Mindscrew

Well I've just finished my heaviest mindscrew ever in school, my Philo of Mind exam. Toughest module to date. Extremely challenging & interesting, but very draining.

Anyway it's finally over, I've just left 3 level-2000 papers on wed, thurs and fri consecutively before I'm free. Well not exactly cos right after that, work begins.

A couple of current events on hand.

Firstly, I lurbsch Ken Hirai's (not so) new song, Aika. His high notes are so... powerfully sentimental. Here it is.



Secondly, diagnosis for the Powerbook G4 is complete.

Guess what? It's certified 200 bucks down the drain. 2 pieces dead, the motherboard as well as the Top Case. Total repair cost is 1.5k, market value IS 1.5k. Get da picture?

I'm still hoping that I can find cheap 2nd hand parts somewhere on eBay, but things have not been looking too good. If I get parts below 500, I'll repair it. If not, I'll sell it off as a spare part in hope of recovering the loss.


And something we haven't done for some time...REWIND!!!

Day Two - Study Day.

Woke up with Clarisse as she went off to work, and I just scouted the vicinity while also looking for some nice breakfast locations. Conclusion: the best breakfast location is plain bread from 7-eleven. I knew that the hotel was located in a quiet place, but I didn't know it was THAT quiet.

Typical street in da morning. Nothing much happening.

The highway that goes past one side of the hotel.

Our hotel - Island Pacific.

A pretty decent 3-star hotel which has a great view. The rooms are nicely decored too, as you have seen, with everything you would need in a hotel room, meets all the basic requirements so no complaints there. Service standard is what reminds you that it is 3-star. Hotel Staff are not uniformly keen to help, with the occassional rude feller.

After my walkabout, went back to hotel and caught this pic from the hotel window. Pretty interesting, with different types of crafts littering the entire straits.

Study study study, Went downstairs for a normal lunch at a normal eatery, bought some soya milk and papaya milk before going back for more studying. Before emerging at 5pm to use net at the 2nd floor Cafe.

It's quite a nice cafe, with a view of the highway and some of the harbour.

Nice decor too.

After that was zooming to Clarisse's office to meet her, as we headed to our night destination, Tsim Sha Tsui. Walked quite a bit, and at the New World Centre shopping mall, we spotted:

A retro Ford car!
I likes retro vehicles, so I caught a pic.

And went on to the Walk of Fame, a mimic of the Hollywood original. It's located on the southern-most edge of Tsim Sha Tsui, and directly looks onto the main commercial district of Hong Kong Island, including Central, where Clarisse's office is located.

That's her with Mr Lee again. Well I asked if she had a special liking for Bruce, but she shook her head. And she took the pix with him just out of coincidence, that he happened to be standing somewhere along our way both times.

The view of the commercial district.
Dildo steals the attention as usual.

The Peninsula Hotel. One of the 3 which constantly turns up in different guides as the most posh hotel in HK, together with Landmark Hotel (under the Oriental group), and the Ritz. We're confused which is best, but happens that there are some interesting facts bout this one here.

There's a really posh restaurant in there, which sells fly & dine packages, which includes a nice 6-course dinner for 2, plus - get this - a private helicopter flight circling the island. HOWEVER. here's the catch. The cheapest package, which has a 15 min chopper ride, and costs 6000 hkd. *only*.

Then comes their marketing, that Hong Kong is a "vertical city", with all the buildings reaching for the sky. You haven't seen Hong Kong, until you've seen it from the sky!

Well. Screw. If that's true, I'll give "seeing Hong Kong" a miss until my 80th wedding anniversary or sthg.

Next we walked walked past Harbour City, one of the most posh shopping locations in HK. Along the same stretch of road, there's Lane Crawfurd, LV, Ferragamo, Esprit, Guess, Prada, etc.etc. more names than you can recall. And the LV boutique, which is like 3-4 times the size of the one at Taka SG, is a "temporary location" cos the original location, which I'm not sure how much bigger, is undergoing "expansion works".

I think this stretch of road is where lots and lots of moolah of the Atas from mainland China pour into.

Anyway, that wasn't our pouint of going there.

Our point was across the road from Harbour City, another recommendation from many tourist guide books:


It's kinda wierd, it's a Jap franchise (this is the only outlet in hk i think), and it serves Chinese Cuisine. Which it has made a name for back in Jap. Nevertheless, it's not called sweet dynasty for nothing, their desserts are pretty darn good.

Service was quite very bad. But food was cheap - but we not knowing the portion size, and compelled by the huge claim budget, kinda ordered enough food for... 4 pax. Without knowing.

The steamboat porridge, which includes the plate of raw seafood and meat and vege below, costs 40 bucks and could basically feed both of us very very well.

We had quite a bit more in line. Bird's Nest Egg Tarts, Wanton Soup, Beef Hor Fun, Almond Paste, Traditional Soya Beancurd, and few others I can't recall. Ridiculously much that we got so embarassed, with 2 pax and a table filled with food, food and more food.

Result is DA BAO for breakfast the next day, as Clarisse said the buffet breakfast provided by the office was severely not to her liking. Amazingly, after reheating the Hor Fun + Porridge + Wanton Soup in the sink in Scalding hot water (with them sealed in air-tight containers of course), worked pretty well. And we had a nice and warm breakfast the next day.

Back to after dinner on Monday, we were walking back to Tsim Sha Tsui MRT when we spotted this:

Quite a funky name for a steamboat restaurant. We also learnt in the next few days that it's got quite a good reputation as well. It's on our list on the next HK trip.

That's Clarisse, insisting to take a photo with the Beijing Olympic Games countdown clock at Central (Chung Wan) MRT Station. Zoom-zoomed back to hotel for a good night's rest.

Next up: Day 3