Lightan

Whilst on the topic of robots I will tell you about another toy I bought yesterday. He is 'Scope', one of a small series of metal transformable lighters. They turn from 80's style lighters into 80's style lighter robots... again a result of a strange Japanese cartoon about a boy who found a lighter which turned into a 40 metre tall lighter.
Actually when I investigated mine I found that he can turn into a really rather credible telescope...well maybe not credible.... as well as fire his eyes about a metre when you press on his head.



If you still need convincing:




The place where I bought this robot was right in the seedy heart of the toy empire in HK...down back alleys and past trays of steaming octopus legs and into the bowels of strange smelling shops and labyrinth-esque shopping centres. Hong Kong really has it all! This shop smelt heavily of thinners, I think an intentional thing to make all the customers light headed and make none too wise decisions. It's a good job they didn't have it in the shop selling small ugly plastic monsters* (for extremely high amounts of money considering what they are) or else I would have bought a few in my delirium!

Anyway, speak soon x

* These were Marusan toys, for anyone interested:

Gundam

Welcome to the Universal Century. In this near future, over 80% of humanity live in space colonies in Earth orbit, ruled over by the Earth Federation.

The friction between Earth and its colonies soon escalates into the devastating One Year War, which serves as the backdrop for Gundam Mobile Suits.

Even after the One Year War, the struggle continues, and throughout the UC era, Earth and the space colonies will clash, time and again, in a never-ending conflict...

Welcome to Gundam.

Gundam is very popular here in Hong Kong, it reflects the obsession with all things Japanese that the youth culture here entertains.
I thought I better discover the joys of Gundam.


Six long, eye-straining hours later I had made my first Gundam…


He is ‘Oowashi Akatsuki Gundam’, and seems to be operated/driven by a small blonde girl, although I still haven’t quite worked out that bit.

Were the six hours of kit box model assemblage all through the night worth it, for six inches of golden angular plastic?
The answer must surely be yes.

Buddha, The Rain And The ELC

Today is Buddha's Birthday, so perhaps it is fitting I use this public holiday to catch up on the last week . Last Friday Bill took us to see the big Buddha statue on Lantau island. We decided to take the cable car up there, which gave us amazing views of the mountains and ocean below us. The Buddha was only built about ten years ago, but looks like it could have been there for hundreds of years. It’s quite big. It’s located at a monastery, so there were plenty of Buddhist monks to see, plenty of chanting to hear and plenty of incense to smell. It wasn’t quite the spiritual haven you might imagine, largely due to the hundreds of tourists, making it seem slightly commercial. It’s still a great place though, if just for the pure spectacle. Because it’s a real monastery there is a vegetarian only menu in the monastery restaurant; plenty of slippery mushrooms for me to attempt with my chopsticks.



On that same day a fellow DFI student, Chris Holden, arrived. He is working at Galey Toys and had to come faster than he expected. Unfortunately he was not able to sort himself out some accommodation until the other two students who are coming, Mac and Dan, arrive. This means he is living in our sitting room for a fortnight.
Then it rained.


The rain is pretty impressive in Hong Kong…everyone has an umbrella with them throughout the rainy season (most of the shops have a plastic umbrella cover dispenser at the entrance so you don’t drip!) because the rain just suddenly arrives without any warning. It was heavier than any rain I’ve seen before, and apparently was a just a light shower according to our work colleagues. I’m looking forward to a proper HK typhoon!

Work is brilliant…I’ve only worked there for three days but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it so far. We were taken out for lunch with the whole team on Monday which was a lot of fun. It’s a very relaxed and exciting work environment…lots of prototype toys lying around and strange noises coming from around the room. Because everyone is so friendly we’ve been able to settle in easily and I think it’s going to be an excellent (if extremely hard work and tiring) experience.

I’m sorry for the delay is writing this blog entry, apart from work making me very tired I also received some extremely sad news from a good friend of mine on Monday evening, and my thoughts have been with her.
Bill just rang to invite me out for a meal tonight at Discovery Bay where he lives, so that’s something to look forward to!

Speak to you later chaps

Work tomorrow...

I'd almost forgotten that I'm here to work! Tomorrow morning I start my first ever full time job. Bringing home the bread. Bringing in the baco...nut roast.
I'm quite nervous...I'll let you know how it goes and what I've been up to these last two days tomorrow evening.
Wish me luck!

Birds

The day before yesterday we went to the bird market. This market is a purpose-built Chinese-style garden, full of market stalls selling all kinds of birds and elaborate birdcages. Not sure how legal all the species are, there were one or two toucans tucked away. There were countless mynah birds, finches, parrots, canaries, bee-eaters, budgies, canaries and even a humming bird. Old men walk around the market carrying their favourite bird, just to give it some air and show it off. A good but noisy place to visit!

Towers and Insects Part Two: Insects

So yesterday we returned to Hk island to meet Bill and Maureen again. We walked to the tram station at the bottom of the hill. It's been running for a hundred years as a commuter service for the rich to travel down from their lofty heights, but now also allows us tourists an amazing view. It's pretty steep at some points, which is pretty unnerving because the seats are just wooden benches. Even on the way back you have to face up the hill because you'd fall down the tram if you were facing down! (A big kite {feathered} has just flown right past my window as I typed that...maybe irrelevant)

Bill and Maureen then took us on a great walk that circumnavigated the peak and then led us down to the west side of Central. You can really understand the humidity and heat when you are up there; it's like a jungle. Actually I think it is a jungle. There are so many trees and plants and flowers and birds and insects that you wouldn't believe you were in Hong Kong. I think it's a common misconception that HK is all concrete with no greenery. Maureen found us a different insect every few metres, such as ants, noisy cicadas, poisonous Vietnamese centipedes (actually Bill nearly poked this one without realising...could have been a trip to the hospital) huge butterflies ad moths, dragonflies and countless beetles and spiders.





