HK Day 10 (Sat Jul 7)

slept in a bit this morn, then went with anna to get lunch. tried this new thai place near her apartment which was alright, then followed it up with some yummy mango desserts. :P

she had some afternoon appointments so i stayed in and caught up on some stuff and worked on some music. also got started on laundry!

when anna got back, i gave her a brief WT lesson before we went to meet up with Robin, Jon, Inez, Ming, Doris, et al for a barbecue in Lion Mountain (EDIT: i think it's called something else... Nine Mountain park? OH--and we saw wild MONKEYS!) Park. I had met all of the aforementioned named people in Hungary four months ago, so it was great to see everyone together again. Besides them and me and anna, there were another 9 people, all WingTsun students/instructors.

after a bit of time getting the fire started, we got to finally cook and eat! my fave was bratwurst (that i picked out) since it reminded me of eating them during my childhood in Wisconsin when my dad would BBQ them. i was seriously full after 20 or 30 minutes, but everyone else seemed to keep eating. and eating. and eating. from around 7:30 PM 'til around 11 PM! i wanted to eat more, but simply had no where to put the food.

lots of pics were taken (esp. by MakYu), so i'll try to post some when i get them.

EDIT: here's a group pic that was taken that i had Makyu send me first before i got the rest of the photos:


i'll also fill in details more when i get pics. :P

EDIT: I must comment on how lame wimbledon.com is; it lets you download large video files (300 MB - 1 GB+) , but only when you attempt to watch it do you realize you have to PURCHASE the rights to watch it. LAME. try being a little more user friendly and have us BUY the rights before we waste time downloading the file.

HK Day 3 (Sat June 30)

A weekend day! Not that it really makes a difference to me, but it means my friends who lead normal lives are free. Anna had some plans saturday morn, while I stayed in, updated the blog, and talked with Mel on the phone. :) Also, it was the least gloomy (almost sunny) morning I'd seen!

After Anna got back, we (took some time and) decided to go to Havana (in SoHo) for lunch. We had cuban tapas for brunch (not lunch--lunch doesn't exist there on weekends). After a nice meal, we were ready to go when we noticed it was pouring out. Not so fun. We headed back to Anna's since someone was supposed to come fix the A/C in her living room (yes!). We made a stop at a local place that had good mango desserts! Anna had a mango, pomelo slushy type mix while i had a mango and 豆花 dish.

After getting back to Anna's apartment, she got a call saying the guy couldn't come 'cause it was raining (hrm... reminds me of luggage story at HK airport from earlier post). Since the weather was ugly out, we stayed in. We shared some music with each other (her more than me since I don't have that much with me. Anna's a big American Idol fan, so I heard the names of some former Idol-contestants many times... also heard songs from various artists, including those that have been to jail...

After the excitement of that died down, I had a stimulating time whittling down my gmail inbox to under 40 messages! It's been a very long time since the number's been that low. Anna had plans to get dinner with a couple of friends and invited me along, so we waited for them to call. And waited. And around 8:30 PM we decided we'd just find something to eat when, with impeccable timing, she gets a call. We decided to go with Staunton's Bar & Cafe in SoHo. A later phone call revealed that we'd be getting picked up in a cab and that we'd been vetoed on going to Staunton's.

In the cab I met Trudy, Phil, and Colin (today i noticed stickers on cabs that say SEATS 5--so i guess we were legal!). As we drove, Anna suddenly asked "where are we going?" when she sees a bridge. Apparently we were going to Kowloon (unexpectedly leaving Hong Kong Island, which I had earlier joked that Anna never did). We went to 798 Unit & Co., a NY style gastropub (as i was told). We had a variety of delectable foods that we all shared, making quite the awesome meal.

Afterward, as the rain kept falling, we walked to the MTR station to go back to Central. Colin and Trudy left to make a stop at Trudy's apartment while Phil brought Anna and I to Azure to meet some of his coworkers for drinks. Next was clubbing at Volar followed by clubbing at Prive. Lastly we got food at a "famous" restaurant since it was one of the few that was opened late at night ('til 4 or 5 am). Not being very hungry, I happily drank a cold (HK style) milk tea.

A not-too-long cab ride later the fun day ended.

virtual music studio

Wired has an interesting commentary ("Finally, the On-Demand, Online Garage Band Gets Real") on new apps that let people jam via the Internet.

It's very cool to see practical, innovative tech apps find their way into various industries and aspects of life, and especially cool to see them become accessible to the average person instead of just big corporations.