad. I think that's pretty good. I'm happy with it. Anyway, I haggled my way through the rest of the night market, stopping every now and then to fight off the waves of nausea from the night before, and got the last few items I needed - you know, the 100mw Laser Pointer (for Dzl, which he loved and hasn't yet stopped playing with).

We headed off to the airport in the morning and had an amazing flight back, as there were about 25 people TOTAL in economy class. Both Mads and I got entire rows of seats to ourselves so we spread out and slept the whole thing through. It was amazing to come home, and be greeted at the airport by Dzl, and spend the next few days hiding in our house. I had missed everything (especially the cool weather - yes I said it the girl who loves the sun can't stand the humidity), and especially having someone to come home to. Now of course, six days later, Dzl's off in NYC and I'm the one stuck at home. Its payback I suppose. 😊 I'm using this time to spend extra time at work and get some stuff done on my thesis.

Until next time... 😊 V

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