When we got back Bill and Maureen took Tim and I out for an excellent Thai meal in the Thai Farmer, after which we made a quick stop off at Ikea before heading home! Good times!

Towers and Insects Part One: Towers

These last two days have been quite a good contrast; on Tuesday we took the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong Island to see all the famous architecture, and yesterday we went back to HK Island and this time took the tram up Victoria Peak and spent the day walking around the countryside.

The buildings in central HK are amazing. Each one is host to a famous brand or company, and they tower above you, like towers. We spent most of the day just staring up, and trying to take photos. Also upwards are the various birds of HK island, so we saw some of them at the same time. Kites are a common site here, they scavenge on waste but also fish in the harbour. They're pretty impressive and there are a lot of them! there also various parrots and mynah birds flying around; some long time escapees and others testament to the jungles that HK would have been before the bricks arrived. The expense and riches flows out of the buildings and into the people who live and work in the area so that nearly every car is an expensive Lexus or a Mercedes. The malls are upgraded too, full of extremely expensive shops and extremely wealthy looking business men of all races, and quite a few glamorous women too.

Trendy Zone

Well yesterdays hour and a half dragon boat rowing under the blazing sun in Stanley bay has destroyed my back, but in a good way... that's what happens if you don't exercise for about 21 years I suppose...Maureen put me to shame; she wasn't even out of breath. I'm sure she must have been cheating somehow!

Today we had to go into the office to meet our boss at the ELC. The office is very modern and pleasant, with great views all across Mongkok, being on the 39th floor. Paul, head of the design team, took Tim and I out to lunch afterwards where we had our first ever dim sum meal. I still need to master the old chopsticks but the food was excellent.

After that we wandered down Nathan road which runs all the way through Mongkok to the harbour. It's full of adverts and neon lights and shopping malls: very exciting and busy! Here we found Trendy Zone, which is a mall, and a trendy zone. It was like a shrine to the god of plastic toys...
We also visited the jade market, but I didn't buy anything because the second you stop to look at anything you get swamped by jade merchants telling you it's a good colour and very nice and good for your wife. So we moved on, meeting some men who were flying their strange song birds around. I think this one might be a mynah bird.


We also finally got round to buying some pans so now we can cook some real food...there's only so many instant noodles you can eat before you get very ill. Tim says we might even die if we keep this diet up. So pans have been bought, and cooking shall be done!

Goldfish, Beetles and Dragons

Yesterday the jet lag set in again so that Tim and I didn't wake up until about 4pm...but we still determined not to waste the day!
We started with some exploration of the streets around Olympic Terrace; a medley of shops, street restaurants (pai dongs), fish shops, Chinese medicine stalls, metal factories and markets. Most of the doorways and shops have a group of old men playing Xiangqi (chinese version of chess) or mahjong which they seem to do all day long, often with a small crowd of spectators.

We then headed down Lai Chi Kok street and ended up in the heart of the goldfish market, where the streets are lined with plastic bags selling every variable of goldfish and thousands of species of tropical fish, all selling for just a few dollars.



As well as turtles and tortoises of all species!


One mysterious set of stairs led us to a tiny shop selling beetles, full of beetle fans. I think they fight them but I'm not too sure... the little boys were more than happy to show off their bravery to our cameras!



Today we went dragon boat racing with Bill and Maureen in Stanley on Hong Kong island... I got absolutely knackered and the heat really got to me...I've only just recovered! I'll write more about this later though...I'm too tired right now!

Mongkok

Hello! We had our first day of exploration today, and it's just been amazing. When I eventually woke up we headed out towards Mongkok, one of the busiest places in the world.



This photo is the inside of Langham Place, where we will be working in a week's time. It is just one of hundreds of shopping malls around the area, offering expensive shops and a welcome respite from the blazing heat outside thanks to the air conditioning.

We spent about eights hours walking all over Kowloon...it's easy to forget time when there is so much to see.
We were roughly aiming for the harbour to catch a glimpse of Hong Kong island. We arrived in the evening just at the start of a light show, when lasers are beamed from the buildings on the island in time with music. It was beautiful to say the least. Tim then spent about an hour trying to take the perfect photo of the view below. His results are much better than mine, but you get the idea!


We wandered around the expensive end of Kowloon after that, weaving in a complicated and more to the point wrong series of directions that led us right off into Hung Hom and Kowloon City unintentionally...my lowest point so far this trip has been seeing the street name 'Whampoa Street' successively 4 times, in the space of two hours as we tried to find our way.
But at least we found a great cake shop and bought a small sackful of pastries and small cakes for our tea, costing us about $15 (£1)...


It's hard to write a blog about what we've done today; there has just been too much to see! Flower markets, fish tanks full of fish in supermarkets, chopper motorbike gangs (Triad for sure!), parks, flamingos, people, trees, cockroaches, strange old men, expensive hotels, huge Nintendo toys, empty turtle shells, the university campus (about five times when we got lost and went in circles), a building sized Louis Vuitton suitcase, huge concert halls, Starbucks, Wellcome, Park and Buy, 'K', cake shops, metal workshops, jade markets, birds, golden dolphins, junks, lasers, wealth, slums, malls, people, buses, dangerous taxis, toys...and of course a fair bit more.

So far I'm once again extremely tired but happy...we think we'll head to Hong Kong island tomorrow. Time for some jasmine tea in my glass Muji cup and then perhaps a little sleepy.

Bye for now x