Jotwein's World

Yesterday I took a walk in Hongkong’s downtown area by myself. It was awesome. It was the first time I truly felt like I was in another country. Since I’ve been here it’s just been work work work and until yesterday, I didn’t get to enjoy the fact that I was overseas.

Sandy wanted to stay home so I decided to embark on the journey myself. Wouldn’t have had it any other way really. So here’s where I went (I suppose this part might be a bit boring unless you really know Hongkong. Or you could google the MTR map) and what I did.

I took a train to Central station where I took a long walk to Sheung Wan station. Then after walking along a long pier, I walked back to Hongkong station where I took a train to Wan Chai station. Then I walked to the Hongkong Conventions and Exhibitions Centre, and then walked back to Wan Chai Computer Centre (which really is almost the same as Wuhan’s Dian Nao Cheng). Then I took a train to Admiralty and slacked there some, before going back to Central to have dinner with James. That’s in a nutshell. Time for photos!

I think this is one of the piers that is used quite often in TVB serials. Or at least, it looked really familiar. I like this photo ‘cos it looks so symmetrical. Except for the 2 and the 5 of course.

Hi dude! Why don’t we get license plates like this in Singapore. I’d totally get one for my future car.

Well, it’s back to work today. The day passed pretty quickly really, but there really isn’t much for me to blog about with work. Except I can plop a picture or two here because (in case anybody’s wondering) here’s what my workspace looks like:

See the CPU? It’s a Mac Pro. Unfortunately it’s not the latest one (which is God-like, really) but it does its job relatively well. Except the fact that Photoshop CS3 is in Chinese. And I can’t change the language. But um, yeah what to do.

I’ll finish this post with one picture that I took at Sandy’s place earlier tonight. It’s the view from her window and I think it’s pretty spectacular. Hongkong’s awfully bright at night.

The thin building to the extreme left of the picture is my apartment building. Yep, she can see my place from hers and I can see hers from mine. Thank God Monday’s over.

I’ve always said that one should savour the small victories in order to be a happy person. Because people several get many many large victories. Here’s one on my side.

Yesterday, I got an SMS from my editor saying the first news piece I had written (which was on 4 airlines moving from Changi Airport T1 to T2) was up on the website (www.businesstraveller.asia).

Today as I was looking through the Google Alerts that I had set up in order to get regular airline news to put on the site, I noticed this:

That’s my story! It pleased me a lot to see that appearing where I usually expect to see other peoples’ news stories. Strange thing though, why is it classified under Blogs Alert? I guess Google doesn’t see BTAP’s site as much of a news provider. Hopefully that changes ‘cos that’s what the boss (and of course we want it too) wants us to be – a rolling news provider.

In other news (har har), I get to watch the Cathay Pacific-Credit Suisse Hongkong Rugby World 7s here in HK. Tonga’s currently beating Scotland by 17 – 0. I still don’t quite fully get Rugby, but it’s good fun to watch.

And now that I’m done with reading my Google Alerts and taking note of the useful stuff, I can get ready to leave the house to go explore Hongkong! I’ll be alone today ‘cos Sandy wants to spend time at home. I’ll be back later with pictures. Hope they’re good!

Alright, so here are the seemingly much anticipated pictures of my room. There are only two, because my room is teeny weeny. In fact, it’s so small that I had to take off my 24-105 and put on my kit lens so I could take a picture of the room. No pictures of toilet I’m afraid. Even my kit lens isn’t wide enough for that. Lol.

The view of my room from the toilet door.

The view of my room from the far left corner.

It’s small, isn’t it? But well it does the trick and I’m quite satisfied with it.

The HK media trip people are leaving on Thursday and soon it’ll just be Sandy and me. We went with the media trip bunch to HK’s Ocean Park today, but ironically, it was meeting up with friends that makes me miss home more. Ironic isn’t it? I feel great with less to remind me of home. But it kinda makes sense when I put it that way.

Anyway, it was still great to meet up with them. Ocean Park was pretty cool, although to be honest it isn’t my idea of experiencing HK. I’d much rather walk around and experience the culture. But well, it’s a destination that everyone goes to so it’s cool to go there once.

Although it’s called Ocean Park, majority of it isn’t actually focused on marine life or anything like that. It’s more like a giant amusement park, much like Escape theme park with a little of Underwater World thrown in. The rides were… okay. Nothing particularly exciting. I was pretty impressed by the aquarium facility though.

Despite the retarded name, Atoll Reef (whatever the hell it means) is really an amazing place. And this is despite having been (several times) to Singapore’s world famous Underwater World. Some stuff could be better of course, but HK’s version is worth visiting amidst the rest of the (to me anyway) pointless attractions at Ocean Park.

Alright, back to the deeper part of the post. This time out made me miss my gang in Singapore. I pretty much went everywhere with Sandy, Kaixuan and Denise Chong today. It was good fun true, but they’re not my gang. So Jerms, Justin, Hong, Chel, Feng Hua, Jesley and Pong, I wish you guys were here too. I don’t regret coming though. The past week has been a helluva experience and I can’t wait for more. Hope it gets better. Pictures up soon! I promise.

My goodness, the last week’s just flown by. Sandy was saying that if every week passed as quickly as this we’d soon be on a Jetstar flight bound for home. I don’t know if it’s that easy though. Tomorrow we’re heading to Ocean Park together with the FMS people who are here in HK until Thursday. It’s pretty much gonna be my first opportunity to snap lots and lots of photos, since every day is a work day and work’s getting much busier. This 9 to 6 deal wasn’t quite how I expected it would be. It’s really tedious, as I’m sure many of us would agree. But I think we’ll just have to get used to it, ‘cos like it or not, we’re stuck where we are until August 7th. Even more so with me since I’m in a foreign country.

It’s time to break paragraph here ‘cos I doubt anyone really wants to read a whole chunk of words, especially since I’ve sort of promised that I’d post regularly, but have constantly gotten home late enough to warrant a quick shower and an almost immediate rest. Pictures should come soon. I hope to be able to promise that. It’s just, work is terribly busy. Now I know that really, school is best. I wanna be able to wake up at 10 for school at 1. But not anymore.

Ah well, I’m gonna get ready for bed. It’s been a long day and a helluva week.

Hello everybody! After a 3 hour 45 minute journey, I am now in Hongkong. Just to give a quick update so that you don’t all think something happened (though nothing did happen. It was pretty uneventful actually).

So the reason I’m online now is because I chanced upon a Wi-Fi service near where I’m staying that allows me to come online. Of course, I have to pay, and I did this by credit card, but it’s so cheap cos it’s HK$158, which is about S$31 for a 30-day pass. Which means it’s about S$1 a day. For unlimited access! I’m so excited.

Anyway, if you wish to contact me, my HK number is +852-6891-6793. So far everything’s pretty good and the place I’m staying at now is pretty cool too. A little small, like 1/3 the size of my room at home, but it’s alright for me I suppose.

I haven’t taken any pics yet, but I will tomorrow. First day of work! I hope I’m not late. Must wake up at 7. Time to go!

Goodnight from Hongkong!

Alright, so flight’s been confirmed. Not sure who reads this, but the flight details are as follows:

Jetstar Flight no.: 3K695
Date: 22 March (Sunday)
Departure Time: 15:45 pm (Terminal 1)
Arrival Time: 19:25 pm (Hong Kong)

So soon huh. Time to go!

Pulau Ubin’s a tremendously beautiful place. Went there yesterday with Jerms for a recre-photo trip before I have to “fly away like the bird on the fence and the butterfly on the flower”. (Chew, S., 2009)

I haven’t finished post processing my pictures yet, but they will be done soon and up on Flickr. But Jerms would definitely agree with me on the beauty. One thing though, it was tiring as hell. I never figured I was such a slow cyclist until I encountered Ubin. Jerms was fast and all, constantly ahead of me, but by the end of our five-hour-or-so cycle, I had effectively cramped both things and my left calf. I felt terrible, but damn good, all at the same time.

Probably it was due to the weight that was on my back. I brought my Streetwalker out to test its comfort, durability and all that yadda, and it was fully packed so I had easily 5-7kg on my back while I was cycling. Note to self: travel lighter next time. I need a beltpack.

Oh and yes, my HK visa’s been confirmed. It’s being DHL-ed over as I type this to Sandy’s house and we’re planning to leave on Sunday afternoon. Flight details will be known once we get them.

And results are out today too. I did reasonably well, but could’ve done better. Would’ve thought the hard work warrants slightly better grades, but I guess that isn’t always the case eh? Especially in mass comm. But I ought not complain after all. Tis God’s will and grace that brings us to where we are.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Do yourself and me a favour. If you like old rock do a search for Superstar by Sonic Youth. It’s a cover of the song whose version by the Carpenters was the most popular. But I’m loving the Sonic Youth version more and more as I listen to it.

Guess what? It was from the Juno soundtrack. Juno rocks. I don’t know about Sonic Youth though. This is the only song I have from them. But it’s a lovely song.

Today the big news came. We won’t be able to leave for Hong Kong for about another week or so due to HK Immigration woes (mostly). I also figure since I haven’t been cleared by CMPB yet, that’s another problem that has to be cleared first. So there is a good chance that I will arrive in HK either a day or two before, or after my attachment start date. That basically means hitting the ground running and not getting any settle-down time.

But well, that gives me some more time in Singapore. In a nutshell, I’m not exactly complaining. While the whole idea of going to HK for 5 months, alone and working, does excite me some, what doesn’t excite me as much is leaving everyone behind here in Singapore. But I’ll get over that soon enough I suppose.

Till then, my 365 project resuming has to be put on hold, although I have already acquired my Flickr Pro account and have been uploading some stuff (albeit sporadically). Today I uploaded a picture I took of cat.

Oh have I mentioned how much I hate the new iPhoto folder options? Basically the photos are stored in an iPhoto format file that can only be opened with iPhoto. Hence, I can’t access the photo directly from an uploader. Instead, I have to copy the desired file out and upload from somewhere else. Damn annoying can.

Anyway, there is an interesting story with this picture. I recently bought a set of radio flash triggers (1 transmitter and 2 receivers) and have been playing with them to see how the whole setup comes together. Today I was playing with them again and decided to set up to take the only subject that really hangs around for me to take (cat). So I set up the 580 on the right of cat’s cage and him being the curious cat (that gets killed by curiosity), he got up and approached the flash with utmost caution.

After a while, he finally plucked up the courage and gave the flash a paw to see if it was hostile. And there was the moment! Click on the picture to be directed to the Flickr page to get a larger view. I thought it was a pretty hilarious moment heh.

Anyway, it appears I have some more time in Singapore. Anyone wanna hang out? Ah damn, I got a couple of articles to clear first though.